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Speaker 1: Life Audio.
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Speaker 2: Did you know that Jesus Calling has its own YouTube channel. It's full of great content that will enhance your spiritual life. You'll find beautiful videos with short devotional moments to help you through your day, as well as stories on video from celebrities, authors, pastors, and everyday people who share what their faith journey has meant to them. You'll also find that Jesus Listens Stories of Prayer series hosted by Susie McIntyre Eaton, featuring new guests monthly. Subscribe Today for new videos each week.
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Speaker 3: If I could go back to the early days when I was first starting this, if someone would have told me that we would be doing anywhere from two to five shows a day with two hundred and fifty or so people at every single show, and that it would be what it is today, I probably would have laughed and said, there's no way. But it's been a blessing and our team at the Listening Room is just incredible and I couldn't do this without them.
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Speaker 2: Welcome to the Jesus Calling Podcast. This week, we sit down with Chris Blair, the owner of the Listening Room Cafe in Nashville, a place known not just for great music, but for the spirit of generosity that lives within its walls. Chris came to Nashville chasing a dream, but what began as a pursuit of music slowly became a calling to create space for others, Space where stories are honored, community is formed, and giving back becomes more important than getting ahead. Later in the episode, we'll hear from country artist Cindy Thompson, who experienced a rapid rise to fame with her debut album My World and the hit song What I Really Meant to Say. At the height of her success, she began to struggle with panic attacks in a deep sense that God was moving her in a different direction. She shares the private process of wrestling with this decision and how after walking away from her career, her focus became on the one individual over the accolades of the world. Let's begin with Chris's story.
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Speaker 3: My name is Chris Blair and I grew up in Saint Louis, Missouri. Moved to Nashville, Tennessee in two thousand and three for the music industry, and I run the listening room cafe. Growing up in Saint Louis, Gosh, I had a lot of dreams. I think I've always had music in my bones. I started singing when I was six years old, started playing piano before that. My passion was always music. I had a great upbringing. My parents were always supportive in whatever my brother and I wanted to do. I moved to Nashville in two thousand and three. I did that to pursue an artist's career. And yeah, it was the first time that I had left. You know, my family all lives in Saint Louis. I moved to Nashville not knowing anybody. It was really scary. I had met with a guy by the name of Doug Howard, who at the time was head of A and R for Lyric Street Records, and he invited me down and I played a few songs for him, and he said, hey, you've got something. We'd love to work with you. And I had literally just bought my first house in Saint Lois maybe a year or so before that. My brother had just bought a house a couple miles down the road. He and I are very close, and like I said, my family was all in the area, so it was just you know, friends, everything, my support system. It was home and I went back from that meeting with Lyric Street, put my house on the market, and a week later was in a U haul driving outside of Saint Lois, balling my eyes out, wondering what I was doing, but also exciting to just chase that dream. So when I moved to Nashville pursuing the art career, I also had a background in finance, so I was a financial planner in Saint Louis before moving and I went and my first job that I got was at a bank, and I wanted to be a teller so that I had no responsibilities that I could basically have quote unquote bankers hours. Interviewed for that position, got a call back and they said, hey, you're overqualified for a teller position, but we would love to bring you as a branch manager.
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Speaker 4: And I took that job.
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Speaker 3: Was making more money than I ever thought I would make in my life at that point.
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Speaker 4: It was great, but it was a lot. I would put a.
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Speaker 3: Suit and tie on every day, go to the bank, work those hours, would leave the bank and go play tutsis every Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday from six to ten pm, then go back home, sleep a few hours, do it all over again, and then on the weekends I would go out on the road with my band and pursue the artist thing. So during that time, it was brutal, it was exhausting. It really pushed me into a season where I stopped appreciating music because I was doing it in a way that I didn't want to do it. What was different at that point is I also met a few songwriters who had had multiple hits, some of them Grammy Award winning songwriters that kind of took me under their wing and open to this world up to songwriting. Meeting these guys was the first time that I really got to experience collaboration and going into a room and writing with other people, and.
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Speaker 4: I fell in love with it. Early on.
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Speaker 3: In the listening room was really, really difficult. I had a partner when I started, and he was not really around much, just didn't There was not that support that I had hoped for, and I bought him out in two thousand and nine and quickly started to struggle financially, and it was rough. There were often times where I would close the venue down and I would go into the office and I would lay down on the cold concrete floor and sleep for a few hours because I had to be back in a few hours to open it back up. I don't even remember how long it was. I didn't take a paycheck. I was the cook, the sound engineer, the janitor, the bartender, the you know. I was just running around doing everything. And I remember the first time that I kind of closed the books for the month. Then we had had probably the best month that we had ever had, and there were just tears of joy because I was going to be able to take a paycheck for the first.
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Speaker 4: Time in a long time.
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Speaker 3: And this was all while I was racking up credit card debt, had already eaten through all of my savings that I had had as a banker and everything before that. And I was walking through the restaurant and I saw one of my managers at the time out on our patio crying, and I walked outside and was like, Hey, are you okay?
00:07:45
Speaker 4: What's going on?
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Speaker 3: And their family had been going through some hard times, I think, with some medical bills and things like that, and he had just gotten a foreclosure notice on his house, and almost to the penny, the amount of money that he needed to pay his mortgage was what I was going to be able to pay myself, and I gave it to him, and you know, those were some early rough days. That was also around the time of the twenty ten flood. There were a handful of songwriters that saw through the smile that I would put on my face and started peeling layers back one evening in a conversation to really figure out what was going on, and I kind of broke down and let them know all the hard things that were happening and that I didn't know how long I was going to be able to keep the venue, but I figured it was a few months and then I was out of money and that was it. You know, the conversation in my mind was over. And we have always done benefit shows from early on. It was just a big part of my heart that I wanted to give back, and it was Brian White, bridget Tatum and Danny Myrick were the three songwriters and they came to me and said, hey, can we get a date. We're going to put a show together, and I just assumed it was a regular show. Gave them the date and they later shared with me that this was going to be what they called the listening room Appreciation Days, and they had created a show that was just jam packed with all huge songwriters and huge artists that all just immediately came to support what we were doing. And the songwriting community knew the struggles, but nobody else did. And it was just a ticket to come see an awesome show, and they were giving all of the money back to me to pay the bills. And the day that that show was scheduled and happened was a couple weeks after the twenty ten Nashville flood.
