Posts in the month of: Apr, 2010
IHOP-KC Staff Interview – Benjamin Wood
Nate: How did you get involved with the house of prayer in Kansas City? Did the Lord give you some specific direction to come to Kansas City, or was the prayer movement already on your heart?
Benjamin: I first came to IHOP–KC in 2001, right out of high school. At that point I already had plans to attend culinary school because I had received grants to attend.
Nate: This was in New York, right?
Benjamin: Yes. I was actually going to go to Johnson Wales University, which is in Providence, Rhode Island. It’s the top culinary school in the nation. So, I was accepted early, right out of high school, and my folks gave me the idea to do an internship. I was like, “I don’t know.” I’d been thinking and praying about it when I had an encounter one night in my bedroom. The Lord just told me to come. So I gave up all the grant money and all my scholarships. Then I came to IHOP–KC and did an internship.
Nate: So, you’ve been here for nine years then?
Benjamin: I was here for a year and met my wife during that time. After we got married, we moved back to New York. After three years, we moved back to Kansas City. The decision to move back here was also a real hearing from the Lord experience. I was looking for a place to be trained, and He told me to go to FSM. So, we’ve been here for almost four and a half years since the move back.
Nate: You came back for FSM? You didn’t come back specifically to be a drummer?
Benjamin: I came back specifically to get trained in the Bible school as well as getting trained to be a skilled musician. I had no actual training on the drums at that time. Everything that has been given to me has been given to me by the Holy Spirit, so I’ve had no formal training from the start. I got a drum set and started playing.
Nate: How old were you when you started playing?
Benjamin: I think I was thirteen or fourteen.
Nate: Were you aggressively praying about drumming and asking the Lord to teach you about it? How did you start growing in that?
Benjamin: When I was younger I always wanted to play drums. Actually when I started middle school I wanted to join the school band so I could be a drummer. The music teacher and my parents convinced me that the tuba was a percussion instrument and so I played the tuba for about half a year, then got sick of it.
Nate: (laughing) Let me just ask you, would you ever pick up the tuba again?
Benjamin: (laughing) Never! I will never pick up the tuba again. It’s definitely one of those instruments that you have to be called to, but I always wanted to play drums. So I basically just sat down and started playing. I was bad at first. I was just hitting things and making lots of noise. But the Holy Spirit breathed on those times, and I joined a worship band at our church. When I would try to go out and play with a garage band, I would just fall on my face. I would try to pull off builds, and they wouldn’t work. They weren’t good performances. I constantly had to try and find different bands because the bands that I would play with didn’t want me back.
Nate: How many bands did you cycle through then?
Benjamin: I would say there were probably twelve or thirteen.
Nate: Wow, at least you had fun, right?
Benjamin: I had fun, but I wasn’t increasing in skill level. When I would step into the worship arena at the church though, the Holy Spirit would breathe on me and my skill level would increase and I could do builds a hundred times better.
Nate: Was this something you asked for when going into worship, or was it something that just came?
Benjamin: It took me time to realize that maybe I’m not supposed to play in a rock band and I’m supposed to play for Jesus. It took me a little while for that switch to go off in my brain. So when that switch finally went off and I realized the Holy Spirit was going to move on me when I walked into the drum cage, it became a holy time and a holy experience. So I started playing with my shoes off.
Nate: Like a “Moses at the burning bush” thing?
Benjamin: Yeah, I really cherished the ground that I was on because I knew the Holy Spirit would breathe on me when I walked into that drum cage.
Nate: Do you still enjoy drumming as much now as you did in the early days, if not more?
Benjamin: Absolutely. I would say probably way more now because it’s so fun when the Holy Spirit is breathing on you when you play.
Nate: Let me ask you this, what do you think are some of the difficulties of drumming in the house of prayer? Playing in the house of prayer is very different from playing in a rock band or even a church worship service once a week.
