For Matt Hammitt it started when he was in 4th grade and was cast as a nervous, anxious kid in his first play. From that moment on God has been bringing him on a creative journey. How do we accomplish the things that God has called us to do? What if you are about to get everything your heart desires and then your child receives a devastating diagnosis that changes everything? Join this insightful conversation with Matt and Sarah on Passion Meets Purpose.
Interview Links:
Find Matt:Â Online | Instagram | Facebook | Twitter
- Dare to be a Dad
- Movie: Bowen’s Heart
Transcription:
Matt Hammitt:
There are times where it’s like you just write and you go, yeah, you know what? That was something I needed to process. I look at it like you’re digging for a diamond and you dig through a ton of dirt before you get to the diamond. It’s not wasted talent or wasted time. And that’s why I think I’ve had to look at it like that and realize these aren’t wasted moments, even though I might not be seeing the diamond today, but I’m digging and that’s valuable work to do.
Sarah Taylor:
Our guest today, Matt Hammitt joins me. Matt, it’s my honor to have you on the Passion Meets Purpose Podcast today because so much of the themes that we talk about on this podcast you embody in your life, in the way you love your family, and in the specific areas that you choose to speak now that you have a new part of your career after Sanctus Real. So let’s just start at the beginning. It’s my favorite thing to do. I always love hearing about… Just think about all the gifts and talents, your identity that the way that God has created you specifically. And if you take me all the way back to childhood, does something spark in your mind like, oh, I was the same Matt then that I am now?
Matt Hammitt:
Yeah, I do actually. A few months ago, or, well, not a few months, a few months ago, geez, when you get old, it’s like 24 months, feels like a few months. Two years ago, I put out a book called Lead Me and wrote a little bit about my childhood in that, and one of the things that I mentioned in that is remembering fourth grade. Back in fourth grade, I remember just it being a pivotal time in my life because I was cast in a play by my fourth grade teacher and I was a really anxious child. Up until that point, I just did not have confidence and I would always struggled with anxiety. So when she cast me as a character in a play, I was just mortified at first. I had no idea how it was going to go, and I was so scared. And it turned out to be one of the best experiences of my childhood and really, I guess showed me who I was as a creative and as an artist.
And the ironic thing about that is the name of the play was called Tales of the Kingdom, and my character was this boy named Scar Boy who God ultimately gives a new name to. And he takes him from being scarred to being whole and healed. And for some reason I see that as a pivotal moment. There’s all these connectors in my childhood that I still… Or reflections of things that connect to my adult life too, where I still struggle with certain insecurities, certain fears, certain beliefs that I can even accomplish the things that God has called me to do.
But then I just keep saying yes to this, I don’t want to say play, but the play of life that God has called me to, to create and to show up. And sometimes it looks different than I think it will, but I do see those reflections that God continues to be the only thing that gives me the courage just to do whatever it is that he’s calling me to do. But it is weird. I see that journey playing out in my life really reflected in those same fears, but same victories as I had in fourth grade. So it is interesting to see the parallel.
Sarah Taylor:
Tell me more about what that play unlocked in you when you were on the stage, what came alive in you and when was the next chance you had the opportunity? Did you continue to do theater?
Matt Hammitt:
Yeah, it’s interesting. I didn’t really get into theater after that, but I realized that how much I loved just being creative and expressive, and it helped me so much through my anxieties and through my fears or through the things that I would worry about. And I think that what I began to realize was that music at that point, I started finding that music was the thing that was the expression, where I really was able to find some kind of healing for whatever it was that was going on inside of my life or heart that felt broken.
Sarah Taylor:
So let’s journey through high school until music became the thing. And how was that received among friends and family when you decided to go all in with that?
Matt Hammitt:
Yeah, when I was 16, I met Chris Rohman and Mark Graalman, who are still in Sanctus Real, and we started that band together and it was really interesting. There was a climate for music and specifically for bands back in the 90s where I guess there was a scene for it. And so you could really, if you did well, you could really flourish in that. As soon as we started playing together, we found some kind of synergy and energy, not only together as a band, but also in our community. And then we started breaking out into our state and into our region, and we realized very quickly that there was a real hunger from youth conferences, youth groups, different events and churches to just have bands come in and be part of their events. And so we were just getting booked like crazy. So I think it became clear to us at a very early time that this could really be something if we wanted it to.