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Speaker 4: I remember just I needed that money. I needed all of it.
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Speaker 3: But something in my heart just said, you know that Nashville's struggling, and I want to just give a quote unquote percentage back to the community. So I contacted my friend Lisa, who now works at the CMAS, but at the time she was working at a nonprofit called Hands on Nashville that was kind of this quarterback nonprofit that would take money and then find the need in the community to give it to other nonprofits that needed it. So I said, you know, hey, a portion of our proceeds will go to that. And you know, honestly, in my head it was like maybe five percent, you know, it.
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Speaker 4: Was it was not going to be much.
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Speaker 3: And at that show, I put a band together and surprised everyone.
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Speaker 4: My parents had.
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Speaker 3: Come in from Saint Louis, friends had come in from Saint Louis. I mean, it was a standing room only, sold out show, and I was on stage. I played I don't know three or four songs, but one of the songs that I was playing was a song that I wrote not too long before that called why Don't You Fall? And it was a song basically about falling into God's.
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Speaker 4: Arms when you're walking through the hard times.
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Speaker 3: And I remember being on stage and seeing that song and scanning the room and I saw my friend Lisa standing over by the front door, right by the window, and I mean, honestly, it was like this beam of light coming in the window that was just like a glow around her head. And I stopped in the middle of that song, broke down, started crying on stage in front of everybody, got super vulnerable and said, you guys think you're here for just a great show, and you are.
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Speaker 4: These guys have put together an incredible show.
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Speaker 3: But what you don't know is that this is this is because we're struggling, and this is them coming around to help us. But I looked over at Bridget, Danny and Brian and said, I'm sorry. I know you guys did this for me, but I can't take any of this. And then I looked over at Lisa in the corner and I said, one hundred percent of what we do today goes back to Hanson Nashville. And I said, you know, I don't know that we'll be able to keep going, but if we don't, then I'm going out.
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Speaker 4: On a high note. And if we do, then it's God's will. And that's it.
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Speaker 3: That was the turning point for the Listening Room. I didn't do anything different. I'm not that smart, but I truly believe that is when God came into it and people started showing up. And that's the reason the Listening Room is what it is today. Is because of that, because I am If I could go back to the early days when I was first starting this, if someone would have told me that we would be doing anywhere from two to five shows a day with two hundred and fifty or so people at every single show, and that it would be what it is today, I probably would have laughed and said there's no way. But it's been a blessing and it's a testament to I guess what we've created, and what we've created is because of the vision that I had, but more so because of the songwriting community that has supported it, the fans that have supported it. And you know, our team at the Listening Room is just incredible and I couldn't do this without them. We say at the Listening Room that we connect people with the stories behind the songs. That's our mission. And you know, I get to hear these longer versions of the stories behind the songs, and when people are performing on stage, they'll tell the story, and you know, they're great stories, but it's not the full story. You listen to a song on their radio and you just assume that that's that person's song and that's their life and they wrote it, and many of them do, but many of them don't. And you know, I loved diving into that and I loved hearing those stories. I connected with it. That's part of the reason that I wanted to start the Listening Room in the first place. And then that's also why I started the story Span the Song's podcast to bring in and spend thirty minutes to an hour with individual artists and songwriters and really share their story of not just the songs, but you know how they got started, their struggles, their wins, and all of that, and I think that's why people connect with it. We went through a lot of hard times in the early days, but that was the early dream of what I wanted people to experience when they walked into the doors of the listening room for the first time, is that they just felt like they belonged, and they could walk out feeling like they were connected to the stories behind the songs in a way that they had never heard and couldn't wait to come back. I got through those hard times by trusting God and leaning on prayer. I'm very familiar with Jesus calling.
00:15:22
Speaker 4: I don't even remember when I got my first.
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Speaker 3: Book, but it was years ago and it was given to me by a friend. Then I'd found out that my wife had also been reading it. Since twenty thirteen, I am still trying to find the right time to slow down and connect with God on a daily basis. I have seasons where I do really well for several weeks and then I'll miss a couple days, and I think that's okay too, But you know, it's a marathon, and I think that's what it's supposed to be. And you just have to attack every day as a new day and try to spend that time. Jesus listens, February sixteenth. Gentle Jesus, you've been teaching me that there is no randomness about my life. Here and now comprise the coordinates of my daily life. The present moment is not only the point at which my time intersects eternity. It is the place where I encounter you, my eternal Savior. Every moment of every day is alive with your glorious presence. Help me to keep my thoughts focused on you, enjoining your presence here and now. I find that the more time I spend communicating with you, the less I worry. This frees me to let your spirit direct my steps, guiding my feet into the way of peace in your guiding name.
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Speaker 4: Amen.
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Speaker 2: To learn more about Chris Blair, visit Chris Blair dot com. And to keep up with the latest shows at the Listening Room, visit Listeningroom Cafe dot com. Stay tuned to Cindy Thompson's story after a brief message. Teens today face more pressure than ever if you're looking for a way to bring calm, clarity, and faith into their everyday lives. The new teen edition of Jesus Calling is here to help. This well loved teen edition has been refreshed with a brand new, modern cover, making it even more inviting for today's teens. Jesus Calling for Teens is a three hundred and sixty five day devotional and cuts through the noise of an overwhelming world. Each short entry offers peace when anxiety creeps in and comfort when they feel alone. Every day brings them grounding scripture, gentle biblical guidance, and a moment to pause and connect with Jesus in a meaningful way. The teen edition is perfect for building morning quiet time, youth groups, small groups, or simply building a steady daily rhythm with God and with Jesus Calling. Available for adults and kids, families can grow together and share the journey. If a teen in your life is looking for direction, reassurance, or a deeper relationship with Jesus, this devotional gives them daily reminders that they're seeing, loved and never alone. Find the teen Edition of Jesus Calling wherever books are sold. Our next guest is Cindy Thompson, a country artist who saw her Nashville dream come true with her debut album My World and the hit song What I Really Meant to Say.
