Our conversation the other day only confirmed to me the depth of his passion.
"I almost like teaching God's Word as much as I like leading worship," he shared. "In a sense song-writers and musicians have more of a power to teach than pastors or teachers because songs can be little sermons with catchy melodies and hooks so that people can actually hide them in their hearts and remember them in their minds. Then at some point the Holy Spirit allows the truth to go from their minds to their hearts. It's a powerful thing. That's why some of my songs are Scripture only, it's such a good way to get the Word in your heart."
Matt is quick to understand when I comment that today many Christians don't seem to spend much time reading the Word. "I think our technological era has a lot to do with that," he remarks. "People rely so much on technology that in many churches, kids don't even bring their Bible because they know it's going to be up on the screen. And that's ok, but bringing your Bible is a picture of discipline. It's a good thing if you actually carry it to church. The Word of God is meant to be heard, read, and seen. One of the things that disturbs me about our advanced technology is that so we're so busy, that we don't take time to actually stop, sit down, and read."
Matt's a little bit younger than me, ahem, so I ask him if he sees this as being especially true of his generation. "Oh, I do," he quickly replies. "We're the myspace generation. Everyone has their own webpage and you can quickly get consumed by technology. But I have a burden to help people be consumed as much or more by the Word. In ancient Jewish culture, kids were memorizing the Torah by age 11, but discipline is absent from our church culture today. There has to be a balance of grace involved in it, but we need the element of discipline to be restored quickly to our culture."
It's obvious that Matt and his band members are pretty hands-on in this mission. "We do a lot of one-night things but in the summer we get to do 8 or 9 summer camps that last a week or so, and we get a lot more time with the kids. Our on-stage ministry really only makes the time for the more important off-stage ministry. One of our biggest pleasures is to talk with the kids afterwards. Bands are really a dime a dozen, but we want to be real ministers, one-on-one."
I mention the mission trip invitations listed on his website, and Matt's enthusiasm flares. "We feel very called to do those. We do the camps, and they're cool. We lead worship in the morning and again in the evenings and try to hang out with the kids. But they're also running around, playing basketball and a million other things. But on the mission trips it's so powerful because the kids are going out in the daytime sharing food and their faith, maybe being persecuted. When they come back in they're worn out for the Lord, and they need to worship God. There's something very special about this ministry because then when you're worn down like that, you really need to pray, you really need the Lord for the next day's work. There's a sense of urgency. Real eternal things happen on trips like that."
His voice trembles with excitement as his heart is revealed, "When you give yourself away, that's when you get built up even more." And there is the heart of Matt Papa, teaching with his life again.
