Episode Transcript
[00:00:02] Speaker A: Welcome to the Love justice podcast where we hear from different voices who are.
[00:00:06] Speaker B: Joining us in the fight against modern day slavery. Please welcome today's guest, Joel Smallbone.
Joel Smallbone, welcome to the podcast.
[00:00:18] Speaker A: It has happened after much deliberation, after me. The listeners don't know this, but I got ill last time and you were kind enough to reschedule. But we have done it. We are together. Jason's Internet is working well and it should be noted that we're talking from South Africa, where you are, Hannah. Right. Franklin, Tennessee, which is where I flew out from. The small bone. The small bone, the small knee. Excuse me. And Pittsburgh for me today.
[00:00:52] Speaker B: So you're on tour, on the road.
[00:00:54] Speaker A: That's right.
[00:00:56] Speaker B: Well, for those listeners who don't know who is Joe, Joel Smallbone. Tell us, tell us about yourself, Joel.
[00:01:02] Speaker A: Yeah, well, I am Australian by birth. I am one of seven children. I am the deprived middle of seven bookend, bookend girls. So it starts with Rebecca. Libby is the last, and there's five boys in the middle. And I'm right in the middle of the mayhem. And I have been a creative since the day I was born, coupled with an advocate for causes that are.
[00:01:38] Speaker C: You.
[00:01:38] Speaker A: Know, important to me. I, I am the product of a powerful mom and two mighty sisters and married to an incredibly courageous and beautiful inside and out wife, Mariah. And so the conversation of women's rights, the conversation of the protection of women, particularly young women who are in vulnerable places in the world, has been something that has been a lifelong kind of passion for me and sort of born into me as was music.
I have worked on a few films, one being a human trafficking relief film called Priceless. And I'm part of a band with my brother called For King country and do a little bit of acting as well. So this kind of gives you a framing for why this is what this is why I'm on this podcast, everyone.
[00:02:37] Speaker B: Yeah, you're like, you're just a massive creator. It doesn't just stop with music. I feel like you've got your hands in so many different creative of initiatives, but with the underlying motivation of For King and so maybe talk a little bit about that.
You don't have to delve into the name For King and Country, but maybe just talk a little bit about. Yeah. Why this is so important to you.
[00:03:07] Speaker A: Well, Luke can often say that music chose us even more than we chose music. You know, going back to the late 80s, early 90s when we were very young. Dad was a concert promoter in Australia. And so bands and artists were always coming through, you know, rock bands, striper, you know, Amy Grant, you name it. And so I just remember studying vinyl 45 records as a kid and blasting them over the, you know, the speakers, these incredible records. And then fast forward to America. Our sister Rebecca and James started traveling and dad needed cheap labor, so we became the road crew. His five teenage sons. Many, many a child labor laws were somehow broken in the middle of that, I'm sure. But it really taught us the beauty of the stage and performance and the fickleness of what we do as well, and how to collaborate and compromise as brothers and partners, how to work together.
And then when I was about 20, 21 and Luke was 19, he and I started writing together. He'd never written a song before we started working together. He was a great sportsman growing up. He tore his ACL first game of his junior year, and he really thought he had a future in either coaching or playing or both.
But he's always been this great vocalist, you know, sort of hobby vocalists. He would, he would just. And he was always tapping on stuff all the time. He's like the original little drummer boy. And it was so annoying, you know, growing up.
And so fortunately we were able to harness these very, you know, singing in the shower, humming these melodies, you know, tapping on stuff. And we were able to kind of come together and form what became for King country after a load of many bad band names. And the sentiment's simple. It's really forgotten for people. And the stories that we try and tell are stories that we feel.
God breathes stories. So, you know, one moment, it could be about the power of long lasting love and the commitment of love and sharing that through a song one minute. It could be about, you know, sharing about child advocacy or the protection of young children when it comes to human trafficking relief and so on. And so we just found it really rewarding to take a lot of these great themes, personal social themes, and write about them from a spiritual perspective and then also speak about them hence again, this podcast.
[00:05:48] Speaker C: I love it. And it's interesting because a lot of our listeners and viewers will. Will likely, most likely have had a little bit of experience with you on that music side or on that movie side.
