Keith Green

My sister, Debbie, introduced me to Keith Green. John Barton was my second and last college roommate before I started rooming with my wife. John had also been introduced to Keith Green, I think maybe by his sister as well. In those college years, Green’s music moved me deeply, sometimes to tears and incredible conviction.

See and hear more of his story

Sometimes I go back to that music. It still moves me. I think because of the powerful story of Keith Green’s life that goes along with the music. He was a struggling journeyman who could softly touch your heart one minute, then rip it out the next. By today’s standards, if you’ve never heard his music, some of it might sound cheesy, but other songs are enduring. As one music promoter who first heard him in the 70s said, he rips the keyboard to shreds and commands this instrument . . . and he sang songs about Jesus, who he was learning about and following with abandon, and would sing, “Jesus, commands us to go . . . it should be the exception if we stay . . . it’s no wonder we’re moving so slow, when his church refuses to obey, feeling so called to stay.”