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January 13, 2025 • 13 mins

Christian recording artist Mac Powell grew up in a small country church where he heard the gospel and even made a commitment to follow Jesus. But it took a crisis of faith as a young adult for his eyes to be fully opened to what it really meant to walk with Him.

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Mac Powell, originally from Alabama, moved to Atlanta, GA as a sophomore in high school where he would soon co-found the Christian rock band Third Day. Throughout their nearly three-decade career, the band sold over 10 million albums, earned four Grammy Awards, one American Music Award, 24 Dove Awards, and was inducted into the Georgia Music Hall of Fame. Since Third Day’s farewell tour in 2018, Mac released his debut solo Christian album “New Creation” on October 15th, 2021 which landed at NO. 1 on the Top Christian & Gospel album chart. River of Life, the debut single from “New Creation” became a Top 10 hit at Christian radio followed by the multi-week title track, New Creation, which spent 7 weeks at NO. 2 and 19 weeks inside the top 10. Mac’s second solo Christian album “I Love Jesus” released on October 25th, 2024. Mac lives in Atlanta, GA with his wife Aimee and children. Click here for upcoming tour dates.

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Episode Transcript

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S1 (00:00):
Welcome to the Snapshot Testimony podcast. I'm your host, Ali Dobersen.
In this podcast, I asked my guests to share one
pivotal moment that helped shape their faith in Christ. In
this episode, you'll meet longtime Christian recording artist Mac Powell.
He's the co-founder of the Grammy Award winning band Third Day,
and he just released his second solo album. Mac made

(00:21):
a decision to follow Jesus as a young boy in
a small country church in Alabama, but it took a
crisis of faith as a young adult for his eyes
to be fully opened to what it meant to walk
with Jesus. He's never been the same. Here's a snapshot
testimony from Mac Powell.

S2 (00:44):
I had grown up in church, in a little town
in Alabama, and went to a real small Baptist church,
the kind of church that was, you know, if it's
on Christmas and Easter, it's packed out at 100 people.
And I grew up singing in church, singing solos ever
since I was 8 or 9 years old singing choir. Um,
and there was a Sunday where I made a confession
of faith. I came with the gospel message was presented.

(01:06):
I came forward, said, I want to, I want Jesus
in my heart was baptized the next week. And I
really do believe that the Lord saved me then, because
I believed that truth. And I believe that his grace
is so much, you know, stronger and better and greater
than even my realization of that truth. But I went
through middle school and high school just kind of doing

(01:28):
my own thing. I never really grew in my faith.
And about a month before I graduated high school, I
was just really lost and, um, was afraid of life.
I was afraid of what was going to happen because
we didn't really. I wasn't a great student. We didn't
really have money for me to go to college anyway.
My dad was in the military. I knew I wasn't

(01:49):
cut out for that, uh, so I just was scared
to death. I didn't know what I was going to do.
So I started praying and saying, Lord, I know you know.
and I'd go through go to summer camp, you know,
and get saved again and all those things. But yeah,
but I just there was something about this time I
sat down at the end of my bed, and someone
at church had said, you should read the book of Romans.

(02:12):
And I didn't even really know where Romans was. So
I look in the index at the beginning. Oh, that's
in the New Testament. Okay, cool. And I'm sure I
had read some verses in Sunday school or whatever in
Romans before, but this was the first time sitting down
and really studying it. And I sat down and started
reading the book of Romans, and God's Holy Spirit just
fell on me and just really kind of opened up

(02:33):
my eyes, my spiritual eyes, to the life I was living,
and reminding me of that promise that I had made
as a child to follow him and that I wasn't,
you know, keeping with that promise, even though I believe
he was keeping his side of the bargain. So right
then and there, I just surrendered to the Lord and said, Lord,
from now on I want you and whatever that means

(02:55):
that's what I want.

S1 (02:57):
Yeah. No, I love I love these stories because, you know,
it's so often, you know, when we try to share
our testimony. And I have one of those kind of
complicated sort of testimonies, too. It's like, what do you
what do you make of those years where you, you
knew the Lord, but man, you you weren't there wasn't

(03:18):
like this full realization of what that meant. When you
describe it, do you find it difficult to put into
words kind of what that season of life was for you?

S2 (03:27):
No, not really, because I think so many people can
relate to that scripture. Jesus in John 1010, I believe
it is. Jesus said, I've come to this world to
give you life and to give it to you abundantly.
So how I kind of describe what I was living
was I was living life, and I really do believe.
And whether I was or not, it really doesn't matter now.

