Archives For mediocre

Ever since Michael W. Smith’s 1984 sophomore project, Michael W. Smith 2 (all the creativity was apparently used up in the songs, there was none left to title the album), I wanted to make music.

It was undoubtedly the argyles.

If music could get you a perm like that, I was all in. Sign me up! When do we start making records?

Fast forward a decade. My friend (and now CityCom co-pastor) Nathan LaGrange and I found ourselves with something fascinating.

A song.

One song.

An OK song (honestly, pretty mediocre).

We were on staff together at a large church, and one day our creativity got the best of us. So we took our passion for God and music and decided to do something with it.  Nothing life changing (at least we thought at the time).  Just a few lyrics and a simple melody line.

But that one song gave us the confidence to write a few more. And those songs helped us convince our pastor the church should do it’s first live recording.  And that recording inspired a second project.  Which built momentum for a third.  Then a fourth.

And a catalog of 70 songs later, I realized my old argyle-imprinted dream of making records had just kind of happened when I wasn’t looking.  Seven times over.

All because we wrote that first song.

I meet so many people with big dreams (heck, I still have some of my own).  But the distance between where you stand today and what you imagine for the future is a huge chasm that swallows your inertia.  Too many big reasons why you can’t. And they short circuit the little reasons why you can.

What’s your “first song?” You probably just need to go write it.