Aaron Crider is a worship leader and social justice advocate. His is working with several non-profits to help raise awareness about child soldiers and issues surrounding human trafficking.
His new album, The Change, looks deeply at these issues as well his own personal struggles. Aaron and his wife have lost 3 babies and have a great testimony of faith in great sorrow.
Join me for an interview that will encourage your heart!
I’m not going to spend a lot of time waxing poetic at this point about the past 200 shows, but I would like to express my thanks to those of you who are a part of the Lifespring! family. You’re awesome.
And I want to thank God for calling me to this labor of love all the way back in October of 2004. November 13, 2004 was the first episode, and in that time I’ve had the privilege to have gotten to know many of you via email and various social media sites, some I’ve met in person, and some I’ve talked to via telephone.
Thank you all for your friendship and prayers.
I thank God. Not just for giving me this show, but for how He has brought my family and I through so much over these past nearly six years now since the show began. Some really great times, and some not so great. But through it all, He as been our rock.
Praise God from whom all blessings flow.
Free Flying Lesson
Listen to the show for my conversation with Bryan Duncan in which we discuss a recent event involving a motorcycle, Shuggs, and a free flying lesson. Oh, and Hogwash!
(Left to right: Kevin Thomson, Randy Thomas, Bryan Duncan, Rick Thomson)
Take a saint, and put him into any condition, and he knows how to rejoice in the Lord. —Walter Cradock
Today is the funeral of Kevin Thomson. I never met Kevin face to face, but my life has been greatly impacted by him. One of my most treasured friends is in my life, in large measure, because of Kevin. Without Kevin’s boldness in asking a talented but virtually unknown college student to sing in his band, I would most likely not know Bryan Duncan today.
Kevin was the founder of the ground breaking Sweet Comfort Band. He was the bass player, and up until about four years ago, was as strong as a bull.
Four years ago, Kevin became a quadriplegic. With little warning, his reliance on his own strength was stripped away. In the blink of an eye.
What happened? An auto accident? No. A diving accident? No. What was it?
He just…collapsed. He was on a vacation with his wife, and as he was about to put their suitcases in the car one morning he put the key in the trunk lock and then just…collapsed. He never moved again under his own power.
Now, I don’t know about you, but I would be having some really big questions for God if this happened to me. Like “WHY???” “Doesn’t the fact that I played bass for You in front of millions mean anything?” “How about all those people I preached to, telling of Your love? Doesn’t that count for something?” “Why don’t you heal me?”
But in a conversation I had with Kevin’s brother, Rick Thomson, he didn’t do that. He took the loss of the use of his arms and legs in stride. He didn’t have anger, resentment, feelings of self-pity…none of that. As a matter of fact, the doctors thought there must be something wrong with him. They kept waiting for the shoe to drop. They figured he would go through the stages of grief that is expected and normal for “victims” of such loss.
It never happened. In the four years from this loss, to his passing on May 30, 2010, the shoe never did drop.
Why?
Because his faith was not in his own strength. His faith…his trust…was in Jesus. He knew that his life was not his, but God’s, and whatever God intended to do with or through or for or to him, He had the right. And Kevin was fine with that. Completely at peace with that.
I’m not sure I have that level of faith. I hope that if God were to test me with something this big my response would measure up, but wow, I just don’t know.
The world is just a little bit poorer, and Heaven just a bit richer, with the passing of Kevin Thomson this past Sunday, May 30, 2010.
Who was Kevin Thomson, you ask? He’s the guy playing the bass on the music you’ll be hearing on the show today. He’s one of the founders of the Sweet Comfort Band. He was, according to all accounts, one of the most solid believers you would ever want to meet.
If you’re not familiar with the Sweet Comfort Band, or SCB as they were sometimes called, let me give you a very brief synopsis of their history. SCB was formed in 1972, and played their first gig right here in Riverside, I believe the venue was what was then called Calvary Chapel of Riverside, now known as Harvest Fellowship, with Greg Laurie being the Pastor then and now. This was during the Jesus Movement, and they brought a new style of Christian music…a sort of mixture of rock, jazz and funk that had never been heard in this context. The Jesus music, up to this point, was sort of a folk rock or soft rock, with the likes of Love Song, Children of the Day, Mustard Seed Faith and others. SCB’s tight instrumentation and energy set them apart. By the time they played their last concert, also here in Riverside, 1984, they had sold millions of albums, and Contemporary Christian Music had been forever changed.
If you’ve been a listener for a while to the Lifesping shows, you know that one of my good friends is Bryan Duncan, who was one of the lead vocalists with Sweet Comfort. It was from Bryan that I learned of Kevin’s passing. I thought it would be good to hear from him his memories of Kevin, so I asked him to come into the studio. Then I thought how cool it would be if he would call the other Sweet Comfort Band members, drummer Rick Thomson (Kevin’s brother), and guitar player and vocalist Randy Thomas, to see if we might be able to do a conference call and get their input as well. It was short notice, and Randy couldn’t join us on the phone from Nashville, but Rick, who I just learned lives right here in Riverside, was able to come into the studio.