You know, like, I can remember the first time I even heard of you guys, and I only mention it because it's someone I think you dig a lot, is a guy named John Tyson.
I was pastoring in Orlando, Florida.
[00:06:17] Speaker A: I was reading some of his words this morning, Jason, on the plane to Pittsburgh, so.
[00:06:23] Speaker C: So there you go. So, so John and I were in a kind of a network together in Orlando. This was before he headed to Manhattan. And he tweeted one day, hey, you should listen to For King and Country. So like, I pulled it up and thought, wow, there you go. So, you know, and so a lot of our listeners and viewers are going to have probably a little bit of that or maybe even with Mariah, with the chosen or her own music and other things that she's been a part of. But you're in the, you care about this space. You've done a movie, you've written songs, you care about the anti trafficking world like we do. And so like, what kind of drew you into that? What? Share a little bit about that journey of what engaged you into the anti trafficking world.
[00:07:10] Speaker A: Interestingly enough, part of it was what I said earlier about just growing up around these pillars of strong women.
We can go pretty deep into this conversation, but the function of men and women, particularly from a biblical perspective, because I think there's been a lot of mis usage of what a man's role is. You know, there's this idea of like, you know, wives, submit to your husbands.
And yet there's also this idea of like, husbands, lay down your lives for your wives as Christ did for the church and mutual submission and so on. And I kind of ascribe to this idea that part of our role as men is to raise women, not raise women, but steward and protect women in such a way that they become the most glorious, beautiful, powerful version of themselves. Yeah, and I've seen that with my mom and my dad. My mom is a powerful woman and so much of that is the safety of his love and their marriage. I've seen that with my sister, I've seen that with my wife. And so it's really started at home, this idea of like, how do we protect. And dad has always been so strong about, you know, honoring mom and respecting mom.
And so when you reverse engineer that, you go, what's the. This sort of heartbreaking antithesis of man lifting up, protecting, laying down their lives For a woman, it would be man taking and robbing and stealing from a woman, stealing her dignity, not placing dignity on her, but robbing her from it. Rather than the incredible ability for a woman to create life, you know, rather than that being protected and stewarded and man knowing, you know, his involvement in that, it's. It becomes about sport. And so it was this natural connect when For King country actually started. It was this adjacent narrative of we started talking about respect and honor. We actually started talking about respect and honor at women's conferences before for King Country, Rebecca was kind enough to have us at these women's conferences, and that's what we thought we were going to be. We thought we were just gonna be like a couple Aussie dudes playing for a bunch of women moms and daughters all the time. And so actually my mom came to us initially and she said, you've got a room full of women here who, it's beautiful for them to hear from a woman, but there's no voices in, you know, as far as men are concerned, speaking to, respecting and honoring and the priceless nature of a woman. So it actually started there with Rebecca and with mom in that little backstage at that little women's conference. And then, you know, from that day to this, it's been something that we basically shared in some way, shape or form. At every show. We. We've sold a million plus of these necklaces called the Prices necklace that have an Australian $0.01 coin on them. We've. We've made a movie, as we talked about that, that really drops into the world of human trafficking in 2016, just to give people even an education of like, what is. What is actually happening. Because it's such this. It's such a dirty, thriving, but sort of dirty conversation that no one wants to have. So we've just inadvertently swept it under the rug for so many years. And so I'm really. Any chance I get to share, advocate, even tonight during the show, I'll mention it again and raise up women.
Sign me up.
I'm here.
[00:11:09] Speaker B: I love the backstory of that. I don't know if I ever knew that, Joel. And so it's just fun to hear it from you. And also sign me up for like a parenting conference with your parents. They sound amazing. And your mom and yeah, what a. What a great legacy to impart on your boys and your family. And a message. And I'm curious, you know, we've been talking about the creativity and the advocacy. You guys actually wrote a song for the movie Priceless that's called Priceless.
Can you tell us a little bit more about what inspired the song? Was that something that you guys had before the movie? It came after the movie. And what message do you hope it conveys to your listeners?
[00:11:59] Speaker A: It was interesting, Anna. We. Those early days when Luke and I started traveling, we initially made these bracelets that said respect and honor on them. It was actually on that first tour that we started coming up with this terminology of priceless, you know, and Sort of converted to the necklaces and started sharing about stats and statistics from the stage.
