Video
Audio
Show Notes
Discussing Brian Free & Assurance’s signature song “For God So Loved” with its writers, Terry & Barbi Franklin.
For God So Loved
Brian Free and Assurance version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=36U6K5NZBHY
Brian Free and Assurance (Live in New York City version): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CU_Orkv-lXs
Terry & Barbi Franklin version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j6jksBj1mSc
Lyrics: https://www.invubu.com/music/show/song/Brian-Free-%2526-Assurance/For-God-So-Loved.html
Terry & Barbi Franklin
https://www.lovesings.com/
https://www.instagram.com/lovesingsmin/
https://www.facebook.com/LoveSingsMin
Transcript
Lightly edited for clarity.
Daniel J. Mount:
Welcome to the Expository Songs podcast. We discuss songs where the main idea of a passage of Scripture is the main idea of the song. Today we’re discussing the song “For God So Loved” from John 3:16, written by our guests today, Terry and Barbi Franklin. Welcome!
Terry & Barbi Franklin:
(Terry) Hey there! Good to be with you today.
(Barbi) So good to be back here with you.
Daniel J. Mount:
Thank you! I’m thrilled to talk with you about this song. I’ve loved it for twenty years, and it’s really cool to get to talk to you about a song that I’ve loved for this long. Now, for those of you listening who have never heard the song “For God So Loved,” pause this podcast, go listen to the song, come back for the conversation. You’ll appreciate the conversation more that way.
Terry & Barbi Franklin:
(Terry) That’s it.
Daniel J. Mount:
The song is linked in the show notes. So before we dive into really talking about the song “For God So Loved,” I’d like to start by asking about your background. Some listeners of this podcast will be pretty familiar with it, and some will have probably never heard of you or heard of the song. So we got that mixture here.
But I actually first came across what you do as a homeschool kid. My family subscribed to Home School Digest and Brush Arbor Quarterly,
Terry & Barbi Franklin:
Yes.
Daniel J. Mount:
and I saw your articles there before I had heard anything you did musically. Then as a teen, I discovered Southern Gospel and came to love this song. But then, for the sake of listeners who aren’t that familiar with your background, could we just take the first couple minutes, as brief or extended as you like, and if you could both share about how you came to know the Lord, and then also about your background as singers and songwriters and how you came to sing together?
Terry & Barbi Franklin:
(Terry) Well, Barbi and I are a study in contrast when it comes to background. I grew up in a family that wasn’t a Christian church-going family at all. I came to know the Lord because my mom actually would take me to church and she would come to Sunday school, but then she’d go home and I’d be in church. And then after a while, the church band would come around and pick me up and. Anyway, I came to know the Lord when I was nine years of age and changed my life. I mean, revolutionized everything. And I started to listen to any kind of Gospel music. And at that time, the contemporary music of the day was mostly Southern Gospel. And I loved it. I grew up in Miami Beach, Florida. And that Southern Gospel was not real big down there. It was something that no one I knew listened to this, but I would scour the radio dial trying to find any Southern Gospel I could.
(Barbi) But you loved harmony because your dad was in barbershop. He was a champion barbershop singer.
(Terry) Yeah, so I grew up around harmony, and that’s helped me. And Barbi’s family was, boy, everybody was a minister, a missionary.
(Barbi) Way back to the 1800s we have ministers
Daniel J. Mount:
Wow!
Terry & Barbi Franklin:
and, in fact, four generations back. We traveled together as a musical family.
(Terry) The Murk Family Musicale. The Murk Family did stuff all over the world.
(Barbi) And there were five of us kids, and so we were often singing five-part, six-part, even seven-part harmony.
Daniel J. Mount:
Wow.
Terry & Barbi Franklin:
And loved harmony groups. And so you can imagine when Terry and I met at Moody Bible Institute—in Chicago—we both, loving music and harmonies just fell in love with that aspect of each other. And I had sung with my family and Terry had sung with some Southern Gospel quartets by that time. And so we just, you know, we would spend a lot of time, first of all, in prayer. Those were our date nights, we’re in the chapel or
Daniel J. Mount:
That’s a good foundation.
Terry & Barbi Franklin:
talking. And we would start with prayer and end with prayer. That was just a desire of both of us. Somebody’s out there just saying that. I know that sounds really spiritual,
Daniel J. Mount:
That’s wonderful.
Terry & Barbi Franklin:
but it was like we really wanted revival in America. We saw just the same kinds of things.
But we would sit down at the piano wherever we were, wherever we found a place, and I played violin, we would just sit down and sing together in harmony. And… So people started inviting us to sing together places before we even got engaged.
(Terry) And we just, God just blessed our schedule. We started traveling, you know, way back. This is a long time ago. And it was amazing.
(Barbi) And after a lot of arguments on the way to meetings, we would end up having a lot to say about. marriage because God taught us a lot of lessons about how to minister together and work together.
(Terry) He did. It’s been an amazing thing. We were just traveling in churches, kind of singer-songwriters, and it’s morphed into other things. We do marriage seminars. American Family Association produced one for us a couple of years back, a six-part video series that we do on marriage that we teach. and it has music all in it and all of that. And we lead worship for a lot of things. We do revival meetings. We do all kinds of things. So we’ll tell you more about later what we’re doing.
But we were glad to be able to write “For God So Loved,” yay.
Daniel J. Mount:
Yeah, and I’ll do one little follow-up part of that is were either of you songwriting as children or teens or did that really only start to come become part of your lives once you started writing together?
Terry & Barbi Franklin:
(Barbi) Well, for me, I think it was about 12 years of age that I began to just get songs and I would write them down and my parents were very encouraging. And I think, you know, they thought I was an amazing songwriter so they even wrote up sheet music. Nobody ever heard those songs since. But you know, they were definitely an encouragement to me. to help me and then when Terry and I would get, you know, together and sing, it just kind of came naturally. We would just put things down together.
(Terry) And I wrote one song in the back of a tour bus with a quartet that I was with, with a guy named Tank Tackett, who was a tenor singer for years in various groups, Jerry and the Singing Goffs, he was with anyway. And it was actually charted on Singing News. “Some Things Never Change, Jesus is always the same.”
Daniel J. Mount:
I’ve heard that! I’ve heard that song!
Terry & Barbi Franklin:
Not a very good song to be honest. But it was a start.
Daniel J. Mount:
That’s very interesting. And to your point, Barbi, of what your parents did in encouraging you, I think that is a valuable lesson for parents of children who are just starting to explore things. You probably know they’re not going to be as good as Dianne Wilkinson on day one.
Terry & Barbi Franklin:
Mm-hmm, right.
Daniel J. Mount:
That happens to almost nobody. But if parents can see the good and not flatter or say something that’s not true, but find something that’s good and encouraging that can make such a difference in a child choosing to keep pursuing something.
Terry & Barbi Franklin:
(Barbi) Absolutely. And I think that was definitely the case in my family because we all, all of my siblings ended up in ministry and doing things with music. And we had sung together for 20 years before we each kind of ended up getting married and some of us married musical people. Most of us ended up in music in some professional way later.
(Terry) I can’t emphasize how the Mark Family was, perhaps not a whole lot of your listeners on this remember that name, but boy you talk about a really successful group. They were in the largest churches in the country, had two planes that they traveled in, and a tour bus. They were, it was something. I mean it was an amazing thing and God blessed them.
Her mom and dad were godly people. You know, I knew these folks. And her dad became one of my best friends. He wasn’t my best friend when we got married because I kind of helped break the group up.
(Barbi) He stole me out of the group.
(Terry) I did, I did. But we became, before he and your mom passed, they were just great, great friends and they’re with the Lord today. So they’re singing up there.
