« Part Eight: BARRY LANDIS

Since this discussion began, we've talked to artists, authors, and industry executives who all have their own ideas on the Roaring Lambs philosophy and how it should be applied to daily life, and to Christian Music's future. While educational, most of these discussions have been hypothetical in nature.

We end this series by stepping out of the "what if"s and into real life. If Roaring Lambs were a war, Josh Foster would be in the trenches on the very front lines. Outspoken and opinionated, Foster regularly throws caution to the wind, boldly contacting labels, churches, organizations, radio stations, and many others, with big ideas on how they can make their message more accessible to mainstream culture. Though his words are sometimes ignored, he has his eye fixed on one goal (evangelism), and he never wavers from it.

While most of us discuss the possible ins and outs of this issue from our comfort zones, Foster is in there, getting his hands dirty, living as a real Roaring Lamb in the real world, on a daily basis.

And so we end this discussion by hearing from one who is living the Roaring Lambs concepts -- a radical Christian life lived out right in the midst of mainstream culture. If this series has been a wake-up call for the Christian subculture, then the words of Josh Foster are guaranteed to be a mind-blowing exclamation point.

part nine:
JOSH FOSTER

Josh Foster is Director of Operations of Lazerbeam Radio Networks, producer of The Lazerbeam Countdown. The Lazerbeam is an intense and highly-interactive, mainstream "Positive Hot Hits!" countdown show, featuring fresh new music from spiritual artists who promote a positive and worthwhile message. Hosted by Nashville's Dave Kirby, the show reaches over 900,000 teens and young adults each weekend, on many of the finest mainstream Top 40 and Modern Rock stations in America.

Robin: What makes Lazerbeam different from other radio hits countdown shows?

Josh: Well, our competitors are Kasey Kasem, Rick Dees, and everyone else that attempts to win openings for syndication with mainstream affiliates across the country. We set ourselves apart by presenting positive music. Artists that have a worthwhile, decent message, and a pro-social message. It's very similar presentation-wise to Kasey -- we talk about artists on tour or on video or how their album was put together, things going on in their lives. But we focus in on artists that have some pro-social, family-friendly content. We're especially receptive to artists of faith.

And audiences actually allow you to get away with airing faith-oriented content on mainstream radio stations?

I think there's been a big backlash in the mainstream world with artists who have pushed the envelope so far, that people's sensibilities start to come back. Record labels are crying because album sales are down 10% this year, and while it's easy to put the blame on Napster or online file sharing, really I think it's the lack of artists that have a worthwhile message, particularly in the hip-hop or rhythmic world.

The key is to make whatever you produce be accessible to the broadest-possible range of audience. When you're continually pushing the envelope, then you limit the number of people who would potentially buy it. But I think there's been very much a backlash to Christina Aguilera having lesbians kissing in her video and all that. Eventually that begins to limit the number of people who are going to go out and buy it and have an interest in the artist.

In addition, there aren't any real fresh faces. Speaking of the hip-hop and rhythmic world in particular, a lot of these folks -- Jay-Z, Jah Rule, Missy Elliot -- they've been there five, six, seven, eight years. There's no real fresh faces with a fresh message. You know, the old, "I slapped my b-*-t-c-h around," "I sold more rock today so I could get my fifth 'Benz," "I've got my glock loaded if you look at me funny" -- you can only say that so many times. After a while, people simply get tired of hearing it. They get desensitized to it. So we offer an alternative to that.

How long has Lazerbeam been around?

A little over two years. The network has grown dramatically, specifically because program directors are looking for fresh, new positive music with messages that are pro-social. Additionally, there's an advertiser component that will find family-friendlier shows much more appealing and will want to attach their product line to it. Which is another reason you'll see in the hip-hop and rhythmic world, stations that they have very significant 12+ audience numbers near the bottom in billing. In the case of radio, it's a business.

How wide is your reach?