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Speaker 1: At the height of her career, when.
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Speaker 2: Everything seemed to be falling perfectly into place, Cindy began to sense God leading her in a completely different direction. What followed was a powerful journey of trust, surrender, and rediscovering her identity beyond the stage.
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Speaker 5: Well, my name is Cindy Thompson, originally from South Georgia. I moved to Nashville over twenty five years a guyer to follow my dream of being a country music singer. It's what I'd always wanted to do since I was twelve years old. I grew up in Tifton, Georgia, and it was a beautiful experience. I was allowed to dream in my house and Jesus was a big part of our conversation on a daily basis. I was bullied pretty severely in middle school. Deep down inside, I didn't really want to be seen. I was just a quiet little girl who just wanted to disappear. I had a great home life. My parents were very much on the pulse at that time in my life and for me I felt very loved at home. I was very confident, but that whole experience really just changed me. I thought, well, I'll play clarinet. My sister was in the marching band. It's a big band. I can disappear, and so I did. I joined the band, but I was a terrible clarinet player. I was last chair. And one afternoon the choir teacher came in and she said, is Cindy Thompson in here? And this was a huge class, and I eventually raised my hand. I was a little timid and afraid, and she asked me to step outside. And this is really where I began to dream bigger for myself. She said to me, in the whole way, I heard that you could sing. And I said, well, I don't know if I can sing, and she said, well, come with me. We're going to go into my class. We walked into the choir class where all the cool kids were, and she put me in front of the piano and began to play all these scales, one after the other, and.
00:20:36
Speaker 1: She asked me to sing them back, and they got.
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Speaker 5: Harder and harder and harder, and I did them all and she said to me that day she's like, I don't care what you do with your clarinet.
00:20:45
Speaker 1: That's your chair over there.
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Speaker 5: We eventually changed my classes and she told my parents she's a star. It was hard for me to understand because they had come out of that bullying experience and I didn't know what I was. And she was the first person to really call out what God had put.
00:21:04
Speaker 1: On my life.
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Speaker 5: She saw annoying that I didn't see, and I needed a teacher like that in my life. That is when I really began to dream about music, and she was the catalyst. I had written all the songs and obviously gotten the record deal at Capital, and for me, success first and foremost was that that I actually was able to achieve a dream that I felt God had planted in my heart, which was to move to Nashville and get a record deal. And what made it even better was that Capital believed in my songs that I'd written and allowed me to be very much a part of the project. You want your song to reach the top of the charts. You want to receive the accolades and awards, because you know that in a way does signify that you were recognized for your hard work and your art, and so for me, those were kind of the things that mattered. I just knew that it that point, being on a label and having my songs on a record meant so much to me. When I made the choice to leave the music industry, it wasn't haphazard, it wasn't overnight. It was a process that I really didn't share with anyone. It was like I had this big secret that I couldn't tell anyone. Because I had reached my ultimate dream and I had successful music. I was being called the it girl, and I was having meetings with corporations about representing products. There were so many things happening that you dream about. But deep down inside, I was having panic attacks. I was depressed. I was on anti depressants. I was having my heart monitored every week. I was in so much pain, and I didn't understand why, because what I was walking out was so beautiful, and to the outside world, you look at that and you think, wow, that's amazing, and it was in so many ways.
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Speaker 1: But I always say that fame is unnatural.
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Speaker 5: It doesn't mean that we can't be fame, or that God doesn't put us in physicians to represent him.
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Speaker 1: Or be a light to the world. But for me at that.
00:23:12
Speaker 5: Time, I just knew that if I didn't walk away, I don't know what would happen. You know, looking back now, it was self preservation and it was obviously the Lord's hand on my life. So that decision came with much prayer, and I remember having this moment where I was like, Okay, Lord, if you really want me to do this, I need something supernatural from you only. I didn't include other people in this decision because I didn't want them to have the pressure of the yes or the no, or me walking away or not walking away. Right, it was a private conversation with me the Lord. It was a private wrestle with me and him because he had ultimately given me the dream. I remember on the back of the bus one night, just breaking down and I just really felt the Lord say, walk away. You can trust me with this. I never ask you to do anything I don't complete in your life life.
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Speaker 1: And I said no.
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Speaker 5: So I kept working, I kept going, and it was this moment where I asked, Lord, give me something supernatural, and it happened. I was in an airport. My flight was delayed. I was with my band and they went to grab lunch and I was just sitting there with my husband. He was reading a newspaper and I'd gotten a new self help book. I thought, maybe this one will help me figure out my life. And I was seeking the Lord and praying and I look over about two gates down. Those both were closed, but there was a woman, an African American woman in her late eighties, being wheeled up to this gate and just kind of pushed facing the wall. And she was left there by the airline employee and she was trying to move her wheelchair. And I thought, this so strange that someone would do that to somebody, and so I said to my husband, look, that's so strange. It looks like she has to go somewhere. And he said, well, maybe he should go help her. And I was like, no, I have a self help book. No one's going to call me on my phone. They think on a flight like I got some rest here. No, no, no, And it just wouldn't shake. So I kept looking and I finally got up and I went over to her and I said, ma'am, do you need to go somewhere? And she said yes, honey, I need to go to the bathroom. And I said, well, I can take you and so we began to walk in this busy airport and I had to push her through the traffic of the airport. Right, everyone was going to where they needed to be in this busy world that we live in, and I remember just thinking, how am I going to get over there?
00:25:35
Speaker 1: It's crazy in this airport.
00:25:37
Speaker 5: So I just started pushing her through the traffic, and immediately I encountered this young girl who just looked so mad at me for getting in her way, and I thought, that's kind.
00:25:46
Speaker 1: Of who I'm becoming.
00:25:48
Speaker 2: You know.
00:25:48
Speaker 1: It's just a quick moment.
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Speaker 5: Right, this is all happening fast, but also felt like it was slow motion. And again I've not spoken one word to this woman except by saying, can I take you somewhere?