Daniel J. Mount:
That’s wonderful. So moving on to “For God So Loved.” This song is of course centered around John 3.16
Terry & Barbi Franklin:
Right.
Daniel J. Mount:
But it starts in the Garden of Eden or really maybe just outside the Garden of Eden. So do either of you recall if your starting point for this song was, we’re going to write a John 3:16 song, and then you worked backwards from there to set the first verse in Eden? Or do you know if you started in Eden, and then as you made your way into the chorus, you’re like, this is a John 3:16 chorus?
Terry & Barbi Franklin:
(Terry) Well, okay, this to begin with, Barbi and I usually like writing songs. One of us is like primary writer on it.
Daniel J. Mount:
Mm-hmm.
Terry & Barbi Franklin:
For instance, our biggest song, probably a song called “Out of His Great Love” that the Martins
did, number one song.
Daniel J. Mount:
I likevthat song, too.
Terry & Barbi Franklin:
Basically, Barbi wrote that song. It’s completely her song. I may have added a word here and there. I only added one primary thing.
(Barbi) The most important thing!
(Terry) No it’s not, not the most important. She wrote the song as a choral print song. Out of his great love he picked me up. It was that. And I said, you know what, that kind of beat could go “Out of his great love he picked me up, set my feet.” Okay, that’s better.
(Barbi) I had the northern beat, you know, the beat was on the one and the three and Terry’s like, oh no, it needs a back beat.
(Terry) And that little thing I did on the demo with that, picked me up, the Martins emphaized that. It became kind of a hook. So anyway, but she wrote that song.
This one: I remember I wrote I got the chorus in a church It was as simple as you know what we need a John 3:16 song.
(Barbi) Okay, I think we just felt and we were talking a lot about it. We wanted the gospel message and we really wanted to be true to the Scripture, right? And people know that, I mean, I think even in many translations of the Bible, they still go back to, because it was such a well-known verse, they still go back to, “for God so loved the world,” instead of, you know, translating it maybe the way we would say that phrase.
(Terry) Once I sort of got the chorus, I felt that, okay, it’s gonna be this sweeping epic kind of, you know, like Stephen’s. sermon kind of before the Sanhedrin in Acts 6. That kind of, we went through the whole thing. Well, this is, this kind of goes back to the beginning, okay? It’s there in the beginning and that’s just kind of how, you know, it went back to the very beginning where, you know, it’s creation, they were there, they had communion with God, but now they’re banished. The first line is they’re banished. We’re at that point, we’re at, what is it? Genesis 3,
Daniel J. Mount:
Yes.
Terry & Barbi Franklin:
24, whatever it is. Okay, there’s the cherubim, there’s a flaming sword, they cannot come back.
Daniel J. Mount:
Yes.
Terry & Barbi Franklin:
They can’t go back. So now there’s that hopeless, now but it wasn’t hopeless because “His compassion wrote the pages unfolding through the ages, of a love love that remains the greatest ever known.” It was his love, his compassion for us. I mean the whole Bible basically Daniel, it’s a story. It’s the story of redemption and reconciliation that we can be reconciled with the Father through the blood that was shed on the cross through what He did for us. And I hope people get that because that’s the love of God for us and what He did. He sent His son to do this. That’s the amazing thing that was I mean, it was at the price of His own son. And in the second verse, and I will say, I think, Barbi, I think you wrote a lot of the second verse. I think you did. That’s what I recall.
(Barbi) Yeah, I think we collaborated after. We collaborate on everything. Well, what we usually do is one of us gets the, gets
Daniel J. Mount:
That initial burst of inspiration?
Terry & Barbi Franklin:
The Beatles did that, John Lennon, Paul McCartney. And then we go to each other and we either say, nah. You know, that’s not a good song. Or we encourage it or help with it. And it used to be that we were more possessive with our songs. Well, this is mine, you know. I need to write. But we realized the song is so much better. Oh, yeah. So as the years went by, we were much more open to help. And you know, or suggestions. And we learned a lot from different songwriters that started helping us. In fact, we do workshops now with helping worship leaders, not only in Biblical, spiritual ways, training them in worship, but also helping them in songwriting.
Like I remember Niles Borop taking our song, No Wonder. And he said,
Daniel J. Mount:
No Wonder They Call Him the Savior?
Terry & Barbi Franklin:
Yes. And he said, “The chorus is twice as long. You need to cut that in half.” And we did. It was way too long. I remember just, you know, when we, I was writing out the chorus and he was like…
(Terry) So that was his contribution.
(Barbi) That was a big contribution, but he actually helped us write. Oh, absolutely. He helped us write the lyrics a little bit. So we learned a lot from other songwriters and started realizing what was going to be a typically better song than not.
But it really is just, I think, when something comes from the heart and comes from the spirit, a lot of times, Terry and I get our songs from inspiration. Maybe me more than you because I’ll wake up in the night and it’s just like…
(Terry) You’re what I wish I could be. She’ll wake up and she’s weeping, she’s got her Bible open, and she’s writing lyrics out. And for me, it’s almost like unspiritual. It’s like if there’s a deadline, if there’s, okay, this person wanted this type of song.
(Barbi) Like with “Calvary Came Through,” they said, we need a song by tomorrow. And so he started writing it because of a book he’d been reading. And then, We were getting ready for a performance that night.
(Terry) In Louisville, Kentucky. Southeast Christian Church.
(Barbi) We were doing the music for a Christmas pageant. And we were doing “No Wonder,” but the Christmas version of “No Wonder.” Yeah, we rewrote it.
But I remember I was in the shower, taking a shower, and I started getting the lyric to the verse, and I go, Terry, get a pen and paper, you gotta write this down, it’s coming. So, you know, it’s just, and… But he had started the song. So, and that night before we…
(Terry) We were able to do a demo in the choir room.
(Barbi) With the music director.
(Terry) And because UPS is located in Louisville, you can send an overnight package to get to somewhere at ten in the morning. You can send it at midnight. So we did. We sent it at midnight. It went to the studio. Mark Trammell hears it, recorded it. They recorded it the next day.
(Barbi) That’s a rare piece for us. Pace for us. But I think Brian had wanted something as well. And so that’s what kind of stirred your heart.
(Terry) And I will say: Brian and Gary Jones passed on this song. I sat at the piano and I sang it for them. We were going through songs, you know, “Here, how about this song?” And they didn’t really like anything.
And they didn’t like “For God So Loved.” So I said, you know what? I think this is a better song than that. So I demoed it. And the demo helped. [Laughter] Demos help, folks!
Daniel J. Mount:
I think there will be some listeners who aren’t actually that familiar with the demo process. So that’s been part of your life for decades.
Terry & Barbi Franklin:
Yeah.
Daniel J. Mount:
I should probably take a step back for a second for those who serve in church but have never been in a recording studio. So songwriters, many songwriters who write CCM, Southern Gospel, related genres don’t ever write the music out in sheet music and the groups aren’t recording it from the sheet music. When groups consider songs for recordings, they listen to recordings of those songs. And sometimes a singer will record their own version, especially if that singer is a really good singer. But often there will be a professional studio musician and a professional singer who do a simple version, but a version that’s sung very well. And you’ve had as part of your career being a singer for demos. You’ve probably done thousands, at least several hundred through the years.
Terry & Barbi Franklin:
(Terry) Yeah, about 6,000. Yeah,
Daniel J. Mount:
About 6,000. So you’ve demoed 6,000 songs.
Terry & Barbi Franklin:
(Terry) Yeah.
Daniel J. Mount:
That’s just amazing.
Terry & Barbi Franklin:
(Barbi) Well, 38 years. You got a lot of time to do stuff in. I was going to say, it’s a long time.
Daniel J. Mount:
Yeah, but I just figured we were talking about that, and I knew we were talking about, but I was like, not everybody who listens will know so let me take a step back and explain that.
