All of our readers are surely aware of whom Allan Aguirre is. If you remember we actually did a seriously in depth interview with Allan back in the first issue of Down the Line Zine. We won’t rehash territory and talk about Scaterd Few (groundbreaking) and Spy Glass Blue (brilliant), but we wanted to focus on Aguirre’s current project which is known as Men As Trees Walking. For the sake of my slow typing abilities I will refer to the band as MATW throughout the article.
Absorbing the sounds of MATW is exciting as it is completely different from anything Allan has ever done before, both sonically and spiritually. I was really interested in getting Aguirre’s perspective and insight into what he terms a “prophetic music ministry” when he talks of MATW. Obviously our readers span the gamut of faiths and doctrines and this is important as it incorporates everyone regardless of belief. For me, doing the interview was more of an exercise in digging into spiritual relevancy and belief as it related to the music of MATW. I purchased the record and think it is fantastic, from the opening track that literally sent chills up my arms, to the packaging and the artwork, and all the way down to the fact that this is a family endeavor and ministry that the Aguirre’s have embarked upon together.
I have been a part of several different churches during my life, I have been a part of a couple of different ministries as well, and I am very familiar and versed in the doctrines and traditions. If my questions seem ignorant they were not intended to, I am interested in these doctrines as they relate back to creating music and making art that moves in the spiritual realm… this really lends itself to much deeper discussions about music, spirituality, faith and the supernatural, and this is what really excites me the most because I believe that music is a spiritual thing in so many ways.
This is a great interview. Allan uses tons of scripture and this can, in fact, probably be read as a devotion or a teaching tool in a way because there is a great outline that Aguirre has provided for us to follow along and see his convictions and his trains of thought. Hopefully you will take the time to read and follow the text references provided because it is a great read through and through. This will be part one of the interview, and in the next issue we will follow up with a part two. I thought there was so much here to digest and absorb and I didn’t want to be overwhelming. Please visit the website and read up about the band and what they are involved with as well, and if you haven’t already purchased the music, hurry up and do that as well!
How did MATW first begin to come to fruition?
I had walked away from a public “career” in the music business in early 2004 and it was during this hiatus that you first interviewed me for DTL. As you recall, I was happily at work in the private tech/creative services sector.
In 2006 our oldest daughter enrolled in a six-month discipleship training school, Gateways Beyond International, a sister ministry out of our church here in Dallas, located on the biblical island of Cyprus. In ’07 she returned for a second term and our son joined her for his first. In ’08 she returned again as a staff intern and our son returned for his second year with our youngest daughter joining them for her first year. I have to say, as a parent, it’s an amazing thing to watch your children make life choices and sacrifices that align them with their destinies in the Lord.
With our children returning to the school every year, our family, of course, built a strong relationship with the family and staff that run the school, here and abroad. So, in ’08, with all three children in Cyprus (I believe it was around this time that my interview with DTL came out), the Mrs. and I took a trip to Israel and Cyprus to see our children and the family/staff of the school that had become so deeply knitted in our lives.
On one of the final days of our visit at the school, the leadership was going to pray for and over our family. Very early on in this prayer time, one of the family/staff members began to sing a prophetic song over us:
“There’s a sound coming unto you
You have searched for it
You have longed for it to come
There’s a sound
coming from the roots of your tree
flowing through the branches
and bearing much fruit”
(You’ll notice that these words are the lyrics for the opening song of 1518, ‘There’s a Sound’)
During this prophetic song I started thinking of a conference my wife and I went to in Dallas a few weeks prior to this. While there, the subject of the Mountain of Entertainment was being taught about how the Seven Nations occupying the land of Canaan each “occupied” one of the Seven Mountains or Seven Kingdoms/Sphere of Influence on the planet with the Hivite nation occupying the Mountain of Celebration or Entertainment. Scripturally, the Hivites were a people of compromise, and the ruling spiritual principality over this same mountain was a Jezebel Spirit, scripturally signifying a spirit of seduction and engulfing this mountain in this kind of witchcraft. No kidding…
Now, it’s pretty obvious to most how the entertainment industry is rooted in compromise and seduction. I know this to be true first hand. And the teaching continued in regards to “whatever it is that you worship on the way up the mountain is what you’ll end up worshipping when you get to the top of that mountain.” I couldn’t put it better myself. In our pursuit of climbing this mountain of musical fame and fortune, this is exactly what had happened to me and the vast majority of my peers. We compromised and were seduced by the pride of life, celebrity.
