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Now The News

"I've learned it's okay to take risks. And I've learned it's okay to be real."

    I recently had a chance to talk with Eli on the phone. I was me, and he was pretending to be a telemarketer from a bean sprout publication confirming my subscription order.
    The element of surprise was on Eli's side as I fumbled through my words to try to understand who was calling me. Then I heard a laugh on the other end of the line. The next words that came out of my mouth were, "You got me again, Eli." He started off a previous interview in this manner. I can't believe I fell for it, twice!

    A few days later, I was sitting in a conversion van behind a small church with Eli after a concert. The van is home to him and his road family who makes sure he gets to the places they're supposed to be at. They also make sure he enjoys his birthday (which was that day), by doing their best to embarrass him onstage with a cake, candles, and a rendition of "Happy Birthday" from them and the crowd that will mercifully not make it onto his next album.
    We talked in the van about human stuff, my new guitar, his love for kids, what he's been up to since the last time we talked, and other topics discussed between friends, not media person to artist. These moments are the essence of Eli and his magnetism to people.
    With a renewed perspective and an honest outlook, Eli has become a man who's "moving on."
    "I've been doing this 10 years - am I somebody relevant?" he wonders. "It's time to find out and let myself be me."
    He does just that with Now the News.
    "It's my hope to always share who I am and what I am, warts and all."
    Eli has discovered that God has the ability to transform our lives and purify us through the events of our daily lives. Eli admits that he still laughs at things he shouldn't, still shops at thrift stores and still thinks peanut M&M's make a good breakfast.
    Eli's latest release isn't so much a message as it is a challenge to take a second look at the world in which we live, the things that influence us, and, perhaps most of all, our own decisions and actions. "We've come to a time and place where people aren't thinking for themselves. I see the slants on TV and radio - it's like, where's the truth in any of this? I'm appalled at what people believe."
    To that end, Eli is making it his mission to offer a wakeup call - and he's doing it with Now the News, an album that places God's word against the backdrop of the ever-present media of the new millennium.
    "We are shaped by what we read, listen to, say and do," Eli explains.
    His fear is that the media has become so pervasive that we turn to it for direction and guidance, even though we know both can only truly be found in God.
    "I'm someone searching for the truth," says Eli as he encourages the rest of us to do the same. "This is the real world - get in there and mix it up a little."
    Eli himself does just that on the title track. "Now the News" was recorded the morning after the 2000 presidential election. Eli calls it the "headline" for an album that he sees as a "musical newspaper."
    "The song isn't angry, it's not bitter, [but] the fact is this-I live in America and I want to challenge what I see. It's good old-fashioned protest music."
    If a news anchor tells us "stock in Jesus is falling," should we blindly believe it? Eli suggests we get a better grasp on our perspective and learn to use it or lose it.
    His new grasp of self is evident. He's one of us - an everyman who is called to make music and celebrate God. In "Some Say," he uses self-realization to help him define God, by recognizing his own faults, Eli gains a better understanding of his Maker. And he discovers he doesn't just want to sing Jesus' praises-he wants to be his friend, even if others turn their back on Him and refuse His Truth. "It's my hope and prayer to my Savior, telling him even if none go with me, still I will follow.
    Eli doesn't place himself on any sort of pedestal.
    "We are all `Beggars' at one point or another in our lives, unworthy and broken with no way to put ourselves back together."
    Eli doesn't take himself too seriously-perhaps that's because for the first time in a long time he's truly enjoying his life. He has put behind him the struggles of youth that he drew on for his 1998 debut, Things I Prayed For, as well as the pain of divorce that gave additional depth to his follow-up, Second Hand Clothing. "I just turned 30-I'm moving on. I want to get old one day. I want my skin to catch up with my experiences," he says. "I want to continue to drink of life."
    To do that, he picks up where the liner notes of Second Hand Clothing left off. There he left a message for fans-"To everyone who has ever fallen down, I pray that you remember to get back up and keep running."
    Without even realizing it, Eli has done just that. In fact, he always has.
    "Music has always been an escape for me-John Denver, Cat Stevens, Jim Croce. I always thought about it, but nobody in my family plays music."
    It's true, Eli virtually stumbled upon his calling toward the end of his troubled teen years in Los Angeles. He got together with some friends one night, and though he was admittedly wary at first, suddenly discovered music as a means of prayer.
    "We're drawn to each other by our shortcomings, our pain. Those things cause us to be grateful. I knew what it was to be thirsty, so I drank deeply."
    That's why Eli makes music.
    "Whether in private or in public, I am called to give my life as a living sacrifice, pleasing to God," he says. "I've learned a lot. I have lived a hundred lives. There are things I'm not proud of, but.good has come from everything, and that strengthens my faith."
    Now that's a story worth telling.
    Eli was in Atlanta on January 12 at Summit Baptist Church for a benefit concert. Proceeds will go to the Hope Center in Woodstock. The Hope Center is a pregnancy resource center that meets the physical and spiritual needs of mothers in time of crisis. They are looking to expand their ministry by moving into a larger building and purchasing an ultrasound machine.