Terry & Barbi Franklin:
Yeah.
Daniel J. Mount:
I love the song “No Wonder They Call Him Our Savior.” Who recorded that originally? Was it you who did?
Terry & Barbi Franklin:
(Terry) Sure, we did, but Gerald Wolfe did it
Daniel J. Mount:
On his solo project, ‘88-’89, somewhere in there?
Terry & Barbi Franklin:
It was, I think, yeah, somewhere in there.
Daniel J. Mount:
Okay.
Terry & Barbi Franklin:
Yeah, he did it with Joy Gardner, did
Daniel J. Mount:
Yes.
Terry & Barbi Franklin:
it like a duet thing on it.
Daniel J. Mount:
I remember that version. I just hadn’t remembered for sure if that was the original version. Or not original, other than yours.
Terry & Barbi Franklin:
It’s funny—even though it’s not maybe technically a Southern Gospel song, I think it was a top ten Southern Gospel song.
Daniel J. Mount:
Yeah.
Daniel J. Mount:
it’s a good song.
Terry & Barbi Franklin:
(Barbi) It did well on the inspirational thing and all of that. Well, then we had recorded it and then Southeast Christian Center asked us if we could rewrite part of the lyric to make it a Christmas song. So we rewrote the first verse, I think it was. Yeah. And so we have two versions of that song. And Lari Goss had done all the charts for that. He really blessed us by doing some fantastic charts before he passed away.
(Terry) He did “For God So Loved,” he didn’t do “No Wonder.”
(Barbi) Right, right, “No Wonder.” Bruce Kovlisch. Ie was a real good orchestrator too.
Daniel J. Mount:
So I really think that part of the reason the “For God So Loved” became such a classic is it the listener’s attention right from the first few lines because there are songs set in the Garden of Eden, songs set in the fall, but it really is, I think, a unique starting place. And I love this starting place of the song starts as—God’s communion with man was broken at the spiritual level immediately at the fall, but God is with them talking, working out the ramifications. You see visually God’s communion with man broken as Adam and Eve are outside the garden and God’s walking back through the gate. That’s just an amazing place to start a song. I love that you did that.
Do you recall if the first verse came relatively easy and quickly? Or was this a part of the song that you really had to labor over for hours or days or weeks before you really had it where you wanted it? If you recall—I know it’s been a number of years.
Terry & Barbi Franklin:
(Terry) I mean, we kind of labor over everything. I mean, it’s rare that the very first thing that comes to mind is there, I mean, you’ve heard this analogy before. It’s like making a sculpture. You basically take a block of whatever it is, and you chip away at it until you get something that looks like you want it to look like. And so you’re chipping away at this thing. You know, it’s little—getting rid of certain words or. turning it different or something.
(Barbi) But I think you got the basic gist of it.
(Terry) Cause what I wanted, here’s the thing—
(Barbi) Verse and chorus, pretty quick, but then we tweak—
(Terry) We tweak everything. Oh yeah. There’s a basic gist of it. And this is a songwriting craft thing for anybody out there. The first line, maybe the first two lines of a song, are very critical. If you’re gonna spend time, you gotta get people in immediately. So it can’t just lay there. It’s got to be something.
And what I kind of wanted to do was, “Forever they were banished.” And then “God walked through Eden’s garden gates alone.” God loved the fellowship that he had with man. And now it’s broken. So not only was it hard on Adam and Eve, but it was hard in a sense on God, even though he’s God, He doesn’t need anything. It wasn’t that, but He wanted that relationship. I mean, and He wanted it so much that Ie redeemed man through the death of His only son. That’s how much it meant to Him, for you and I to be reconciled to Him. And it’s not that. because Jesus died, everybody on earth is forever reckoned. No, we have a choice that we make. I’m funny, I’m somewhere between a Calvinist and an Arminian. I think they’re both true. I really do. I believe that we’re chosen in Him before the foundation of the world. I do, I believe that withl on my heart, but I do believe, whosoever will may come. I do. Absolutely. I believe it.
Daniel J. Mount:
It’s perspectives. Seeing it from the divine perspective of what we can’t see.
Terry & Barbi Franklin:
Right.
Daniel J. Mount:
But then when we’re looking at it from the human perspective, you definitely have to have… I’m on the reformed side myself, but you have to—there is that moment where the response in the human has to happen.
Terry & Barbi Franklin:
It has to happen.
Daniel J. Mount:
Yeah.
Terry & Barbi Franklin:
It has to happen. And I don’t understand it. I tell people I’m a three and a half point Calvinist.
(Barbi) Well, and we really join with God when we pray. And that is a part of the redemption plan. That God has allowed us a relationship with Him. So that we can go from that place of being separated from God to willingly turning back to him. And it takes prayer. You know, I’m confident that everybody who’s ever been saved on this earth has been saved because somebody prayed for them. Yeah, Romans 5:10:11. “For if while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his son, much more. now that we are reconciled shall we be saved by his life. More than that we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ through whom we have now received reconciliation.”
(Terry) That’s it! Thank you, Lord!
(Barbi) And we were also called to reconcile others. We’re the reconcilers. You know, God has placed His Spirit in us and so now we pray according to His will and His heart and mind he’s always been looking for people that would have His heart and mind. And as we grow in our desire to be reconcilers and to be restorative you know we’re the ones that restore the broken down walls in Isaiah 61. You know, we’re the people of God through our prayers. And now that the Holy Spirit is in us, we can bring the gospel and people can get saved.
Daniel J. Mount:
Yes, amen. I couldn’t have said it better.
Terry & Barbi Franklin:
(Terry) And that second verse, it kind of goes into, it’s like, it’s looking real good. You know, Jesus is entering Jerusalem, the palm trees are going, they’re shouting, “Hosanna,” everything’s going great. And then it like turns on a dime. Everything just turns to darkness. Jesus is being crucified. Everybody left, everybody fled. They all ran.
It’s interesting, the women didn’t. John didn’t, but everybody else did. You know, it’s interesting the women didn’t. That’s just interesting to me. How come? They were there. They were there at the cross. But anyway. But so he dies and it seems like that’s it. You know. “And the heart of a loving father,” one of the lyrics in the song, “the heart of a loving father turned away,” because God turned away from His own Son because God made Him to be sin for us. He became it. He became the curse, the sin, all of it, everything. I mean, he died, I believe with all my heart that God, He loved the whole world. He loved Adolf Hitler. He loved Judas. I really do, I believe it. And I believe that Jesus being 100% God and 100% man, I believe he knew that Judas was gonna betray him. I believe he knew it from the beginning. But somehow, I mean, he still loved Judas.
Daniel J. Mount:
That is incomprehensible.
Terry & Barbi Franklin:
(Terry) It is incomprehensible. How did he? Maybe theologians would say, well, maybe there are some things that limit. But I mean, he was 100% God. He said He could have called 10,000 angels, 10,000—legion, He meant that. At any moment, He could have done anything. He could have turned the Pharisees and the whole Sanhedrin into chickens. He could have said. “let Me just do this, let me just show you something.” He did not do that. It wasn’t, because that, He didn’t have the sin nature that we have, thank God, and was able to live that life that none of us could live. You know, some would say, well, maybe there’s potential that somebody could live without sin, but you know what we would do? We’d get so proud of ourselves, we’d say, man, I’m doing so good, then we’d be walking in pride. We can’t. We can’t.
(Barbi) Well, and his reaction in the midst of his suffering, that He chose to go all the way to the cross. But then when He was up there in deep suffering, not just physically, but emotionally, and feeling the abandonment that was happening, He was still unconditionally loving. And the guy next to him, who was actually a criminal, turned toward Jesus and Jesus took him so it’s like I think that when somebody just ever so slightly turns toward God, God’s right there. He wants so much to bring restoration and redemption, that His love is powerful and immediate. He just waits, waiting for someone to cry out to Him.
