In our December issue, Jars of Clay revealed the themes behind their latest release, Good Monsters. Here is more from the band about their efforts to serve Christ by serving people in Africa through Blood:Water Mission.
Breakaway: Can you speak a little about the history of your involvement with mission-type projects and how that came to be?
Steve: I believe God “births” in our hearts passions for stuff and I think the sense of fighting for what is just, the Bible calling us to ‘love mercy’ and fight injustice – it’s in there. Like a lot of biblical truth, they aren’t embodied until we experience them firsthand. I think some trips that were taken within the group really stirred our hearts toward the idea that God has redeemed the church and His church is in the world and His church is not just in Tennessee, in my community, but God through Jesus has redeemed people the world over. That’s where it started with us. It was a worldview change.
Charlie: I think that connection between worship and our actions, our behavior, I think somewhere in there was this full epiphany that my response to God’s love and God’s pursuing me and moving toward me is how I treat Steve and how I look at Africa, how I interact in my neighborhood. That can all be my worship. If I can do that in light of God’s love and to His glory, worship gets blown open pretty wide. It’s not just a Sunday experience.
Matt: I just say there were specifically some people that pressed into us early on as far as that beginning idea of what a Christian worldview looked like. Getting a chance to go and pray with the persecuted church in China and Vietnam six or so years ago. A friend of ours asked us on behalf of World Vision a few years ago to see what was really going on in Africa and consider using our voice to shed light on it. So there were a few strategic people who helped us, because quite honestly, we were cruising along pretty, our music careers were full time careers to manage and navigate. Theoretically those things were on our radar but it wasn’t until some friends kind of leaned in and asked us to consider them deeper it was then we began the journey that brings us here. So I think in a lot of ways we hope to be that voice to other people in our audience – “Would you consider this? If you are a college student, would you consider how God would use you in light of this? If you are a mom with three kids, would you consider this?” I think that to a degree that’s where the change has occurred.
Most Christian artists have causes they are tied to. You guys have led the way in recent years with DATA and Blood: Water Mission. You have inspired other groups to be more active by being on the forefront of the causes—how does that feel?
Matt: A friend of mine offered this idea of -- what would stewardship with influence look like? For us, we don’t have the biggest influence in the world, we’re not the biggest band. But we do have influence with some. That’s a scaleable idea, it doesn’t matter if you are in junior high or college or whatever. There’s always going to be somebody that has more influence than us and it’s easy to get distracted with that. But there’s always somebody that we do have influence with, that we do have an open door for conversation.
Can you give us an update on the Blood:Water Mission?
Dan: Blood:Water’s really growing much faster than we expected. We have 110 projects on the ground now, in process, and I think nine different countries. A lot of those are clean water wells, some of them are rain catchment tanks, some of them are full water rehabilitation programs in communities where we’ve not only dealt with the need for clean water, but also the need for latrines. The knowledge base for Blood:Water is growing, we’ve got a lot of great people around us and our partnerships are growing. There are two sides to Blood:Water mission. One is the ‘water’ side, which the 1000 Wells project is tackling. The other side is the AIDS side, trying to find solutions for clean blood. It’s a more difficult process to find that, because AIDS is more complex in every aspect of it and carries a lot of weight, with sexuality and cultural issues. We’re trying to find ways to message the humanity of AIDs, how it affects people in a way that it will engage people’s hearts in a way that will provoke them to action, and action points that we can also help create.
Many Breakaway readers will be making decisions soon about short-term mission trips and even possible life-long mission endeavors. What advice would you give them in determining where they fit into that?
Steve: I believe everything good and true, God is responsible for. There’s something more mystical when we stop and think about these experiences to understand the Creator and Lord of everything is choosing to engage us and stir our hearts toward something. It’s a large thing to consider and I think to view these opportunities, whether it’s a mission trip or to work with the homeless or go to another country, when Jesus says ‘the things we do for the least of these you do it unto me,’ that really speaks of our participation in relationship with God the father. I think that’s the way I try to view these experiences, not that I’m trying to manifest some experience by participating in this but just saying I’m available and I want more out of life, I want more love and I want more knowledge of the character of God and I want to share that with more people. I want to experience that in relationship with more people. 