And I remember when I was turning 18 and things were still ramping up with Sanctus Real, and we were getting some notice from … Remember Toby came through with DC Talk and sent somebody out to get me, and I was like, oh my gosh, Toby Mack just sent somebody out to bring me backstage. Audio Adrenaline, same thing, Mark and Will, and those guys wanted to spend time with us and hear about Sanctus Real. It was a really exciting time. And I remember my youth pastor telling my parents, “I think God has a different kind of call for Matt. And I just want to affirm for you as parents that if he doesn’t take the traditional route, I just feel like God’s telling me to …” Well, he was telling my parents, “God’s telling me to tell you to not worry about that.” It just felt like he felt like God laid that on his heart. And so my parents were all in, all supportive. And I met Sarah when I was young too, and her parents even were… I think if my daughters met…
Sarah Taylor:
Yeah, Sarah is Matt’s wife. How old were you two when you met?
Matt Hammitt:
Yeah, when I met my Sarah, I was 19 years old. And so I was so young and her parents too are like, I can’t imagine my daughters meeting a guy who’s working part-time fast food job to make ends meet.
Sarah Taylor:
In a band.
Matt Hammitt:
And then going out on the weekends in a band, in a van and trailer with these dudes, and they were all in, man. I was blessed for sure. I could have had a lot more opposition, but I had a lot of support.
Sarah Taylor:
And so you got the green light for the girl and the band, and then what happened next?
Matt Hammitt:
Yeah, so long story short, at 21 I signed a record deal with Sparrow Records and with the guys, with Sanctus Real, and then also got married right around that same time. So we just hopped in a van and trailer again. Sarah hopped in with me and we hit the road together and it was quite the adventure, very interesting hopping in as a newly married couple into a 15 passenger van. And just the environment was very exciting in ways, but also it was like a pressure cooker too, because it was like, man, we have no money, no space. And so it was a lot to navigate. So it’s such bittersweet memories, because they’re the best of memories, but they were the hardest at times too.
Sarah Taylor:
And so eventually you started a family and your daughters came first, two daughters. And at what point was she like, I’m off the road?
Matt Hammitt:
So when she got pregnant with Emmy, who’s our oldest now, she, I think was in her third trimester, starting her third trimester. And the doctor was like, “Yeah, I think maybe you want to think about getting out of the back of a van.” So sadly, she got off the road. And again, it was so exciting to have our first child, but it also was difficult because we had done this adventure together and now it was like she’s at home starting to build our life at home with a new baby, and I’m still out on the road living the band dream. So it was kind of a whole nother series of just challenges to navigate.
Sarah Taylor:
And for someone who’s not familiar and they’re listening, can you give a rough estimate of the amount of nights that you would be away in a given year?
Matt Hammitt:
Oh yeah. There were nights in the early days because we drove ourselves everywhere and we would have to be on tour, we couldn’t afford to fly home or go home once we were out West. So there’d be times that we’d be out between making the albums, promoting the albums, and touring probably 250 days a year, sometimes we’d be gone. So it was really difficult.
Sarah Taylor:
And yet you felt called to both your family and your ministry through music, and for a lot of years you juggled that. And then Bowen was the son that was born next, yes?
Matt Hammitt:
So we had Emmy, and then we had Claire, so the two girls, and then our third was Bowen in 2010.
Sarah Taylor:
So in 2010, pregnant with your third child, find out it’s a boy, and you also find out something else.
Matt Hammitt:
At that time, I had felt like I had made it through or Sarah and I both felt like we had made it through some real hurdles in our marriage, communication, with conflict. We kind of had reached a place where I wrote the song Lead Me, which if Christian radio listeners will know, about being a more present husband and father, and that came out of real life trials that Sarah and I were having. And so it kind of felt like we made it through this trial, we’ve got this song, the song started kind of lifting off and we felt like everything was headed upward. And then we go in for ultrasound at 20 weeks with our third, and like you said, found out that we were having a boy. But also found out that he only had half of his heart, which to us, it didn’t even make sense. We were like, how can a kid have half of a heart?