Daniel J. Mount:
So much of what you talked about is interesting. The different ways people could misunderstand what happened are—and I hadn’t planned on talking about this aspect, but it’s coming up. So much of these are the primary issues that the early church had to sort out.
Terry & Barbi Franklin:
(Terry) Yes.
Daniel J. Mount:
You know, the earliest church councils for the first two, three hundred years, there were a number of issues they dealt with, Gnosticism, etc. But the biggest one was, is Jesus fully God? Is he fully man?
Terry & Barbi Franklin:
Yes.
Daniel J. Mount:
How do we make sense of this? You know, who is Jesus?
Terry & Barbi Franklin:
(Terry) Nicene Creed.
Daniel J. Mount:
And that—full Godhead—is what culminates in the Nicene Creed.
Terry & Barbi Franklin:
Sure.
Daniel J. Mount:
And that same generation then, by the time they got to the Nicene Creed, they were really trying to sort out, and who are we, what is human nature, and dealing with the Pelagian heresy,
Terry & Barbi Franklin:
Yes.
Daniel J. Mount:
Which is… I want to get this right. It’s that man’s body fell in the fall, but his mind was uncorrupted.
Terry & Barbi Franklin:
Right.
Daniel J. Mount:
And so we enter this world with unfallen minds. And
Terry & Barbi Franklin:
Right.
Daniel J. Mount:
And that was one of the biggest things that Augustine was responding to and developed, the theological principles he developed in response to that. And that it’s interesting that you touch on these different things because these are all the things that are so core to be a Christian.
Terry & Barbi Franklin:
They’re fundamentals.
Daniel J. Mount:
You have to repent from your sins and believe in Jesus as Savior. But to understand Christianity, there’s nothing more important than understanding who Jesus is first
Terry & Barbi Franklin:
Yes.
Daniel J. Mount:
and then who we are. That we are fallen body and mind
Terry & Barbi Franklin:
Yes.
Daniel J. Mount:
and in need of the cross, in need of “for God so loved that He gave His only son.”
Terry & Barbi Franklin:
(Terry) Yes, and I’m glad you brought up because we’re living in a day where there’s in certain sectors of even evangelical churches some unraveling of some of these things and I think that we need to restate some of these things. For instance, Philippians 2, kenosis passage.
Daniel J. Mount:
Yes. He emptied Himself.
Terry & Barbi Franklin:
Jesus emptying Himself.
Daniel J. Mount:
Yes.
Terry & Barbi Franklin:
I keep hearing from people, He emptied himself of His divinity. Uh, no. He didn’t empty Himself f His divinity at all. While He was on earth, what He did was He took on humanity. It’s astounding what Jesus did. Here’s the King of Glory. Here He is, all the riches of Heaven, and He comes to earth as a little child, born parents that were not the wealthy parents. He took on humanity and all that embodies. He was tempted in all ways as we are, yet without sin. He knew what it was like to be human. He was 100% human.
(Barbi) And then, He didn’t count equality with God, something to be grasped. But He chose to go all the way to the cross. And so that’s the example to us, as once we are saved and we’re baptized into the Holy Spirit, because that’s what He does. When we get saved, He fills us with His spirit. And I believe there’s many fillings after that as we call on the name of the Lord. The the kingdom of God lives within us. And so what we have to do then is, take it everywhere. In unity with the Father and the Son and with each other, we must, too, humble ourselves and take up our cross daily to follow Him. And that’s working out our salvation. and becoming more and more like Christ, imitating Him because He was the picture of the Father and He was obedient to the Father and so should we be.
Daniel J. Mount:
I completely agree. Now on the song, we’ve bene talking about the second verse. And of course the cross is central to our faith but you also can’t end a song at the cross.
Terry & Barbi Franklin:
(Terry) Of course not!
Daniel J. Mount:
So I love—not only that but how you brought in the empty tomb. I would guess “Death’s victory march was ended on resurrection day”—
Terry & Barbi Franklin:
Yeah.
Daniel J. Mount:
I can’t imagine that was the first phrasing that popped into your head. That feels like something you worked at a little bit until you just got it perfect. But maybe it was, I’m curious actually.
Terry & Barbi Franklin:
(Terry) What’s weird is that one, I kind of remember that one—
(Barbi) The bridge came pretty fast.
(Terry) Colossians 2.15, He disarmed the rulers, the authorities. He put them to open shame. I mean here, the devil and all of his demons, they thought they won. They thought for sure. They got him. And here they’re doing a victory march.
(Barbi) They were high-fiving.
(Terry) Well, kings used to do, kings used to do. When they would win, they’d march the people through the streets, a lot of times naked. You know, they’re marching them through and they’re humiliating them. And Jesus had been humiliated. Think about it. He had two of the strongest forces on earth. He had the strongest political force in the world, which was Rome. He had the strongest religious force in the world, Judaism. Both of them were there at the cross. They both crucified Him. I mean, and the devil was behind all of it and thought for sure that he had it, but he didn’t. He didn’t. “Death’s victory march was ended.” When He rose again, it’s like He triumphed over them. He triumphed, and He made a mockery of it, not just to them, but to all the principalities, all of the powers. They saw what happened. Mm-hmm. Whew. Read them. Yeah.
(Barbi) “But thanks be to God who always leads us in victory through Christ. God uses us to spread his knowledge everywhere like a sweet smelling perfume.” II Cor. 2:14.
(Terry) And, yeah, there’s another thing. I Corinthians 2:8. Paul wrote in another place that the rulers at this age, which he meant the spiritual powers of darkness and their representatives, if they had known what was gonna happen to the cross, if they had known what would have happened, they never would have crucified Him. They wouldn’t have done it. That’s I Cor. 2:8. They were defeating themselves and they didn’t even know it. They didn’t even know it. Is that an amazing thing?
Daniel J. Mount:
It is!
Terry & Barbi Franklin:
(Terry) So, thanks be to God. Thank you, Lord, for the gospel. He turns darkness into light.
Daniel J. Mount:
Yes, amen. I did want to ask about the melody of the song also. And you know, it’s at some level easier, probably, to discuss words. It’s that we’re dealing with exact concepts that are more easy to articulate, but as to the development of the melody: Did that pretty much come alongside the words? Did you have a melody pretty near landed on before you finished the words? As you recall, what did that look like?
Terry & Barbi Franklin:
Well, both of us are melody writers. This one, I did most of the melody on it. It just kind of came. And those tend to come fast. That, I don’t change a lot. Those are, where does a melody come from? I don’t know.
Daniel J. Mount:
Mm-hmm.
Terry & Barbi Franklin:
It’s an inspired thing. I’ll brag about my wife here. There was a song that the Gaither Vocal Band did. on a CD called Peace of the Rock. It was co-written. And I remember Bill Gaither came over our house to be able to work on the melody with this song with Barbi and I.
(Barbi) A few people had already started working on it.
(Terry) They had already, and they did the lyrics, we didn’t do the lyrics.
(Barbi) And he brought the lyrics to our house to get a melody.
(Terry) And he got a call. on the cell phone and so he was on the phone the whole time. And she basically came up with, [sings] “Let’s be the hands that comfort every cold and lonely man / let’s be the arms that reach around the world.” Ended up being a good song. She wrote that!
(Barbi) Well the thing is: When you’re a singer, or when you love music, I think that it comes natural because something soars in your heart. And so it’s easy to just come in with what, you know, what you’re wanting to feel. Because music is really a feeling as much as a spiritual thing.