As we were eating this teaching up at the conference my wife leans over and says, “Maybe this is why you’ve been out for five years. He’s healing you from all the witchcraft.” I could see that. I could see how that had been happening during my hiatus. We both looked at each other and wondered if He was wooing us back into a rightful place in the business of music, and left it at that.
These were my thoughts as this woman sang this prophetic song over us. My thoughts continued:
“Oh no. She’s singing about trees…” I knew that if I were ever to go back into music, it would have to be a worship band. This was clear to me. I also knew that if I ever did, the name of the band I had already selected for such a thing would be Men As Trees Walking. She couldn’t know this. And she’s singing about trees…
The prayer over us continued. Words of going “back into full time music ministry with your whole family,” and how the “whole family together had the gifting for this ministry,” and “don’t wait for someone else to do it. You have the model already. You don’t need anyone to show it to you. Do it now,” followed by how ”all your previous travels with your previous bands were just training for what was about to happen.”
I knew of this model they spoke of. We had seen it clearly in visions and dreams in the mid to late ‘80s. Keith Green had done part of this “model” around 1980. Needless to say, I started sweating this. I had no desire in any capacity to go back to that life. None.
I am very grateful that pastors from our local church here in Dallas were in attendance during this. Grateful because I wasn’t going to have to try to explain all this to them! Heh… Within a week of returning, another prophet (this is where some of your readership gets skirmish. “He said prophet!”) prophesied over me at our local church a very similar word about trees and going back to music. Again, thankfully, pastors that had heard the words over us in Cyprus were in attendance and were able to confirm that, yes, I was hearing what I was hearing… great…
Two – three weeks later, another prophetic worship leader from our church who knew nothing about what I had been go through, had a vision during worship Sunday morning of me surrounded by CDs, teaching tapes, and books. As he was looking at this, he heard the Lord say, “Tell Allan to do his music now!” Yeah, that was sobering. This was exactly what I didn’t want to do and now this vision and word. This is what I mean by a “prophetic mandate spanning multiple hemispheres” in our band bio.
We know that there has to be agreement with the Word of the Lord in order for it to come about. So, with much trepidation (not a good thing), the Mrs. and I agreed with this new assignment and aligned ourselves with it. That day, my business phone — that had been ringing off the hook supernaturally without any form of sales — stopped ringing.
By the way, that Mountain of Entertainment engulfed with the witchcraft of compromise and seduction? Prophets are the significant displacing authority.
I know in the bio that you describe your band as a “prophetic music” ministry; can you explain what that means exactly?
The foundational premise for the band is ministry, not music. I’ve done the music thing. I had gladly walked away from it and I didn’t have any need or desire to go back. With that said, Men As Trees Walking is not a performance or entertainment based band. We do this only because we have been told to do this and to do it as a ministry. This means that if God doesn’t show up when we play, if the Spirit doesn’t manifest in some form, be it healing, salvation, deliverance, word of knowledge; if we don’t “provoke” or provide the atmosphere for an intersection between the King of the Universe and the people “listening” when we play, then something is/went wrong. Otherwise, we were just a band “entertaining” or making people “feel good” about God and at that point I’m not interested. I’d much rather stay at home.
We also use the term “prophetic worship band” to differentiate ourselves from what has become the norm in defining worship bands today; performance – entertainment based – “pep-rally”/feel good experiences. Again, I’m not interested in that. Watching someone being healed or delivered has more satisfaction then the popularity of our band or how much our record sells. I’m not suggesting that other worship bands are solely focused on these things. That would be silly.