So come to find out, we would have a really long road ahead of us that we never anticipated, and life really changed for us because we knew very quickly that if he survived that he would have to have multiple open heart surgeries throughout his life. And the hardest thing for me, I think was just knowing I couldn’t do anything about it. And the grief that comes with that, with having a child who’s chronically ill or even preparing for a child that you don’t know if you’ll even get to keep, and if you do, you’ll be in the hospital. And I think the hardest part about touring at that season was that now not only am I gone a lot, but Sarah and I are both grieving and figuring out how to walk this journey.
So that was a really difficult season in 2010 and a very ironic season because Sanctus Real was starting to get everything we had dreamed of, when it came to like, “Hey, the albums were selling and the song was going number one.” And there were so many things happening that we’d wanted so badly, but then now I’m contrasting that with I’ve got a child who’s going to be ill and all that other stuff. I guess when you compare the two, you’re like, man, I would’ve given up all the good stuff with the band to have my son be okay. So then you start realizing how little those dreams mean apart from life and health, and you start realizing how short life is, how fragile life is. So that tension was really strange too.
Sarah Taylor:
You and Sarah made a decision to be public with what was going on. I mean, you let everyone in before your son was even born on what was happening, inviting us to pray, inviting us to journey with you. Tell me how you came to that decision, because you also could have just kept this one close and not invited half the world to follow along. Tell me why you chose to do it the way that you did.
Matt Hammitt:
Yeah. I think for me, I have just always felt like the greatest gift that people have ever given me personally throughout my life is when they’ve been willing to be vulnerable with me and share what’s really going on. And I think I’ve always understood that that’s… Well because it was a gift to me. I felt like, well, what can I give? In any season of life, good or bad, what can I give as a ministry or out of my own life to help others? And I think in that season of life, there were two motivations. It was like number one, hey, what I do is wear my heart. I’m an artist. And so I wanted to share that, hoping that it would build community, hoping it would help others who were going through it.
And then also, I desperately wanted people to pray for my son because I felt helpless. I felt like there’s nothing I can do. The doctors can’t go in there while she’s pregnant especially, and we’re just waiting and praying. And so I think for me, I felt like, okay, I have to do something. Well, maybe I can get an army of people to pray. And so that was another reason I just was like, I believe so strongly in prayer, and all the people that gathered around us and prayed for us and prayed with us, it was such an inspiration to know that people cared. And I do believe that those prayers really held our family during that time.
Sarah Taylor:
Do you remember a prayer from that time that just echoes in your mind and your heart?
Matt Hammitt:
Yeah, I think as I was reading throughout that time, and not just reading scripture, but also just reading different books about just going through difficult seasons, more than anything, I really did want to find joy in who Jesus was. Because I knew that it’s possible that in the end, through everything that if I were to have our son taken from us, that I would have to have my sense of joy intact and I would have to know where my joy came from. And so I just remember praying desperately that God would reveal to me that truly in my heart that Christ was my treasure, and that it wouldn’t just be a thing I say, but that it would be something that I would be able to hold onto if the worst happened.
And there was a moment, I remember after Bowen was born a few days after his first surgery. I mean, after 40 minutes of trying to resuscitate him, we thought he was gone. And I remember being in a chair just bawling and just saying, “Jesus, you’re my treasure.” And in that moment, I can honestly say I felt that and God answered that prayer for me. And in that moment, I thought the worst had happened. And in that moment, I did have peace in Jesus, even though I was grieving. And as everybody knows now miraculously, this Dr. Dan de Bardino ended up getting Bowen on life support and they were able to save his life, which was unbelievable. Still to this day, I can’t believe that they did that, and I’m so grateful. But in that moment when I thought all was lost, guidance of that prayer for me, it was like I found solace and peace in the fact that Jesus was enough.
Sarah Taylor:
Remind me the name of the song that has the lyric about how you were going to be all in, you weren’t going to protect your heart from loving Bowen fully as if somehow that would help you cope if you lost him. You decided to go all in. Name of the song and what’s the lyric I’m talking about?
Matt Hammitt:
Yep. All Of Me. Yeah. So basically it starts out, “Just afraid to love something that could break. Could I move on if you were torn away?” And then the chorus just comes in, “I’m going to give you all of me. That’s just where I’m going to start, even though it’s a process.” And so that song really was in response to me building a wall before he was born to protect myself. And that wall was, I’m not going to really give my heart to this child completely. Can I kind of wait and see what happens? And then if everything’s good, then I’ll be all in. And I just remembered God, just speaking to my heart. I could just sense that he was trying to tell me, that’s not the way that I love, and I’m all in. I gave everything, I bled, and gave my own son, and that’s how I want you to love your child. So that was kind of a decision, a turning point for me to decide regardless, I’m all in on this.