(Terry) You know, I think too, Daniel, that everybody has a melody in them. Ephesians 5 talks about making melody in your heart to the Lord. What’s weird is, I do this. all day long. It will drive people crazy. My wife it doesn’t drive her crazy. But sometimes people that aren’t used to this, like do you ever stop humming or whistling? No, I don’t.
(Barbi) That’s the sign of a happy heart.
(Terry) I just do.
(Barbi) Or a worshipping heart.
(Terry) And there are melodies going around. I wish… I think that we have some abilities, but there are people that don’t even know the Lord, that were great melody writers, Bert Bacharach. Lord, give me some melodies like that. Those melodies, what the work. I mean, okay, yeah, I’ll take one of those. They’re just amazing melodic things.
(Barbies) We love melodic melodies. I think melodies in some ways have been lost at times. And a song is hard to sing sometimes if you don’t have the backup track
Daniel J. Mount:
Yes.
Terry & Barbi Franklin:
(Barbi) or an instrument playing the chords. And it’s not singable. But there’s a place for that. But I think both Terry and I have always loved melodies and harmonies.
(Terry) We’re serial harmony singers.
(Barbi) Oh yeah, that’s pretty bad. We sing.
(Terry) Now we’ve had to be told on worship teams, why don’t you guys lay out on this, because we’ll sing harmony with everything. We will just. And for a while, third parts were not liked. You know, people wanted everything. Well, even right now. In two parts. Yeah, yeah. And they don’t want three parts and certainly not four. Right. But really when Terry and I met, we had, each of us, had all the albums of our most favorite group and we were shocked that we were both addicted to this Singers Unlimited group and both of us loved it and it was close harmonies.
(Terry) Jazz kind of sounding, you know, good stuff.
(Barbi) I don’t know, that’s just us.
Daniel J. Mount:
I don’t know, and it’s good to be humble, I’m not criticizing you for this, but when you talk about the melodies other writers have written, I look at your melodies and feel that way, especially this one. This song, what you do is “God passed through Eden’s garden gates alone,” the melodic run there, it’s just really special. This has an amazing melody.
And Barbi, you were talking aboutBert BachrachI almost feel like it’s a measure of a song. How good is the song itself versus how good is the performance of the song?
I am in a small church, largely older congregation. One instrument, piano. How does the song work when you have one instrument, be it piano, guitar, something different? And how does that song work a cappella? And the songs that are still almost as beautiful or just as beautiful like “For God So Loved.”
I love the orchestrated version of this song. But if this song was done with a piano and a good singer, that’s when you know it’s a good song and this is a good song.
Terry & Barbi Franklin:
(Terry) No, I agree. Great songs can be done anyway. I just have a rule on that. If it’s a great song, you can do any version of it.
(Barbi) You can put a rhythm to it or you could make it out of legato.
(Terry) You could do a polka version of it and it would still be…it’s amazing. There’s something about a good song… That’s just the way it is. It just seems to work that way. Yes, it does work. It just works as somebody just singing it with guitar.
Daniel J. Mount:
I’m part Polish and my mom’s side of the family is all from Cleveland. I’m having a hard time imagining this one as a polka. [Laughter]
Terry & Barbi Franklin:
(Terry) Yeah, probably not. Probably not. Yeah.
(Barbi) You’d have to take a little bit of the movement.
(Terry) Yeah, it’d be a little strange. Might not be a great time. It could be done that way. Who would want to do that? Don’t think so.
Daniel J. Mount:
I’m curious, you know, you have both heard so many songs through the years. I mean, Terry, in recorded versions for demos, you’ve sung 6,000 songs.And so I’m sure through the years, you get some sense along with what we were just talking about melodically, you know, a melody is a good melody when it doesn’t rely on an exact performance and arrangement. Do you have any sense, as you’ve had the chance through the years to reflect on this song, of what made this song resonate?
Terry & Barbi Franklin:
(Barbi) Well, I think, personally, I think that we all feel hopeless at times. And when you get the sense that someone—I mean, every movie has a savior. We all need to be rescued. We all need a Savior. We all need to be rescued and we know it. The gospel is just beautiful. It’s why Jesus is still loved and talked about and responded to todaym because He created us and He knows what we need.
(Terry) And I will say, you know, it did help that a really, really good group, Brian Free and Assurance did it. Uh, you know, there have been other songs that were really pretty good songs that just never really went anywhere because it didn’t have the vehicle to carry that. You know, and, and people, people didn’t hear it, which to me is always a sad thing. Uh, I’ve demoed some of these songs to where it’s like, “Why didn’t that song do anything?” Well, somehow the group that did it tried to take it a different direction, or tried to get, sometimes it’s getting too creative,
Daniel J. Mount:
Mm-hmm.
Terry & Barbi Franklin:
Doing more than you should have done, and just don’t try to make…
(Barbi) Well, and there are just songs that aren’t as good as other songs. We’ve written songs that God gave us because He didn’t really want them anymore. And so we don’t sing them. And we’ve probably recorded a few.
(Terry) It’s like one person that will remain nameless here because I don’t want to get him in trouble, but he was at a songwriting clinic and somebody played their song, which wasn’t a very good song. And part of these songwriting clinics, they’re to critique stuff. And this girl got up and she was about, she did her song. She said, well, God gave me this song. And this person that I know kind of went back, he said, I’ve heard God write better.
Daniel J. Mount:
I’m sure this is somebody different.
Terry & Barbi Franklin:
(Terry) that’s cold. That’s cold.
Daniel J. Mount:
I’m sure this is not the same person you’re talking about, but it’s been enough years since he’s passed that I think we can say it. I’m pretty sure JD Sumner did that at least once too.
Terry & Barbi Franklin:
(Terry) Yes, oh yes,
Daniel J. Mount:
If not, probably more than once. I think he used that line of time or two.
Terry & Barbi Franklin:
(Terry) Yeah, probably.
Daniel J. Mount:
Now, did you record this song first, or did you send it to Bram before you ever recorded it?
Terry & Barbi Franklin:
(Yerry) No. We sent it to Brian and it was years.
(Barbi) I think that we were, we may have written it partially because we were trying to write songs for him and some other groups. But, you know, and we don’t, we often don’t record our own songs that we’ve written. You know, we only have recorded, how many of our own songs? I don’t know. We’ve got, I think, eight CDs out, from the beginning. I mean, and then four violin CDs, violin and keyboard. But of our own songs, we don’t record a lot of our own because we write them for other people and we write a lot of different genres of music.
(Terry) And that particular time period, I mean, we were just writing a lot of songs. There was just a lot, you know, who’s looking for songs? Okay, they need a big ballad. So it was that. You know, and you would think, that doesn’t sound very spiritual. But I’m reminded of the story, Andraé Crouch who wrote, “The Blood Will Never Lose Its Power”—he was inspired by being at a barbecue, watching meat that was dripping blood. That’s what inspired “The Blood Will Never Lose Its Power.”
Daniel J. Mount:
Of all things!
Terry & Barbi Franklin:
(Terry God uses all kinds of things. And he was obviously a gifted writer. He wrote “My Tribute.”
(Barbi) I don’t think I could possibly be Inspired by that. I’m usually, you know, penning songs and singing songs into my little recorder at five o’clock or six o’clock in the morning, or in the middle of the night.
(Terry) And there are other people I mean I did I did demos for Ronnie Henson Ronnie would be out in his van before we’ve got a demo session, and he’s singing a song acapella. I can tell by the way he’s stopping his little portable cassette thing, dictaphone thing. He’s writing it as he sings it and then he thinks of the next line and then he puts it in the thing and then he writes it. He would hand-write it on a piece of paper and it would go like this way then it start going down the side of the page. And you know what? He wrote “The Lighthouse.” He wrote a lot. I mean He’s a great writer, you know, God’s hand is on him for that.
