Listening to Daniel Bashta is like listening to Martin Luther King Jr. in his prime. His ability to motivate and bring hope will have you agree with him, in that, this generation could be the ones to see ‘the Great Commission become the Great Completion”.

Bashta isn’t the typical worship pastor releasing an album. There is a fire about him that ignites the sleeper’s heart.

He first took the industry by storm with his song “Like A Lion” which sparked major interest in his music -- which he refers to as his “Justin Bieber moment”. Along with his following loving the song, Bashta received acknowledgement from fellow Christian artists who loved the song too. Amongst these artists were The Newsboys and The David Crowder Band, who both decided to record the song.

In an interview with BREATHEcast before releasing his full length debut, The Sounds Of Daniel Bashta, available September 6th, he spoke about his up bringing as a missionary, the story behind “Like A Lion”, and the album.

Bashta grew up in Reserve, LA to parents that were heavily involved in ministry. From a young age he was in the missions field with his parents helping to plant churches.

Along with a passion for missions, Bashta also inherited a passion for music from his mom who played piano for the New Jersey philharmonic.

Although he traveled the world planting churches with his family and playing in various revivals where he saw thousands being changed, it didn’t all click to him until he was seventeen.

“I think, sometimes preacher’s kids are sometimes the worst -- well, the hardest people to reach because we just get so alienated from the real thing. Then we just get accustomed to church and we learn how to play the game. We learn how to wear hats and we know the right thing to say.”

“I could just do it. You ask me a question. I can automatically probably just tell you the right church answer, right away because that’s just how I grew up.”

This all changed in Bashta’s senior year of high school when he went on a missionary trip to Amsterdam.

“The summer of my senior year in high school, I went to Amsterdam...My parents are crazy enough to let a seventeen year old loose in Amsterdam. And we were working with missionaries there that had a church right outside the Red Light District.

We were having church in this bar [and] it was the first time that I really saw culture -- talking about the world perspective, just seeing that its not all about demanding that culture come to the church. Its like we -- the church is so good at saying here’s who we are and why don’t you come and gather in our four walls and we’ll herd you in and all of a sudden now we’ve built a steeple over it and now we have church. “

“For me, it was the first time that I actually saw the church go into communities and just build relationships...It was the first time that I saw that a church is meant to transform a community and transform cities by [reaching] out of its four walls, not locking people in them. And, I think that was just a big turning point for me, just being so young and seeing these things...”

Seeing that church transform its community provided a transformation in Bashta’s life and enabled him to make a personal connection with God for himself that has grown into a fiery passion that is evident in his music.

Bashta began working on like a lion while he and his wife where experiencing difficulty in their walk with God.

“We had just left, resigned, from a church that we had been on staff at for the last five years. And we were going through just a real [trying] point in our lives, in the church and relationships. We were just so tired of fake relationships...We had been hurt by situations.”

“So all of a sudden, we were so accustomed and comfortable in our own little world being on the staff of this church, that when we left, it was like, we [were] in open water and we had no safety net. It forced us to become really desperate and [know] what our belief in God was and who our God was.”

“I think that’s really healthy for every person to go through because, its so easy to get comfortable and its so easy to go into auto pilot. And I think when we get in situations that we’re tested and things are hot, it forces us to...rise and say this is who my God is.”

This time of testing brought out the conviction that is in the chorus of “Like A Lion.”

“My God’s not dead. He’s surely alive and He’s living on the inside, roaring like a lion.”

Bashta describes the album as very “intense” and an album that “demonstrates the prophetic voice of our generation.” Many of the tracks on the album are armed with “an army of vocals.”

He looks at the album as a journey and “not one of those CDs that you put in while you’re cooking and just wanna relax.”

“Its one of those records that you put in when you’re ready to really worship. I think its a record that if you’re believing God for a break through in your life and there’s things that you’ve been praying for in your life, that [as] you play this record, its really gonna start a journey of healing and restoration.”

Daniel Bashta’s album The Sounds Of Daniel Bashta is now available and can be purchased on AMAZON, and iTUNES.