Sarah Taylor:
Sarah mentioned once, I don’t know where I heard the interview, but I’ve remembered it all these years. She mentioned once, I think one of your daughters had a dream of Bowen as an old man.
Matt Hammitt:
Yeah, Emmy. Well, she’s 17 now. When she was little before Bowen was born, she had a dream about having a brother that she sang with on stage. And in her dream, her brother was older. And so that for some reason, just the way that it came, the way that Emmy described that really brought Sarah hope that maybe it was a vision that God allowed her to have to bring her comfort to know that he would grow to be a man.
Sarah Taylor:
Let’s talk about him now. I know that there’ve been lots of ups and down journeys with his health, but most recently, at least the most recent one I saw that your wife talked about, he got just very positive feedback from all the doctors that he recently saw.
Matt Hammitt:
Yeah. His report at The Fontan Clinic, they call it, which his last surgery was the Fontan. So they moved him into a clinic once they complete that, which is just basically a different group of doctors who specialize and follow up after that surgery. And they said that he is among the top patients that they have seen in terms of how well he’s doing. And so that was just incredible. And we don’t take that for granted at all. We look at people who are going through difficulties still with their kids and dealing with lots of medications and lots of procedures or other greater health issues. So because we see that so often with the families that we walk with, again, we talked about earlier, life is fragile. And again, I’m reminded life is fragile, but while we have this moment, we’re just going to soak it in and live life to his fullest with him.
Sarah Taylor:
And for anyone else that wants to find out more, we’ll link up in the show notes, you have a documentary, your family has a documentary, is it called Bowen’s Heart?
Matt Hammitt:
Yeah, it’s called Bowen’s Heart. My wife made a friend who also, well, sadly, lost a child to heart disease, and she made documentaries for NBC and through their relationship ended up talking about this idea of making a documentary through Bowen’s third surgery, and that’s what we did. So when Bowen was … Just before he turned nine, they came to Nashville and they filmed the entire process of what it’s like for a family to walk through that in hopes that it would be a piece that could really inspire other families who are going through struggles and just be a ministry to other people who are dealing with maybe even kids with chronic illness. So it’s called Bowen’s Heart, and yeah, it’s kind of out on all the platforms where you can rent or buy films.
Sarah Taylor:
And we’ll link to it here. And then I also want to acknowledge your fourth son. How old is he now?
Matt Hammitt:
Yeah, Louis is 10 years old and he is full of life and energy, man. People have always said sometimes you get that last one that gives you a run for your money.
Sarah Taylor:
Yeah, we got one of those.
Matt Hammitt:
That’s Louis, man. He just keeps us on our toes all the time.
Sarah Taylor:
So here you are, family of six and just incredible years of success with the band. But I heard you mention before that it got to the point where all these opportunities were coming your way and your schedule gets so booked that you can literally say where you’re going to be and what you’re going to be doing for the next couple of years. And it’s a good thing, but it’s also sort of a crippling thing. And you got to the point where your decision as the lead singer of the band really affected a lot of people, the crew, everyone that was in your band and all that. And you had to start asking the Lord, where do my yeses go and where do my nos go? Do you want to talk about that season where you decided to step away?
Matt Hammitt:
Yeah, that was a really, really difficult decision after being with my best friends for 20 years, doing the thing that we loved to do together. And I think my biggest fear was because I was the voice and the face of the band that maybe these guys moving forward, I thought, well, am I going to, what’s the word? Not like everything relies on me, but you do feel a pressure. You feel a pressure of like, okay, can the band continue to go or can these guys continue to pursue the dream of music if this band falls apart because we’ve spent so long building this thing? And I just kind of felt that God was really telling me like, man, he’s like, I love every single one of these guys as much as I love you and I’m going to take care of everybody, you’re all my children. This isn’t on your shoulders. You need to do what I’ve called you to do.