Benjamin: Yeah, you definitely have to condition your body. When I first started drumming for two hours straight at the house of prayer, I would be so dead-tired by the end. As you start to play in this context, you eventually get the feeling of the two hours and what’s expected of you in those two hours. Your body definitely gets conditioned to it. It’s just like working out. When you work a muscle, it eventually gets used to the amount of time and work you expose it to, and it gets stronger. Same principle.
Nate: So, more than the physical demands, is it more challenging to stay engaged for two hours spiritually? Do you have certain things that you do to stay engaged for two hours?
Benjamin: Well, a lot of it has to do with whether or not I’m listening to what is happening. I’m listening to all the singers. I’m listening to all the prayers. While I’m playing, I’m standing in agreement with what is being prayed and being sung. There is a definite interaction that I maintain in order to stay engaged. There are those tendencies to check out and to just sit back and play, but when I step foot into that drum cage, I want the Spirit to really breathe on me and use me. I want Him to give me new rhythms and ideas; I want to play something that is going to move His heart and change the atmosphere in the room.
Nate: Just to tag onto that, when I say “prophetic musician,” what immediately comes to your mind?
Benjamin: When I hear the term “prophetic musician,” what comes to my mind is an interaction between the Holy Spirit and you as the vessel that He can play through. He definitely gives inspiration, so there is definitely a communication process that’s happening. You can play “How Great is Our God” a billion times and play it the same way every time, but it’s really about heart posture. If you are not willing to engage with the Lord and engage with the worship, then there is always going to be a barrier.
Nate: So there is active listening and active willingness to step out in faith to do a lick or a fill?
Benjamin: Right. There are times when Luke [Wood, worship leader] tells the whole band to bring it down and chill out for a bit to let the music breathe, and that’s when I’m asking the Lord what to play: “What can I play to release Your power to open hearts?” It’s during that time where I’ll start to hear a rhythm. I throw it out there quietly, suggestively, and if I get the head nod from Luke, I continue playing it. I play it louder, and the music swells and so on.
Nate: What are the most rewarding and most demanding aspects of being a full-time musician and intercessor?
Benjamin: A demanding aspect of being a musician and intercessor is trying to figure out your schedule; making life work. I’m always trying to make everything happen that needs to happen.
Nate: So what’s the most rewarding?
Benjamin: In actuality, I am a professional musician. We play twelve hours a week together as a band, which is a lot more than most touring musicians. The only people that play more than that are those on the massive tours. So twelve hours a week is a lot of playing time. I think it’s fun to think of myself as a professional musician because there has been that longing inside me to be in a rock band and to have that kind of influence. I’m beginning to understand that I do have that kind of influence in shifting the heavens, instead of a crowd of 200 in some smoky bar. I’m actually changing the atmosphere and touching the heart of God.
Nate: Are there times when you feel the immediate reward of what you are doing spiritually as you are interceding on the drums?
Benjamin: There are definitely times where I feel more of the Holy Spirit’s presence, when I’m in the active listening mode and I feel the fire come on me (and it’s not just because I’m getting hot because I’ve been playing for three hours). It’s a definite Holy Spirit fire. So, there are those times for sure.
Nate: OK, give me a couple of life principles that you’ve learned from being here. Give me a couple of things that have helped shift your spiritual life.
Benjamin: I think one of the things I’ve grown in is understanding the heart of the Father and how the Father actually feels towards me. Realizing the love that He has for me and who I am as a person was a major shift in my heart. When that happened, my whole personality shifted. I went from being 100 percent sarcastic, all the time, to actually holding a conversation without having somebody leaving offended (laughs).
Nate: That is a huge one.
Benjamin: Yeah, and once that happened the Scriptures really started opening up to me. There was life on the Scriptures. They weren’t just words on a page. I was encountering the heart of God while I was reading. That was a big shift in me, and it actually made reading the Bible enjoyable.
Nate: Ben, you are awesome! Thank you.
