One: A True Cross-Section of the Nazarene Church

The Nazarene Centennial Celebration is marked by a number of special activities and initiatives, and the ONE music project is no exception. Dave Clark is the writer, co-producer, and filmmaker for the project. "This is such a great opportunity to be involved at all levels of the creation of this project; I don't even dream this big!" he exclaimed.

Starting early in Christian music
A fourth generation Nazarene from Jackson, Michigan, Dave was raised in a family where his entire world centered around the church. "I was saved at eight years old, and I felt that God was calling me then to be a songwriter," he said. Dave's parents were supportive, but being a hard working factory employee, his father wanted to know what he was going to do for a living. At 17, Dave graduated from high school and knew that if he was ever going to do it, that was the time. He didn't have much money, but he immediately moved to Nashville with the prayers of his family to support him. "Looking back I am amazed my folks never tried to talk me out of it," Dave said. "But, their feeling was that they had raised us in an atmosphere where we would know God's voice when we heard it. And if I felt that was what God was calling me to do, they would support me with prayer and belief."

After arriving in Nashville, Dave joined a Nazarene singing group called The Speer Family, which was a great fit. He traveled with them for the next five years, playing guitar. One night at the Iowa District campmeeting, they sang the hymn "I'd Rather Have Jesus." "When singing that song, God was just wrestling with my heart-I realized that I didn't move to Nashville to be a guitar player. We sang the verse, 'I'd rather have Jesus than men's applause, I'd rather be faithful to His dear cause, I'd rather have Jesus than worldwide fame' and I knew God was telling me to quit because I had been called to write." He dearly loved his traveling family so it was very hard to quit, but he walked away and said, "Alright God, if you want me to just write, you're going to have to help me." God has been faithful to Dave for listening to His calling. Since that night, Dave has written 26 musicals and has had 24 number one songs on Christian radio, sung by some of the industry's greatest artists. "God has blessed me in ways I never could have dreamed."

The dream gets bigger
The ONE project began at the 2005 General Assembly. As a delegate, Dave sat next to his district superintendent, Bob Broadbooks, a big believer in his work. "We started talking about the Centennial Celebration and Broadbooks leaned over and said, 'You know, Dave, we ought to do a celebration in Tennessee.' I said, 'Yeah, that'd be neat.'"

Broadbooks approached Hardy Weathers, president of Nazarene Publishing House, with the idea of a musical celebration piece. As they continued to visit about the initiative, it led Dave to a meeting with George Baldwin, Lillenas' Creative Director, and the Centennial committee to explore the idea. The Centennial committee listened to the initial outline of the music celebration, and set the goal of producing a 15-minute music package with something in it for all ages. The ONE project has accomplished this goal with four different songs including: "Holiness Hallelujah," "One," "Every Road," and "How Great Is Your Love."
Music to unite the Church
"Music is something that should unite the church, and I tried to write the song lyrics to the song 'One' in a place musically that I hope will do just that," Dave said. "This project is something that is a true cross-section of who I believe we are as the Church of the Nazarene." A song Dave felt compelled to include was the hymn "Holiness Unto the Lord." He explained, "It is a song about who we are as Nazarenes and the calling we've been given." To create ONE, the Centennial music project, Dave spent much time in prayer and research. "I spent some time in the Trevecca Nazarene University archives in Nashville," Dave said, "and realized that the very first general assembly opened with a song called 'Hallelujah, Amen!' The record states that 'the assembly rose to their feet and joined the great chorus.' It just put chill bumps on my arms reading about it. That song in ONE is used in a medley, 'Holiness Unto the Lord,' and the chorus is 'Hallelujah, Amen!' It is really a neat piece that gives our Nazarene heritage some meaning."

God's All Over This
"Every Road," the invitation song in the package, was a song for which Dave had a specific visual in mind for the video, but he was running out of time to meet his deadline. He had pictured an "old-time" baptism for the video, so Dave found the perfect lake, and-because he was trying to stay within a timeline-he decided to do the shot of the baptism the very next day. On short notice, Dave asked Bob Madison, a retired minister from his congregation, to be in the video and to bring someone with him for the baptism. At the last minute, Dave also asked his wife and children to be at the water's edge to be the "huggers." He had found through his research that after people would get baptized, there would be people waiting for them on the shore to hug them.
The next morning, the preacher arrived with an older man from his congregation to be baptized. Approaching the man to thank him for his time and offer assurance that he would be out of the water quickly, Dave was caught off guard by the man's response. The man said, "Dave, you don't understand. God delivered me nine years ago from a lifelong addiction to alcoholism, and for nine years I've been wrestling with my need to be baptized. This is not just for your video. I'm glad you can use it, but God's all over this."

"When they dipped him in the water, there was a glow on his face that cannot be staged," Dave said. As the camera crew packed up, Dave's wife came up to him and pointed to their five-year-old son, Sam. Their son wanted to be baptized at that very moment. "Sam had been asking questions about being baptized, but he's only five," Dave said. "So I talked to him to make sure he understood what it means, and he said, 'It means I really love Jesus.' I looked at the preacher and said, 'What do I do?' and he said, 'You never tell them no.'"

The minister prayed with the family, then walked Dave's son into the water to be baptized. "I didn't want to commercialize that moment by putting it in the video, but in that scene, after the pastor takes the first man to shore, you can see him take my son's hand and walk back out into the water. That's how I left it." "The way everything has turned out, you can tell God has woven an amazing thread through it all," Dave said. For more information about ONE, the Centennial music project, visit www.lillenas.com or call 1-800-363-2122. Holiness Today, May/June 2008

 

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