And so I knew he was telling me it was time to step away. And the irony that we mentioned earlier, it keeps coming back to this, but it’s true that I was singing this song Lead Me about being a present husband and father every single night. And that became a real catalyst for me to have to ask the hard question, if I’m going to be up there singing a song like this, can I actually live it out at home? Or am I? Because if I’m choosing to sing on that platform, well I better be living what I’m saying and singing and preaching. And I think ultimately that was part of God’s plan with that song was to move me into a new season.
It has been really cool to see how God not only used that song full circle with me and my journey of being a more present husband and father, but then how he used the testimony of that song and the story behind it to really open new doors for me to be able to do other kinds of family ministry and speak and write and help build programs that are inspiring other men and other fathers. And so it’s a really unexpected turn that I didn’t see coming when I was young, but it’s been really cool to look back and see how God planned those steps for me.
Sarah Taylor:
Let’s talk about some of those other projects. What one do you want to talk about first? Because I know there’s lots of them.
Matt Hammitt:
Yeah. It seems like it never ends, but it’s good. It’s all over. People ask me what I do now, and I always laugh because like, okay, where do I start? Because it’s so many random things I’m saying yes to. We talked about the film, probably the first big project I took on was writing the book, Lead Me. It had been in process for a long time, and so WaterBrook & Multnomah asked me to put that book out and we finished it. And so that was a big milestone for me was actually finishing the book and writing it and putting it out. And then most recently, I’ll always say, I’ve done a lot of projects where I’ve written copy for other organizations and articles for family organizations and have gotten involved in some pro-life work, which I didn’t honestly even really pursue that. It was once Bowen was born and people saw that we chose life despite being encouraged not to.
Some people heard that story and were like, “Hey, would you be willing to share about that?” And that opened doors even into the pro-life world. And so what’s happened now, what’s really cool is those two things have culminated to where I just developed a fatherhood program for a pro-life organization called Save the Storks. And I wrote a book and did a video series called Dare to Be a Dad. And this is really cool to see happen because about two or three years ago, I saw the gap as I went into pregnancy resource centers, I would go speak for events and I would often take a tour of their center. And I noticed that in their resource area or where they had pamphlets, I noticed there wasn’t hardly anything for dads. And the stuff they did have for dads was very… It was kind of clinical, maybe it was outdated or was more informational.
Whereas I thought, man, what do we have for dads that pops graphically, speaks to their heart, that’s modern, that can capture them, their eyes and their hearts and draw them in to conversations that aren’t clinical or informational, but draw them into the conversation about who God has called them to be and what he wants to do in their hearts and what God has placed in their hearts? And help these guys believe, I mean, to nod back to Lead Me, that they can be the men that God has called them to be. And so to see this program actually launch nationwide this month has been really, really cool. And so it’s projects like that that I never anticipated being part of where I go, okay, these are the things that God had in mind when he called me out. And yeah, so it’s been really cool to be part of.
Sarah Taylor:
I want to hear more about Dare to Be a Dad. I want to hear more about the importance of learning some new tools in the tool belt, so to speak. If perhaps the model that you had growing up was less than your ideal and you want to make some generational changes, tell me what is the need that you see when you’re meeting families and why this matters so much to you?
Matt Hammitt:
Yeah. Well, one in four homes and America is without a father. And so when you’ve got almost 20 million kids living without a dad, you can see that there’s a massive father crisis in America. And not only that, but men especially when you look at, and this goes outside of this pro-life space in terms of expectant fathers. But if you start there with this program, what we see is the narrative in America and in our culture that dads don’t matter, that their voices don’t matter, or their choice doesn’t matter, and they’re kind of asked to kind of sit on the sidelines. And what they’ve found in several independent studies now is that the number one voice that these women want to hear when they’re in a situation or in an unplanned pregnancy. It’s not their doctor, it’s not their family, it’s not their friends. They want to hear the voice of the father. Well, then why does the culture tell us that the voice of the dad doesn’t matter? It’s a lie. It’s not true.
And so I think, again, if I believe that it’s really just an attempt from the enemy to take a powerful leading voice out of the lives of a family. And so what really became cool about this project is that we did seven sessions and a book all about your choice, your voice, who God’s called you to be, the reality of your situation, facing it with courage, being equipped to do that with God’s help and the help of people around you. And even touch on some other issues about what you’re building your life on, inviting guys into a deeper conversation even about Christ at the end of the program. But what was cool is once we did the videos, I realized how much further this program goes than just these expectant dads who walk into a pregnancy center with the woman who’s pregnant with their child, whether that’s their wife or girlfriend or just the mother of their child.