00:26:00
Speaker 1: And I said, why, I can take you right my flight?
00:26:02
Speaker 5: So lay So I get in this bathroom there's no one in there, and I help her get into a stall and she's just thanking me. We're not really talking at all, and she comes out. I help her get in the wheelchair and she grabs both in my hands and she says to me, you need to make the choices that make you happy in life.
00:26:25
Speaker 1: You need to be happy, And immediately I knew it was the Lord.
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Speaker 5: He had used someone to get my attention that I hear you, and I've given you something today to show you that it's okay to make this decision. I knew without a doubt what I was going to do. I went back at her settled, went back to sit with my husband, and I said, I'm going to walk away. I'm officially doing this. And so that's when the real journey began, meeting with my label, walking away, and immediately everything stopped. After I left my career, there was a moment in time where I was just thinking what's next and just sitting with the Lord in this decision I made, because literally everything stopped. There was no tour bus, there were no interviews, there was no flights, there was no red carpets. It was all gone and it was very quiet. You know, I think that time with the Lord on a daily basis can either make or break your day. I mean, how many times we can call it out by the end of the day, Like, you know, I didn't spend my time with the Lord. You just know it. It just runs so differently when you do. I was trying to remember when I got my first Jesus Calling Book. It was many years ago, and it really was so important to my daily routine. It was helpful because I think a lot of times we get intimidated by the Bible itself, like where do I start?
00:28:03
Speaker 1: Where do I go? You know, and if you're not in a study or.
00:28:07
Speaker 5: You don't have a devotional in front of you, that can be intimidating. And so it was so helpful for me on those days when I just really needed to hear from the Lord, just such an encouragement as a daily devotional with scripture included. I got a call to come and speak at a girl's ministry to share my testimony and to sing.
00:28:27
Speaker 1: I said yes right away.
00:28:29
Speaker 5: I remember thinking, Okay, this ministry provides a home for girls who've been through very traumatic situations.
00:28:37
Speaker 1: It's not a large home.
00:28:39
Speaker 5: They only accept so many at a time because they really focus on healing them.
00:28:43
Speaker 1: And it's a beautiful, beautiful place.
00:28:45
Speaker 5: And the more I thought about accepting this opportunity, I thought, I can't go there.
00:28:50
Speaker 1: I had a great upbringing, I had loving parents. I've got a record deal.
00:28:53
Speaker 5: I let my record deal go, Like, why would any of them relate to me? In fact, they're probably gonna hate me. I don't want to do this, and so the enemy just would it stop saying these things to me. Up until the night before I was supposed to go. They're not going to care. They don't need you to come, and I kept thinking, you're right, you're right, I don't need to do this. This is crazy, But I committed and I went, and I meet the head of the ministry and she says, you know, we're kind of on a strict schedule. They have to be in bed by nine o'clock, so just as long as you share your story, you should have time for one song, and then that would be great. And I'm like, okay, we've got it. So as the girls start to trickle in, I could see the girls that probably were new and kind of mad about their situation and didn't really want to be there listening to a speaker. And then there was one girl that came in and sat at the very front row and just was staring at me. And I shared my testimony as saying my song, and then realized the ministry had said, you have time for one more song. Well, we've not worked on another one. So I looked at my husband and said, what do you want to do. We didn't work on anything, and he said, I've got an idea. Let's do this song. So as it began to sing that song, that girl in the front row began to weep and weep. When I finished the song and said, you know, goodbyes to some of the people that work there, she lingered and asked if I could sit with her, So I said absolutely.
00:30:20
Speaker 1: We sat down.
00:30:22
Speaker 5: Now that weekend I would have been at the ACM Awards that exact night.
00:30:28
Speaker 1: It would have been the year that we would have.
00:30:30
Speaker 5: Prepped for nominations and all the things you do in that second year being an artist. I was projected to have maybe have some nominations. And so here I was sitting at this ministry the night that I would have been at the ACM Awards, with this beautiful young girl, and she said to me, when I found out it was you, I couldn't believe it. I ran up here and I looked through the window and I ran in my bedroom and began to pray. She said, I've wanted to meet you my whole life, and I prayed that you would sing that song because it was attached to memory as to why I'm in here to this relationship she shouldn't have been in. That was their song, and she said, God, if she just sings it one more time, I can have a new memory attached to that song. And at this point I'm crying because I feel the Lord saying to me, Cindy, I know where you would have been, but I care about the one, and it was just a beautiful story of you know, God really does care about the one and he'll go to any length to reach them.
00:31:39
Speaker 2: To learn more about Cindy Thompson, visit www dot Cindy Thompson dot com. If you'd like to hear more stories about what happens when we put others first. Check out our interview with old friends Senior Dog Sanctuary. Next time on the Jesus Calling podcast, well hear from Christian artist Jeremy Risotto, who you may recognize from his appearances on American Idol and The Voice. Jeremy opens up about his journey to the stage, have his music as a window into his heart and a story of family, faith and the moments that shape us.
00:32:14
Speaker 3: I never thought in a million years I'd do The Voice, but my God has done exceedingly Abundon more than I saw.
00:32:19
Speaker 1: And it wasn't because I was the best singer in the world or anything like that.
00:32:22
Speaker 4: It was because I knew that God was.
00:32:23
Speaker 1: Doing this and He wasn't wasting this opportunity for me.
00:32:34
Speaker 2: Thanks for listening to the Jesus Calling Stories of Faith podcast on the Live Audio Network. Every week, we'll bring you stories from people who share their journeys of faith and how prayer and a relationship with God transformed their lives. Be sure to follow us on Apple, Spotify, iHeart, or wherever you listen to podcasts, and leave us a review so others can be inspired weekly by these stories of faith. Finally, you can find encouragement resources and more on the Jesus Calling website at Jesus Calling dot um.
Speaker 1: Life Audio.