But the song eluded us for a really long time. For years, in fact. We.
It's a weird thing in creativity that. The very thing that you. It's very rare to say, I want to write a song that feels like this and sounds like this and says this, and then you go and do it.
Creativity just doesn't really work in that way. At least for us, it doesn't. And so what we ended up doing is we just ended up sort of staying available to it. We'd start writing a song. And I remember vividly we were actually at a festival.
It was probably. I think it was 2015, so it was about eight, nine years ago now. And we were backstage and we'd started, you know, singing these melodies, and it was certainly a song about a woman's worth. And I specifically remember turning to Luke, and Seth Mosley was the writer with us. And I said, I think this is priceless. I think this is the song. And it was. And it was such a gift, you know, not only to have the message, but then to have a vehicle in song form to be able to play. And I mean, again, eight, nine years later, we still play that song. And I.
You know, I remember even the last show we played, we were in Kentucky, and I caught this young lady's eyes. She must have been about 17, 18, and she was just crying like, the moment that song came on.
And that's just the beauty of the power of music, you know?
So it. It's a lot of twists and turns for these songs and even the film, the way it all came about.
But the.
There's an old adage that says, you know, let. Let others write the laws of the land. I will. I will write their songs because laws will change, and laws are incredibly important. Do not get me wrong. And I love that you're advocating for. There has to be laws and rigid laws around this subject, but it's up to the poets and the creatives to work to change the heart. And until our hearts change, until, you know, as men, we're less objectifying and we're less sexist, and we're more, you know, giving and serving and selfless.
This will. You know, this will proliferate in some way, shape or form. And so I'm. I'm proud, honestly, and for myself, too, I'll say this. I.
There's nothing like putting this stuff on paper that holds you to your own account as a creative. There's nothing like Singing and standing up four or five times a week and singing this song that, that. That holds you to your own fire and checks your own heart in it, you know, and so I'm. I'm thankful for it on that level too, of just going a reminder of the bedrock that we stand on when it comes to this subject.
[00:15:55] Speaker B: Yeah, I just have to affirm what you're saying really quick before Jason gets in his next question. Because I'm trying to think of my first for King and Country concert, and I want to say it was when I was engaged to my now husband because of Austin and Ashley and shout out to my sister.
[00:16:14] Speaker A: And you create. And you're creating a human right now.
[00:16:16] Speaker B: Yes, yes.
And yeah, shout out to Ashley. I think she had just joined your guys team working for you. And so it was kind of this, like, let's all go support Ashley at this concert. And I hadn't heard much of your guys content. And I remember hearing you guys talk about this song and the song on stage and being like, okay, like, that's cool.
And now having been, you know, five or six years from that first time and the fact that you guys still sing this song in your concerts, one, I think is very unique. And two, speaks a lot about you guys. Because with the industry, you know, you guys, I think the industry just thrives on new, new, new, new, and then pushing out the new content. And so the fact that you have someone who is continuing to sing this song and advocate for this song regardless of if it's in or out. Right. Speaks a lot to you guys. And then I also had the privilege of meeting your wife. I think the second concert I ever went to. And first of all, Mariah's lovely. Super lovely, super friendly. Like, she is just.
Man, she's just got this energy about her that is like so holy spirit infused.
And when she found out what my husband and I did, she just was like, oh, my goodness. And putting all these pieces together. And I think you guys had just been to D.C. figuring out how to continue advocating for this. And so all that to say you're not just saying this.
I've also had a small, small, small glimpse into you guys actually doing what you say that you do. That I think is really just remarkable about you and your family. That's what I've come to know to be true about your family is that you just don't you practice what you guys talk about, which is just really. Yeah. Amazing and unique.
[00:18:06] Speaker A: There's so much. I mean, you guys know this better than anyone. Because you're the real unsung hero, so to speak, of this conversation. But this, there's just so much to be done. And you do have to. I have to fight even personally, the feeling of, like, gosh, it's just not enough.
But I think my encouragement to the listeners and the viewers is like, just do something. You know, if you can sing a song, sing it. If you can donate 10 bucks a month, donate it. If you can step, you know, if you can go to Africa and start a new life, fly there, you like, it's just something that's what it's going to take, you know.
