From the release of their smash hit “I Can Only Imagine,” MercyMe has been established as one of the most recognizable and well-loved voices on Christian radio and stages nationwide. The hardworking band has continued to produce albums with impressive regularity. Given the fact that their success and legacy is more or less cemented in the history of Christian music, it may have seemed like a risky endeavor to reinvent themselves. However, the band's quest for honestly encountering and expressing God led them into some choppy waters as they went into the writing process for 2012's studio effort The Hurt and The Healer. The result is what may be the most intense and honest MercyMe album to date.

NRT's Bill Lurwick spoke with MercyMe frontman Bart Millard about the pain that was part of The Hurt and the Healer's creative process and the way that a deeper understanding of God's character and grace changed everything for the band.

There were six number one singles on your album Generous Mr. Lovewell. The “Hurt and the Healer” was the most added in the first week of March. You guys are working toward that six number ones again already.

I’m glad people are digging it. It’s been really cool. This has probably been the hardest album to write.

Why is that?

It came out of a tough season. The song The Hurt and The Healer was the first song written for the album. My cousin was a firefighter who was killed in the line of duty this past August. He was literally like a brother to me, and to stand at a pulpit during the funeral and explain to 3,000 firefighters how God is still in control is one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do. I just remember I kept praying, “God, we don’t need contact with you. We need a full on collision with you right now,” and that’s where the idea of the song came from.

I feel like there are things that the church wants me to say, then there are things that I really want to say. This album is full of stuff I really want to say. Nothing is inappropriate obviously, but being brutally honest: “God, if everything in my life falls apart, are you going to be there?” Even though I may know the answer or I feel like I know the answer, this is the honesty that runs through me. I think the church asks the same questions, then we put on the mask of “God is good all the time” kind of thing when we really do struggle with real questions.

I’ve never felt more attacked while making a record. Just roadblock after roadblock after roadblock, and it was to a point where I almost gave in. I almost said “we’re going to rewrite the album and release it in the fall.” We just had some Godly men around us saying, “You are being attacked for a reason. You’ve got to finish this.”
 
We finished it out and were like, “This is pretty special to us.”

So now you're on the other side, how has that process impacted you?

From the opposition we went through making it, it was already special to us. I personally went through a transformation. I was the guy who for years would stand on stage and convict people to coming to Christ and talk about how we’re nothing without Him. I had good intentions, but it dawned on me that I’ve spent so much time on who we were or how bad we are without Him that I’m not devoting any time to how we are righteous. He is righteous.

I’m done scaring people to Christ. I’m done telling people to stop sinning. I want to spend all of my time showing them their identity in Christ. It’s funny, because some of the songs are written like “Beautiful” and “All of Creation.” There are these songs that kind of reflected that already, and this just kind of solidified it.

 
There’s so much joy standing on stage and telling people that you are not your guilt, and you’re not your shame. You’re a brand new creation. Christ is not getting back on the cross. It was done once and for all. It’s finished when He said it was finished and it’s time to move on. It’s time to enjoy life, enjoy who we are in Christ. The same spirit that raised Christ from the dead lives inside of us. What if we actually lived as if we knew that?

All of a sudden the verse “I can do all things through Christ” becomes real. His strength in me actually takes on life. It actually means something, versus me being the guy that grew up in church going, “Why am I not getting that, but everybody else seems to be?” I realized that they’re wearing the same mask that I’m wearing.

I spent a lot of years trying to please God, and I’m just now starting to trust Him. It’s made all the difference in the world. It’s still new to me. This literally happened while making this record. 

I found such a great joy in telling people what they’re not. You’re not the sin that you struggle with. You are a new creation. You’re not a bad person trying to be good or a redeemed person who still sins, but there’s no sin in the world that can pull you from the hand of Christ.

I believe that’s what it means when sin has no power. It’s a cool thing, and this album has been a springboard for that. It’s been very revealing to me for sure.
 
You do most of the lyric writing for the cuts, right?

Yes.

When you came to the rest of the guys in the group with those lyrics and that direction you were going in, how did they respond? Were they surprised? Were they like, “Don’t do this” or were they like, “Bring it”?

I kind of keep them posted all the way through it. I wrestle with stuff with them more than anybody, so they kind of knew it was coming. They’ve been very supportive. The thing is, it’s not anything that I didn’t already know. It’s just stuff that I really, really wanted to be true. It was looking at grace in a whole new perspective. I think all of us just sat there and went, “This is worth it.” I kept telling them, “For years I would hear people say this was worth dying for and I didn’t get it.”

I think one of the biggest things I say on stage is that I grew up in my little Baptist church with this idea that there's me over here. There’s a gap of sin. There’s Christ over there. We’re trying to bridge the gap. What dawned on me is that I think I was looking at this pile of sins standing right in front of me and Christ was this blurry vision on the other side.

