Aaron Gillespie| “I Have No Desire These Days For Anything But To Make Jesus Famous”
Written By: Joanna Lugo

What is a song? A melody infused with various rhythms, words, harmonies, instruments, and vocals? Perhaps a song is a strategized compilation, an orchestrated composition, or a whimsical poem. So what happens when you strip any possible meaning of this four-letter-word to a raw, unreserved, and rudimentary concept that has absolutely no association with music? Unequivocally, you get a proclamation of the grace and power of Jesus Christ, an intentionally divine union between Perfection and man. There is no music. There is no sound. There is just Him. My dear friends, may I please introduce you to a fellow brother and pursuer of such a union? He goes by the name of Aaron Gillespie, and this is his anthem.

When I listen to your new album, it just seems to be lined with evidence of the cross and of grace and who Jesus is. In fact there seems to be a pretty consistent proclamation of Christ’s name in different songs such as “You are Jesus” and “Hosanna”. And it seems like there is kind of a dual meaning to them like there’s this simplicity to it and that there’s also a deeper meaning to the lyrics that these songs possess. So my question is what is that meaning on both a personal and a universal level?

Aaron Gillespie: You know I have no desire these days for anything but to make Jesus famous. You know this isn’t the “Aaron show”, this isn’t the rock show, I just want to make Jesus famous. With this record I really just want to push across the table this idea that we were created for union with God, we were made to worship Jesus, that’s what we were made to do. Everybody in this life, race, religion, creed, whatever you are, everybody worships something. But we were created to worship One. What are your priorities? Because that’s what you worship. And the idea behind this record was to grab a little piece of the song, grab a little piece of the anthem that is God’s song and his heart and sing along, and I believe that’s what our existence is for. And that’s kind of just the whole thing right there.

Definitely, that makes sense. It’s so true that everyone has an idol at some point in there life. Whether they worship music or whether they worship a relationship, and so I think that’s a beautiful thing that that is what you are trying to say is that what you worship is Jesus Christ and to proclaim His name is what your will is and what His desire is.

AG: We’re all trying. I think that a lot of people really want to say they are doing this, they are doing that. The goal is to make Jesus famous and to proclaim Him and Him crucified. A lot of schools have thought that what is the next thing? What is the emergent thing? There’s all this wonderful vocabulary that we’re using as Christian leaders and people in ministry these days. But I think the next thing is the same thing it’s always been, just Christ and Him crucified, raw and bare and as perfect as it is and that’s literally it.

Do you feel like that has transformed over the course of your musical career, that now more than ever you feel like it’s not about the music at all, it is purely about Jesus Christ?

AG: I wasted a lot of time. I didn’t use my platform at all for Jesus for a long time and it’s hard to think back on but I’m thankful that God pulled me out of where I was and that I’m here now and it’s a battle everyday.

That just kind of brings me to my next question. Just about how you’ve touched base in several realms of the music world with Anthem Song obviously being the newest addition. So can you walk us through your spiritual and personal journey in this solo endeavor? In particular, what has the musical and lyrical writing process looked like?

AG: Last February my wife Jamie and I we went to Uganda. When people go to Africa you expect them to come home with like a change, looking for some sort of, you know, “God make a difference in me, make me somebody else”. Pretty much you feel that five or six days in and you see all the things that you see but I really wanted to change and I was kind of depressed I wasn’t feeling a change. On the sixth day they took us to a church service and I began to feel God move just as the van pulled in and just as we’re driving there and we walk in and there’s a thousand or so Ugandans just singing their guts out and it’s hot and it is what it is but it blew my mind apart to see this and I’m balling at this point and I said “God why is this like this, why does this feel the way that it does, why is this this way?” and I heard God say “Aaron, because in your country and in countries of plenty you worship me so circumstantially”. “God, I have so much, bless your name or God I have nothing, bless your name. But these folks worship Me just because I’m Me. Because that’s what you were created to do because I’m God and there’s a synapse happening in your brain that makes your heart work and your lungs work and that’s why you exist and that’s Me. That’s not science that’s not chance that’s not medical fact, that’s Me. And that’s why they’re worshipping me regardless of the malaria regardless of the AIDS regardless of all that’s going on here, it’s Me. And that’s what life is about”. And that really just kind of slapped me in the face and I knew that I needed to do this. And from that point on I began to just switch my whole life after that. I had spent so long on the “Aaron show” you know like what do I need to do for my career, what can I do to further this, what can I do to sell 500,000 more records, what can I do for this or that or that. And I realized in that short week that none of that matters, it just doesn’t. If I’m not pointing people to Jesus then I’m wasting my life. It’s literally a waste of my breath and life and who I am. Google says this: 40% of Americans will die of cancer. But The Bible says that the wages of sin is death and that’s a cancer that 100% of all humanity will die of. And our goal and our job and our cause is to cure people of that cancer that is sin and when we forget to do that it’s literally like a man hiding in his house that had the cure for cancer for twenty years and is hiding it. It’s a criminal action and it would be super, super, super, huge immediate swarm if someone had the cure for cancer and didn’t tell. Can you imagine what it would be like? This guy would be ostracized it would be insane. We have the cure for something that is way more deadly and how often is it that we hide the cure?

So can you talk a little bit about the overall shift in your ministry this past year? What have you been led to do and who are the people you want to reach the most?

