By Kayla DeKraker
Mattie Montgomery, a musician, pastor and former frontman for the metalcore band For Today, knows the power that music has over people, and he believes it can be used for good.
In fact, he’s seen how sharing Jesus through music stops suicides and self-harm.
“[I’ve heard] story after story of multiple people coming to concerts as their sort of last night out with their friends before they go and commit suicide and hearing the gospel and responding to the message of Christ, canceling their suicide plans, drugs and alcohol, Satanism and atheism — just amazing stories,” Montgomery told Kap Chatfield. “If you let the gospel off the leash, it will make life so much more exciting than you could ever imagine.”
The singer and his band decided to follow Jesus’ call in Mark 16 to “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation” and share the good news on stage and “see what happens.”
“Teaching the gospel in a room full of people who did not come to hear the gospel, it’s like throwing a grenade in the middle of the room,” he explained. “It’s gonna be dramatic, but, man, it’s powerful. You can’t deny it. So, a lot of people came just for the music part of it.”
At first, people were “horrified” that the band talked about Jesus at their shows.
“And then, you know, people began to kind of hear what we were about. They would get to know us. They would kind of show up expecting that,” he explained.
Montgomery a amazing moment of transformation he witness in Montreal — one of the least Christian cities in North America.
“When we first started playing there, people would be openly hostile to us for preaching the gospel…They’re cussing and they’re laughing and pointing and middle fingers and spit, just kind of generally dismissive and like uninterested,” he explained.
“10 years later, we were doing our farewell tour in Montreal, and we finished a song, and I just went to the back of the stage to take a drink before I turned around and preached the gospel. And in that 10 or 15 seconds, somebody in the crowd goes, ‘Jesus, Jesus.’ And within seconds, a whole crowd of 12, 1500 people are chanting the name of Jesus.”
Now that his band days are over, Montgomery spends his time sharing the gospel as a senior leader at The Altar Fellowship in Johnson City, Tennessee. He and his wife Candace are also raising their three sons: Kai, Caleb and Carver.
Montgomery also wrote a book titled Lovely Things in Ugly Places, which details powerful moments during his music career.
A synopsis reads, “Mattie Montgomery spent countless nights in bars and night clubs all around the world, sharing the love of Christ with a largely secular subculture — one that has been all but forgotten by much of the modern church. In Lovely Things in Ugly Places, he invites us to come with him as he revisits the moments in his ministry.”
Montgomery’s story is a testament to the fact you can share the gospel, no matter where God’s placed you.
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