The interview you’re about
to read is the inspirational journey Minister Greg O’Quin experienced these past
8 years. It includes euphoric highs and devastating setbacks relating to both
the personal and professional trail we must all travel.
It’s the tale of a gifted artist and contrite man who’s seen both sunny days and
shattering storms and now has a testimony to share, both through song and
through sermon. It’s a compelling tale Greg O’Quin was generous enough to share
with BlackGospel.com.
Christopher Heron: Let’s begin with where pastors usually find their
greatest strength and that is with the flock that they’ve been entrusted to lead
as spiritual Shepherds. Could you share with us the many steps that led you to
your calling as Pastor of the Without Walls Church in the outskirts of Dallas,
Texas?
Greg O’Quin: To be very candid with you, many of the steps were missteps
because I did not want to be a minister. I’ve often heard how God will call you
or call people and they would run and I always thought that it was comical until
it happened to me. It was just something that I wasn’t interested in.
While I do love the word of God, and while I love God with all my heart, I was
very satisfied doing music and writing music and performing music; so when God
called me to preach while I was on tour promoting the I Told The Storm record in
2001, I just felt like there was going to be some sort of conflict between what
he wanted me to do and what I wanted to do.
I was quickly reminded that when I was fourteen I asked God for a gift of music,
and I was given the gift to play anything that I could hear immediately. And
then God reminded me, he said to me as clear as day, “Greg, I did what you
wanted me to do and now it is time for you to do what I want you to do.”
It was that word that was spoken so clearly that provoked me to pump the brakes
on what I was doing and try to really hear and go forth with what God was
saying. I can’t sit here and tell you this day that it wasn’t a conflict. There
wasn’t a day that went by that I wasn’t like, well God what are you doing. But I
had to take a break and really try to work on Greg and to try to do what God had
asked me to do. It was very hard. It’s even hard today.
CH: How has the experience of being a pastor, a spiritual Shepherd helped
to shape your spiritual lifestyle and well-being and affected the very music
ministry that you have today?
GO: Well first of all, it forced me to mature. While I could always lean
on a word from someone else, or lean on advice from a pastor, God elevated me
into the ministry, it caused me to first of all give him more time so that he
would speak to me, give me more time so that I would be adequately prepared to
be able to be that leaning post for the members.
So the maturing process happened very quickly as he prepared me to become the
person that I had needed to be all this time. I had always needed a pastor or
someone to speak a word to me, so that was the main thing. It also put me in the
mind set to put first things first. While music is still my on earth my first
love and my heart, God said first things first, God said, “This is what I am
asking you to do. This is an even higher calling than writing music.” And with
that, I had to put my agenda second and place God’s agenda first.
It restricts me as a man; sometimes you think you have grown up to be a man when
you get to the age of 21 but really manhood starts when you realize how to put
things in the proper priority and how to put things in the proper order. God has
shown me that you have to put first things first. When you put the first things
first this is our end to all things. I began putting God first and his agenda
first, then the songs came easier, the music came easier, the rhymes came
easier, the melodies came easier, and the favor that I needed to promote what I
was doing came easier because God was counting on it.
CH: Gospel music for the last ten or twelve years will certainly remember
your impact with the release of the smash single I Told the Storm. It had in my
opinion the same impact and radio coverage as songs like Marvin Sapp’s Never
Would Have Made It or Donnie McClurkin's We Fall Down, that song that became
your signature song. Was that a blessing to your music ministry, to your life,
or was it the seeds of temptation or destruction being planted as fame and
fortune became a driving force inside your camp, with your label and maybe even
in your personal life?
GO: Wow! What an excellent question! After ten years, no one has asked me
questions like you have. The best answer to that question is that yes, it has
been an incredible blessing. I remember me as a little boy, sitting and watching
the late Reverend James Cleveland, with his signature hit, Peace Be Still, he
said that it was such a blessing that people loved it, but it is also a
distraction and maybe even a curse that it was the only thing that they wanted
to hear.