00:00:11
Speaker 2: Did you know that Jesus Calling has its own YouTube channel. It's full of great content that will enhance your spiritual life. You'll find beautiful videos with short devotional moments to help you through your day, as well as stories on video from celebrities, authors, pastors, and everyday people who share what their faith journey has meant to them. You'll also find that Jesus Listens Stories of Prayer series hosted by Susie McIntyre Eaton, featuring new guests monthly. Subscribe Today for new videos each week.
00:00:43
Speaker 3: If I could go back to the early days when I was first starting this, if someone would have told me that we would be doing anywhere from two to five shows a day with two hundred and fifty or so people at every single show, and that it would be what it is today, I probably would have laughed and said, there's no way. But it's been a blessing and our team at the Listening Room is just incredible and I couldn't do this without them.
00:01:12
Speaker 2: Welcome to the Jesus Calling Podcast. This week, we sit down with Chris Blair, the owner of the Listening Room Cafe in Nashville, a place known not just for great music, but for the spirit of generosity that lives within its walls. Chris came to Nashville chasing a dream, but what began as a pursuit of music slowly became a calling to create space for others, Space where stories are honored, community is formed, and giving back becomes more important than getting ahead. Later in the episode, we'll hear from country artist Cindy Thompson, who experienced a rapid rise to fame with her debut album My World and the hit song What I Really Meant to Say. At the height of her success, she began to struggle with panic attacks in a deep sense that God was moving her in a different direction. She shares the private process of wrestling with this decision and how after walking away from her career, her focus became on the one individual over the accolades of the world. Let's begin with Chris's story.
00:02:13
Speaker 3: My name is Chris Blair and I grew up in Saint Louis, Missouri. Moved to Nashville, Tennessee in two thousand and three for the music industry, and I run the listening room cafe. Growing up in Saint Louis, Gosh, I had a lot of dreams. I think I've always had music in my bones. I started singing when I was six years old, started playing piano before that. My passion was always music. I had a great upbringing. My parents were always supportive in whatever my brother and I wanted to do. I moved to Nashville in two thousand and three. I did that to pursue an artist's career. And yeah, it was the first time that I had left. You know, my family all lives in Saint Louis. I moved to Nashville not knowing anybody. It was really scary. I had met with a guy by the name of Doug Howard, who at the time was head of A and R for Lyric Street Records, and he invited me down and I played a few songs for him, and he said, hey, you've got something. We'd love to work with you. And I had literally just bought my first house in Saint Lois maybe a year or so before that. My brother had just bought a house a couple miles down the road. He and I are very close, and like I said, my family was all in the area, so it was just you know, friends, everything, my support system. It was home and I went back from that meeting with Lyric Street, put my house on the market, and a week later was in a U haul driving outside of Saint Lois, balling my eyes out, wondering what I was doing, but also exciting to just chase that dream. So when I moved to Nashville pursuing the art career, I also had a background in finance, so I was a financial planner in Saint Louis before moving and I went and my first job that I got was at a bank, and I wanted to be a teller so that I had no responsibilities that I could basically have quote unquote bankers hours. Interviewed for that position, got a call back and they said, hey, you're overqualified for a teller position, but we would love to bring you as a branch manager.
00:04:38
Speaker 4: And I took that job.
00:04:41
Speaker 3: Was making more money than I ever thought I would make in my life at that point.
00:04:45
Speaker 4: It was great, but it was a lot. I would put a.
00:04:49
Speaker 3: Suit and tie on every day, go to the bank, work those hours, would leave the bank and go play tutsis every Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday from six to ten pm, then go back home, sleep a few hours, do it all over again, and then on the weekends I would go out on the road with my band and pursue the artist thing. So during that time, it was brutal, it was exhausting. It really pushed me into a season where I stopped appreciating music because I was doing it in a way that I didn't want to do it. What was different at that point is I also met a few songwriters who had had multiple hits, some of them Grammy Award winning songwriters that kind of took me under their wing and open to this world up to songwriting. Meeting these guys was the first time that I really got to experience collaboration and going into a room and writing with other people, and.
00:05:54
Speaker 4: I fell in love with it. Early on.
00:06:04
Speaker 3: In the listening room was really, really difficult. I had a partner when I started, and he was not really around much, just didn't There was not that support that I had hoped for, and I bought him out in two thousand and nine and quickly started to struggle financially, and it was rough. There were often times where I would close the venue down and I would go into the office and I would lay down on the cold concrete floor and sleep for a few hours because I had to be back in a few hours to open it back up. I don't even remember how long it was. I didn't take a paycheck. I was the cook, the sound engineer, the janitor, the bartender, the you know. I was just running around doing everything. And I remember the first time that I kind of closed the books for the month. Then we had had probably the best month that we had ever had, and there were just tears of joy because I was going to be able to take a paycheck for the first.
00:07:16
Speaker 4: Time in a long time.
00:07:17
Speaker 3: And this was all while I was racking up credit card debt, had already eaten through all of my savings that I had had as a banker and everything before that. And I was walking through the restaurant and I saw one of my managers at the time out on our patio crying, and I walked outside and was like, Hey, are you okay?
00:07:45
Speaker 4: What's going on?
00:07:46
Speaker 3: And their family had been going through some hard times, I think, with some medical bills and things like that, and he had just gotten a foreclosure notice on his house, and almost to the penny, the amount of money that he needed to pay his mortgage was what I was going to be able to pay myself, and I gave it to him, and you know, those were some early rough days. That was also around the time of the twenty ten flood. There were a handful of songwriters that saw through the smile that I would put on my face and started peeling layers back one evening in a conversation to really figure out what was going on, and I kind of broke down and let them know all the hard things that were happening and that I didn't know how long I was going to be able to keep the venue, but I figured it was a few months and then I was out of money and that was it. You know, the conversation in my mind was over. And we have always done benefit shows from early on. It was just a big part of my heart that I wanted to give back, and it was Brian White, bridget Tatum and Danny Myrick were the three songwriters and they came to me and said, hey, can we get a date. We're going to put a show together, and I just assumed it was a regular show. Gave them the date and they later shared with me that this was going to be what they called the listening room Appreciation Days, and they had created a show that was just jam packed with all huge songwriters and huge artists that all just immediately came to support what we were doing. And the songwriting community knew the struggles, but nobody else did. And it was just a ticket to come see an awesome show, and they were giving all of the money back to me to pay the bills. And the day that that show was scheduled and happened was a couple weeks after the twenty ten Nashville flood.
