Brandon Lake Gospel Tour Draws Huge Crowds in Secular Cities
Christian singer Brandon Lake is drawing crowds and changing lives even in cities that are not considered friendly to the gospel. More than 15,000 people attended his recent concert at the SAP Center in San Jose, California.
“Tonight is not about me,” Lake told the crowd. “But it is about one man — and his name is Jesus.”
Lake, who sings “The Hard Fought Hallelujah,” in the middle of his 48-city Kings of Hearts tour, which included a stop in Kansas City. His music is not only encouraging Christians but also breaking through to secular audiences. Jim Harrington, a music critic for the “San Jose Mercury News,” was impressed with his local performance.
“That all of this was happening in the heart of Silicon Valley/Bay Area — widely known as one of the least religious and most ‘unchurched’ areas in the country — only made this accomplishment more impressive, greatly underscoring the historic nature of Lake’s trajectory as an artist,” he wrote. “Simply put, this 35-year-old talent is drawing attendance numbers at the box office that are simply astounding, arguably beyond anything ever seen in the CCM genre before.”
Lake’s song “Count ‘Em” sounded “like something that could hail from the Foo Fighters catalog,” Harrington wrote. Even so, Lake has an uncanny “ability to go from big rock star spectacle to intimate moment at the drop of a hat.”
During one moment, Lake walked into the audience to pray over a concertgoer. Toward the end of the show, he gave an invitation, urging those who had not done so to accept Christ as their savior. Thousands lifted their hands, saying they had prayed the salvation prayer.
“I pray it’s just the beginning, and I pray that it takes over,” Lake recently told the AP. “And not the genre of Christian music, but songs — whatever genre they are — that carry the message of the gospel.”
Lake is unusual in that he has embraced not only worship but also pop, rock and even hip-hop, as evidenced in a song he performed with L.A.-based hip-hop artist Skema Boy, Harrington wrote.
He’s also got a few thoughts on Gospel music’s growing popularity within a secular audience. “The reason why people are turning their ear towards those kinds of songs right now is because that’s what they were made for,” he told the AP. “Music doesn’t just have to be entertainment. They can have a spiritual experience. They can be educated on who they were made to be. They can receive hope and life and faith. … I love all kinds of music, but if you have a song that carries that kind of message, it’s just super charged, you know? It does something deeper.”
–Alan Goforth
