There's an axiom that should apply in so many areas where we live our lives, be it classroom or boardroom or family room.

"There's no such thing as a dumb question."

But there's one place where this idea tends not to apply. So many--young and old, male and female, seeker and believer alike--run into opposition of asking the tough questions in the one place they should feel most free, the church. Todd Agnew wants to help put a stop to that. Through his travels as a recording artist and performer, he has seen it start to happen on its own.

"I'm just finding more and more people who aren't fooled by the 'everything's fine' version of Christianity," the Texas-bred Memphis resident says. "I'm just trying to just get some of those questions out there, the questions people are afraid to ask in church, but also to get the questions asked sincerely and without anger."

Which brings Agnew to this place in time and art, using his platform and talent to get to the core of who we are as humans, to get to that moment where we're able to ask the Better Questions.

Recently, Todd spent some time with NRT to talk about those questions, the stories that inspired them and the lack of answers presented throughout the album.

I get the feeling that with this new project, you are letting people see a side of Todd Agnew that's really raw. Would that be a good way to describe it?

Man, that's probably one of the best descriptions I've heard so far. I'm a musician, so I'm writing songs all the time. I had written a few that I like to call "closet songs." They're the songs I write for me and I play them around the house but I don't really share them with anybody. All of a sudden I had like eight of them all in a span of a few months. I just went, "Oh no, I think God's fixing to take my closet and open it up for everybody to look into." That is really what has happened with this CD. It's a very personal record. I've tried to be pretty open and honest through all my music so far but this one definitely dug deep.

How did the label and your management react to this album?

I'm one of those rare people in this industry that will say that I've got the best team in the world! We were planning to do a different project next and then all these songs started coming out. So I came in one day with my pitch and I played through half the songs on the record, explaining the overall concept. Every single person went, "Yes, this is what we need to do!" They didn't question anything. They just said, "Hey look, this is obviously where your heart is, this is where the music's going and so that's where we need to go." From management to the label, everybody really jumped on board with their support.

One of my favorite songs on the project is "On A Corner In Memphis." Can you talk about that song?

I've been a worship leader for a long time and I've been leading worship in Memphis for five years. I got this juxtaposition in my head one day of going out to Beal Street where the old guys sit on the corner. Maybe they're homeless, maybe not, but they have an old beat up guitar and they're sitting there playing the saddest songs you've ever heard while singing with every fiber of their being--just letting it loose. So I'd see that on Saturday night and then I would wake up on Sunday morning, go to church and see people singing about the blood of Christ with absolutely no passion at all. I just went, "What's the problem here? Why are these two things going on? It should be the opposite. The hurt guy, the lost guy, should be the one that has no passion about life and on Sunday morning, those in church should be the most passionate people in the world." So I just really wrestled with this concept for years.

This past year, these thoughts turned into what the church is supposed to look like. I read a book called "Reading the Bible with the Damned" by Bob Ekblad and it's about reading the Bible with people in prison. I love prison ministry and so I was really excited about reading this book. I was like, "Yeah, it's going to show me all these things in the Bible that I can talk to them about." I was just looking forward to me being able to go and do prison ministry. The first chapter, right out of the gates, Bob just blows my mind by saying this book isn't about going to do ministry to people, it's about reading the Bible with them because they are the church too. Their interpretations of the Bible are just as valid and valuable as mine. I've never thought that way before and I had to wrestle with it for a little bit. But what he's saying is totally valid. We'll never understand verses about being free in Christ like they will.

So I thought, what if this guy singing out on the street corner has something that we need in the church? What if we need him instead of us needing to go share Jesus with him? What if his songs are the next generation's hymns? That's the inspiration behind that song.

That's great. How do we know the worth of someone unless we take the time to find out what their worth is, right?

Right

Good stuff. Well, the first single off the record is "Our Great God," a duet with Rebecca St. James. Were you guys actually in the studio together or was this one of those "piece it together" kind of songs?

It was a piece it together. Rebecca always jokes that I was in Africa when she was recording that song. I had done my part of the record and Rebecca's vocals were one of the last things we needed. My band and I had gone to Zimbabwe on a mission trip and she had been out on the road during the spring while we were cutting the record. So we were long gone by the time she could do it. Rebecca's a great, great friend of mine so it was a natural choice. We're part of a study group together so a lot of these books that I've been reading, along with all of these questions I've been asking, have been part of that group.

Do you have a favorite song on "Better Questions?" Is there one that you absolutely had to have included or one that really gets to the heart of who you are?

You know, I don't know that there is. For me that question is like asking a parent which one of their kids is their favorite. Every one of those songs came out of something God was going in my life. Just that fact in itself, that each one of those represents an encounter with the Lord, makes them completely irreplaceable.

It must take a lot of courage and trust in the Lord to put out a record like this. How do you keep your dependence on God strong each day? What's your daily routine to keep in touch with Him?

It's really exactly what you said--just keeping in touch. It's making sure that I continually have stuff in my life that gives God access. It's real easy for me to get caught up in routine and busyness and everything. It's not that I don't want to hear from the Lord, it's just that I'm not listening and that everything else is so loud. I really try to recognize what He's doing even in the middle of the hustle and bustle.

As far as having the courage to do this, I don't know that I do, you know? It's one thing to create something, because you can create it without any fear of what anybody thinks. But to share it with everyone is something entirely different. There's definitely some fear there. If you look at God all the time you're never going to be impressed with yourself. So humility is not going to be a real struggle because you're going to be like Isaiah was. You're going to say, "Man what a wretch am I!" That's just what happens when you look at the Lord. At the same time, you'll be like David when he was facing Goliath. He wasn't focused on the giant's size, he was looking at how big his God was. When you look at that, then the giant doesn't really scare you anymore.

I like what you said on your blog about the project. It's titled, "Better Questions," but they're not actually better questions. They're just the questions that you have that a lot of people have as well, but just aren't willing to share. You don't have all the answers either and I think that's a really neat way to put it.

I always try to explain that the title doesn't mean I have better questions than anyone else. It comes out of the first line of the record which says, "I've got better questions than I have answers." As a Christian musician people come to you thinking you have all of the answers and most the time I don't. I could make up stuff but that's not going to help anybody. What they really need to know is that I have questions too and that's okay. We can all journey together to ask the Lord, wrestle with these things and do them together.

If you're sitting there thinking that all these huge questions will be answered by buying the record, I'm here to tell you don't buy it because of that. This isn't one of those instances where I present a real difficult issue and then thirty seconds later I wrap it up in the chorus and give you the answer. Most of these songs will leave you hanging out there to dry. This is me admitting to people that I have questions I don't know the answer to, and that's the end of the song.

Great stuff Todd. I know that I've had a lot of those questions stirred up after spending some time with the record. I appreciate you sharing this with us and spending some time with us at New Release Tuesday.

Yeah, thanks for having me!