00:10:03
Speaker 4: I remember just I needed that money. I needed all of it.
00:10:08
Speaker 3: But something in my heart just said, you know that Nashville's struggling, and I want to just give a quote unquote percentage back to the community. So I contacted my friend Lisa, who now works at the CMAS, but at the time she was working at a nonprofit called Hands on Nashville that was kind of this quarterback nonprofit that would take money and then find the need in the community to give it to other nonprofits that needed it. So I said, you know, hey, a portion of our proceeds will go to that. And you know, honestly, in my head it was like maybe five percent, you know, it.
00:10:46
Speaker 4: Was it was not going to be much.
00:10:49
Speaker 3: And at that show, I put a band together and surprised everyone.
00:10:55
Speaker 4: My parents had.
00:10:55
Speaker 3: Come in from Saint Louis, friends had come in from Saint Louis. I mean, it was a standing room only, sold out show, and I was on stage. I played I don't know three or four songs, but one of the songs that I was playing was a song that I wrote not too long before that called why Don't You Fall? And it was a song basically about falling into God's.
00:11:19
Speaker 4: Arms when you're walking through the hard times.
00:11:22
Speaker 3: And I remember being on stage and seeing that song and scanning the room and I saw my friend Lisa standing over by the front door, right by the window, and I mean, honestly, it was like this beam of light coming in the window that was just like a glow around her head. And I stopped in the middle of that song, broke down, started crying on stage in front of everybody, got super vulnerable and said, you guys think you're here for just a great show, and you are.
00:11:57
Speaker 4: These guys have put together an incredible show.
00:11:59
Speaker 3: But what you don't know is that this is this is because we're struggling, and this is them coming around to help us. But I looked over at Bridget, Danny and Brian and said, I'm sorry. I know you guys did this for me, but I can't take any of this. And then I looked over at Lisa in the corner and I said, one hundred percent of what we do today goes back to Hanson Nashville. And I said, you know, I don't know that we'll be able to keep going, but if we don't, then I'm going out.
00:12:31
Speaker 4: On a high note. And if we do, then it's God's will. And that's it.
00:12:35
Speaker 3: That was the turning point for the Listening Room. I didn't do anything different. I'm not that smart, but I truly believe that is when God came into it and people started showing up. And that's the reason the Listening Room is what it is today. Is because of that, because I am If I could go back to the early days when I was first starting this, if someone would have told me that we would be doing anywhere from two to five shows a day with two hundred and fifty or so people at every single show, and that it would be what it is today, I probably would have laughed and said there's no way. But it's been a blessing and it's a testament to I guess what we've created, and what we've created is because of the vision that I had, but more so because of the songwriting community that has supported it, the fans that have supported it. And you know, our team at the Listening Room is just incredible and I couldn't do this without them. We say at the Listening Room that we connect people with the stories behind the songs. That's our mission. And you know, I get to hear these longer versions of the stories behind the songs, and when people are performing on stage, they'll tell the story, and you know, they're great stories, but it's not the full story. You listen to a song on their radio and you just assume that that's that person's song and that's their life and they wrote it, and many of them do, but many of them don't. And you know, I loved diving into that and I loved hearing those stories. I connected with it. That's part of the reason that I wanted to start the Listening Room in the first place. And then that's also why I started the story Span the Song's podcast to bring in and spend thirty minutes to an hour with individual artists and songwriters and really share their story of not just the songs, but you know how they got started, their struggles, their wins, and all of that, and I think that's why people connect with it. We went through a lot of hard times in the early days, but that was the early dream of what I wanted people to experience when they walked into the doors of the listening room for the first time, is that they just felt like they belonged, and they could walk out feeling like they were connected to the stories behind the songs in a way that they had never heard and couldn't wait to come back. I got through those hard times by trusting God and leaning on prayer. I'm very familiar with Jesus calling.
00:15:22
Speaker 4: I don't even remember when I got my first.
00:15:24
Speaker 3: Book, but it was years ago and it was given to me by a friend. Then I'd found out that my wife had also been reading it. Since twenty thirteen, I am still trying to find the right time to slow down and connect with God on a daily basis. I have seasons where I do really well for several weeks and then I'll miss a couple days, and I think that's okay too, But you know, it's a marathon, and I think that's what it's supposed to be. And you just have to attack every day as a new day and try to spend that time. Jesus listens, February sixteenth. Gentle Jesus, you've been teaching me that there is no randomness about my life. Here and now comprise the coordinates of my daily life. The present moment is not only the point at which my time intersects eternity. It is the place where I encounter you, my eternal Savior. Every moment of every day is alive with your glorious presence. Help me to keep my thoughts focused on you, enjoining your presence here and now. I find that the more time I spend communicating with you, the less I worry. This frees me to let your spirit direct my steps, guiding my feet into the way of peace in your guiding name.
00:16:54
Speaker 4: Amen.
00:16:56
Speaker 2: To learn more about Chris Blair, visit Chris Blair dot com. And to keep up with the latest shows at the Listening Room, visit Listeningroom Cafe dot com. Stay tuned to Cindy Thompson's story after a brief message. Teens today face more pressure than ever if you're looking for a way to bring calm, clarity, and faith into their everyday lives. The new teen edition of Jesus Calling is here to help. This well loved teen edition has been refreshed with a brand new, modern cover, making it even more inviting for today's teens. Jesus Calling for Teens is a three hundred and sixty five day devotional and cuts through the noise of an overwhelming world. Each short entry offers peace when anxiety creeps in and comfort when they feel alone. Every day brings them grounding scripture, gentle biblical guidance, and a moment to pause and connect with Jesus in a meaningful way. The teen edition is perfect for building morning quiet time, youth groups, small groups, or simply building a steady daily rhythm with God and with Jesus Calling. Available for adults and kids, families can grow together and share the journey. If a teen in your life is looking for direction, reassurance, or a deeper relationship with Jesus, this devotional gives them daily reminders that they're seeing, loved and never alone. Find the teen Edition of Jesus Calling wherever books are sold. Our next guest is Cindy Thompson, a country artist who saw her Nashville dream come true with her debut album My World and the hit song What I Really Meant to Say.
