‘He’s There Every Step’: God Restores Newsboys Singer’s Brokenness
By Movieguide® Contributor
John James was the lead singer for Newsboys before he was forced to leave the band and his life started to crumble.
God redeemed his story.
“I was born into a really abusive, toxic, broken family. Dad just walked out,” James explained on THE 700 CLUB. “Already at that stage, I had such a sense of rejection.”
“I used to always hear people say to me, ‘You know, you’re useless. You’re hopeless. You’re nothing. You’ll never amount to anything,’ thinking at the age of 15, my dad had the most incredible encounter with God and he came to a place of authentic repentance.”
His dad, the same man who left his own family, then led his family to Christ.
“It’s so bizarre because the very person that was responsible for utterly destroying my family was the very vehicle that God used to be a miracle of hope,” he recalled. “I’m 19 now, and God orchestrated another incredible encounter in my life, and I met a young gentleman that was a drummer, and he was with several other guys, [and we] start talking about starting a band that was going to be the Newsboys.”
“Eventually and now I became the lead singer of the Newsboys, and it began this incredible journey…to write music with a message of hope found in Christ in Christ alone,” the Australian native shared. “I had the privilege in being a part of the first six albums. The first one we did was ‘Read All About It,’ and then it was ‘Palace for Wimps,’ then ‘Boys Will Be Boys,’ and then ‘Not Ashamed’ album, then ‘Going Public,’ then ‘Take Me to Your Leader.’”
The band members became famous and wealthy and got married and had children.
“The incredible wealth was coming now. The beautiful homes, the beautiful cars,” he explained. “We were living the American dream. Money. Lifestyle. Success. Fame.”
“The industry has the ability to expose defects in your character. It’s easy to be great from a distance when the limelight’s on but behind the closed doors, when you’re not on stage, when no one’s around, the lifestyle will begin to expose — like I said — the defects in who you are, in your foundation, in your character, and that’s what happened to me,” James said. “I’m losing my own grip and that sense of humility and humbleness and staying connected to the vine, connected to God.”
In his downfall, he started to speak to other women outside of his marriage. He called the communication “addictive” and knew it wasn’t right. He told one of his band members, and James was forced to leave the band.
“My world, it fell apart, and I was so exposed,” he explained. “I felt so naked because I think at that moment, I came to the shocking realization that my whole sense of value and worth and my whole identity was totally wrapped up in who I was with the Newsboys, and that meant more to me than my marriage…This is my identity.”
“As long as I was with the Newsboys, I’m somebody,” he said. “I have a purpose. I have a future. I have a hope.”
He turned to alcohol when his career crashed, and things got worse.
“One day, she found a bunch of letters, and she opened it up, and they’re all from this woman that I’d been talking to, and she left,” he said. “I went down that rabbit hole even deeper with the drugs and the alcohol. So I thought, ‘Well let’s go back to Australia. I’ll let all that blow over, and I’ll go back and patch things up with my wife.”
But he just wanted to have his old life back. He had not remedied his lifestyle or made things right with God.
“God shut the door for me to come back to America, and then God started the journey. [He’s] taken me to the wilderness where John James had to die,” he explained. “It was the most painful, the most gut-wrenching dying to self and allowing God to heal the wound and the abandonment and the rejection and the unfaithfulness and just the mess.”
“Eventually, that marriage with my first wife came to an end, and I’m at a place like, ‘God how are you ever going to fix someone like me?’ And I remember one day I was sitting at a church, and I was so just broken, and there was a speaker there from South Africa, and he didn’t know me from a bar of soap. He wouldn’t have a clue who I am, and in the middle of his message, he stopped preaching and walks down off the stage and…points his finger at me…I remember when he spoke to me. I began to break down and weep. It showed me that God still loved me and God saw me and God in His mercy was able to help me find the way back to the foot of the cross in repentance.”
The Lord “prompted” his heart, and the singer made the choice to be content with leading a much less glamorous life.
“I honestly had to come to a place of saying yes, Lord, and so that’s what I’ve been doing. I met this other recording artist, this wonderful lady, and we got married in our home church at that time in Florida, and now I think I have the most incredible privilege as a missionary to America through I Reach USA. The ministry we’re looking to bring a message of hope to public schools to drug and alcohol rehab facilities, to local communities with military bases around this great nation.”
“I tell my story today humbled because it’s about God and his love and his faithfulness and his goodness and his mercy. I believe he’s not only God of the mountaintop, but he’s God of the valley, of the storm of the grief, of the shipwreck, of the loss, of the pain, he’s there every step of the way,” the singer said.
James now serves as a light for Christ, evangelizing across the nation.
He hasn’t performed in 25 years, but this year, he started a GoFundMe to raise money for a new album with his wife, Tanya James. James’ GoFundMe letter explains that he’s been enthusiastically writing music for the album.
“I believe inspired by the Lord, from the moment I wake up, until the time I go to bed, and I have written an entire album that is ready to be recorded. I truly believe that He has given me something to say and something to sing, and that through the music once again, many will be reached for the Kingdom of God,” James said.
Movieguide® also reported on Michael Tait, the current lead singer for the Newsboys:
Faithwire reported, “Tait said he was 17 or 18 years old when a preacher came to his school and spoke about the ‘subject of hell, and how real hell is, and how beautiful heaven is.’”
“He preached on what preachers don’t preach about much anymore,” the singer said. “You can’t get saved on the back of your dad or your mom; it’s not osmosis. It’s a thing we have to be one-on-one with God.”
Tait continued, “I got fired up that day, man — pun intended. I got fired up, and I went…forward for prayer, and I accepted God for myself as my Savior that day in high school.”
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