We're heard currently in 42 markets coast to coast. We reach 920,000 each weekend, predominantly in the 12-34 age demographic. We produce three mixes, a "Modern Rock" show, the pop alternative show that we call the "Modern AC," and the "Modern CHR" show which is half rhythmic and half alternative.

So you guys don't bill yourselves in any way as "Christian"?

No. That would not only be perceived as a negative, but it wouldn't be true. Many of the artists that we play are probably not artists of faith, although the messages that they have are messages that are consistent with the Christian worldview. Many of our core artists, at least we are not aware of them being "Christian," but the messages on their CDs are universally consistent with the Christian worldview.

You know, our shows are all about evangelism. But you have to find a common denominator with your audience where you're able to inject your belief into their mainstream marketplace of ideas. The audience is very receptive to what's going on, so if you present them nothing but artists that are clearly spiritual, like Lifehouse, P.O.D., Lauryn Hill, Dana Glover -- they'll start to get the idea that this is some kind of "religious thing." And then they'll start hitting the button to some other station. So you have to build a relationship with the audience before you're going to be able to compel them to consider your message.

Opponents to these ideas have expressed distaste for how "sneaky" this approach is. Like we're not being bold enough, or we're ashamed of what we believe in because we're not being upfront about it. The argument is: how effective can evangelism be if no one ever really hears the message?

The Lord sat and ate with tax collectors and prostitutes, and the pharisees went off the deep end. William Booth brought his brass band into the slums of London, and that's how the Salvation Army started. At some stage, you have to be in the culture if you're going to hope to infiltrate it and impact it with your message. I strongly disagree with what I call "pharisee Christians" who want to have their own little tent, and are like, "if you don't do things just the way that we say, then you can't be part of it."

Let's get down to the hard facts of this. Only 6% of the teenagers in this country have a personal relationship with Christ. We are a tiny minority. We are the minority, we are the ones that are abnormal. So let's compare it to another culture. Let's compare it to the homosexual activists. What they do, right now, is considered totally normal. They have worked so hard at "evangelizing" their beliefs, if you will, that they have integrated themselves into the mainstream marketplace of ideas.

It's almost like a marketing technique.

Well, that's what evangelism basically is. Sales and marketing. The homosexual activists have integrated themselves into the mainstream culture -- particularly into the media and entertainment industry, but also throughout the public schools and the government -- and now, in the eyes of the mainstream culture, what they do is perfectly normal and acceptable. But yet someone who has a Christian worldview, in regards to abstinence and marriage and pro-life -- you're considered a nut. You're considered an outsider. At some stage, we have to steal a couple of pages out of their playbook, and take the same kind of agressive posture in infiltrating the mainstream marketplace of ideas. And then as those relationships develop, we're able to compel our audience to consider the claims of Christ on their lives. Evangelism is very hard. That's why nobody wants to do it.

How much criticism do you get from other Christians?

Who cares!

(Laughs.) You don't?

94% of the teenagers in this country have no concept of a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. If I were to govern what we do based on the other 6%, our people would eventually die of old age. The Roaring Lambs philosophy is intended to be lived out on a much larger scale than just the music industry. It's meant to be a church-wide revival. And right now, in the American church, there's not a lot of evangelism going on for people under the age of 30. 85% of all decisions for Christ are made before the age of 18. Unfortunately, as any senior pastor will tell you, teens don't write checks. And right now, with just a handful of exceptions, the so-called evangelical church in this country is more interested in building programs than they are in reaching young people with the message, and competing for those precious young lives.

I had a conference call this morning with a senior pastor who's on television on Sunday morning here in Atlanta, on the big network. Of course, I know how expensive that airtime is, and the audience is largely 60 and older, which is a great check-writing audience. But I asked him, "Why don't you use that money to instead go into the high schools and buy all those kids pizzas every Thursday? You could set up a room and they could come in and have all the pizza they want to eat and all the Coke they want to drink, and you'd just do it every Thursday." And over the course of time, those young people would start to see that you're genuine and you're sincere, and you're going to be able to build relationships. Get on a first-name basis. You don't go in and preach -- you don't even say anything about Christ or God. You're just there to shake hands and say "hello" and learn their names.