I have experienced something like that because I Told the Storm is really a
lyrical take of what Peace Be Still was back then. It was the same message about
speaking to a storm and speaking peace to it, but to be even more clear, while
it has been a blessing in the past and even right now when they go to YouTube
and you look and see the hundreds of people; the young people who know the song
and are on YouTube that were just children when the song came out, I had no idea
that when I was speaking the things into the song, when God gave me the lyrics,
that I would actually have to live it.
I wrote lyrics like death can’t seek me, my grandfather past, my job can’t make
me. I got dropped by the record label, bills can’t break me, as a result of not
having an income and the finances coming in. I dealt with financial problems.
Disease can’t take me. I went through a battle of being diagnosed with diabetes.
All of these things came up as a direct result of that song.
So I literally had to live the lyrics of the song. So instead of I Told the
Storm being a testimony I Told the Storm ended up being a prophetic word in my
whole life. And as I sing it and minister it to people across the world, I was
living the actual lyrics of the song at the same time. So it was a blessing at
the same time as it was something that I had to live through, so I think that
God was really testing my character at the time.
CH: After the release of Clichés, we simply didn’t hear a whole lot from
Greg O’Quinn for many years. I think that I had heard that you had relocated to
Florida. There was this vacuum it seems. What were you doing during this season
of silence and what made today the appropriate time to record and release your
latest album After the Storm?
GO: Well I simply moved from Dallas to Orlando and I began a church out
there called the Holy Nation and I got away from what was familiar. As the
scripture says in Genesis 12, leave your father’s house and go to a land and I
will show you and I will make you a blessing to people, to many nations. This is
what God told Abraham and that was the word that I got and secured me to know
that God was calling me to minister.
I got away from Dallas or from my home and I went to a strange land in Orlando
and I worked, I ministered, we did missionary work and I built a small
congregation up there and I got away. Well in the meantime, while I was away
from touring and away from what people had expected from me, I never stopped
writing. Much of what we hear on this new record today, I Appreciate You, Break
Through, The Survivor, those three songs were written in Orlando while I was
working on the church. God kept inspiring me musically while I was there to do
his work.
To be even more candid with you, I went through a very difficult time with a
label that I was with at the time and I got discouraged with the business, and I
needed some time away. You know sometimes you have to take a time out and God
was like, “You know what? Take that time out.” I had to allow God to put me in
time out, so that I could get away from the business side of it and understand
that while it is business to many people to God it is still a ministry.
And I had got so wrapped and consumed in the business side of it, I began to
forget the real ministry side and it took a minute for me to work on Greg. I am
not going to sit here and put anybody on blast or anything else; I’m just going
to say that God had to work on me so that I could be the better man even in the
midst of a bad situation and in the midst of that he kept giving me songs and
music
It took a minute for me to work on Greg, you know. I'm not going to sit here and
put anybody on blast or anything else. I'm just going to say that God had to
work on me so that I could be the better man even in the midst of a bad
situation.
And, in the midst of that, He kept giving me songs and music. God said, "You
know what? It's time." And it took eight years. I got like over 65-75 songs now.
I've been working on this music for eight years now trying to release a record,
you know. It was really a time of preparation is what I would say.
CH: The title of your albums says a lot. You tagged your latest album,
the new album, After the Storm. And if you can be so candid, what type of storm
did God permit you to undergo before you experienced your breakthrough?
GO: Well, it was everything. I went through a divorce. I went through
financial changes. I went through the biggest thing which people are in denial
about which is self esteem issues. What am I supposed to do? Am I talented
enough? Am I good enough to do this? Who was going to circumvent me from being
who God wants me to be to minister His word?
So, and that's why one of the first songs on the record is called Convinced. God
gave me this song first like, "You know what, I do love you. There's a place for
you and no matter what anybody says, you know I want you to be convinced that
I'm down with you." And that's what the song is about.
I know a lot of my brothers and sisters like myself, we go through those self
esteem issues with those insecurities that we have. I got a breakthrough in the
middle of recording this record. God ministered to me and helped me finished the
record through the issues. So I really lived the record, as we were putting it
together.
