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Getting Lost In Worship With
Fusebox By Bobby Morris
The members
of the group Fusebox also make up the band for Grammy award-winning Christian
artist Rebecca St. James. Bill
Buchanan is the most recent to join the group. Just over a year ago, St. James guitarist Brad Duncan
called Buchanan with news that Rebecca’s band needed another guitar
player. At first Bill turned the
offer down. However, after some
additional consideration, Buchanan decided to accept. Almost immediately, the threesome
began work on their own musical project with the support and encouragement of
St. James. The result is the
group Fusebox and the album “Lost In Worship.” What almost didn’t happen found a way, and what a
result! Fusebox front man Bill
Buchanan sees it all as the ongoing work of God in his life. There was a
time when Bill Buchanan had good reason to question God’s presence in his
life. He grew up in Ohio, but
had lived in eight different homes by the time he graduated from high school. His father was abusive and had
difficulty holding a job, which created rent problems and kept the family on
the move. When Bill was eleven,
his parents divorced. Bill recalls
being exposed to many peer pressures and temptations in high school, such as
alcohol, drugs, and sexual promiscuity.
Although Bill managed to avoid drugs, he was not as successful
resisting other temptations, especially without a full-time father to guide
him in the right direction.
However, no matter what each week brought, Bill’s mother made sure he
was in church every Sunday.
Looking back on those difficult times now, Bill realizes that even
then, God’s hand was on him and beginning to guide and shape his life. “By the age
of ten, I knew exactly what I wanted to do with my life: I wanted to sing.” Bill was exposed to a wide variety of
music as he grew up. But it was
the music he used to hear at his grandma's house that truly changed his life.
She would listen to gospel greats like Andrae Crouch, Mahalia Jackson, and
James Cleveland. “There was such a conviction in what they were saying, but I
wouldn't come to fully understand it until years later.”
It was at
that point that Bill began to focus on making God an integral part of his
life. It was during this time of
searching that Bill would meet his future wife, Heather. In 1994, Bill left Skindeep and took
a year off to write and grow in his faith. He did not do this in order to find a pot of gold at the
end of some rainbow. “Following
the Lord doesn’t mean you’ll be rich, but it does mean you’ll be at peace,
and there’s no better life.” The
world tells us that happiness comes from money and possessions. However, based on his experience,
Bill says, “Don’t fall for those lies.
Nothing satisfies without God.” Part of
Bill’s faith journey has been for him to get more involved with young people
through concerts, church activities, and other functions. The main thing Bill tries to
communicate to people he meets is the importance of focusing on God. For example, young people often feel
intense pressure to follow the crowd and try to please their peers by any
means necessary. Everyone wants
to fit in. This is a natural way
to feel. However, when we think
of how our actions will look to someone else, our first consideration should
be God. “As you get older, the
Lord helps you understand who you are in His eyes – that you are somebody and
you don’t have to fit in. You
might not fit it, but so what?
The Lord loves you for who you are and wants to have a relationship
with you and walk with you.”
Fusebox plans
to continue touring with Rebecca St. James for another year, after which they
will strike out on their own as an independent group. As Bill considers the future years of
the group, he comments, “To look back over the last ten years and see what
God has done to change me, I have no choice but to worship and give Him
thanks.” This
sentiment is shared by Brad and Steve who join Bill in saying about the new
album, “Through music we desire to worship God genuinely and to bring others
into a sincere worship experience.
Our prayer is that this experience would translate into a daily
surrendering toward Jesus, and that worship would not be just an event, but a
lifestyle.” Experience something of this prayer is the RealAudio sound
clip below from the debut release of Fusebox, Lost in Worship:
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