Breakfast at the IHOP with the fresh-faced lads of Jars of Clay calls for one order of chocolate chip pancakes with sausage and a Dr. Pepper; a bacon omelette with iced tea, and two Rooty Tooty Fresh 'n Fruity breakfasts with orange juice. If their orders seem whimsical, even child-like, their music is anything but. Serious and mature, it's progressive acoustic rock overlaying starkly honest and poetic lyrics, all delivered with forceful vocals that create a wonderfully refreshing and stirring kind of Christian music.

The men creating this music are twenty-somethings Dan Haseltine (programming, lead vocals, all lyrics), Matt Odmark (programming, guitar), Steve Mason (vocals, guitar, bass) and Charlie Lowell (vocals, piano, organ). Producer Adrian Belew of David Bowie, Peter Gabriel and Paul Simon fame helped the band flesh out its unique sound on two cuts with mandolin, viola, fiddle and yes, snippets of a Gregorian chant. The result is a self-titled debut selling to the tune of 4000 units per month. It seems the boys' first effort is going a long way toward their goal to "reshape Christian music." I ask, "From what to what?"

Dan: It's an artistic question: Is it proper to sacrifice art for ministry? I think the conclusion is pretty simple-it's not. I think God calls us to do the best with our abilities and to be relevant with style-"Why should the devil have all the good music?" (laughs) It seems the Christian industry has been somewhat stagnant in developing creative artists. I think God gives you the gifts; you just have to use them.

CCM: It seems like a lot of Christian music is heavy on instruction to believers: what to do, how to think, how to respond to situations. Yours isn't. What do you want your music to do?

Dan: Make [people] think for themselves! So many decisions that you make involving Christianity and a relationship with Christ are personal and require much thought and deliberation. To have all that stuff dictated to you doesn't really make sense. It's kind of like growing up and hearing the doctrine and theology and list of rules but never quite understanding what it really means until you sit down and wrestle with it yourself.

Matt: Before I joined Jars, I used to work with youth. One of the things [we learned] in leadership training that I think is really true is that a lot of modern-day evangelism has forgotten the joy of discovery. There's so much joy and so much more real change that comes about when you discover something for yourself. We don't really trust the Holy Spirit enough to work and bring change in people's lives. I would hope that what we try to do in the ministry of Jars is to push people toward making their own conclusion; to trust the Gospel and the Holy Spirit enough to know that is what's going to change people, not us and not one of our songs.

CCM: I'd like to know about the clear-eyed, bravely honest view of yourselves and the world your lyrics reflect. How do you maintain that kind of personal integrity?

Matt: I think it is definitely a discipline. One of the things you notice as you meet other artists is there's this degree of cynicism that something about the industry seems to breed. I [realized] early on that you have to protect your heart at some level from that. . . protect. . .that wide-eyed child-likeness. There's all these things that want to pull you out of that, and you really have to struggle and be intentional about holding onto that view of God and the world.

Dan: We've gotten a lot of response about the lyrics, that they're really honest. When lyrics come out, a lot of times [they reflect] just exactly where I'm at, things that are fresh in my mind and heart. Lyrically, God meets us where we're at, and we need to kind of meet the people that we're influencing at the same place.

CCM: Who is your music for?

Steve: I'd say it's by the people and for the people... [laughter]. It's been exciting for us to see a multigenerational response to the music-a lot of youth, kids who are in college and on their own as well as youth pastors and elders in the church have been very supportive. Again and again we're just blown away with the way God has used the music to minister to people that we don't even expect it to. We're continually humbled by it.

Dan: I think the relevancy comes from God. We can't really explain why an elderly lady would like one song and a 12-year-old kid would like another; that's not something we have any control over. It's hard to explain where we fit in because we don't write with intentions of fitting in anywhere except within ourselves.

CCM: Let's talk about some of the songs and where they came from. How about "Art in Me?"

Dan: It's a song about how easy it is to praise God for things like mountains and mountaintop experiences, but we always overlook the creativity and the art that [occurs] when we reach the valleys and God actually sculpts us and puts us together and allows us to fall on Him. We kind of neglect that and say, "God, I'll praise You when You get me through this."

CCM: In the song "Worlds Apart," the lyric says "All I am for all You are/ Because what I need and what I believe are worlds apart." Does this song for you define the demand of the Christian life?

Steve: Charlie and I are reading a book called Transforming Grace by Jerry Bridges, and it really speaks of this song in that [the author] compares accepting Christ's righteousness to filing complete bankruptcy, spiritually speaking-I think it's called Chapter 7 bankruptcy. The battle that Dan and Matt wrote about is when we file for Chapter 12 bankruptcy, which is partial bankruptcy. We accept God's grace for our salvation, and we know we'll be caught up into heaven. But [while] living the Christian life in between those two things, we try to pay for some of that with our works. Singing that song, we can't help but continually dwell on the fact that He wants to be all of that for us. We're constantly challenged to file permanent bankruptcy.

CCM: Why did you choose the Christian marketplace as a platform for your musical ability?

Dan: It's easier to break into than the secular market [laughter]. Most of us have grown up doing music in the church to some extent. I know for me it was just a natural progression.

Matt: We very much want to be about ministry and sharing Christ with people. We see our music as a tremendous gift from God to help us do that. The secular industry just isn't designed to support a ministry; it's designed to sell records. Those two [things] are kind of at cross purposes sometimes.

CCM: Here's the dreaded artist question: How would you describe your music, not stylistically but ideologically?

Charlie: Christ our Savior and how holy and blameless He is, the contrast of God and man; the whole image of the jars of clay and the jar, how fragile that is, how easily broken--yet God entrusts His Savior in us [2 Cor. 4: 7]. That's the theme that weaves through most of our music and that we're constantly blown away by.

Matt: We hope our music would speak truth, truth about who God is, who man is and the relationship between the two.

On that serious note the Jars-Boys turn whimsical again, with Matt likening their musical direction to a banana split-- "Well, you have your two bananas, which is your basic musical framework, you have a scoop of chocolate and a scoop of vanilla, which are kind of your familiar territory, and then a scoop of something a little wacky like piña collada and lots of whipped cream on top."

And with that, Steve adds his own summation of the band's music with the story of a woman who told him at a concert that her dog loves the song "Like a Child": "He just jumps up and down when we play that," relates Steve, "and when the child starts talking in the middle, he just barks and barks and yelps and gets really happy. . .This music is approved by discriminating Dalmatians everywhere. It's not just for humans anymore."*

*Article transcribed from CCM Magazine, October 1995 issue, pages 29-32.