It’s more than just for them. We had guys who were going through this at the organization who were in tears calling me like, “This just speaks to my heart as a man in general or as a father or a husband.” And so I’ve seen that it’s way bigger than what we even planned for it to be and as a free resource that’s really exciting to me because any guy can go watch these videos. And I think be really inspired about who he was designed to be and the belief that he can step up and do far more than he ever believed with God’s help and the help of the community around him. So I’m excited about where this might go, who might see it and what it might do in their lives and hearts.
Sarah Taylor:
And we’re going to link up for that one in the show notes as well. I love that it’s a free resource. And then I know as we wrap up our time together, another thing I want to touch on is a recent song that you wrote that I would love to hear some of the feedback. I can only imagine how your email inbox is filled. I just think that’s actually been … And I want to hear how you balance this too. Every time you choose to be vulnerable, whether it’s with Bowen, you’re going to get a lot of people praying for your son, but you’re going to get a lot of families walking through something hard. And then same thing with Pregnancy Resource Center, with speaking into the lives of fathers, you’re going to hear some hard stories. Then now with a song that you have called Church Hurt, before even anyone listens to that song, they already know some of what this is probably going to be about. You must be hearing so many stories. How do you hold all that?
Matt Hammitt:
It’s interesting because I’ve always felt called … I even look back to Sanctus Real back in the mid 2000s and some of the songs that we felt called to start writing. I think the first one that comes to mind is, I’m Not All Right. I think that was when maybe we started growing up a little bit. We were writing about deeper life issues and then seeing the power of what it meant to people to be vulnerable. It almost becomes like nothing else is enough at some point, once you’ve experienced the depth of being vulnerable with people and the reciprocating that vulnerability. I’ll still write songs just for fun, and some of the stuff I put out on my own is just stuff that creatively I enjoyed making. But those songs that I really try to highlight, or the projects I do that I try to highlight are the ones that are hard and cut to the heart.
And yes, so Church Hurt immediately, it’s like people see that and they’re like, “Oh man, that brings up some big feelings for a lot of people.” I just realized though, when the song got put on my heart, I went in with my buddy Sam, and we kind of finished crafting that lyric. I think we were both just in tears. And a lot of times when you experience a journey on your own through that creativity, a lot of times you find that those are the ones that you send out into the world, and then people get to share the same feeling if that’s where they’re at and that’s what they need. And so I’ve gotten a lot of stories, like you said, coming at me, just people who’ve been through so much and learning the weight of these stories. You asked how I carry it.
Part of the way that I chose to prepare to carry it was this time around I thought, okay, I’m going to put out this message that’s going to stir up a lot of people. How can I be prepared to walk people through such a difficult conversation? And so the same day, I released a song to my listeners. I released a seven-day devotional called Life After Church Hurt and walked through my story, and then Eric, my friend, who’s a pastor who wrote it with me, we walk through our stories of hurt, processing those stories. And when we say Church Hurt, who is the church? Is it really the big church or is it just a few people who hurt us? Which that’s typically the case. And then how do we identify those points of pain and deal with them in a realistic way and move towards hope, move towards healing and move towards getting plugged back in? How do we guide the conversation to help people through this to where they’re not deconstructing, not walking away, never plugging back in, moving into isolation?
I just feel like the narrative of Church Hurt has been owned for far too long by the people who have no desire to build people back into the church. And I felt like we’ve got to really reclaim the narrative from the side of building and moving people back towards restoration, hope, healing and community with people and with Christ. And so I’ve made it free. I mean, hundreds of people every week have been downloading that devotional, and it’s been really cool. I’ve had some radio stations giving it away to their listeners. So I don’t know. I think I’m learning how to merge the gifts that I have with literary writing and music writing, and I have definitely have a pastoral heart, I’d say to help shepherd people. And that’s a big part of it for me. So I think I’m getting to a place where I’m learning how to bring those gifts together to try to do more than just a four-minute song, to really bring something, a way that I can journey with people.
Sarah Taylor:
Everything you’re saying is reminding me of an interview I did with a guy named Jonas Myron. Are you familiar with that name?