(03:49):
But I do believe I was saved because I believed
that gospel truth. I never really, you know, lost that
I always believed. But I was missing out on the
abundant life that Jesus had for me. He has more
for us than just Sunday morning and more than just
maybe a, you know, a Wednesday night Bible study. Uh,
he has everything for us. And I like so many,

(04:13):
I would say, sadly, probably the majority of Christians was
missing out on the abundant life of more of what
Jesus had for me because I was holding on to
things of the world, holding on to things that I
thought were going to make me happy, and soon realized, um,
you know, that that was wrong. And I think to
some extent, that's always a challenge that believers have. Even

(04:36):
when you come to that realization of still fighting the
things of the world and surrendering to what Jesus would
have for us.

S1 (04:47):
Yeah. Now, thinking back to those younger years, one thing
we I co-host a morning show here in Chicago for
Moody Radio, and one thing we talk a lot about is, um,
you know, the illusion of transformation and sometimes how the
for many people, the, the complicated like, did I get
saved when I was eight? Did I get saved later on?

(05:08):
What do you think we need to do in the church?
Like is there something different that we need to be
doing in the church to help people in? Is it
is it a discipleship issue? Is it a, you know,
kind of shaking free from cultural Christianity versus biblical Christianity?
I mean, do you do you have a thought on that?

S2 (05:26):
I think it's all of the above. Now, that being said,
it's kind of hard to point fingers at the church
because there are many, many, many amazing churches that are
great at discipleship. And I don't even, you know, I
really don't point fingers when I say I wasn't discipled.
So I remained a baby Christian for a long time.
It's a it's a two way street. So I had

(05:47):
a lot of responsibility myself and didn't. But I was young,
you know, I kind of I forgive myself for that.
I kind of let go my parents, uh, it was
more of a cultural Christianity, I think. My dad didn't
go to church with us. My mom did. But I
think it was a little bit of a even though
she's a believer, it was more of a, okay, this
is what we do. We live in the South and

(06:07):
we never killed anybody. So we're going to church. And uh,
I think, yes, you were correct. Uh, kind of trying
to get away from the just the cultural side of Christianity.
And as a church growing in I mean, discipleship is
just I mean, it's we have the example in the
scriptures I'm reading acts right now again, after I just

(06:27):
read John. And it's just part of what the Lord
has set up its relationship. I mean, from the very
beginning within the Triune God, there is a relationship between
the Holy Spirit, the father and the son. And that's
that's really set up for us as believers. You know,
each one of us, um, if you're a believer, each

(06:48):
one should be pouring into someone else's life and also
receiving from someone else, learning from someone else. And I
don't even. I mean, ideally it's someone older than you,
but it doesn't always have to be that way.

S1 (07:01):
So what changed for you from that point on? You know,
coming out of high school and trying to figure out
that next step, did you get clarity, uh, along with
this kind of newfound revelation of man, I'm not living
for for God, like I said I would. Did clarity
come with that?

S2 (07:16):
Yeah, absolutely. And that's what the Holy Spirit brings, is
that clarity and that conviction and that really direction. That's
what I was praying for. That's what I needed was
direction and help. And that's what, you know, the Holy
Spirit is a comforter and a counselor. And so that's what, uh,
the Holy Spirit brought to me and continues to. One

(07:38):
thing that I've really learned, um, in the past couple
of years, probably more than that, but it's really something
I've focused on in the last couple of years is
that there are three things that we as believers have
to have daily in our life. I call it my
three witnesses or my three medicines. I have to take
this medicine daily to grow in my faith and to

(08:00):
be a believer. One of those is the Word of God.
I have to read God's Word daily. Now, not to
a sense of where, you know, I'm lashing myself if
I miss a day or whatever, but it's something we
have to to make a habit of getting in God's Word.
The second is to spend time with other believers. Um,
to spend time, um, encouraging one another, sharing our burdens

(08:24):
with one another, our struggles, um, you know, having discipleship,
whether we're giving and both giving and receiving in that discipleship.
And then the third thing is prayer. Just seeking God
through prayer, receiving his Holy Spirit through prayer. And I
read this verse, um, about two years ago as I'd
been living with this idea for a while, it was

(08:46):
in acts chapter two, verse 42, And Jesus had just
ascended into heaven. He sent the Holy Spirit. And what
does it say the church did? It said they devoted themselves.
They gathered together. They devoted themselves to the teaching of
the apostles, which is the Word of God, to the
fellowship and the breaking of bread. Spending time together. And
the third was to prayer. They devoted themselves to prayer.

