Phillips, Craig & Dean / Star Song
"Christian" - 480kTrust
Bricks under your mattress. Five hundred inflated balloons stuffed in your tour bus. Wadded newspaper inside your bed. Luggage claim stickers hanging from your shirt for a whole day. Tissue in the toes of your boots; a duffel loaded with hymnals.
High-spirited hijinks with frat boys? No, just life on the road with devoted funsters Phillips, Craig & Dean. The tricky and talented trio commit themselves to making tour time and concert hours as interesting as possible - for each other and their touring colleagues (Brian Barrett and Point of Grace can testify). Dan Dean plays head prankster, eagerly joined by Randy Phillips and Shawn Craig. No matter who inspires the next joke, all three admit to laughing so hard at times in concert that they can't sing.
But thank goodness they do find time to sing. When Phillips, Craig & Dean first arrived on the Christian music scene three years ago, audiences snapped up their lively blend of spectacular harmonies and power-pop music. PC&D's speedy ascent up the radio charts and across the concert circuit inspired and met great expectations: sales for their self-titled debut album and follow-up Lifeline reached 300,000 units; eight of ten singles crested the #1 spot; PC&D garnered numerous Dove Award nominations and performed to frequent sellout crowds totaling 100,000 people so far in 1995.
Fresh on the heels of this success, passionate songsters Randy, Shawn and Dan ignite an already blazing career with Trust, a project that displays even more boldly PC&D's uncanny harmony, tunesmithing talent and potent brotherhood in the Lord. Their driving force continues to be their common passion for ministry, which has led Randy, Dan and Shawn into demanding dual careers as pastors at their local churches as well as the hot concert ticket of Phillips, Craig & Dean. While each is well-endowed with a sense of humor, they all take seriously their commitment to ministry at home (Austin, Texas, for Randy; Irving, Texas, for Dan and St. Louis, Missouri, for Shawn). It comes first, and they prove it by missing Sunday services no more than once a month. This commitment, they say, prepares them to serve audiences when they're on the road.
"Our roles as pastors keep us in touch with real people with real problems," Shawn explains. "You learn the importance of relationships and not just performance." Dan concurs, "As artists we don't really get to become part of a person's life except for that one evening. Here at home we get intertwined in people's lives." "PC&D is wonderful, but it has to take a secondary role to our primary calling, which is to our churches," Randy says. "What we do in concert is just an extension of our local ministries."
Accountability also brings the members of PC&D home. Each answers to his senior pastor and other faithful friends who make sure the group's attitudes stay in check and choices remain focused. Through those accountability groups and their own prayers, Randy, Shawn and Dan feel confident that the two-lane highway they occupy as artists and ministers is the right road for them. "The way God has opened doors, it's obvious He wants both (roles) to exist," Randy says. Shawn agrees: "The music is speaking to people and God keeps showing up and touching people's hearts."
Trust promises to not only touch hearts but stir them to celebration as well. Consistently energetic pop music and thoughtful lyrics speak of the joyful abandon of Christian life. The album represents PC&D's effort to stretch beyond previous material lyrically, musically and vocally. Shawn enthusiastically credits the result with the use of live musicians and "the synergy of all those creative people in one room."
"The chemistry was phenomenal," Randy attests, "and the material far surpasses the first two albums. There's such depth and meaning. I'm so excited about these songs and the ministry we know will happen through them."
PC&D show their songwriting stuff again on Trust, which they built around an acronym of the word trust that a friend shared: To Rest Upon Sure Things.
"The sure things of our faith are the cross, freedom through the cross and the empty tomb," explains Shawn. "These things form the pillarsoof our faith that we can rest upon."
The guys honor those pillars with songs like "Crucified With Christ," a blockbuster ballad that expresses the singers' desire to give all they are to be all Christ is: As I hear the Savior call for daily dying/I will bow beneath the weight of Calvary/Let my hands surrender to His piercing purpose/That holds me to the cross yet sets me free.../There's no greater sacrifice/For I am crucified with Christ and yet I live.
"Mercy Came Running" paints a picture of a Savior so longing to dispense mercy over justice that When the sin I carried/Was all I could see/When I could not reach mercy/Mercy came running to me. Other songs shout the glory of freedom in Christ ("Living It Up," "Reckless Ride of Faith") and the certainty offfaith ("Where It's Always Been," "Ain't It Just Like Love"). The album ends on a poignant note in which Randy shares his gratitude for a grandmother figure's influence in his life.
"There was this lady in my church that took me under her wing when I was just a kid," Randy says. "I was the meanest preacher's kid you ever saw, but this lady, Ruth Thurman, felt sorry for me. She took me to her house way out in the country, where there were acres to run and play in. One hot Texas day I came in to find her praying in the living room. It was such intense praying - it was what I would later know as travailing. I felt like I was eavesdropping, but I listened, and she was praying for her kids and she called my name.
"It stopped me cold to know that someone who really should be praying for other things was taking the time to pray for me. Years later when I introduced my wife to Ruth, my wife asked, 'Do you still pray for Randy?' She answered, 'I pray for him every day.' She'd been praying for me for 20 years, and when she died two years ago, it dawned on me that I never took the time to thank her. She prayed for me when I couldn't and didn't pray for myself, and I think a lot of the things that have come to me are because she was praying. In the world to come, I think the heroes will not be the singers and the writers and the people that graced the stage, but the little grandmas, the preachers and the intercessors - people who spent time on their knees praying, making an eternal difference."
Thus was born Randy's tribute to "Mama Ruth" Thurman, "Thank You for Praying." Gratitude abounds on this album that celebrates a redemption-rimmed, mercy-laced life. "It's the greatest life in all the world," affirms Dan. "This life is so much fun. I've never pictured Jesus as a somber, reserved man. There's one scriptural reference that says in the Greek He was leaping for joy. I picture a man that loved life, and when He performed a miracle, He laughed."
Phillips, Craig & Dean take that same sense of holy hilarity to audiences through their vibrant ministry. Whether expressed in balloons, bricks, or ballads, PC&D are energized by Jesus' assurance, "Be of good cheer, for I have overcome the world."
You Don't Have The RightChristian
Mercy Come Running
Crucified With Christ
Reckless Ride Of Faith
Living It Up
Ready For The Rain
Where It's Always Been
Ain't It Just Like Love
Thank You For Praying
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