(Barbi) Partially a creative thing. Yeah, I think I’ve kept a lot of my original song lyrics that I wrote out in folders. And there are a lot of scribbles and crosses and sideways.
(Terry) And you, you put Scripture on everything. You’ve got like Scripture on this. So there’s like, there’s that much Scripture.
(Barbi) I do. A lot of what inspires me is when I’m in the Word or when I’ve been in the Word and it just comes back to me. And it’s kind of like the Lord’s putting together a story in my heart and that’s what inspires what I put down.
Daniel J. Mount:
It’s wonderful. So I’ll talk just for a minute or two about the impact and the reception of the song. What was it like, you know—to take a step back: In Southern Gospel and to some extent other genres of music, sometimes there is just a career-defining song for somebody and it’s the song that people will most think of them when they think of that singer. “Four Days Late,” Karen Peck, “Oh What a Savior,” Rosie Roselle, and then Ernie Haase. “We Shall See Jesus,” Glen Payne. And really, to some extent, I feel like “For God So Loved” is that song for Brian, at least with his Brian Free and Assurance work. He’s known for several other songs with Gold City, and he’s had many other big songs since with Brian Free and Assurance. But that song has really been a signature song for him. And so I’m just curious to hear: What was it like, from your perspective, to watch a song that you’d written become not just a song somebody recorded, not just a song that was a hit for them, but it’s that song that people think of when they think of that singer.
Terry & Barbi Franklin:
(Terry) You know what’s weird? I don’t know how to answer that.
Daniel J. Mount:
Okay.
Terry & Barbi Franklin:
(Terry) Because it may be that… We may have missed some of it. I don’t know what. It was like.
(Barbi) I think when we realized that a song is really being loved, we’re very grateful. and we feel honored that anybody would care about something that we put down.
(Terry) I guess I didn’t know it was that loved.
(Barbi) it’s a real blessing that people would be touched by anything that we would write. And “Calvary Came Through” was a lot that way, too. Well, even, “No Wonder,” the first song that was really charted, just really sensing that. “Wow, that is so cool that we’ve been able to put something down that somebody really loved and wanted to sing and then people responded.”
(Terry) We’re humbled. And I don’t really have any words to say.
Daniel J. Mount:
Okay,
Terry & Barbi Franklin:
It’s just astounding to us that a little simple song like that could be so meaningful and that, wow, yeah, that’s amazing.
Daniel J. Mount:
I think it’s also helped that Southern Gospel, for its other strengths and weaknesses, has tended to always love songs that focus on the cross and keep the cross central. That’s been a strength.
Terry & Barbi Franklin:
Sure.
Daniel J. Mount:
Maybe not so much in the 50s, Blackwood Brothers and Statesmen, you don’t see it quite as much in the older days. But from the ‘60s, ‘70s, on, cross songs are just core and central to Southern Gospel. And you don’t get more core and central than John 3:16. And I think how much we love the verse ties into how much we love the song. Just my personal opinion.
Terry & Barbi Franklin:
Interesting, interesting, yeah. And it’s interesting how Southern Gospel, the trajectory has gone from being more entertainment-oriented, not that it’s not somewhat that now, but in the 50s, it was pretty entertainment oriented.
Daniel J. Mount:
There was not much depth in the leading groups, lyrically.
Terry & Barbi Franklin:
(Terry) No, not much. And it went as time went on into more ministry. And now most groups are more focused on church and that kind of a thing. So that’s just been, as I’ve observed, the trajectory of things out there.
Daniel J. Mount:
One last thing on this song, and then I’d just like to close by talking about your other songs, your ministry, and anything you want to share along those lines. You said something during, before we hit the record button that actually astonished me.
You know, I had assumed that… This has been a song that Brian still sung so much through the years that I figured you’ve probably had dozens of interviews on this song and talked about it till you’re sick and tired of talking about it. And you’d be like, “Okay, we kind of know Daniel, so we’ll do him the favor of talking about it once more.” You said that Brian’s been interviewed about the song, but you actually haven’t been interviewed about it that much. And that really surprised me!
Terry & Barbi Franklin:
(Terry) Not really, no. No one’s ever interviewed us about this. I mean, that’s why it was an honor.
(Barbi) Well, it may have come up in an interview, but not about the song in particular only.
Daniel J. Mount:
That’s just fascinating.
Terry & Barbi Franklin:
(Terry) Well, it’s unique to your podcast here. You know, you’ve got an interesting thing where you get into theological things and some other things, which I really think is cool.
Daniel J. Mount:
Thank you!
Terry & Barbi Franklin:
(Barbi) Well, and somewhat, I would think that they would be more interested in interviewing Brian.
(Terry) Of course.
(Barbi) Because Brian was the one that sang it and made it more.
(Terry) Oh, he made the song well known.
(Barbi) Absolutely, yeah. So even though we recorded it, it was really more in his genre of music and he did it you know definitely a Southern Gospel style where we didn’t really as much.
(Terry) Well, he did it twice. And the second time, I’ll tell a story here—
Daniel J. Mount:
Sure, go for it!
Terry & Barbi Franklin:
Anyway I’m doing demos one day. Wayne Haun’s in the studio. Wayne Haun was producing their stuff at the time. And I mentioned, I don’t know why I said this, but I said, “Hey why don’t you consider, since you’re redoing this song with some choir in Brooklyn or the Bronx or something there’s some choir up there they did like a CD with a church—
Daniel J. Mount:
Live in New York City.
Terry & Barbi Franklin:
(Terry) Yeah, so anyway, I said. “So the chorus, ‘For God so loved,’ on that word ‘loved,’ the way that they did originally. that’s a three chord.”
Daniel J. Mount:
Mm-hmm.
Terry & Barbi Franklin:
(Terry) “I said why, don’t you make that a three-sus?’ So maybe the musicians out there know what I mean. And anyway, when it came out, it was a three-sus. Now he may have done that anyway, because it actually, it makes it, it takes it a little bit less country, and that three-sus kind of lightens that thing. The people that haven’t heard the song will have no idea what we’re talking about. But anyway, if you’ve heard it, that’s so. Anyway, so they did. And I don’t know that I had anything to do with that, but he did. It was a 3sus when they did it. So, ha ha.
Daniel J. Mount:
(Terry) It’s interesting because that version of the song came out right about when I just started listening to Southern Gospel. I mean, I think “Long as I Got King Jesus” charted after I was already listening to Southern Gospel, but it wasn’t by much. So really, I would actually say it’s the Live in New York City version that when I hear the song play in my head and I’m just thinking about it in a random context, I’m hearing the three -suss there. That to me almost like is the song in a weird sense.
Terry & Barbi Franklin:
(Terry) I think it’s better. I think the way that they did it there, in my opinion, was better with the choir and everything. I just, I thought so.
Daniel J. Mount:
Not to take a long detour on this, but I was not terribly interested in music growing up because I’ve not and have never been a great singer. But my point of interest in really starting to pay attention to music started when I was thirteen, hearing a Michael Card album. Thoughtful songwriting from Scripture. And so ever since that point, it’s been the songwriting side of things that has fascinated me more.
Terry & Barbi Franklin:
(Terry) You’ve written songs.
Daniel J. Mount:
I have! And you’ve actually demoed a few of them for me.
Terry & Barbi Franklin:
(Terry) Yes, I know.
Daniel J. Mount:
And you’ve sung them amazingly. But, so I can’t relate to being a phenomenal singer on stage singing a song, but I’ve been fascinated with songwriting for years, and so it is fascinating for me to hear how an amazing song came together.
