Saturday, June 28, 1997

Country music stars find inspiration in Bible

By DAVID BRIGGS / AP Religion Writer

Marty Raybon walked down the aisle of a Southern Baptist church at age 6 to receive Christ into his life.

Fast-forward 31 years: The hung-over country-music star looked into the mirror one morning and all he could see was "a hell-bound pagan" who drank and neglected his family.

Once again he called out to God, and again he says he felt the spirit of the Lord come over him.

Since that day in 1991, the lead vocalist for Shenandoah has not touched a drop of alcohol or smoked a cigarette. He spends his Sundays with his family in church.

Now the singer, who in 1995 was named the Mainstream Country Artist of the Year by the Christian Country Music Association, can speak from experience when he counsels those struggling with their faith to turn to prayer and the Bible.

"Most of all, all you need to know is that the Holy Spirit is there to lead you to Him," Raybon says. "If He can lead a hell-bound pagan like I was, as lost in sin as I was, then he can lead anybody."

Raybon's story of faith lost and found and redemption following heartache is similar to others recounted in Lesley Sussman's book, "Yes, Lord, I'm Comin' Home!: Country Music Stars Share Their Stories of Knowing God," recently published by Doubleday.

Many of the performers were raised by religious parents and began singing in church. They were able to recapture their faith, after years in the spotlight and battling drug and alcohol addictions or recovering from failed marriages or serious accidents.

"I found them really close to God," Sussman said of the stars he interviewed, including Barbara and Louise Mandrell, Glen Campbell and Toby Keith. "They come from a part of the world where family, faith and hard work are staples."

In the interviews, the stars peppered their conversations with biblical passages.

"They really walk the talk. The Bible is an everyday living thing with these performers," Sussman said.

Like the themes of the songs they sing, many of the singers' faith journeys involved overcoming hardship.

When 41-year-old Doug Stone had a heart attack while on stage in 1992, only two years after releasing his debut album, he did not blame God. Nor did he blame God for his two divorces.

"None of those things ever affected my faith," Stone told Sussman. "Anything I ever got I deserved, whether it be rewards or a kick in the butt."

Five weeks after quadruple bypass surgery, Stone was performing again. His song that was hitting the top of the charts at the time? "Come in Out of the Pain."

Today, Stone has given up his fried-food binges and three-packs-a-day cigarette habit, but he still will not pray for material success.

"What you are really looking forward to is going to heaven - that's what you should be praying for. That's what our ultimate goal should be," Stone says in the book.

When B.J. Thomas was growing up in Houston, he would go to church twice on Sundays as well as on Wednesday nights.

If the church was closed, the 12-year-old Thomas and his older brother, Jerry, would often sneak in to play pingpong or sing hymns. By 14, he was a regular in the Gospel choir.

But stardom, which came with the 1969 Oscar-winning song "Raindrops Keep Fallin' on My Head," also contributed to alcohol and drug abuse.

It was only after a severe drug overdose in the mid-70s that Thomas began to turn his life around.

In the hospital room, he asked a nurse why he did not die. She responded that it was not God's will.

"It was a real matter-of-fact kinda thing the way she said it," Thomas told Sussman. "But for the first time, I guess, since I had been a boy, it dawned on me, 'Yeah, hey, wait a minute. God's part of all this stuff. Maybe He does have a plan for me.' "

A short while later, after two lay ministers prayed for him, Thomas went home and threw away a pound of drugs and gave up alcohol. He still reads the Bible every day.

"Faith is an eternal spirit that's inside all of us," Thomas says in the book. "If you want it bad enough, you'll find it. It's the lucky ones who get it while they're young."