Amy Grant Conversation - Urban Ventures: 25 Years

Amy thank you so much for being here we've had the pleasure of meeting listen to this I don't know you know when you meet someone who you've admired and who you know you've looked up to kind of all your life we've all grown up listening to our music and you think what's she gonna be like I have to tell you Dave said it too she's everything you'd want her to be somebody who's so kind and caring and we've only met for a short time thank you I sort of feel like we have had such an incredible night what party wants to go well let's go home just because the story is already told are incredible they're really incredible not so fast we're keeping Amy here the angelic voice that she has so listen to this tonight we're celebrating 25 years of course for urban ventures we've got another anniversary though 40 years Amy since your first album you've sold more than 30 million albums six Grammys 26 devil Ward's a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and still when we were chatting earlier this is what I find so fascinating you said if you're on a plane you're sitting next to somebody they don't recognize you and they just ask so what do you do for a living I find this fascinating right it's not like oh I've got a walk on the you know a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame what do you tell them Amy I'm a songwriter from Nashville and it's a songwriter from Nashville yeah you've been writing songs for so long Dave was saying when he was younger in Minneapolis he saw you with your guitar with your voice singing probably have a new guitars since then voice still angelic you're here in Minneapolis this is so special for all of us you've been all over the world can you share with us what what you love be honest about Minneapolis what what have you enjoyed what speaks to you as you're here well honestly when I think about Minneapolis I think about all of the amazing bike trails because have for many years traveled by tour bus it might sound glamorous but a tour bus we rent and there are sections of bunk beds inside and there were stacked three on top of each other in our bunks so twelve bucks down that middle hallway and I always in good weather carry my bike in the bay the bus and so no matter what it looks like you know you read that list of accomplishments and my first thought is oh she sounds like an overachiever I don't even think I like her and then I go oh it's me god that's doesn't even feel like my life but I think about the lovely bike trails in Minneapolis and also my amazing relationship with Target because years ago when I was seven months pregnant target came to me and said we would love for you to do a Christmas campaign and anyway I nobody wanted me to do anything at that point and I said can you film me like from here up and anyway so that was it was a campaign called love makes you real all built around the Velveteen Rabbit and that baby girl that I was carrying at the time is well she'll be 29 in December and yeah life just keeps going by so fast I it's it's a mystery to me a beautiful mystery you know Amy I think of some of you I don't know about you guys but I think of some of my favorite songs of yours takes a little time that's what love is for baby baby this morning my husband might have heard me sing and some of them not as good as you of course but I'm wondering as you think of yourself you know as a songwriter and you've given so much to other people as you travel you meet so many different people who has really touched you if you can describe a time maybe we listed all these accomplishments so it might sound like Oh everything's just kind of easy everything is going great for a me what kind of trials have you faced and who as you've traveled around and been singing these songs of inspiration who affected you and how how did it keep you moving forward these questions about the way are coming at and I'm hearing him as you're hearing him so my brains going we decided we were just gonna have a conversation yeah a couple things couple thoughts came to mind I have a cousin who is turning 80 soon and she was a career school teacher in the public school system in Nashville but four sections of her young life younger life she lived with my mom and dad and I was a chronic bed wetter so as a four or five six year old I would wet my bed and then go to Glenda's bed and I remember her reading poetry to me in the night and when you talk about wedding a child's appetite for something and just words and rhythm so I mean bedwetting is you know a lot of people have that hardship but but I but she has been an influencer for me both my parents have passed away and I still call my cousin and her faith is such a bright light and I remember you know when she was when I was to the age that I was falling in love and I would say it just makes me so mad that you don't have an or sad that you never found the right person and she would always say now I had a couple of people ask me but you know there are a lot worse things than being alone and she said to be with the wrong person would be even harder and I don't I don't know just somebody honestly talking about life and I mean life is messy people are messy the second person that was a was quite an influence on me was my great-aunt it was my grandmother's a youngest sister she was 17 younger than my grandmother so I just called her my Aunt Jean and she was widowed after six weeks to their first husband he was in a plane crash doing maneuvers for the military over the desert and and went on to marry and had my cousin and her brother anyway her life part of her rebounding was just struggling to find her footing she was so funny a great athlete but she struggled with substance abuse and really ran from the faith of her family and going to church or anything like that well the first time I ever went to California with my guitar my great aunt was there and I played at Hollywood High School I can't believe anybody showed up I think I was 17 I was thinking too much I'll have something better to do but she wrote me a letter and she said things about the way that I communicated the love of God made her put her defenses down and I was just being honest about my own life my own doubts my own journey of faith but it mattered so much to me that this family member was vulnerable with me about her owns you know her life and her life struggle so anyway you share I love that Amy you share you talked about that vulnerability and I don't know if you guys know this but we were talking I hope it's okay that I share but you do this fantastic work every summer this will be the fifth summer on her farm in Nashville and you talked about that sort of cycle that cyclical connection of the giving and the taking I'm wondering and that we can all grow together being here tonight for urban ventures hundreds of people could ask you to come join them on any given day of a year