Daniel J. Mount:
So I would like to also ask: What are some other songs people who love this song—whether they’re hearing it today for the first time or whether they’ve known it from Brian’s rendition for decades—We’ve talked about a couple songs you’ve written that were recorded by other artists. “No Wonder They Call Him a Savior, “Out of His Great Love,” and so forth. Perhaps of some of the songs that maybe you’ve recorded yourself, or hidden gems that other artists have recorded but maybe aren’t big.
Terry, you were talking earlier about how sometimes you’re surprised by a song not maybe receiving the attention you would hear in it and potentially hear it when you first heard that song. So let’s give these songs another chance. What are some of your songs that come to mind that people who like this song might want to pull up on their favorite streaming platform and give a listen to?
Terry & Barbi Franklin:
(Terry) Well, you know, “All That I Am,” “God of All Gods,” they’re pretty good, “Show Me the Cross,” totally different type of song.
(Barbi) Although we did “Show Me the Cross,” we did it on our children’s project, because our younger son sang that song, and that’s a story, and it’s a very precious, real story. And “Calvary Came Through” was definitely one that, if people like “For God So Loved,” they would love it.
And a lot of our recorded songs are on our Terry and Barbi Franklin archives page on YouTube. But we’ve kind of put a new YouTube page together called Love Sings TV. Love Sings is the name of our worldwide ministry.
We’ve got a lot of people who probably don’t know we we’ve been in a lot of nations around the world.
(Terry, in 1950s radio announcer voice) You can find us at lovesings.com. lovesings.com.
(Barbi) But Love Sings TV has more videos that we’ve done, like when we were in D.C. at The Return, they did a video and somebody recently did a video—we didn’t even hire them to do it—for “As One We Stand,” which is a John 17 unity song.
(Terry) It’s a different style than “For God So Loved.” We do a lot of different things.
(Barbi) And “Heal This Land” was a song that has really been loved, deeply loved. But did that answer your question?
Daniel J. Mount:
Sure!
Terry & Barbi Franklin:
(Terry) We could go through songs. “No doubt about it, gonna sing, gonna shout it.”
(Barbi) Well, that was not one we recorded. But we do a lot of different styles ourselves because we love a lot of different styles. We’re actually right now working on a hymns project, but we’ve picked hymns and then written choruses, kind of like “Amazing Grace (My Chains Are Gone)” was written, we kind of took some hymns that we love and added our own songwriting touch to them. And that’s going to be a classics, classic hymns and worship sons project that we’ll do a few of, probably.
Daniel J. Mount:
Are you comfortable saying any of the hymns that you’re working on that you’re really excited about everybody hearing soon?
Terry & Barbi Franklin:
(Barbi) Yeah.
(Terry) I mean, what we’re recording today. “I Have Decided to Follow Jesus.”
(Barbi) And “Softly and Tenderly.”
(Terry) I think we put some familiar things, too—”10,000 Reasons,” which we just did, the way that it’s done.
(Barbi) We’re doing hymns and worship songs that are well-known. And we’ve got six volumes lined out to do, and we’ve done tracks to two. So we’ll probably release the first one this winter. And they’re just simple.
(Terry) These are very simple. We decided, OK, we’ve done the big orchestral, the big things, which we love. We love that. thought, why don’t we go the other way, because a lot of things that we’re doing now, churches will bring us in, and I’m at the keyboard, Barbie’s a really good violin player, in fact, I’ll just say it here, most people wouldn’t know this, that the most successful things that we have ever done as far as recordings are her violin projects.
Daniel J. Mount:
Really? That’s interesting.
Terry & Barbi Franklin:
(Terry) Yeah, all over the world. It’s unbelievable. She has four violin projects, two Christmas ones, and then two like worship songs things.
(Barbi) Well, they don’t have English lyrics. It’s all violin and keyboard. So people all over the world can listen.
(Terry) South Korea, the Philippines, it’s amazing.
(Barbi) The language is not a barrier for instruments.
(Terry) Pull up Violin Worship on YouTube. Franklin violin worship, pull it up, you’ll be glad you did. I mean it’s beautiful stuff, it’s just atmospheric.
(Barbi) Well, we are keeping everything we do with the violin very simple because I’m not a fancy violin player. I just love to worship with my violin. In fact. now I play on a lot of the songs that we we minister with and it’s a good tool for also to draw people into prayer. And that’s been a huge ministry for us the last probably thirteen years. We’ve really moved into the area of prayer and worship and encouraging people to just to grow intimate with the Lord and to understand the power of prayer and get your churches to pray more.
(Terry) We go to churches anywhere.
(Barbi) Couples pray together, it heals your marriage. Prayer is just a marvelous thing. So we’re also praying that this hymns project will have that same feel of tender intimacy and just beauty, beautiful melodies. encouraging to the spirit.
Daniel J. Mount:
And you actually touched on something where I was thinking of ending this. I’d love just for you to share anything further you’d like about the different things you do that include music but aren’t just music, about your marriage retreats, about the efforts to bring churches toward prayer and pray for revival. I would love to finish there and then of course if you can conclude with give the website again where everybody can keep track of where you’re doing where you are online and on social media.
Terry & Barbi Franklin:
(Terry) Well we have a lot of stuff that seems like we’re doing and a lot of different things. We lead worship for a lot of events, conferences and that kind of a thing. It’s just the two of us.
(Barbi) And we’re not necessarily always the speakers. Right.
(Terry) But we do that too.
(Barbi) We do both often. But I think we’ve been known mostly in the last ten years for prayer ministries. marriage seminars as well, American Family.
(Terry) Define what that is.
(Barbi) Well, encouraging churches by coming in and leading them in prayer and worship, where we have lined out, kind of giving…
(Terry) It’s like guided prayer.
(Barbi) Yeah, and a lot of churches have kind of left the prayer meeting and don’t actually… They call things prayer meeting, but it really a sermon and an invitation and a little prayer at the end.
(Terry) And some are a little afraid of it too. Some are a little afraid of it because it’s like…
(Barbi) Because a lot of craziness can happen. Right. And we’ve got things that we do to keep it from going crazy. But we guide it through with scriptures and we encourage people to, you know, pastors to… pick people that can pray. And some churches are more comfortable just letting people come up and pray at random. But it can be done in many different ways.
We also really make prayer a part of our marriage seminars. And we are encouraging couples to not only pray together, but bring their children into prayer. Because a lot of people think that kids, They just need a video or they need to be entertained while the adults pray. But actually, we’ve had a prayer meeting in our home for years and we have families come in. Their little kids—When we have our little hot seat in the middle of the room, all the kids come around and we all pray for the needs of the people. And we start with prayer for the nations. We start with more globalized prayer: Prayer for our leaders, prayer for the churches, educational system, you know, all the different needs that we have and powerful places that need to be touched by the Spirit of the Lord. But we’ve really seen powerful things happening globally through children’s prayer movements.
In Indonesia, there was a tremendous growing prayer movement with children and for the last 13 years. Last year we were invited by those children who were now youth to lead worship for their World Prayer Assembly, which we ended up doing in Jakarta. And this was thousands of people coming from all over the world for the World Prayer Assembly. And the young people had us lead worship. And they had invited us to go to Indonesia, but we ended up not being able to go.
(Terry) COVID there was a lot of restrictions.
(Barbi) And apologized. They still had restrictions and we couldn’t figure it all out. So they came up with a fix. They wouldn’t take no for an answer. They said, well, we want you to lead worship, so could you do it on Zoom? So they had us on the jumbotrons.
(Terry) They piped us into this huge arena and they had big jumbotrons, and here we are in our living room, and we’re leading worship for a thing in Jakarta, Indonesia.
Daniel J. Mount:
Wow.
Terry & Barbi Franklin:
It’s amazing. It’s amazing. Right.
(Barbi) A thousand young people that we were working with.
(Terry) Here we are, not exactly youth.