(09:07):
And I was like, that's it. That's the that's my
I don't want to say that's my life verse, because
I've got several, but it's one of my life verses
because that really that verse was kind of the scriptural
backup to this idea of those three medicines that I
needed daily. And if it's good enough for the early church,
it's good enough for us right now.

S1 (09:25):
What direction do you remember specifically, what direction you got
from there as far as, um, like what what do
I do with my life? Like, I'm now finishing closing
this chapter of kind of what's expected. And now so
much is open before me. What? Where did the Lord
lead you from there? Was it directly into music.

S2 (09:43):
Yeah, I was already in music. I had I grew
up in church, singing. Singing in choirs. Singing solos at church.
I was in marching band. And I always, my whole life, uh,
both my parents played guitar and sang. It was nothing professional,
but I was always around it and I always wanted
to be in a band. I loved rock bands, and
I finally was in one my senior year, and I
was in with a guy that was in marching band

(10:05):
with me named Mark Lee. And so I'm in this band,
we're starting to play some birthday parties and things like that,
and we just thought we're the next big thing. Even
though we were terrible, our name was Nuclear Hoedown. We
were terrible, but we just had this dream. We thought
we were the best, you know? We thought we were good.
We at least we had this these what we what
we thought could be in the future.

S1 (10:26):
Where in the world do you get a name like that?
I can't not ask.

S2 (10:30):
That was Mark Lee. He came up with that name.
I came up with Third Day, so I won.

S3 (10:34):
There you go. You're stuck. Yeah. So. But, uh.

S2 (10:39):
I was in that band, and that's when the Lord
is right after that. When the when that story I
told you of sitting on the edge of my bed
and reading Romans and the Lord said, hey! And not instantly.
But it was a few days later, the Lord said,
I want you to quit the band. And I just
was like, what? I always wanted to be in a
band and I'm finally in one. And now you're asking

(11:00):
me to stop? Lord, why are you taking this dream
from me? And he reminded me, he said, you said
you would surrender everything. And I said, you're right, I did.
And so I went to Mark and I said, hey, Mark,
I'm quitting the band. Uh, he's like, why? And I said, well,
I'm singing songs about things I don't need to be
singing about. I'm hanging out in places I don't need
to be hanging out. I'm giving my life completely to Jesus.

(11:22):
I'm surrendering to him. And I feel like he's asking
me to quit the band. So I'm going to do that.
And it was a hard thing to do to let
go of that. As silly as it sounds, this, you know,
silly rock band I was in, in high school, it
was hard because this was a dream I had and
it felt like, okay, now the dream is starting to.
We're starting to take a few steps into that dream.

(11:43):
And when I let go of it, um, you know,
I just felt it was right. And Mark said, well,
why don't we start a Christian band? And I said, cool.
What's that? I had no idea. I'd never listened to
Christian music, didn't know anything about it. And then all
of a sudden we started just writing songs about our faith.
I started listening to Christian music. I just couldn't believe it.
It was like a whole new world was opened to me.

(12:05):
I couldn't believe that people made modern sounding music. It
wasn't like just hymns with a piano. It was like
a full rock band could make music and sing about Jesus.
And so I just kind of dove, you know, deep
into that, that well of, of faith and and hope
and encouragement and, uh, the Lord allowed me and the

(12:27):
rest of the guys to, uh, to be able to,
to be part of something that encouraged us in our
faith to be able to share that with other people.

S1 (12:34):
Yeah. You feel like you're living the dream still. Now,
all these years you've been doing this is now, what,
three plus decades?

S2 (12:42):
Yeah, absolutely. Still living the dream. I mean, I, I do.
I am more tired now than I ever have been
because I'm traveling a lot more, but, um. But, yeah,
it's I'm still living the dream. I'm a little spoiled
because I get to do what I love to do
for a living and supporting my family and sharing my
faith through my music. And I get an opportunity every

(13:04):
night to be on stage and do that and play music,
do something I love. But at the same time, I
get a free ticket to a great show every night. So, uh,
so I am a little spoiled and very, very thankful.

S1 (13:16):
Thanks so much for joining me for this week's Snapshot
Testimony podcast. If you enjoyed the episode, would you take
a minute to leave a review? Your feedback really helps
these stories reach more ears. Plus, I like hearing from you.
I'm your host, Ali Hassan, and together we're sharing the
moments that shape a life of faith in Christ.

UU (13:34):
Thanks for listening.
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