Scripturally, worship means more than a physical emotion or experience. Scripturally, worship provoked or created an atmosphere for a supernatural encounter with God. This is what we contend for. This is why we describe the band as an original “prophetic” worship band.
I understand “prophecy” as it relates to prophetic words, etc. but can you relate it to the music so I understand better?
Prophecy as related to music is music that creates the atmosphere for, or facilitates the function of the manifestation of the Holy Spirit. Here are some basic examples of how prophecy and music go hand in hand:
1 Samuel 18:10
1 Samuel 19:9
2 Kings 3:15
1 Chronicles 25:1-6
2 Chronicles 5:11-14
2 Chronicles 7:1-6
2 Chronicles 29:25, 30
1 Samuel 10:5-12
1 Samuel 16:16, 23
So as a “prophetic” band, how do you undergo the songwriting process?
Through lots of prayer and fasting, this means that seven days a week, one of us is fasting and contending for the things of the Lord in this ministry.
By doing that, we position ourselves to hear the sounds that already exist in the heavenlies. It’s our responsibility as Levitical priests, psalmists, and prophets to hear those sounds and transcribe them. (I just lost a majority of your readership with that one… )
According to the bio you also mention an “Elijah revolution”; can you tell me what that means?
“Elijah Revolution” is a term used to describe the changes needed in “the church” as we know it today. Ministries like The Whosoever’s & Come and Live!, as basic examples, are changing the way people perceive “Christian” music, evangelism and the general negative consensus the everyday world has of Christians.
That general consensus believe that Christians actually could care less about the homeless, the poor, drug addicts, the sexually immoral, the tattooed & pierced, the disenfranchised, the witches, warlocks and wizards, etc. Anyone that doesn’t fit into the quaint and tidy little box known as “Christianity” is “hell bound and I’m not going to be bothered about it”; the “us” and “them” mentality.
For far too long the church’s mindset has been ‘you have to believe and behave to belong.’ Jesus taught us to Believe. You already belong, and He’ll teach us how to behave. It’s quite the paradigm shift.
This “Elijah Revolution” is going to involve extreme intimacy and obedience to the Father by those that confess Christianity. “Signs and wonders” will follow it. Christianity must reconcile with the Jewish people, Israel, at a global level. A call to separation and consecration like the Nazarites will also be a characteristic. Basically, putting their lives where their mouths are and taking “church” to the “byways and highways,” the church Jesus modeled and established in the Gospels and Acts. John the Baptist was a Nazarite from the womb. He was a Levitical priest and had the “spirit of Elijah” on him, a forerunner call and ministry, “friend of the bridegroom.” These things characterize an Elijah revolution. The time has come to “be” the church (the bride) and to stop “talking” about it. Wouldn’t that be revolutionary?
What was the “prophetic mandate spanning multiple hemispheres” that the bio is talking about?
See #1
What is the dynamic of being in a band with your kids? How does that play out?
It’s intense. It’s intense because they’re family and it’s intense because they’re family. We travel with three generations now. That’s pretty intense all around!
Just out of curiosity, were your kids fans of SF or SGB?
They were fans of SF more than SGB.
Can you give us an update as to the projects that are coming out like when they will be available and in what format / who are the players on those projects?
We are releasing a six song reggae EP on June 21st. Two of those songs are Scaterd Few songs that we do live and the other four are MATW songs. Two from 1518 and two from the new CD coming out early fall.
The pay format for 1518 was interesting and unique. How has that worked out for you in the long run, do you find that people keep it going or does it end up getting a fair amount of abuse?
It’s a volatile format. It takes a lot of faith. Again, we have that setup that way because He told us to make it available like that. Imagine our surprise after doing this for around a year to hear that a former T&N executive had started a label based on the same Keith Green model. It’s pretty exciting to be on Come&Live!.
We see “a fair amount of abuse” but again; this is God’s band, His music and His ministry. He takes care of us and I’m pretty sure He takes care of those that would take advantage of us. Heh…
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