CH: You've released at least four albums with three different labels. I'm
thinking about Word, Worldwide Gospel and now most currently Pendulum. What
helped you to decide on each of these labels as a perfect fit for your music
ministry, just to help put it in perspective for other aspiring and Independent
artists?
GO: Well, when I first started, I knew about Word and Epic. They were the
premier labels in Gospel with artists like Shirley Caesar and Marvin Sapp and
Milton Brunson.
Tommy Boy Gospel was just getting started at the time and all these other labels
were there, but Word was a premier label and that's why I wanted it. I knew
people there and it was great opportunity. It was a great start for me because
just putting your first record out, no matter what type of success you have from
it.
The fact that I was connected to Sony and connected to Word Gospel was great.
Even on the Christian roster, there was Amy Grant and Sandy Patti and people
like that. It was a great connection. When I went through some of the problems
there with that particular label, I then went over to Worldwide Gospel. I felt
like everybody was moving to an independent type of situation.
Worldwide was an Independent label at the time and it worked for me for that
particular season. This time around, I saw the success that (CEO) Rubin
Rodriguez had with Regina Belle and the fact that he had global success with R&B
and incredible success with gospel. I felt like that connection once I spoke
with him and his company and the love that they had for Gospel. I thought it
would be a great marriage for this record.
While I am a pastor, I am a music lover as a producer. I love Pop, I love R&B,
and I like music in general, as long as it’s not vulgar. I felt what God was
calling me to do on this record and what Rubin has done in the past and what I
saw his plans for the future, I thought it would be a great marriage for this
record - After the Storm.
CH: I can sense you are a lot wiser and a lot stronger in terms of your
ministry. Has your music team, I'm speaking about your vocalist and your
musicians, also undergone an evolution through this new season of yours?
GO: They have by default. Most people won't realize that 95 percent of this
record was done with three people, two background singers and me. I did all the
music and I had two singers.
And while I had access to choirs and bands and all of the great musicians and
great singers I’ve dealt with over my career, God has done such an incredible
metamorphosis and reshaping of Greg the believer, Greg the musician, Greg the
preacher. I wanted to be in concert. I wanted to be in covenant with those who
knew He had done the same work on me.
I'm not trying to be overly spiritual but I'm being real because this record is
so important because of all the things that the enemy tried to do to stop it.
They had to circumvent this record from even being heard by even my mother, much
less you and the press and the world, and you know, the kingdom of God. It's so
many things we could talk about that the enemy did to try to stop this thing. I
wanted to make sure that I had a covenant relationship and that the same boot
camp God put me through, He put the other people that were associated with this
record through.
It was a very small amount of us who did it, but I can surely see we were all in
covenant relationship. We all went through God's boot camp and you know, it was
a price we paid, but at the end of the day, I'm really pleased with what God
manifested in the name of this record, After The Storm.
CH: In conclusion, I would like you to sum up what are your expectations,
what are your greatest prayers for those who will come into contact with your
newest release.
GO: I want people to understand that at the end of the day, when you line
up with God, He's the winner, not us. I know many of us would want Stellar
Awards and Grammy Awards and all of that, but when you line up with God and when
you do what He wants you to do, at the end of the day, He is the one who wins.
I have such an intimate relationship with Him now, more than I ever did before
and it's because He showed me parts of me that I did not understand about me. He
showed me the end of the story. Even right now, I recorded this record, the
enemy tried to take it away. My hard drive crashed three times.
I spent endless amounts of money trying to retrieve it and God gave me back
every single piece of the record. He just let me know that while the enemy is
going to try to steal, kill, and destroy, this is my message. This is my music
and I love you and I love my people and you can do all things through Christ
that strengthens people.
No matter what insecurities you have, no matter how long it's been since you've
done records, no matter how little or how much of a budget you have, the fact
that I put my hands on it, that's it. And that's what I want to let people know,
when you're in covenant with God, at the end of the day, if He's given you the
vision, He will definitely give you the provision to provide for it.