Matt Hammitt:
Yeah, I’ve heard of Jonas. Yeah.
Sarah Taylor:
He told me about a time where he was supposed to do a co-write with a very prolific artist, A level female artist. If I said her name, everyone would know it in the country. Not necessarily in the Christian music industry, but just anywhere. And he said that she had just gone through a breakup, and so she came over and she had all those breakup emotions, anger, bitterness, all of it, and was getting ready to work on a song like that. And he just felt similar to what you were just saying, a responsibility for the words that we put out.
He didn’t want to take all of those emotions and turn that into a song that was then going to go out to everyone’s cars and everyone’s hearts and everyone’s mindset. And he was like, what she needed that day was like comfort, a listening ear. We’re not here to take from you. This is not a day that a hit song has to be written. And so they just spent some time that day just as friends, and then a couple of days later, she came back and they created an entirely different type of song.
And as you’re talking, I’m just thinking how important that is. You use music to process your emotions, your thoughts, your relationship with God, and I love that you’re coming at it from a space of, I’m going to talk about this hard thing, but we’re going to find the redemptive part. We’re not just going to leave people hanging. It’s not just going to only be one direction of talking about, for example, church hurt, but it’s like, no, we’re going to also have all the resources, everything you just said. I think it’s so beautiful and important that if you do have a shepherding heart, that you’re stewarding it in a way that is going to always point people back to hope.
Matt Hammitt:
Yeah. It’s interesting you said about the songwriting because honestly for me and some of my friends over the years who are artists, some of the favorite songs that we’ve written together will never be heard because they were just for them as they were processing. It’s really interesting you say that because I’ve had that same experience. And funny enough, in the 3 years from 2016 when I stepped away from Sanctus Real to 2019, there was a season where I was home every week and I was in the studio writing 4 days a week. And it was hard because I knew the labels wanted me to write the down the center radio song, but that very thing what ended up happening, whereas the artist would come in and go, “I’ve written 100 songs and I’m so tired.” And we’d start talking and we’d end up writing the song they needed to write for their soul, but it was never the song that was going to get released.
So it wasn’t great for my pocketbook, but it was great for my soul too because I was like, man, this is an opportunity to shepherd. And I had found times where people were also shepherding me, and together we were able to process through music to keep our hearts alive so that when it came time, we could write the songs that were really impacting people that they would hear.
Sarah Taylor:
And it’s so important to have that discernment if you want to speak to that, about what is for public consumption and what is not. And this is for anyone listening that puts anything on social media ever. Let’s take it from your perspective, Matt. How do you discern when it’s something you’re just writing those lyrics down and then you’re supposed to tear that page apart or when it is something for other people? Because we can’t just put it all out there all the time. That is not smart,
Matt Hammitt:
Like you said, especially with social media, I’m definitely more prone to put something in a song I wouldn’t put online because you can disguise it, you can be poetic about it, you can frame it. But yeah, there are times where it’s like you just write and you go, yeah, you know what? That was something I needed to process. I look at it like you’re digging for a diamond and you dig through a ton of dirt before you get to the diamond. And so all that digging through the dirt to get to the stuff that can really shine, that other people can see, it’s not wasted talent or wasted time. And that’s why I think I’ve had to look at it like that and realize these aren’t wasted moments, even though I might not be seeing the diamond today, but I’m digging and that’s valuable work to do.
And with social media, it’s funny you bring that up because over the years, I’ve really had to learn too with that, that there’s enough talking heads out there who do that for a living to where I’ve had to go, okay, I might be passionate about something I really want to say, but I don’t need to be the guy to say it. And then sometimes there’s times where I’m like, okay, maybe I am supposed to be the guy who says it. But those times are so much more valuable when you’re not just always going after it. Then when you really have something important to say, people are much more prone to listen. And so yeah, choosing our words wisely has been something I’ve really … I mean, it just comes with age and time as you know, but it is so important.
Sarah Taylor:
Thanks so much for being here today on the Passion Meets Purpose Podcast. We’re going to talk again in two weeks, but in the meantime, if you want to do us a huge favor, obviously you know this by now. If you leave a review, it really helps others to find this podcast. It also helps us to make it better, and then you can contact us anytime at Purposely Podcasts. Until next time, thank you.
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