We recently met up with Blake NeeSmith, lead singer from the band, Finding Favour. Blake is just a normal guy \u2014 a Georgia boy living in Nashville. But there\u2019s nothing normal about Blake\u2019s enormous musical talent and ever-growing love for God. From Finding Favour\u2019s beginnings as youth group worship leaders, the band is now touring with Building 429 and Hawk Nelson. They signed on with TobyMac\u2019s label about a year and a half ago.<\/p>\n
In our conversation with Blake, we learned some killer tips from a great worship leader, got a bit teary-eyed when he told us about his grandpa, and became stoked with excitement over who God is and what he can do if we\u2019ll only let him.\u00a0Listen to Blake. I think you\u2019ll enjoy hearing from him.<\/p>\n
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It\u2019s not every day that a church\u2019s worship team meets up with a big-name label and signs on, starts touring, and reaches a wider audience. How did it happen to Finding Favour?<\/strong><\/p>\n Finding Favour started in 2005. We were just guys leading worship in our youth group. We basically found out that we had a passion to do it, and believed that God had given us a gift. Eventually we just started writing songs together and playing locally.<\/p>\n It came to the point where we hanging out in the studio in Nashville, and this guy walked in. He looked really familiar. He walked over to me and he said, \u201cHi, my name\u2019s Toby Mac.\u201d<\/p>\n And I was like, \u201cHey, buddy. How are you?\u201d<\/p>\n We just started having a conversation. He had heard one of the songs that we were writing, and right there, at that moment he said, \u201cI want to work with you guys. I want to be a part of what you\u2019re doing.\u201d<\/p>\n He went on to sign us on to his record label, and the rest is history.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n That\u2019s a pretty major transition! How have things changed now that you\u2019re touring and producing records?<\/strong><\/p>\n For me, it\u2019s been exciting to have a team by my side. A team is important, whether you work at a church or at McDonalds \u2014 just to have a team that supports each other. That\u2019s huge.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Your song \u201cSlip on by\u201d is particularly powerful. In that song, you talk about a conversation with your grandfather. How did that song come about?<\/strong><\/p>\n I wrote \u201cSlip on By\u201d after a fishing trip with my grandfather. We\u2019re always going back down to Georgia and hanging out with some of our family members. I don\u2019t get to see Grandpa that much, but when I do, we love to go fishing together.<\/p>\n He\u2019s usually out there telling me some corny jokes and stuff. We\u2019re just laughing and having a good time one day, but I could really tell that something was messing with him. He had big grandpa tears in his eyes, and he looked at me and he said, \u201cI remember when you were just a little boy. I\u2019m just looking back and realizing how fast time flies by.\u201d<\/p>\n I looked at him, and I was like, \u201cIt\u2019s alright, Grandpa. Let\u2019s just fish. Let\u2019s just hang out.\u201d<\/p>\n And he was like, \u201cNo, you don\u2019t understand. I wish I could do things differently.\u201d<\/p>\n I said, \u201cWhat are you talking about?\u201d<\/p>\n And he told me, \u201cI lost my wife, when she was only 53. I lost my son at a young age. Today, more than anything…I wish more than anything that I could just hold my wife. I wish I had told my son how much I really love him. But the truth is, I can\u2019t do anything about that right now. The only thing I can tell you is to love your family, love your friends. Tell them about Jesus Christ, because we\u2019re not promised tomorrow. This gift that God has given us is right now \u2014 this moment. You have to live in every moment, and soak up every moment.\u201d<\/p>\n I walked away that day thinking, \u201cMan, that is a song. I need to write that.\u201d And another cool aspect of \u201cSlip on by\u201d is that it was playing on Christian radio, and a country artist heard it, Austin Webb. He released it to country music as one of his first singles, and it\u2019s on the charts in country music now, touching people on a different platform. It\u2019s really cool.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Tell me about when you write a new song. Where does your influence come from? What\u2019s the inspiration?<\/strong><\/p>\n I come from a pretty emotional family. When we hurt, we hurt. When we cry, we cry. When we\u2019re happy, we\u2019re very happy. So, what speaks to me a lot of times are emotions. I want to feel every song that I write. That way, it truly means something. I want to feel it. I want it to be more than just lyrics. A lot of the songs I write come from real places and real situations.<\/p>\n We got a song on the EP called \u201cI am.\u201d I started writing that during a church service one day. Here\u2019s how it happened. My pastor is a big crybaby. He cries at birthday parties and stuff. He cries when people blow out the candles \u2014 one of those guys. But that morning in church, you could tell something was really hitting him when he preached. You could really sense the pain.<\/p>\n Here was this \u201cman of god\u201d \u2014 supposedly untouched and immovable in his congregation. But he looked us right in the eyes, and said, \u201cSometimes, I feel like God is a million miles away from me. Sometimes I feel like nobody cares and nobody understands, not even the ones closest to me.\u201d But then he looked up, smiled, and said, \u201cBut I believe God\u2019s words are true. His word tells me that he\u2019ll never leave me or forsake me. He is everything that I ever need.\u201d<\/p>\n The lyrics to the song came to me at that moment. That\u2019s how the song came to life<\/p>\n <\/p>\n As a worship leader, how do you welcome people to worship? I realize that it can be challenging to coax the sleepy, the cynical, or the apathetic into a heartfelt state of worship. What do you do when you lead worship?<\/strong><\/p>\n Honestly, it\u2019s always been an invitation. When it comes to being a \u201cworship leader,\u201d if anyone is going to worship, it\u2019s got to be me. Worship is so much more than just playing songs. But I\u2019ve often found myself just standing on the platform, not having a clue what I was going to say or do!<\/p>\n My prayer is always \u201cGod, if you want me to do this, then this is not going to work. This has to be you \u2014 you using me, singing through me, and speaking through me.\u201d<\/p>\n From there it\u2019s just straight up invitation. I don\u2019t say, \u201cStand to your feet and let\u2019s worship!\u201d Instead, I say, \u201cAs we stand to our feet, let\u2019s lift up the name of Jesus Christ.\u201d My goal is to simply invite people to come in gratitude to the one who is allowing us to worship him.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n You can get Finding Favour’s latest EP on iTunes <\/a>and follow them on Facebook<\/a>, and Twitter<\/a>, and just about everywhere else.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" We recently met up with Blake NeeSmith, lead singer from the band, Finding Favour. Blake is just a normal guy \u2014 a Georgia boy living in Nashville. But there\u2019s nothing normal about Blake\u2019s enormous musical talent and ever-growing love for God. From Finding Favour\u2019s beginnings as youth group worship leaders, the band is now touring […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10744,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[4153],"tags":[892,1886,1848,1782],"class_list":{"0":"post-10743","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-worship-resources","8":"tag-church-worship","9":"tag-finding-favour","10":"tag-worship-artist-interview","11":"tag-worship-leaders"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/blogrouting.sharefaith.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/FF_photo480.jpg","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"\n