When I first listened to this CD I was completely amazed. The emotion in Jason's voice is extremely intense. Recorded live, "Faith" captures the truth of worship. Not just a bunch of songs but a call to worship. I knew that I couldn't possibly describe "Faith" well enough, so I set up an interview with Jason to get the straight scoop.

August 9, 2001 - Jason Upton

Do you have a web page?

Yes, it will be up in another week - jasonupton.com

Hometown

Cedar Grove, WI 25 minutes N of Milwaukee with Wife and 6 month old son Samuel. Living out of VA Beach until a couple of weeks ago. We love Milwaukee and like being close to family. It's important because of traveling so much. My wife has 6 brothers and sisters.

Is your wife involved in music?

She sings with me and we do a lot of intercession and prayer. Rachel does a lot of prayer mapping, find historical things, places and covenants and remind the Lord of those things. That intertwines with worship.

Your ministry goal?

Our goal in ministry is that when we come into a place it is easy to facilitate the kingdom of God. It should be about the Lord and not about the artist of the songs. It takes the concentration off of the actual music, but the music is there in power and really facilitates that. Our goal is to establish the kingdom of God. David Ruins, a worship leader and pastor to Indian tribes, used to say that his goal was that we would not do to worship what has been done to Christian contemporary music. That is its roots were established to be a voice in the world, not a copy of the world.

Do you write all of the lyrics? Yes.

Where does the inspiration come to write the lyrics and arrangements?

I very rarely write anything that was not inspired out of brochettes in my life or my walk with the Lord or prayer. I did not go and say I think I am going to write today.

I like the title track itself, was that a spontaneous song?

Yes, Faith was a spontaneous song. I had a lot of major changes coming into that recording night that I was going through. I was struggling with the whole process. It is all live, we did not do any re vocals or any re-tracking of anything. I just started singing and crying out to God and the band members just followed me. We decided to keep that on the record.

Is most of "Faith" live?

All of it is live, every song. When it comes to worship music, live is it. If you make a studio CD, you would lose some of that feeling and the spontaneous stuff.

What about Forty Records?

They really feel like their calling is to be a facilitation of whatever the Lord is doing in someone's life of ministry.

Forty believes that their artists are an arrow in their quiver. They really feel that God is raising up small families of worshipping communities. For years, the only difference between the Christian music industry and the secular music industry is its size. They really feel that is an indictment on the Christian music industry. Artists shouldn't just look at the size anymore, there should be something more different, like they are a part of the family of God, that they are an artist that is sent out like a child, an arrow to the world with their music and their songs. I do not believe that they are too idealistic, I really think it is happening. There is a whole new generation that is rising and it is exciting to see.

Are you adopted? How does that affect your relationship with Christ and how you came to where you are today?

Yes. I think with adoption, in a tangible way I learned how to receive spiritual fathering and mothering. When you are adopted you all of a sudden are brought up by two people that say, we're your parents and they care for you. In the church there are so many things that we can learn and digest from people if we will receive fathering and mothering and nurturing. I think that had a major impact, I had a lot of spiritual fathers, again and again, look how many times you have been adopted. The lord just has a way of taking people, just because I was adopted and an orphan for a season, God has way of doing something significant. I think there are some special things in my life just because I was adopted. I have never really been asked that question, but I think that is one of the answers. I don't understand it all, but it is kind of like God just says okay, there are your circumstances and this is where you are and I am going to pour a special grace on your life, it is a gift from God.

Do you have independent recordings?

It will be on my web site. One CD done recently will be available. Something that Forty did not feel like picking up. It is really powerful, "Key of David. It is an intercessory spoken worship experience and there are a lot of words over this generation. It is interesting, very different than "Faith"

Do you have any prayer requests?

Mostly my family, Me, Rachel and Samuel. God has really given us a lot of favor and protected us as a family unit. Even in ministry that can be difficult, things are getting busier. That God would give us wisdom on what he wants us to do and what we are not supposed to do. Because we are young, it is easy to fall into traps. As long as we can stay in the place where we have time with the Lord every day, to pray and seek his face there is very little the enemy can do to knock you off schedule and the timing of the Lord. It's the whole read your bible and prayer every day that you are taught as a child. But when you do that decisions are easier to make. Whenever we get out of that problems come. We are really trying to protect our time and pray that God will give us wisdom at a young age since we do not have experience, to make the right choices. That would be such a blessing.