I like that. So at what point do you start talking about God?

Well, first we have to establish relationships...

I'm with you on that. I'm just wondering -- would you approach this [talking to them about God] with an agenda, or would you wait until they ask, or what?

Okay, example: We drive listeners to our website by having some cool contests. And when they get there, there are certain links they can click on which explains how to have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, and offers them links to Christian resources that will assist them. As in, crisis pregnancy centers, drug addiction, help for suicidal cases. So we drive listeners to our website by the thousands, and use it as a clearing house. But there's more to our website that just that -- we talk about artists of faith, how they put together certain releases, such as Vonray, or Billy Corrigan, or Zwan, or Evanescence, or Switchfoot. At some stage the Holy Spirit compels them to "click this" or "look here."

But I can't give you a direct answer to that. We can't use our radio shows in any way to attempt to proselytize. And besides, it trivializes what we would do.

How so?

The relationship we have with our audience isn't personal; it's the relationship of a DJ and his audience. It's not a one-on-one personal relationship. What we do is attempt to get these young people to consider their spiritual condition.

We're a lot more than just our radio shows. Our radio shows were an opportunity for us to develop some very strong relationships with a couple of major retailers, with each of the record labels, and with the two major broadcasting conglomerates which control radio and television. We have been able to leverage those relationships on a daily basis and compel them to continually move towards a more family-friendly approach. So with the labels that we talk to, we work on having them produce more family-friendly product, to get that to our stations, in order to have more airtime. On the retail side of things, we're influencing retailers to carry more product that's family-friendly, and limit the product that's not.

So you're having a pretty big social impact on society.

We operate so much behind the scenes, that the radio shows are pretty much just the means to an end. They've allowed us to develop these relationships. I have a conference call in a few days with the head of the North American Missions Board, which is the Southern Baptist arm of evangelism. We're going to get them to sit down with the #1 retailer in the country with regards to product. How can the retailer be rewarded for pulling certain products off the shelves?

How is it that you get to have a voice with such wildly different parts of society -- like retailers and denominational leaders?

We've really been blessed. The Lord has opened some incredible doors for us, and He's asked us to act on our faith and move through them. We're very passionate about what we do. I don't know how else to say it -- with only 6% of the teenagers in this country having a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, obviously our people are going to need to organize. We're going to need to have a much stronger voice in the mainstream culture. If it were up to me, we would hock most of the buildings that are not used 160 hours a week, and set up shop on the high school college campuses, and those would be our churches. And that's where all of our resources would be. And we'd be all over MTV and rock radio and BET and hip-hop radio. And we'd be compelling people to consider our viewpoint, and to consider the claims that Christ has on their lives.

These ideas are so radical, though... And Christians are typically mortified at the very notion of changing how they operate.

Evangelism is the hardest of all sales jobs. There aren't that many people around the country that are really into sales. And not everyone has the right personality for it. But the Lord calls us to evangelize. He calls us to influence the circle of relationships that He's given us.

So I strongly disagree with the segregation of "Christian artists." In fact, we don't use the word "Christian." We would use the term "artists of faith" or "faith-based artists." But we don't separate them that way.

We are not in favor of having a "Christian/Gospel" section in stores that is segregated away from where all the traffic is. We have one major handicap to overcome. Keep in mind that the so-called "ccm" labels are owned by large conglomerates. And the purpose of the "Christian/Gospel" section is an attempt to move product to a demographic that would not normally buy CDs. 45-year-old, upper middle class, white moms, do not browse the rock/pop or hip-hop sections at Best Buy looking for CDs. So this is basically an untapped market. It's a niche market, and these large conglomerates, Warner Bros., Jive, and EMI -- this is an opportunity for them to sell product to an audience that would not normally buy CDs. So of course, what they would like to do, is have this little safe haven area off in the corner where those who wouldn't shop in the other area can find something they'll like.