as you think of those connections that given the take how did that in your own work that you do any Vince Gill fans by the way her husband Vince Gill musician they do a lot of philanthropic work together yep we hear it back there that belief and that given the take and that that's cyclical connection how does that bring you to urban ventures how has that connection brought you here tonight we years ago when I was traveling around the world and experiencing probably the height of my music success I was also the mother of two young children and it went on to be three but I remember being so overwhelmed and standing at the coffee pot one day and sang to my mother-in-law I am so tired I don't think I've even prayer to pray to succinct prayer I'm exhausted and anyway she said Oh Amy it just takes one good prayer well I grew up Church of Christ which is sort of heavily guilt Laden and you have to sort of do everything right and I just the thought of one good prayer being enough I went please tell me that prayer and uh and she said just everyday pray this prayer Lord lead me today to those I need and to those that need me and let something I do matter that's something I do have eternal significance and she said and you're never gonna know what that is but just pray that prayer and so when I'm asked to come sing I you know I needed to hear those stories tonight I needed to hear the adventure of Matt and Kim I needed to hear a couple that had never had kids saying yes we will be parents to a teenager that's brave that's brave and and you know it's funny because I got about four years ago we were taking my it was exactly four years ago we were taking my father for a drive my dad sort of in the wake of my mom's death his dementia I think he just missed her so bad he just let go of reality but we would take him driving on Sundays and my couple of my sisters and another kind of extended family friend we were driving and back when tickets and records were selling great I had purchased a farm it was not glamorous it was very rough honestly a big power line right through the middle of it but I sometimes I wouldn't a year would go by and I wouldn't go out there but I just felt like this farm was it felt like a pot on the back burner that had something cooking that had gotten shoved to the front burner and the heat had gun turned up and I just was going I can't figure out what this is happening at the farm what is this I feel like it's for a greater purpose than for me just to go camp twice a year and wait for the investment to mature I didn't know anyway so I went driving with my dad in the front seat and three women who I loved in the back seat it had been a long time since my dad had its head said my name you know when he talked it just sounded like tossed salad of words he was obsessed with the seat belt and that's all he did was play with the seat belt for two hours we drove around that farm and one of my sisters said just start dreaming out loud and I thought about what Raven said about asking those kids what their dreams are and I and I started dreaming out loud in the company of people I know and trust and it became so emotional and we're like riding through fields it's not a huge farm we just kept circling the same fields going into the woods where we could but just circling going up and down the long driveway and I said I'd I want to grow experiencing community with people that love the land and want to share it because you don't have to explain God in nature he's so evident and I want to I just want this place to be like my five loaves and two fish there's so much need in the world but when that kid was in a crowd of 5,000 and Jesus's followers said hey everybody's hungry he was just young enough to not look at the odds he was just young enough to not realize how insignificant his individual gift was and he just walked up and took it upfront and that gift in the hands of Jesus was enough for everybody and that day driving around I just kept going please let this be my gift to you that you gave me and so I started going what if we could like develop community gardens what if we could have programming for children what if we what if we could have bees out here what if people that we're down-and-out could come and stay here for a while and I'm not zoned for anything economical out there I'm not sewn to have a business out there but I just kept dreaming dreaming tears streaming down my face and as I'm standing here or sitting here we got back to the hilltop where Vince and I got married where my mom's ashes were buried and one of the women said I think we should just get out stand around in the car and pray that you stay out of the way and I said that's a great idea and we gathered up and my nod sister put her hand through the open window where my dad is still in the front passenger seat still messing with the seat belt and she put her hand right on his chest and said doc I miss my daddy so much I just while we pray I want to have my hand on the dad's chest and my father turned and looked out the window and said to the circle of women there this is all gonna happen and we relied whoa and then he said one more thing he said and there's gonna be great celebration and the next thing he said was total nonsense and the week after that Tommy Rhodes who had founded this camp for kids told me about his camp that he does on Church parking lots and I said why don't you use a farm and he said we don't have access to a farm and you know we were talking about what we want people to feel leaving here tonight and my hope for myself every day is to say how would life be different not just for me but for the people I love and then continuing ripples what if I really took up the space I was intended to take in the universe not what people think not the list you read but the soul space and you know and I started trying to picture myself like going you know what if what if we each took up the space the story that we were intended to take up and i'ma tell you music has been exciting but I believe the most exciting part of life as a head you know it's like Ravens journey I didn't have all the I didn't have so much hardship or or Eubank UBA UBA how much of a new babe I didn't have that hardship but we we're all meant to live an adventure you were saying we're all meant to live that adventure and you were saying for all of us here tonight to even challenge ourselves to sort of think outside of what we would normally think that adventure might be just dream out now mm-hmm yeah I love it Amy Grant saying lead me to people who I need and who also need me that connection you also meant you mentioned to celebrate celebrate life and that's what we're about to do we're going to celebrate we're going to hear the angelic voice of Amy Grant

Channel: Urban Ventures

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Id: xnwOjPL2H5Y

Length: 17min 26sec (1046 seconds)

Published: Wed Dec 05 2018