Jennifer Knapp - Facing the Music: My Story

Praise for Facing the Music

As I read Jennifer Knapps beautifully written book, I felt like I was looking through multiple windowsa window into the Contemporary Christian Music industry and, beyond that, a window into the heart of a uniquely gifted musician, and, deeper still, a window into the heart of a gay woman of faith who dared to open the blinds to let others look in. It takes courage to write a book like this, and reading it will give others courage tooto face their music, to tell their story, to sing their song.

Brian D. McLaren, author of Why Did Jesus, Moses, the Buddha, and Mohammed Cross the Road?

Jennifer Knapps lyrics come alive in the pages of Facing the Music , a vivid account of Knapps journey to embrace herself, her faith, and her capacity for love. Neither a confession nor an apology, Facing the Music is a hard-won declaration that faith and love transcend our theologies of exclusion. In this deeply personal memoir, Jennifer Knapp offers hope to individuals struggling to overcome the rejection, shame, and insecurities so often experienced by LGBTQ Christians.

Alison Amyx, senior editor of Believe Out Loud

Facing the Music was a good kick in the pants to remind us that getting to know our Father in Heaven has far greater consequences than any trophy, any accolade, any perceived goodness we can lay at His feet. The book, not so gently, asks the question: Why are we even debating this? These questions will arise in your mind as you read this book: Is Jen winning or losing? Is Jen good or is she bad? I hope somewhere in the deepest recesses of your heart you will recalibrate those questions and ask: What is God doing in Jens life? And is there anything in Jens story that can help me to know my Father in Heaven more intimately? Im a better man for having read Facing the Music .

Joey Elwood, cofounder of Gotee Records

Facing the Music is a fascinating read on so many levels. Knapp is brutally honest about herself, about what she experienced, and about what was happening in her head and her heart as she grew in her relationship with music, Christianity, and her sexual orientation. It pulls back the curtain on the Christian music industry to look at the business behind the worship and the squeaky-clean image. Its a story that many of us will be able to relate to, in our own way, and readers of Facing the Music will find not only Knapps story, but their own as well.

Ross Murray, director of news for GLAAD

With often dramatic language Jennifer Knapp describes the movements of her family life and loss, her discovery of faith and its challenges, the highs and lows of where her music has taken her, and the rugged terrain of being completely honest about all God has made her. And I applaud this force of nature for doing so.

Mark Tidd, founding pastor of Highlands Church, Denver

For K.E.R.

one

E ight months after the Supreme Court ruling on Roe v. Wade , my parents found themselves unwed, pregnant, and expecting twins. Before they had even considered what their lives might look like, they were confronted with a challenging beginning as to how they were going to be a family, or if they even wanted to. My mother, a teenager, and my father, a post-Vietnam Navy veteran barely into his twenties, did as most honorable small-town Kansas folks expected at the time. They decided to keep their babies and get married.

My young parents brief history together was colored by the social taboos they had challenged. Their seven-year age difference, their clandestine love affair, premarital pregnancy, and a shotgun wedding no doubt seemed like slim odds for a lasting relationship. Instead of finishing high school, my mother spent what would have been her senior year giving birth and nursing babies. After an adventurous summer with a pretty young girl, my father suddenly found himself responsible for the welfare of a wife and two children.

After two years, they would divorce. My mother, barely in her twenties, lost the custody battle to my father. The court reached an unusual decision, choosing my father as the parent most responsible to care for my sister and me. We were two toddlers still shaky on our feet, trying to understand what phrases like child custody and visitation rights had to do with why Mom wasnt there to tuck us into bed each night. Growing up, we would have to learn how to adapt to the pitch and roll of being shared between my parents two worlds. Going forward, we were to live full-time with my father, while spending alternate weekends with Mom.

Mom only lived a few miles away in those early years, but everything seems bigger, longer, and farther away when youre little. Even though Mom might be living in the next county over, our journey there was always an adventure.

Fridays were the most important, highly anticipated day of the week for us. I would be in utter bliss when I knew Mom was on her way to pick us up for the weekend, and disappointed when I realized that Id have to wait another week to see her.

The best Fridays were filled with the ritual of her coming. With anticipation, Id get to pack a little bag of clothes and place it by the front door. Id sit at the window, willing every passing car to be hers. What joy it was when through the darkness, a pair of headlights turned from the road into our driveway! Mom! At last!

Once Id jumped into the car, I was in her world, a place in which we had developed our own traditions. I couldnt wait to show her every tomboy bump and bruise that I had acquired since we were last together, so that she could hasten the healing of each blemish with her tender kisses. Then, after every ache had been attended to, we would sing. I was torn between the excitement of joining in the chorus or just listening to her sing alone. Hers was the most glorious voice I had ever heard. Whether she led us in a rousing rendition of Bill Grogans Goat or the Beatles Yellow Submarine, I was beside myself with awe and wonder over her talent. The longer the drive to our destination, the better. I welcomed the nights when the rain poured down and Mom had to drive more slowly. Rather than fighting the weather, we sang through it. Ours was the perfect cocoon of joy on four wheels.

During our short times together, Mom always made an effort to do something special for us. In the winter, she would join us in a wild snowball fight. In the summer, shed start a water war by grabbing a garden hose and dousing us with cold spray. If we were stuck inside, shed teach us to play a card game or how to make a batch of cookies. She found a way to be a part of our lives by making memories out of the most ordinary days.

If Fridays were the good days, Sundays were bittersweet, knowing that the minutes with Mom were ticking down, and that we soon would be parting ways. I was aware that she would be taking us back home. I was old enough to repeat the facts, that it would be two weeks until we could do it all over again, but two weeks, to a five-year-old, felt like a lifetime. It was difficult to imagine passing the time between then and the next visit, so I tried to make the most of the lazy Sunday afternoons before going home. Id do my best to fight back the tears, aware that our weekend together was drawing to a close.

Shed drive us back home to the small farm where we lived with my father in rural southeastern Kansas, five miles east of a cozy little town called Chanute. Our house was a breezy fixer-upper nestled on a few acres between pastures and soybean fields. My sister and I spent most of our time outdoors exploring, looking for wild mulberries along the fence-line trees or working alongside my father in our old, red wooden barn as he tended to his horses. I found comfort in the simplicity of my fathers world. There was always something constructive to be done around the farm, mending fences or feeding the animals. When the chores were done, hed grab a rope and teach us how to lasso a sawhorse as if it were a calf, or maybe even fashion us a bow and arrow made from tree branches and baling twine. With Dad, there was always adventure with work and with play.