The last thing we would want to do is have artists of faith segregated away from where all the traffic is. We want to see Rachael Lampa right next to Christina Aguilera. What we do on our show is cloud the line. We don't see an artist based on what label they happen to be on. We judge artists entirely on the content of their message -- whether it's positive, whether it's pro-social, whether it's family-friendly, whether it's consistent with a Christian worldview. We don't play praise & worship music, which I think maybe has the potential to be its own genre, although even in that case I would prefer it being integrated right in with all the other music.

I mean, look, the Dixie Chicks record has all kinds of pro-Christian content on it. To draw a line like that is hostile to the call to evangelism.

You have to appreciate the fact that record labels and radio stations and retailers -- they're businesses. It's not their role to evangelize. The role of evangelism falls to the church. Unfortunately, that's where it falls apart. In churches that are not intended to be run as businesses, most of them are. A bigger building, a bigger campus, that's the purpose for our existence now. The entire idea of evangelizing a younger culture is something that agitates them in just bringing up the subject. Because it's hard, it's expensive, and you don't see the payout today. Unfortunately, the problem is, we're now going on our second young generation that has not been evangelized. So not only are we missing the teenagers, we've already missed the young adults. Our people are literally in danger of dying away.

The #1 network for 18-34 year olds is MTV. We're not even in the contest. Our people are not even on the radar screen. We're not even on the stage anymore, we're not even in the competition. We've got to figure out ways to get a message of hope into the mainstream culture.

Considering that you're using your radio shows as an evangelism tool, the inevitable question becomes, does this Roaring Lambs method of evangelism produce results? Does it work?

We get hundreds of clicks on our evangelism page on our website every week. But in terms of how measurable are the results against an entire culture? I don't have an easy answer for that. How many seeds are sown until you get one that catches root? I don't know. Because generally, when it does catch root, you're not the first to find out.

Fair enough. That's probably more or less true of any evangelism tactic. I guess I'm just wishing for some kind of tangible results that we could show to those who disagree, to prove that this works. But it doesn't happen that way, does it? It's about one person at a time, one-on-one. Building relationships, like you said.

Right, and that's why evangelism so hard and so unpopular. The payout isn't today. You're sowing seeds that may not come to fruition until ten years from now, and probably aren't going to come to fruition in front of you!

So where do we go from here? How do we make change happen? What do we, as believers, need to do next?

There's a heavy burden on my heart with regards to the current state of the rhythmic and hip-hop music genre. Which, by the way, is the largest and most critical genre of all, for young people. More young people listen to hip-hop than anything else. We are especially not on the playing field when it comes to this genre. And I think the single biggest reason is the fact that there's far too much segregation when it comes to Sunday morning church.

I know this has been said before, but at some point we as a people are going to have to combine our own resources -- white, black, Hispanic -- and start making a joint impact into the culture. Again, keeping in mind that we are few in number as it is. And to split us up even more, takes the precious resources that we have and makes them even less effective. Right now, kids of all colors listen predominantly to hip-hop. And I can't think of a single hip-hop artist out there with even just a pro-social message. Maybe Jurassic 5, but really I can't even think of one. If you look at the CHR/Rhythmic chart, there's not a single song -- not even one -- with not only a faith-based message, but a message that is even mildly consistent with a Christian worldview.

I think most of all we've got to come together in prayer, and to have the want and the desire to have the sold-out churches, the on-fire churches, to overcome whatever it is that's splitting us up. Particularly across racial lines. I saw in USA Today how quick they were to gloat over how the most segregated buildings in America are all on Sunday mornings. If we're going to be taken seriously with our point of view, then first we have to reconcile the problems that we have as a Body, and it needs to have an urgent priority. If we're going to make an impact in culture, we have to do it united.

« Part Eight: BARRY LANDIS