00:18:42
Speaker 1: At the height of her career, when.
00:18:43
Speaker 2: Everything seemed to be falling perfectly into place, Cindy began to sense God leading her in a completely different direction. What followed was a powerful journey of trust, surrender, and rediscovering her identity beyond the stage.
00:18:57
Speaker 5: Well, my name is Cindy Thompson, originally from South Georgia. I moved to Nashville over twenty five years a guyer to follow my dream of being a country music singer. It's what I'd always wanted to do since I was twelve years old. I grew up in Tifton, Georgia, and it was a beautiful experience. I was allowed to dream in my house and Jesus was a big part of our conversation on a daily basis. I was bullied pretty severely in middle school. Deep down inside, I didn't really want to be seen. I was just a quiet little girl who just wanted to disappear. I had a great home life. My parents were very much on the pulse at that time in my life and for me I felt very loved at home. I was very confident, but that whole experience really just changed me. I thought, well, I'll play clarinet. My sister was in the marching band. It's a big band. I can disappear, and so I did. I joined the band, but I was a terrible clarinet player. I was last chair. And one afternoon the choir teacher came in and she said, is Cindy Thompson in here? And this was a huge class, and I eventually raised my hand. I was a little timid and afraid, and she asked me to step outside. And this is really where I began to dream bigger for myself. She said to me, in the whole way, I heard that you could sing. And I said, well, I don't know if I can sing, and she said, well, come with me. We're going to go into my class. We walked into the choir class where all the cool kids were, and she put me in front of the piano and began to play all these scales, one after the other, and.
00:20:36
Speaker 1: She asked me to sing them back, and they got.
00:20:38
Speaker 5: Harder and harder and harder, and I did them all and she said to me that day she's like, I don't care what you do with your clarinet.
00:20:45
Speaker 1: That's your chair over there.
00:20:47
Speaker 5: We eventually changed my classes and she told my parents she's a star. It was hard for me to understand because they had come out of that bullying experience and I didn't know what I was. And she was the first person to really call out what God had put.
00:21:04
Speaker 1: On my life.
00:21:04
Speaker 5: She saw annoying that I didn't see, and I needed a teacher like that in my life. That is when I really began to dream about music, and she was the catalyst. I had written all the songs and obviously gotten the record deal at Capital, and for me, success first and foremost was that that I actually was able to achieve a dream that I felt God had planted in my heart, which was to move to Nashville and get a record deal. And what made it even better was that Capital believed in my songs that I'd written and allowed me to be very much a part of the project. You want your song to reach the top of the charts. You want to receive the accolades and awards, because you know that in a way does signify that you were recognized for your hard work and your art, and so for me, those were kind of the things that mattered. I just knew that it that point, being on a label and having my songs on a record meant so much to me. When I made the choice to leave the music industry, it wasn't haphazard, it wasn't overnight. It was a process that I really didn't share with anyone. It was like I had this big secret that I couldn't tell anyone. Because I had reached my ultimate dream and I had successful music. I was being called the it girl, and I was having meetings with corporations about representing products. There were so many things happening that you dream about. But deep down inside, I was having panic attacks. I was depressed. I was on anti depressants. I was having my heart monitored every week. I was in so much pain, and I didn't understand why, because what I was walking out was so beautiful, and to the outside world, you look at that and you think, wow, that's amazing, and it was in so many ways.
00:23:00
Speaker 1: But I always say that fame is unnatural.
00:23:03
Speaker 5: It doesn't mean that we can't be fame, or that God doesn't put us in physicians to represent him.
00:23:09
Speaker 1: Or be a light to the world. But for me at that.
00:23:12
Speaker 5: Time, I just knew that if I didn't walk away, I don't know what would happen. You know, looking back now, it was self preservation and it was obviously the Lord's hand on my life. So that decision came with much prayer, and I remember having this moment where I was like, Okay, Lord, if you really want me to do this, I need something supernatural from you only. I didn't include other people in this decision because I didn't want them to have the pressure of the yes or the no, or me walking away or not walking away. Right, it was a private conversation with me the Lord. It was a private wrestle with me and him because he had ultimately given me the dream. I remember on the back of the bus one night, just breaking down and I just really felt the Lord say, walk away. You can trust me with this. I never ask you to do anything I don't complete in your life life.
00:24:06
Speaker 1: And I said no.
00:24:08
Speaker 5: So I kept working, I kept going, and it was this moment where I asked, Lord, give me something supernatural, and it happened. I was in an airport. My flight was delayed. I was with my band and they went to grab lunch and I was just sitting there with my husband. He was reading a newspaper and I'd gotten a new self help book. I thought, maybe this one will help me figure out my life. And I was seeking the Lord and praying and I look over about two gates down. Those both were closed, but there was a woman, an African American woman in her late eighties, being wheeled up to this gate and just kind of pushed facing the wall. And she was left there by the airline employee and she was trying to move her wheelchair. And I thought, this so strange that someone would do that to somebody, and so I said to my husband, look, that's so strange. It looks like she has to go somewhere. And he said, well, maybe he should go help her. And I was like, no, I have a self help book. No one's going to call me on my phone. They think on a flight like I got some rest here. No, no, no, And it just wouldn't shake. So I kept looking and I finally got up and I went over to her and I said, ma'am, do you need to go somewhere? And she said yes, honey, I need to go to the bathroom. And I said, well, I can take you and so we began to walk in this busy airport and I had to push her through the traffic of the airport. Right, everyone was going to where they needed to be in this busy world that we live in, and I remember just thinking, how am I going to get over there?
00:25:35
Speaker 1: It's crazy in this airport.
00:25:37
Speaker 5: So I just started pushing her through the traffic, and immediately I encountered this young girl who just looked so mad at me for getting in her way, and I thought, that's kind.
00:25:46
Speaker 1: Of who I'm becoming.
