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Did Rocketown want you to stay?

Rice Yeah, of course. I mean, it was a great relationship, and we had a lot of success there, too. So they really did.

You said you wanted to appeal to a broader audience. Do you think that you weren't ready to do that during your Rocketown years?

Rice It's always been my intention, when I'm writing, to write songs that would make sense. Even my songs that are more like a hymn, like "Hallelujahs" and "Untitled Hymn." Even those songs that could be used in a Sunday morning service, approach them from a sense of, "I want this to still make sense to an atheist listening outside the door." I've always approached my writing from that standpoint.

I've had Christians question why I write the way I do. I wrote a song called "Big Enough," and the chorus says, "God, if you're there, I wish You'd show me / God, if You're there, I need You to know me." I've had Christians approach me and say, "What's wrong with your faith?" "You're trying to spread doubt in people's hearts." "You're saying 'If'." "You need to be more direct." And my response is, "Well, sir, this song is not written for you. This song is written for someone who's wondering if God is there." I want to approach them with music that draws them to think about God, too.

As a result of this new mission, your music is a bit more relatable and universal, even romantic at times. Was that purposeful?

Rice Absolutely purposeful, for several reasons. I've thought through this so much, and I've talked to so many people about it. But the mentality that we built into the Christian subculture is, "Mr. Rice, you shouldn't be writing love songs. You should be writing songs about God." Or, "Chris, you can't write a song that clearly doesn't state the gospel or doesn't mention Jesus or God." And when I hear that mentality, I think, "Are we really thinking biblically?" Because if that's the case, then we need to take Song of Solomon out of our Bible, because that book is very romantic. God invented that and God wants to express in a very clear way that that's what he created us for.

For someone who would say that your song really has to mention God and present the gospel, I would point them to the parables of Jesus, which many times he would say, "This is for him who has ears to hear." He didn't explain every single one of them. He was declaring universal truth in a very creative way, knowing that the Spirit of God could take that and make it make sense in somebody's heart. With those thoughts in my mind, why have we put an imaginary line around Christian writers and Christian artists and say, "This is what you have to write?" When we do that, we've removed ourselves from the rest of culture and we're leaving it to other people and other writers to define what love's supposed to look like, to define what life is supposed to look like, and the morality of those things.

Does that mean we'll be seeing Chris Rice moving into different venues, too?

Rice I hope so. It's going to be a challenge because I'm already known as a Christian artist. I'm not forsaking that or turning my back on it. But if my promoter wants me to come into a town to do a concert, and I say to them, "Can we have this in a local high school auditorium rather than a church building?" And I'm not against church buildings. To be able to say, "Even if you don't agree, I really would prefer that that one boundary not be there, just in case there's somebody who wouldn't come to see me if I'm playing at a church, but would go to a high school auditorium or a local theater.

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