Saturday, May 2, 1998

Christian music star Steven Curtis Chapman sends out a message with 'Not Home Yet'

By Ken Garfield / Knight Ridder Newspapers

Not long before she was murdered at her high school prayer meeting, Kayce Steger of Paducah, Ky., told a friend that her dream was to meet Christian music star Steven Curtis Chapman.

Chapman believes the 15-year-old girl from his hometown got her wish. She got to hear him sing last December about a better world that awaits. In a way that perhaps only believers can appreciate, she got to thank him for eternal hope. And even if all this happened at her nationally televised funeral, Chapman is certain that Kayce heard every word he sang.

Chapman is a Christian. This is what he knows to be so. This is what he devotes his career to getting others to know.

"There's no question in my mind these girls were watching from heaven," Chapman said. "You know what? This world isn't our home. These girls are home."

The song that Chapman sang at the funeral of Kayce Steger?

"Not Home Yet."

Chapman won five Dove Awards at last week's nationally televised show. With his folk/pop style and schoolboy good looks, he has sold more than 4 million records, won three Grammys and 37 Doves, considered the Grammys of gospel music. He sings "I Will Not Go Quietly" on the soundtrack of "The Apostle" -- and laughs like a star-struck kid about sitting near actor Val Kilmer at a New York screening of the Robert Duvall movie.

The popularity of Christian music has reached the point that Chapman and other stars talk about having to work harder to avoid the egos that swell when teen-agers line up for autographs. The Bible, said Chapman, speaks of Jesus being one who didn't care about his reputation.

Wary of the personal acclaim that comes with success, Chapman seems glad to talk less about his 10 years of hits than the 15 minutes he helped lead that extraordinary funeral at Bible Baptist Heartland Worship Center in Paducah.

In those 15 minutes rests the conviction he will spend a lifetime sharing with fans.

Chapman, 35, grew up in Paducah -- a drummer in the high school marching band and a proud member of the Class of 1981 at Heath High School.

The town of 27,000 and the school of 600 vaulted to the front page at 7:40 a.m. Dec. 1, 1997. That's the moment that freshman Michael Carneal pulled a .22-caliber semi-automatic Ruger handgun from his backpack and fired 11 shots into a student prayer circle about to break up in the main lobby.

Three girls died in the shooting -- Kayce Steger, Jessica James and Nicole Hadley. Five other students were injured. The 14-year-old suspect will be tried as an adult. He has pleaded not guilty to murder charges and is being held without bond.

The parents of the three murdered girls knew their children had listened to Steven Curtis Chapman's music. They knew he was from Paducah and Heath High. So when it came time to mourn their loss in public, they invited Chapman to share his testimony through music at the funeral.

On the morning of Dec. 5, Chapman looked out into the congregation and spotted his wife, Mary Beth, crying. He thought of the three murdered girls and his three children at home -- Emily, 12, Caleb, 8, and Will Franklin, 7. If he hadn't left Paducah in search of a career in music, he thought about how that could have been one of his kids in the prayer circle.

"If it happened 20 years ago," he said, "it could have been me."

With the sound of sobs filling the sanctuary, Chapman looked at the three caskets and choked back his own tears. "They shouldn't ever make 'em that small," he thought.

Then it came time for Chapman to leave his seat and take center stage. The eulogy had just been given for Kayce Steger, the teen-ager who idolized him. With 2,000 watching from the church and millions more live on CNN, his fears were suddenly washed away by calm as he began to sing "Not Home Yet."

He had prayed to God earlier in the day that the gospel be true. Now, on stage, he knew that it was.

"I remembered the message I felt like I was supposed to share -- we grieve but not as those who have no hope," Chapman said. "Pain is a huge part of life ... that's what makes us long for heaven."

Chapman captured the message in "Not Home Yet:"

"I know there'll be a moment

I know there'll be a place

Where we will see our Saviour

And fall in his embrace

So let us not grow weary

Or too content to stay

'Cause we are not home yet."

Sabrina Steger -- Kayce's mom -- listened from near the front of the church.

"The title of it speaks it very plainly," she said. "We are just here on the Earth for a little while. Kayce is home."

Chapman can't shake the hold that the tragedy has on him. He doesn't want to. The nation's horror has turned to a similar shooting in Jonesboro, Ark., but he dwells on his hometown.

He's organizing a "Concert of Hope" May 15 at the Heath High football field, where he once banged the drum on the football Friday nights that were so rich with innocence.

Whether he's singing at a funeral in Kentucky or an amusement park in the Carolinas -- whether we're grieving for a loved one or riding a roller coaster -- this is the message Chapman is devoted to spreading.

We are not home yet.

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(c) 1998, The Charlotte Observer (Charlotte, N.C.).

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