00:25:48
Speaker 2: You know.
00:25:48
Speaker 1: It's just a quick moment.
00:25:49
Speaker 5: Right, this is all happening fast, but also felt like it was slow motion. And again I've not spoken one word to this woman except by saying, can I take you somewhere?
00:26:00
Speaker 1: And I said, why, I can take you right my flight?
00:26:02
Speaker 5: So lay So I get in this bathroom there's no one in there, and I help her get into a stall and she's just thanking me. We're not really talking at all, and she comes out. I help her get in the wheelchair and she grabs both in my hands and she says to me, you need to make the choices that make you happy in life.
00:26:25
Speaker 1: You need to be happy, And immediately I knew it was the Lord.
00:26:29
Speaker 5: He had used someone to get my attention that I hear you, and I've given you something today to show you that it's okay to make this decision. I knew without a doubt what I was going to do. I went back at her settled, went back to sit with my husband, and I said, I'm going to walk away. I'm officially doing this. And so that's when the real journey began, meeting with my label, walking away, and immediately everything stopped. After I left my career, there was a moment in time where I was just thinking what's next and just sitting with the Lord in this decision I made, because literally everything stopped. There was no tour bus, there were no interviews, there was no flights, there was no red carpets. It was all gone and it was very quiet. You know, I think that time with the Lord on a daily basis can either make or break your day. I mean, how many times we can call it out by the end of the day, Like, you know, I didn't spend my time with the Lord. You just know it. It just runs so differently when you do. I was trying to remember when I got my first Jesus Calling Book. It was many years ago, and it really was so important to my daily routine. It was helpful because I think a lot of times we get intimidated by the Bible itself, like where do I start?
00:28:03
Speaker 1: Where do I go? You know, and if you're not in a study or.
00:28:07
Speaker 5: You don't have a devotional in front of you, that can be intimidating. And so it was so helpful for me on those days when I just really needed to hear from the Lord, just such an encouragement as a daily devotional with scripture included. I got a call to come and speak at a girl's ministry to share my testimony and to sing.
00:28:27
Speaker 1: I said yes right away.
00:28:29
Speaker 5: I remember thinking, Okay, this ministry provides a home for girls who've been through very traumatic situations.
00:28:37
Speaker 1: It's not a large home.
00:28:39
Speaker 5: They only accept so many at a time because they really focus on healing them.
00:28:43
Speaker 1: And it's a beautiful, beautiful place.
00:28:45
Speaker 5: And the more I thought about accepting this opportunity, I thought, I can't go there.
00:28:50
Speaker 1: I had a great upbringing, I had loving parents. I've got a record deal.
00:28:53
Speaker 5: I let my record deal go, Like, why would any of them relate to me? In fact, they're probably gonna hate me. I don't want to do this, and so the enemy just would it stop saying these things to me. Up until the night before I was supposed to go. They're not going to care. They don't need you to come, and I kept thinking, you're right, you're right, I don't need to do this. This is crazy, But I committed and I went, and I meet the head of the ministry and she says, you know, we're kind of on a strict schedule. They have to be in bed by nine o'clock, so just as long as you share your story, you should have time for one song, and then that would be great. And I'm like, okay, we've got it. So as the girls start to trickle in, I could see the girls that probably were new and kind of mad about their situation and didn't really want to be there listening to a speaker. And then there was one girl that came in and sat at the very front row and just was staring at me. And I shared my testimony as saying my song, and then realized the ministry had said, you have time for one more song. Well, we've not worked on another one. So I looked at my husband and said, what do you want to do. We didn't work on anything, and he said, I've got an idea. Let's do this song. So as it began to sing that song, that girl in the front row began to weep and weep. When I finished the song and said, you know, goodbyes to some of the people that work there, she lingered and asked if I could sit with her, So I said absolutely.
00:30:20
Speaker 1: We sat down.
00:30:22
Speaker 5: Now that weekend I would have been at the ACM Awards that exact night.
00:30:28
Speaker 1: It would have been the year that we would have.
00:30:30
Speaker 5: Prepped for nominations and all the things you do in that second year being an artist. I was projected to have maybe have some nominations. And so here I was sitting at this ministry the night that I would have been at the ACM Awards, with this beautiful young girl, and she said to me, when I found out it was you, I couldn't believe it. I ran up here and I looked through the window and I ran in my bedroom and began to pray. She said, I've wanted to meet you my whole life, and I prayed that you would sing that song because it was attached to memory as to why I'm in here to this relationship she shouldn't have been in. That was their song, and she said, God, if she just sings it one more time, I can have a new memory attached to that song. And at this point I'm crying because I feel the Lord saying to me, Cindy, I know where you would have been, but I care about the one, and it was just a beautiful story of you know, God really does care about the one and he'll go to any length to reach them.
00:31:39
Speaker 2: To learn more about Cindy Thompson, visit www dot Cindy Thompson dot com. If you'd like to hear more stories about what happens when we put others first. Check out our interview with old friends Senior Dog Sanctuary. Next time on the Jesus Calling podcast, well hear from Christian artist Jeremy Risotto, who you may recognize from his appearances on American Idol and The Voice. Jeremy opens up about his journey to the stage, have his music as a window into his heart and a story of family, faith and the moments that shape us.
00:32:14
Speaker 3: I never thought in a million years I'd do The Voice, but my God has done exceedingly Abundon more than I saw.
00:32:19
Speaker 1: And it wasn't because I was the best singer in the world or anything like that.
00:32:22
Speaker 4: It was because I knew that God was.
00:32:23
Speaker 1: Doing this and He wasn't wasting this opportunity for me.
00:32:34
Speaker 2: Thanks for listening to the Jesus Calling Stories of Faith podcast on the Live Audio Network. Every week, we'll bring you stories from people who share their journeys of faith and how prayer and a relationship with God transformed their lives. Be sure to follow us on Apple, Spotify, iHeart, or wherever you listen to podcasts, and leave us a review so others can be inspired weekly by these stories of faith. Finally, you can find encouragement resources and more on the Jesus Calling website at Jesus Calling dot um.