(Barbi) We’re in our 60s. Right. And they want Terry & Barbi to do their worship! So it’s been such an honor.
(Terry) And 40 different countries around the world now, so praise the Lord.
(Barbi) But the global prayer movement is taking off and we’re encouraging people now to pray, you know, to adopt a people group. and pray. There’s an app now, Frontier People app.
(Terry) But before we go, I want to tell you about an event that we have coming up very quickly. At the end of September, September 28th-30th in downtown Nashville, Tennessee, Legislative Plaza right next to the Capitol. We’re having an event for a couple of days. We’re going to have nonstop prayer, we’re going to have nonstop worship, we’re going to have a big cross that’s set up. There are going to be tents there that we are calling Repent Tents.
(Barbi) We do tent events at our capital every fall, and our local Tennessee ministry’s called Worship City, and it’s grown across the state. We had a thousand churches fasting and praying a couple years ago, right before COVID broke out, and revival broke out in East Tennessee. For thirty days, we saw people getting saved every single night and being baptized.
Daniel J. Mount:
Wow.
Terry & Barbi Franklin:
So God’s really moving in Tennessee.
(Terry) Anyway, we’d love to have you join us downtown Nashville. So just email us at lovesings.com. There’s contact stuff there if you’d like to participate with us.
(Barbi) It’s the Worship City Repent Tents. It’s the first time we’ve really focused on repentance, but it’s what we really feel like. We feel like it’s a need. needs the unsaved and saved.
Daniel J. Mount:
And that you go back to II Chronicles 7:14. The healing of a nation doesn’t begin when people get really excited at a revival meeting by amazing music or amazing preaching.
Terry & Barbi Franklin:
Yes.
Daniel J. Mount:
The healing of a nation doesn’t begin when people post clever takedowns of the other party on social media.
Terry & Barbi Franklin:
Agree. Right.
Daniel J. Mount:
The healing of a nation doesn’t even begin when you put the right guy in the presidency because even if you have the best guy you can imagine in the presidency—
Terry & Barbi Franklin:
Right.
Daniel J. Mount:
if there isn’t repentance in the local churches and in the lives of the local individuals, the nation’s not going to heal.
Terry & Barbi Franklin:
(Barbi) That’s the key.
(Terry) It’s funny, I’ve heard that II Chronicles 7:14 quoted many times. And often—“If My people who are called by My name, humble themselves, seek my face,” often they leave this next part out, and I don’t know why—they leave it out, maybe they just forget it—but “turn from their wicked ways.” That’s repentance. That’s that turning, that change of mind, change of heart, that changes our direction. It changes something.
(Barbi) And it begins with us. It really begins with the people of God. Yes. We’re the ones that are responsible to humble ourselves and pray and turn, repent and seek His face. It’s such a clear message. And somehow we get this self-righteous, pious attitude and we point fingers at the unsaved who aren’t living for Jesus, but they don’t know Him.
(Terry) Henry Blackerby said that if the world seems to be getting darker, maybe it’s because we’re not shining bright enough. Maybe it’s us that’s the problem. I would agree with him on that. I think we are. I think we’re not shining bright enough because the light of the Lord within us will dispel the darkness.
(Barbi) If we’ve got greed or we’ve got secret sins of bitterness, unforgiveness is one of the biggies. I mean most people have a very difficult time with that. We have a difficult time with that.
(Terry) I mean I’ve known people that have sung gospel music for years, decades, highly successful, that did not know the Lord.
Daniel J. Mount:
Yes, sadly.
Terry & Barbi Franklin:
I mean, they’ve been vocal. I mean, I sat down with one of them, one of my heroes. Jim Murray, sang tenor for the Imperials. He sang for like 25 years, highly successful. And just like I say, one of my heroes. I love the work that he did with the Imperials. He was with the Gaither Vocal Band right before me. And just amazing stuff.
(Barbi) Got saved later in his life.
Daniel J. Mount:
He did get saved, but it was later in life, yes.
Terry & Barbi Franklin:
(Terry) He did. And so that is a thing. And it’s like, I’d put it out there for anybody. “For God so loved”—have you given your heart to Jesus? I mean, do you know more than just know about him? Cause it’s not simply acquiescing to, yes, I believe there was a Jesus. Yeah, I believe he died on the cross, rose again. Yeah, I guess he did. That’s not salvation. It’s not. So, would you turn to him? He loves you.
Daniel J. Mount:
For the sake of anybody listening who might be resonating with that, let’s chase that thought just a little more. Because you’re turning to Jesus. And there’s this thought almost, we feel bad about our sins. That’s conviction. Conviction is important, but we repent of our sins.
Terry & Barbi Franklin:
Yes.
Daniel J. Mount:
And that’s committing, not that any Christian does it perfectly, but committing through Jesus’ help. to turn from our sinful ways, and then to believe in Jesus as our Savior and our Lord. It’s not good enough that you grew up in church, it’s not good enough that you even stand on stage and sing about it.
Terry & Barbi Franklin:
Right.
Daniel J. Mount:
We all need the transforming power of the gospel in our lives.
Terry & Barbi Franklin:
(Terry) We need the transforming power.
(Barbi) And it takes turning to God and actually admitting that we need Him. And that’s very hard on the pride. A lot of people, I think it’s easier if you’ve been led into that at a younger age as a child. But the Bible says we have to become as little children to enter the kingdom of God. And it’s because we have to trust God and realize we need him.
Daniel J. Mount:
Amen.
Terry & Barbi Franklin:
(Barbi) We can’t be good enough. We’ll never be good enough on our own. No matter how many times you take mass, no matter how many times you go to the church building, even if you’ve been serving at church all of your life and cleaning the church or doing whatever, cooking—
(Terry) Perfect Sunday school attendance.
(Barbi None of that saves you. It’s your submitting yourself to the Lord and saying agreeing with Him. “I know that I cannot save myself. Thank you for dying and breaking the power of sin and death and hell in the grave over my life.”
(Terry) “Lord, be merciful to me, a sinner.
(Barbi) Yes. And and if you can’t get to that place, ask God to help you. Yeah, He wants more than anything to help you get to that place Yes, because you will be born again The Bible says you’re a Creation and God will change you.
(Terry) He does the work.
(Barbi) You can find deliverance and healing for all kinds of things.
(Terry) You have to get cleaned up first. I had a alcoholic guy in Ukrain— we were ministering there and he said well, I just I need to quit drinking first I need to I need to stop. I said, “God will take you right as you are, right this moment, and God will make the changes.” Yeah, He did.
Daniel J. Mount:
Amen. Well I think that’s probably as good a spot as any to wrap it up. People can follow you online at lovesings.com
Terry & Barbi Franklin:
lovesings.com.
Daniel J. Mount:
And I’ll also put links to your social media channels in the show notes so that people can click through to those as they listen. thank you so much for taking the time to do this.
Terry & Barbi Franklin:
(Terry) Thank you, Daniel, thank you.
Daniel J. Mount:
I’ve loved the song for a number of years and I had a blast talking about it. It was a delight.
Terry & Barbi Franklin:
(Terry) Well, thank you so much for thinking of us.
(Barbi) We’re honored. Thank you, Daniel.
Daniel J. Mount:
And you also made it easy! I didn’t have to ask that many questions! I could just get you started on the verse and you could walk through the kind of questions I might ask somebody else to help them walk through a verse. You just did it. It was really cool!
Terry & Barbi Franklin:
(Barbi) Well, we’re talkers, so you can get us any time to talk.
Daniel J. Mount:
Thank you. Thank you very much. And in conclusion, to the listeners, to hear future songwriter interviews, subscribe to this podcast on YouTube or on your favorite podcast platform. You can also find transcriptions of the episodes and the free 52,000-song searchable expository songs database at danielmount.com. Thank you for listening.