DAVID CROWDER:

     Something supernatural happens when God's people sense His leading—and have the mettle to follow Him. It's happened time and again to a 32-year-old Texan named David Crowder.

     While attending Baylor University in Waco, David and friends recognized a "disconnect" between the church and the disenchanted, twenty-something generation. So, the undergraduates approached the Baptist Association and ultimately the State Mission Board about starting their own church.

     "I remember one meeting—we walked into this room and saw a lot of gray-haired men around a table. We thought, 'This isn't going to fly,'" David related in Worship Magazine. "We told them what was going on, and we watched as these men wept. They said, 'That's my grandson, my granddaughter you're talking about. They won't come to church with me . . . so if you guys are willing to risk, we'll risk with you.'"

     The risk paid off.

     Today, University Baptist Church is a burgeoning community congregation that thrives at 800 strong when the university is in session.

     "We tried to make a space for college students who were disengaged in their faith," he recalls. "It was like getting a bunch of pals together on a Sunday morning. That was the feel. What clicked for the kids was the peer-to-peer relationships. That was a lot of the attraction. It just felt safe."

     As the music and arts pastor, David and his best friends in the David Crowder Band began leading worship at the church. One day David was in his dorm room playing a variety of CDs to find music the band could perform on Sunday morning. Suddenly he sensed God challenging him to step out in faith once again.

     He remembers the moment vividly. This time, the challenge came through David's unsaved roommate. The young man drifted into the dark room with a cigarette hanging out of his mouth, listened to the music for a few seconds, then cursed it with a string of expletives and stormed out, leaving David in a puff of smoke.

     Out of necessity more than desire, David began writing his own music, and soon the disconnected generation "on the fringe" got plugged in.

     "All of a sudden, we were the music that was an expression for the people not only in our church, but in other communities of faith that were in our town."

     But David's platform didn't stop there. From Waco, his music spread like a tidal wave as the Crowder Band hooked up with Louie Giglio's Passion tour and the tremendously popular worship conferences that have touched college students coast to coast.

     "I can't believe what this guy is doing and bringing to music," says Bill Dean, senior writer for the Lakeland Ledger. "I've interviewed Keith Richards, Eddie Van Halen, and all sorts of people at the top of their games. While I was talking to David, I really felt like—to paraphrase Jon Landau who once said this about Bruce Springsteen—'I am seeing the future of music.'"

     David and his band have an uncanny ability to absorb the needs and joys of a young generation, and to let those reflections be heard through their raw lyrical honesty and innovative alt-pop sound. In addition to having tracks on various Passion CDs, the band has produced two top-selling CDs entitled Can You Hear Us? and Illuminate (Sixsteprecords) and has been nominated for several recent Dove Awards.

     "What the Church has done as a whole is to reclaim a small portion of the arts, in terms of popular music," says David. "There's been a slow embrace, and that's exciting . . . Music is such a big part of our humanness. It's something that can be universal. You can have a diverse audience, yet each person can be saying, 'Man, that is me! Those are my words.'"

     Although David says there is some suspicion and distrust among today's youth, he is convinced that young people's needs are the same as they've always been.

     "I think they're just people, the same as the people who were here before them. That's why I love relationships—because people react to caring and to love. That's always been the case and always will be."

     It's not just lip service. While doing a grueling 251 concerts in 2002, David and the band missed only 11 Sundays at University Baptist Church in Waco. "What we're about, where we started—it's all about relationships," says David. "How we treat and care for each other. That's where our foundation is, and that's where, I think, God shows up."

— Creston Mapes

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