AG: You know I think a lot of people are afraid of church. They’re afraid of organized religion because it’s hurt them at some point or another and I want to get to those people. The people who have been burned out and hurt and who won’t come to church. I want them to come to one of these shows thinking it’s a night of rock & roll and what they find is just Jesus.

So what specifically do you mean when you reference the word “anthem”?

AG: Anthem is something that is massive and it’s bigger than you are. This is literally about God’s anthem, that’s it.

Do you just feel like it’s more of a declaration of who Christ is, is that what you mean?

AG: Absolutely. You know like God has this song that’s been playing since the beginning of time and it’s a declaration, it’s a proclamation of His grace and mercy. Our job in this life is to just grab a little piece of that song and sing along.

So you were talking about your mission trip to Uganda last year. And so I was just wondering how have those trips, and recently your trip to Haiti, inspired or reinforced your work in Anthem Song?

AG: Like I was saying before, we were made for union with God and really when you strip away all the simplicities of our life that we think are simplicities but they are actually just the trappings of who we are. You know folks in these countries, they wake up everyday and exist just to exist and the majority of their life is just finding food and water and just somewhere to get out of the sun, somewhere to use the restroom.

Things that we…you know I’m sitting here right now with a cup of coffee and a bottle of water and a cell phone and a computer and an office phone and $150 pair of shoes on, you know what I mean? And we don’t think about those things and you go somewhere like that and you see these people still worshipping Jesus and you realize that you strip everything away and there is Jesus. And sometimes you’ve got to strip it all away to find that anthem, to find the key that you’re supposed to sing in. Sometimes you’ve got to strip that all away in going to these places to let you realize what God’s heart really is, God’s heart isn’t all these things, that God’s heart isn’t a massive church service, God’s heart isn’t a wonderfully produced worship service. All though those things are great, God’s heart is humanity, pure and simple. You know we serve a God who is allergic to sin. He hates it so He must punish it with death. But because He loves so much, He sent His only son to literally drink the cup of shame. When Jesus prayed in the garden of Gethsemane God left this path for me, you know, it wasn’t about the crucifixion, it wasn’t about the act of being nailed to a piece of wood, it wasn’t about the act of bleeding and being scoffed at. It was about that cup was filled with the shame of humanity, it was filled with the dirt of humanity, and that is proof that God’s heart is humanity. So going to these places you really see that, pure unadulterated naked broken humanity. That’s God’s heart. And when you go and see that it really shifts your paradigm and it really shifts your perspective.

So do you feel like your outlook on worship and missions has altered since those trips? And how have they altered?

AG: Oh I mean completely altered. Like everything I just said. You go and you expect to be saddened and inspired and instead you find the heart of God. And you go to these places to fix them and you get fixed instead.

Do you feel like worship has become more of a lifestyle than just a song, or an album, or a band?

AG: Worship has to be a lifestyle. If it isn’t a lifestyle it isn’t anything, it’s a concert. When worship becomes thirty minutes after announcements and before the message it’s just an act, it’s not anything. Everybody worships something. What’s the most important thing in your life? Trace the trail back to what that is and you’ll find that’s what you worship. It can be your wife, it can be your husband, it can be your children, it can be your job, it can be money, it can be sex, it can be anything. But find out what’s the most important thing in your life and trace the cable back and you’ll find that that’s what you worship. My whole goal and my whole shift have been trying to make Jesus the one at the end of that cable. The one that I trace back that’s number one to me. And if He’s not then I’m off and I’m just still playing concerts and I’m still being a rock star, I’m still doing all these things that don’t matter.

One question about the actual music: one song that stands out to me as a pure lament, a pure cry out to the Lord, and an offering to the Lord is “Earnestly I Seek Thee”. What is the story behind this song? And what are your intentions behind that song?

AG: God is a gentleman. The amazing thing about a relationship with Christ is the freewill aspect. Think of any deity that gives you freedom. In order to find God you’ve got to earnestly search for Him. I think that we’re called to search for Him. It says in Hosea 6:6, that more than our sacrifices and more than our offerings, and more than all this stuff, God just wants to know us. He wants us to know Him and He wants to be in a relationship with us. I think in order to capture that we have to earnestly seek it. Because all the things in our life, you know, media, music, and television, everything. It points to the things that aren’t of God. Sex, and drugs, and rock & roll, and complacency, and all these things, the trappings of this life. I think we have to earnestly focus in on following Jesus and earnestly seek Him and that’s something that is difficult and that I suck at a lot. But I earnestly try. And that’s what that song’s about.

Just the utter truth that we are sinners but we are called to earnestly seek Him.

AG: Absolutely.

This may be a loaded question, but one that seeks to know who you are rather than what you are. How have you gone about establishing your identity in Christ when the world seeks to constantly categorize you as “musician”, “drummer”, “Underoath”, “The Almost”, “husband”, “friend”, “brother”, or even “Aaron”? All of these terms that are seeking to identify you as this or that. I know that we are called to a higher purpose that our identity is in Christ. How do you battle that?

AG: You don’t, you fall on your face a lot. And you get up and you learn. The life list for me goes Jesus, my wife, rock & roll. And it has to be in that order. And when that order gets disheveled, you suffer. Even if it feels like the right thing. In the last year I’ve just really been trying to proclaim that I’m putting Jesus first, as hard as it may be. And it’s not always comfortable and it’s not always easy but that’s what we’re doing over here.