Transparent Christian Magazine

My friends Benita Teems and Lynn McCain from McCain & Company were nice enough to invite me to see Brandon Bee recently at the “ReCreate Conference” in Franklin, Tennessee.  I jumped at the chance!

The first time I met Brandon Bee was last year at the Gospel Music Awards for the McCain & Company Guitar Pull.  I took an immediate pull towards him, because I think we were the only two indie rock guys in the room. We both wore shoes dressed in dirt from more than a few stages and probably hadn’t shaved since our last real jobs.

In the time between the GMAs and the ReCreate Conference in Franklin, TN at The Factory, Brandon had been touring relentlessly, recording his next album and getting ready for his fifth child.  We had both gotten new shoes and only one of us got around to ridding of the face sweater.  Refreshing and warm, it was good to see him again.

Bee took the stage and greeted the crowd like a friend he had just seen last Sunday with a wave and shouted hey.  Lighting rose up as shadows crept along the rafters and smoke billowed around “Your Holiness,” stretched across the screen in front of me.  The eerie feel of a guitar laden with delay and atmosphere pushed out of “Your holiness is all around me.”  As the chorus broke through, layered with Bee’s Gibson J45 and his pure and unadulterated voice, I could feel the love of God burning through the fire colored lights behind him.

Built on his passion for leading, Bee’s face bore the weight of the words he sang.  Straight from his heart and with no concern about which audience he was playing too (a bunch of industry people and musicians) I could hear years of lamenting and earnest following of God pour from his chest.  When I heard his voice crack in his lower register, it reminded me of the first time I saw God as a real, living Father, and me as His child.  There was a naive-ness about Bee’s character and a genuine faith about the words he spoke.

As I looked around the room at the ReCreate Conference, I saw worship pastors, record label executives and people well seasoned in unabashed worship.  I saw people that have seen it all, been everywhere, know everyone and have probably felt it all… I saw them eyes locked, pens down, phones off and hearts open to God working through Brandon and in them.  At the end of “Hallelujah,” the call back after Brandon’s open ended prayer was joined by a room inundated with trained and focused voices.

After his set, I got to sit down and spend some time with Brandon.  He’s a transparent man and doesn’t put up a guard or protect anyone from seeing his heart… so I went straight in and had the incredible opportunity of hearing his pulse and feeling the love of God that resonates in every blood cell of his soul.

Brandon is both poetic and elegant as he writes each song, folded like a personal love letter to God with an open invitation for everyone to join, and I asked him where his words come from:

“I don’t have any, so I pray and God gives them to me,”

…I asked him to expand on that thought and he went on to say that God always responds to his prayer for words with:

“THIS is what the churches need to hear.”

Peppered thoroughly in his prose, I hear God’s word and its interpretation of a heart that knows the sweet joy of salvation.  The way Brandon speaks is exactly like he writes and sings: painting a world of words that I can physically feel and see myself  becoming engulfed.  He has a way of placing me in worshiping from his perspective.  He has a way of singing the way I imagine God wants us to.  He has a way of stripping away all the production we get so caught up in.  He has a way with praising the God that created you and I.  He has a way of showing me how I fall short in my faith and what it means to let God move in my life.  He has a way of loving me without ever hugging me.  I feel closer to God through the gifts Brandon has been given…

As we were getting ready to leave, Bee gave me two of his albums.

Surrendered, a six track stripped down worship set reveals the heart of a worship leader set on moving people closer to love and closer to finally understanding that it’s OK to sing with everything you have.  Listening to Surrender is like talking with Brandon: intimate, revealing and full of love.

This is the Revolution is Bee’s thirteen track, full length album that capitalizes on his lustrous sound and tattoos infectious melodies on the soul of anyone who will lend an ear.  I challenge you to find an album that calls your heart to action more than This is the Revolution.

Laced and wrapped around our hearts like the white satin that Jesus leaves our souls in, Brandon Bee’s music is crisp, clean, refreshing and warm.  If I could hear love, it would sound like Bee’s music.

Joshua Wienczkowski
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More on Brandon Bee

Brandon’s Website

Thanks to “Share Your Story’s Youtube Channel” for the Video.