But I think He’s standing next to me or even between me and the sin. Not only is He doing that, He throws His arm around me and says, “Look at all this sin in your life,” and kind of giggles and says, “How do you sleep at night? It’s all great. Let’s move on. Let’s get over this.” Instead of being, “How dare you? What have you done?” There’s been maybe a couple of people in my life that have shown that kind of grace to me.

It’s been something as a band we’ve all needed to hear. I think everybody in the body of Christ would hope and pray that that’s what Christ is and not the idea we’ve been taught our whole lives that He’s like the boogeyman.

I read a book called “The Cure” by John Lynch and another one called “The Naked Gospel”by Andrew Farley. It just clicked. When they described Christ as being this person, even in scripture, there’d be no condemnation. The way they described Him as this one that says, “That’s a lot of sin in your life. Let’s dust that off and it’s done.” Could He really be like that?

Then all of a sudden it becomes something worth dying for. That’s where we’ve been, and that’s the message we have. I’m grateful because a lot of this album is being honest, saying “I don't know where that God is and I’m still trying to figure it out” until the resolve in the album, like the last song: “I thought I knew it all, but now I see you like it’s the very first time.”

It’s a pretty cool journey to actually live out, and then my music becomes therapeutic for me where I’m trying to put it in song. It’s been a cool process.

Talk about the song “Take the Time.” You hooked up with Bear from Needtobreathe. How did that come about?

We’ve just been buddies with him for a long time. When we started writing that song and tracking it in fact, I remember joking around trying to sing like Bear.

So by the time we were done we were like, “We’ve got see if Bear wants to sing on it.” We texted. He’s like, “Yeah, just send me over the stuff.” I wrote the first verse and the chorus and wanted him to write the second verse and sing it. So I sent it to him empty.

Then what he sent back was insane. He just nailed it. In fact I remember texting him after I got it back, and I was like, “Thanks for making me sound like a wussy on this song.” I’m the little girl singing now.

It was a dream come true. We’d never really done duets and things like that, but I love Needtobreathe. I love his voice and I just love those guys. I was so thrilled that he was willing to do it.

That song was kind of paying homage to Mr. Lovewell. That was one of the songs early on that I wanted to write just to kind of throw it out there that we could still be taking the time to love on people and stuff like that.

“Don’t Give Up on Me” is another song. It kind of goes back to The Hurt and The Healer and the message of your work in progress, right?

Yeah. That’s definitely one of the most honest songs on the album. That was just coming straight from my heart, saying “God, when everything is good, this is really easy to say that you’re in control, but when all hell breaks loose, are you still going to be there? “

Normally I would write that song saying, “You’re there, God. You’re my provider. You’ve touched us,” which is fine, but I was just like, “There’s sometimes I wonder, God, if you’re going to be there.” Like, “if you see everything about me, you see every dark corner of my heart, I just wonder if you’re still going to be there.” That’s just being honest.
 
What I love about that is just the resolve and the bridge. It’s just “be still.” I’m always there. It’s like an oasis in that song. 

That’s one of my favorite songs actually because it’s probably the most revealing. It’s something I wouldn’t have normally written in the past.

I do want to talk about the closing track, “The First Time.” I know you mentioned it earlier, but let’s delve into it a little bit more. Why was it the final track put on the record? I think it’s a potential radio single somewhere down the road.

For some reason we’ve always focused on the first song of the album and the last song on the album, for every record we’ve ever done. I probably focus on the last more than anything. It’s always like this closing, this last statement, and it was actually the last song written for the album.

I think every last song on every record is like that because there’s always like this eleventh hour. I look back at everything the album is saying, and then I start writing the last song. The reason the whole band is not on there is because it was literally written at the last minute and it wasn’t worth bringing drums in and stuff. 

So it ended up that way just out of practicality, but it was the whole idea of “I spent so much of my time trying to say that I knew it all or that I knew exactly who God was, and I’ve done this for so long that surely nothing can surprise me anymore.” And then all of a sudden I wasn't the same same. 

I think it’s Revelation that talks about the angels revolving around God, and all they do is say, “Holy, holy, holy. God almighty.” I at least ask the Sunday school question of, “Wouldn’t they get bored if that’s what they do for all eternity, just circling around saying that?”

I read somewhere along the way where somebody was saying, “Imagine if every time they looked upon God, they saw something they’d never seen before. That God’s that big.” I’ve always kind of held onto that. For a long time I even used it as an illustration, but I couldn’t honestly say that I’d gone through that.

No pun intended: for the first time, I feel like I can say that. I felt like I knew it all, and then all of a sudden He shows up like I just met Him. 

Whatever you do for the first time always has its moment, its special place. The first time you see U2 live. The first James Bond movie. It always has this thing about it, and it’ll never be the same from that point on. Except somehow, in my relationship with Christ, going through this made me better than the first time I met Him, to be honest with you. Just through the revelation in the stuff that happened to me through this record.

It’s been absolutely life changing for me.