Clark Randy - Heavens symphony: your invitation to unlocking divine encounters through worship

Steve Swanson has traveled worldwide leading people in worship. He carries a powerful anointing and impartation in worship, intercession, and prophecy that creates an atmosphere of breakthrough in worship that opens the heavens. His unique gifting and passion allow worshipers to experience freedom, joy, and intimacy with the Lord. Steve has released 25 worship CDs and continues to record and produce his own as well as other artists works.

Steve, his wife, Lisa, and their two sons reside in Casa Grande, Arizona. Since 1997 they have overseen Friends of the Bridegroom Worship Ministries, a ministry devoted to the release of His creativity in worship and the arts on the earth. In 2012 Steve and Lisa opened The Fourth Door Worship Arts Healing Center, a creative center dedicated toward worship art healing gatherings and training in Englewood, Florida.

CONTACT INFORMATION

www.steveswanson.org

1460 S. McCall Rd.

Suite 1E

Englewood, FL 34223

Telephone: 941-475-5060

Special thanks to: Lisa, Jordan, and Jacob Swanson; Ronald and Theo Sittser (Mom and Dad); Randy Clark; Tom Jones; Rachel K. Austin; Kent Henry; Tim and Deborah Greenidge; Jo Ann McFatter; and the editors and staff at Destiny Image Publishers. Thank you!

There is no freedom like the freedom experienced in worship. As I lift my voice, heart, and hands to love on this amazing, holy, wondrous God, I am enraptured by His presence. As I focus my full attention on Him, every shackle that binds me to earth loosens its hold. Every care, every uncertainty, every fear melts away. Nothing else matters but loving Jesus more, singing of His glory forever, and experiencing His tangible presence. Theres no way to be more free than when I am free to worship my Creator. I love that freedom. But I havent always experienced it.

I grew up in the church. I mean, quite literally, I grew up in the church. My parents were both ministers. Mom divorced my birth father when I was young then married this amazing guy who became Dad to me. I couldnt have asked for better parents. Dad pastored our church, which was literally one step outside our door. One minute Im playing the piano in the house; thirty seconds later, Im sitting on the front pew in the sanctuary.

Our church was a small, kingdom-minded Pentecostal church. It was all I ever knew, and I loved it. Dad would preach from his heart, never from notes. His favorite sermon topic was the kingdom of God, which was a cutting-edge message back in the late 1950s and 60s. He would deliver impassioned altar calls, and Mom would accent his preaching at the organ or piano as her notes accompanied everything that happened in the room. We would sing these great three-chord hymns and camp meeting-style songs. They riveted me with the truth of the Word and instilled messages of hope that linger even now.

I experienced so much freedom in that church. The Spirit would move, and I could feel Gods presence. We would worship for hours with singing, dancing, and yes, even tambourines. As a kid I would lose myself in that place of worship. Nothing else matteredno other cares or worries or thoughts of anything else but to bask in Gods presence and enjoy His freedom.

That church is also where my musical talents found their first foothold. I started leading worship there when I was only eight years of age. That church environment gave me the freedom to grow from being a kid with some talent to a teen with above-average musical skills. The piano became a magical place where I met God and God met me.

Something changed, though, in my later years of high school. It was the mid-70s, and I found myself hanging out with the wrong kind of people. I began to backslide. From childhood, I had known that Gods hand was on me and that He had a big calling for my life. I had received so many prophetic words as a young man telling me about the big plans God had for my life.

Looking back, as much as those words excited me, they also scared me. I wasnt just running from God, I was also running from who He called me to be. Slowly, that freedom I had known as a child was beginning to feel more like a burden I had to carry.

FREEDOM FADING

So I decided to stick with what I knew: music. I delved into it with a passion. The skills I had honed on a church piano were translated to a different scene. I started pursuing a career as a professional musician and kept myself busy playing in clubs, resorts, and restaurants. I sang and produced several commercial spots. I was a California Raisin! That was pretty coolgot a $20,000 paycheck for singing in the studio for twenty minutes. Easy money.

I was refining my musical skills, but I was also slowly sinking further into a pit of despair. I thought I was pursuing happiness. I thought I was climbing my way up to the big life. I got married young. Started gaining traction with my career. Cashed paychecks for doing what I loved and came natural to me. What more could I want from life, right?

The bubble burst when I was twenty-three years of age. I discovered my wife of two years was having an extramarital affair, and my life began to spin out of control. The downward spiral of darkness went from distress to depression to hopelessness to despondency.

What had happened to all that freedom I had experienced as a kid in that little church next door? Where was the joy? I couldnt even remember what that had once felt like, nonetheless try to find a way to recapture it. So I did the only thing I knew to do: just keep going one day at a time doing the music scene. More night clubs. More commercials. Did some spots for Nike, Toyota, and several other companies. Whatever paid the bills Id do. Did radio spots for the Morning Zoo. More singing. More gigs. More clubs. More nothingness.

I did whatever I could to fill the ache. I may not have been fully aware of it at the timein fact, Im sure I wasntbut there was also an ongoing rhythm singing the background template of my life. It was a symphony that I first began hearing as a child. It was the sound of the Spirit in that little Pentecostal church in my house. I couldnt escape it. Rather, God wouldnt let me escape Him.

BLACK-HOLE MOMENTS

The symphony continued, sometimes quietly, but eventually growing to a discordant static that I couldnt ignore. I was searching for something. Searching for a way out of the night music scene. Searching for an escape from the hopelessness. Searching for a way back home. Searching for God.

I kept thinking, Theres got to be more than this. More than brawls in nightclubs and meaningless paychecks with entangling strings attached. More than this black hole of nonexistence I find myself in. All Ive ever known is music, and I pursued it with every ounce of my being. But it left me here. Here in a tail spin into darkness so acute that I cant fathom a way out.

It can be in those timesthose black-hole moments when God seems so far awaywhen God actually has you right in the palm of His hand. Exactly where He wants you and perfectly in His care. He began dealing with my heart, though Im certain I wasnt cognizant of His activity at the time. He was placing people, situations, and settings in my path that began to shape my journey. He knew what I didntthat this divinely crafted path would lead me back to Him. It would lead me into the next dimension of His destiny for my life.

Destiny intersected my despair one day on a train while traveling with my new wife, Lisa. We were headed home to Portland, Oregon, from Los Angeles after I had completed a gig there. Our conversation turned to considering what we should do with our lives. The monotony was getting to her just as the hopelessness was swallowing me. We knew something had to give. We seemed to have finally come to that dead end in which forward is no longer an option, but any other direction is fraught with uncertainty.