Born Again by Austin French Lyric Vid

"Life is meant to be lived wide open, not closed off, non rubber, but living close to the Lord where he leads us…our task is to live our lives with our easily broad open."

Rising contemporary Christian music artist Austin French has lived a lot of life in his 24 years. Originally from small-town Georgia, he's spent time in Los Angeles, competing on reality singing competitions like ABC'south "Rising Star" and NBC's "The Voice." He's been a worship leader at a church where 80 percent of the members were recovering addicts. And he and his wife went from having no kids to having ii—one biological, one adopted—inside months of each other. Now, to add together to the listing, he is almost to release his starting time full-length studio album.

A life with this much hazard tin can just happen when you concord the posture that French does."Life is meant to be lived wide open," he says, "not closed off, non safe, but living close to the Lord where he leads us…our chore is to live our lives with our hands broad open."

This openness to God's leading is largely what inspired the anthology, Wide Open up. Released on Awaken Records/Off-white Trade Services September 7, 2018, the anthology debuted at #2 on the itunes Christian anthology chart. The 12-rail album features songs that speak to the ups and downs that inevitably occur while living the wide open life. The album is refreshing in its honesty, addressing the brokenness in all of us, providing empathy in our near painful moments as well every bit presenting the hope of Christ. Wide Open was clearly written by an artist who has experienced both joy and hardship and who has come out the other side clinging to Jesus, rather than running from him.

Just this was not always the case for French. Growing up a minister's kid, French experienced start-paw what hypocrisy in the church building can look like and just how broken people tin can be. "I was really hurt past the church," says French. "I was really over information technology….I was going to have nothing to do with Christianity."

In 8th class, while attending a Christian music camp, he heard a speaker address the hypocrisy he had experienced growing up. During the chantry telephone call, he says he felt God ask him what he was going to exercise nigh it? How was he going to let others know that Christians don't have to be 2-faced, that they tin be real, truthful and honest?

French responded to this call with his most natural gift: music. French, whose mother is a music teacher, has been singing since age ii and grew up surrounded by music. "Then I decided that solar day in eighth course that I wanted to exist a Christian artist," French recalls, "and write music for my friends who didn't go to church, and music for the cleaved people in my church."

He created a band with friends in his youth group and they toured all over the country, playing music at whatever church building would accept them. Today, although he is now touring with major artists like Ryan Stevenson—whom he will tour the album with later this fall—and is working with some of the nearly established people in the industry—Jeff Pardo is producer on the album and his management, Jason Davis with First Company Management, the company also manages the Newsboys and Ryan Stevenson—he is yet responding to this call to write and play honest songs that speak to the broken.

Fifty-fifty when French competed on "Rising Star," where he placed 2d overall, he remained truthful to that God encounter he had in eighth grade: "Everybody on the prove was like, 'Oh, you should practise mainstream. You should do popular. You should do land.' Just the day I auditioned for the testify, I walked in and told them that I was a Christian artist, and this is what I believe."

French's vocals could go far in any genre, but his passion is for writing music that meets people in their brokenness and introduces them to the freedom of Christ.

French'due south offset single on the album, "Freedom Hymn," was inspired by some of the about cleaved yet joyful people French has ever known. He wrote the soulful anthem after spending time on staff at a church in Delray Beach, Florida, the recovery capital of the world. French says that fourscore percent of the church building was in active recovery. "They were the well-nigh cleaved people I had ever met, merely they were the freest people I had ever met," he says.

As someone who grew up singing hymns in the church, French says he knew he wanted to write his own hymn one mean solar day, and, he says, "what ameliorate place to write it than probably the most addicted customs in the world, this recovery community? You have to admit you demand a savior to actually notice saving."

The song's chorus rings of a promise that's for anybody, no affair how broken: This is the audio of chains breaking / This is the beat of a heart irresolute / This is a vocal of a soul forgiven / This is my liberty hymn.

When French initially set out to write this record, information technology was non equally self-revelatory. He wanted to focus on the skillful moments in life, not the difficult ones. Merely three years ago, when his dad was in an accident, everything changed. His dad miraculously recovered but spent six months in a coma. The traumatic event refocused French's life also every bit the music he was writing.

As he explains, "I was simply drastic for God…. It really inverse the course of my record. What do I want my record to sound like? What are the songs that I desire to write? Yep, God is a God of victory, but he is as well a God that comforts the states in our sorrows."

Several songs on the album reflect this type of God, the one who is nowadays in our darkest moments. "Why God?", a contemplative and pianoforte-driven track, asks the question we all exercise in the face of suffering: Why?

French doesn't answer this old-as-time question with a Band-Aid or a bow. His lyrics are honest: I don't sympathize / Only I sympathize / Why, God, I need you / It's why, God, I run to your arms / Over and over again.

In the year and one-half that it took French and his married woman, Joscelyn, to adopt their 2-year-erstwhile son, Coleman, they asked a lot of why questions. They first met Coleman when Joscelyn'southward mom was taking care of him every bit his foster parent. It was dear at commencement sight: "As before long as we saw him, nosotros just fell in beloved with him, and God put something in me that I could non explicate."

But adopting Coleman was a long route. At i point, the foster care organization told French and Joscelyn that they would never see Coleman again. "Nosotros just honestly couldn't sympathize why," recalls French. "Why would God call u.s. to love this niggling male child similar our ain son if we were never going to see him again?"

Ultimately, in a miracle move, the courts ruled to allow French and Joscelyn to be Coleman'due south parents. During the entire procedure, the Frenches connected to seek God, even through the why, teaching them an incredibly important lesson. "You can plow your why into worship," says French, which is exactly what he did.

The journey to adopt Coleman also inspired the title track on the album. As a immature couple, French and Joscelyn had planned to wait five years before having kids, but when they met Coleman, they knew their plans were nigh to alter. "We had two options," says French, "either ignore that feeling, or submit and say, 'God, my plans are manifestly not your plans. I'm all in. Any this looks like, would y'all brand the way?'"

The upbeat and inspiring track begins with this admission that God's ways are higher than ours: Plans  / I've been the fool who thought my plans / Were so much bigger, then much meliorate than yours.

God did make a way in the courtroom that day, and not only did the new parents become to welcome Coleman to their domicile; three months later, Joscelyn gave birth to their second son, Owen.

"We went from a life with ii people, living as two people would without the responsibility of kids, to ii kids actually apace," says French.

Merely if anyone can take a transition like this in stride, information technology'south the Frenches—a family unit who doesn't limit what God can or volition do, and Wide Open is a testament to it all.

Every bit French explains, "These songs didn't come up from a place of holding back. These songs didn't come because I said, 'God, would you do as little as possible in my life this yr.' Information technology came from, 'God, would you do what you lot're going to do? Would you lot practise miracles in front of me?'"

Austin French has a long career ahead of him, merely he is already establishing himself as a talented artist and songwriter who is open and vulnerable, able to have existent struggles from his own life and write them into songs that are universally understood. Because of this, Wide Open up will leave listeners with the sense that miracles can happen to them too; they just have to live wide open.

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Source: https://risefmohio.com/austin-french/