On a recent Kingdom Come tour stop before an exciting show in front of a "hometown" crowd, NRT's Mark Ryan sat down with Bryan and Katie Torwalt from Jesus Culture to discuss homecoming, ministry, worship, the holidays and pie.

So, Bryan, you're from Alberta, right?

Bryan: Yeah, I'm originally from Red Deer, Alberta, not too far from here.

And Katie, you're from California?

Katie: I am, yeah.

So this is kind of like a homecoming for you, kind of a hometown crowd?

Bryan: Yeah, we kind of joked this is our hometown tour because we started in California and made our way up to Alberta. So we both has our hometown crowds at some point in time on the tour.

So what's it like being back in Alberta and ministering?

Bryan: Cold, it's cold (Laughs). 

Katie: (Laughing) It's always the first thing we talk about with everybody.

Bryan: We're really excited, we have a lot of family and friends coming to both this event and in Calgary (Alberta). It's always exciting. We've come back a few times, when we visit we'll connect with some churches in the area and stuff like that. We always love it, there's always good worshippers up here and hungry people so we definitely enjoy it.
 
Tell us a little about your stories. When did you feel called into ministry? How did the relationship come about between you guys?

Bryan: I started leading worship when I was about 16  in youth group. My youth pastor gave me a cheap little electric guitar and a stack of chord charts and just said, "Hey, you're gonna lead worship a few months down the road at this date, if you can play, awesome. If not, we'll have a band to back you up." He really pushed me into leading worship and I definitely loved worship all along and had a heart for it.

That was where I started, and a few years later I ended up going down to Redding, California, at Bethel Church for a worship school that they have in the summer. It's now developed into something called Worship U but at the time it was called Bethel School of Supernatural Worship, and that's where we met. We met on the last day and dated long distance for like two and a half years, me in Alberta, her in California. We've leading worship together since about 2008, a little before we got married.

Katie: I was raised in church. My dad was a pastor. I grew up in the church, I loved the church, and I loved worship. Worship was a big part of the church even from a young age. My parents loved music and definitely left a lot of room to have worship music emphasis in the services. I got an opportunity to lead and sing, sing the special song and all that kind of stuff from when I was a little girl. I really fell in love with, and got a heart for leading other people in worship in high school. It became a big part of my life and I had a lot of amazing experiences and encounters in worship that led me to want that. Not necessarily to choose it as a career but I knew it was something I wanted to give a big part of my life to.

In addition to music stuff, do you have any other responsibilities at Jesus Culture?

Bryan: We volunteer. We lead worship. Jesus Culture just planted a local church in Sacramento a couple of months ago. We're artists signed to the label and we really believe in the movement, we believe in what they're doing. We've chosen to move and just be a part of what they're doing. We don't really have any other responsibilities. We travel with Jesus Culture and we travel on our own.

Katie: Right now, because the church is so new, we're just starting fresh, and trying to do whatever's need in the local church side of things.
 
What would you guys say your most endearing moment in ministry has been?

Katie: We've had some incredible moments. Both together and separately leading worship we've had some really life changing type stuff. Even on this tour we've seen some amazing healings in worship itself. We love healing, and we've seen a lot of that throughout our lives but we never chose to necessarily emphasize that right away when we started doing worship but through the last couple years we've just seen God do so much in that context that we are really passionate about it now. We've seen crazy, miraculous, supernatural, instant type healings in worship.

Bryan: Even in the last few days on this tour. A couple nights ago in Vancouver, two people came up separately and said they had issues with their sciatic nerves; that they had a hard time sitting and standing and they were both miraculously healed. Those moments are really special, but there's so many moments of just His presence coming so tangible where you can feel Him in the room. Those are what we live for. It is usually from those moments that we see a lot of the miraculous.

Katie: There's a lot of little moments and there's definitely been a couple groundbreaking type things. One of the testimonies we had in the very beginning was when we led at the Jesus Culture conference in Chicago. It was our first time leading some of the songs we wrote for our first album. They were streaming the event online. Back at home my uncle had been struggling with esophageal cancer. It had gotten really bad. He was at home, he had already done radiation and chemotherapy and he was not doing well at all. 

I remember we were done with that conference and we were on our way to another conference we were doing and I got a phone call from my mom saying that she wanted to talk to me about my uncle. Now, I had thought he had passed away, so I was bracing myself for that, hoping that I was wrong, and she was just like, "he's healed." 

I remember exactly where we were, we were in this car driving into Ohio, and I couldn't believe it. He had been streaming the conference online and he said that he felt the presence of God come into his room, and he watched the session, turned off the computer and went to lay down. He said his body felt like it had broken into a million pieces and come back together and he said when he woke up from his nap that he knew he was healed. He went to the doctor, and saw his oncologist and they cleared him. He was completely healed and remains healed to this day. So that was one of the first huge miracles, and it was really significant to me because it was my family. It made us hungry to see so much more of that.

How would you guys define worship?

Bryan: To us worship is a response to His goodness, His kindness, His love, His sacrifice. It starts out as that response and then it's an ongoing response because He always comes. In the psalms it talks about God being enthroned upon, or that He lives in the praises of His people. It's a continual response to the continual moving of God. I feel like if we can keep it is that place of a response to who He is it usually stays in a good place.

Katie: For us it is a natural response, but it doesn't make sense outside of the context of salvation or having an encounter. Even trying to explain it to different people in our life, what we do, is really weird. It's us just adoring God.
 
As songwriters, where do you find your motivation? In those dry times when do you find that time when you say, "OK, now it's time to write again."

Bryan: It does come and go, but the more disciplined we are reflects an insight time. We love to put language to what's in our heart and what we feel like can be a corporate cry or a corporate response to what God has done. I love theology. I love digging into the Word and into different writers that I admire, and stuff begins to inspire me or pop out in those moments, really just let that come out. We've learned to work together and lean on each others' strengths. Mine would be maybe more in the language and lyrics side, and Katie's would definitely be more in the hooks and melody and all that kind of stuff, and it's worked for us. We enjoy working together. It's not always easy, but it's fun.

With a Canadian and an American, is Thanksgiving in October, November or both?

Katie: Both

Bryan: Both. If we're in the States we definitely celebrate it in November, but we for sure acknowledge it in October with a pumpkin pie.

Katie: I say the more reasons to have a party or have thanksgiving, then why not. We could have Thanksgiving all year round. Good food, we're thankful...

Bryan: Pie, I love pie.

Pie's important.

Katie: Pie's a big part of Bryan's life.
 
So with the Christmas season at hand, what are some of your favorite Holiday traditions?

Bryan: We love Christmas movies. We actually both really love Christmas. We love decorating for Christmas. We love Christmas music. I sing Christmas music most of the year. We watch Elf every year, for sure.

Katie: We really enjoy getting gifts. That's kind of one of my love languages, so the whole trying to listen to what people are wanting and searching out that perfect gift that makes them feel loved, I love that part of Christmas. I know that's not what Christmas is about or anything, but I just love seeing somebody get what they wanted for Christmas. And I love Christmas carols, and Christmas songs, just family being together; all the cheesy stuff.

Bryan: We always spend Christmas every other year, one in Canada, one in California, so we get a lot of diversity, and we get snow every other year.

Katie: What we disagree on is when to open Christmas presents, because his whole family is all about Christmas Eve--every present--and I feel that's really disappointing on Christmas morning. So that's where we compromise. We meet half way, usually.

Nice. Thanks, guys; I appreciate this.

Bryan/Katie: Thank you!