Matthew West Interview from NRB Convention

Matthew West was in Nashville for the NRB Convention a few weeks back and did a special interview session (plus a performance) with some special friends he has made from Teen Challenge. 

Matthew West, a pastor's kid growing up, was familiar with Teen Challenge because they would visit his family church and sing and give testimonies.  Matthew West said about those encounters as a teen that they taught him the power of someone's story and added, "Hearing their stories made me want to be real and authentic".  

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The main reason that Matthew West was giving this interview alongside Teen Challenge and Jordan (you will find about him soon) was because Matthew West has opened up his website for people to write in and share their stories. Matthew West said, "I'm a storyteller, been a storyteller at heart for a long time" and he wanted in his words "to turn the mic around and help share his fans stories.  

So Matthew West opened up this invite on this website expecting maybe a few thousand posts, well he has had over 25,000 posts and counting.

So he reads through these stories and finds the ones that catch his eye and heart and crafts a song around a particular story.  
This is where Jordan Jeffers comes in.  Jordan had one of those stories that touched Matthew and he wanted to write a song about his experience.  

Matthew West said the first line of Jordan's emauil was "Hello, my name is Jordan and I"m a drug addict."  From the first line West was hooked.  
Jordan was sitting at the interview with Matthew West and shared more of his story.  He got saved at the age of 9 and was a trouble free kid for the most part growing up and became a star athlete.  In high school in Tennessee, Jordan became a 2 time All State football player and 3 time state champ in track.  He chose on the small Christian college, Cumberland, in Southeastern, Ky.  

Things were going well for Jordan unless he broke his ankle his sophomore year playing football.  He was prescribed some pain pills but when the prescription ran out, his desire to keep taking them was high.  Jordan started by rummaging through his friends and families cabinets and drawers to steal any pills they had.  After that he progressed to the street, having to buy prescription bills, which aren't cheap on the street, so he would steal to get his fix and eventually started shooting pills straight into him.  

Amazingly, Jordan kept up with his sports during this time until he failed a drug test for the second time and got kicked out of school.

He had hit rock bottom and shooting pills had a hold of his life.  His parents were able to get him into a 12 month Teen Challenge program.  Jordan remembers him saying to his mom, ""mom, don't leave me here, you love me too much."  To that his mom responded back, "I love you too much not to leave you here."  

Those next 12 months got Jordan clean and changed his life.  He rededicated his life back to God and went back to the school that kicked him out to finish his degree and graduated in 2009.  

After Jordan had shared his story, Matthew West performed the song he wrote about Jordan's story called, "Hello My Name Is".  West mentioned a portion of the verse 1 Peter 2:9 afterwards, "God has called us out of the darkness into the marvelous light".  This song is on West's cd called, In The Light.  

Now Jordan proudly states that he can say, "Hello my name is Jordan, and I'm a child of the one true God." 

There are over 237 Teen Challenge centers across the US.  

Matthew West and his father started the ministry called "Population We" and have given over 1000 children tickets to converts all over the country.