[00:18:43] Speaker B: Yeah. We just had Christie McClellan on the podcast, the author of the Jesus and Women in Bible Study, and we were talking about just saying yes to the adventures that find us. And that's so in line with what you're saying of, you know, just do what you can and do what you're feeling prompted to do. And those small yeses actually multiply in the kingdom somehow some way. Like, I can't even imagine how many stories we'll get into that in just a minute, but I can't imagine how many stories there probably are stemming from that movie Priceless and that song Priceless. And even thinking about that girl in the crowd crying that you guys may know about, and so much more that you don't know about, of how God is moving in those spaces that I think we can just say, yeah, we did what we can, and we're trusting the Lord with the rest of it because really, it's his.
[00:19:36] Speaker A: Amen.
[00:19:38] Speaker C: No, it's so good. And it's just amazing, the legacy, right? Like I, as you were saying all that, I just kept thinking about the legacy of what your mom and dad have chosen to do, of what Rebecca chose to do, of what you guys are choosing to do, what Ben chooses to do. Like, you know, like, you've got, you just got an amazing. I think, like I said, you've been compelled, right, to do something. And like what you just said, you know, if you're a listener, viewer, thinking, what can I do? You know, just do that small thing. I love, I love that our, our founder, his John Mullen, knows his name and he moved to Kathmandu and lived there, has lived there basically the last two decades. He'll be moving to our new headquarters there in South Africa soon. But similar to what you said, like, he saw and heard something and he was compelled to do something and wanted to get upstream and so created or was able to learn about something called transit monitoring and Then. And then innovate that. And that's kind of the heartbeat of our preventative work. And. And he knew that those women, those Nepali women, were a major demographic in the sex trade of a neighboring country. And so because of that. Right. He wanted to get upstream. He wanted to do something. And there's so many stories that have come out of that. And so whether you're doing it on the front lines like that or you're doing it as someone who's able to play a small part in it from where you are, it's significant either way. And so I'm sure you've had some amazing stories of. Of that have come from this advocacy that you guys. You and Mariah have been a part of. And I mean, like, can you share. Could do one or two come to mind that you could share, just as you guys have advocated for this, that you feel like. Have just really stuck with you.
[00:21:37] Speaker A: I love the upstream conversation, too. I'm sure you've heard the old illustration or parable about, you know, these folks walked past this river and they started. They saw that there were these babies, like, floating down the river, and they started jumping in to save these babies. And then there's someone else. There's more. And then all of a sudden, everyone's just in the river and there's one. But they're all trying to get the babies out. There's one person sort of walking beside the river, just seemingly just to walk upstream. And they were yelling. I was like, what? How could you? What are you. What are you doing?
[00:22:18] Speaker B: Why?
[00:22:19] Speaker A: Why aren't you helping us save the babies from the river? And he said, I'm walking upstream to figure out who's throwing the babies in the river.
[00:22:26] Speaker C: Sure.
[00:22:28] Speaker A: And it's like, what. What I love about organizations like Love Justice International is you have to go upstream. If we're just there dodging. And look, it's important to get in the river and grab anyone that you can and pull them out.
But if we don't go to the source of the issue, which is really the human heart, it's really the heart of man. And if we don't go to how to impact the human heart, they said the baby's just going to keep getting thrown into the river.
Look, I can tell you, obviously, stories like the show last week, Jason, and seeing a young lady cry. I can. I can tell you stories about, you know, I would often hand out one of these necklaces and just.
Just seeing young ladies, young and old, just wrecked by the sentiment.
But it never gets More real than when you walk into a relief house. I'll give you two examples. One, we were in Las Vegas, which, as we know, is a very.
In our own backyard.
And there's a lot to that city.
Never have I experienced a city that one day in the day is like roller coasters and, you know, soaked a Soleil. And then. And then the city, every single night literally flips on its head and becomes such a dark, heavy place.
But we went to.
We went to a safe home in Vegas, and we're taking some necklaces with us, and we just end up sitting. And they watch the film as well. And so there's that beauty of like, what. Just what film can do similar to song, where it's like all of a sudden these women are like, this is what I like. They had a relation point.
And then you sit in those environments, you go, I'm not. This is not.
There are other heroes here. And the heroes are the. Like, it's very kind for them to be so excited about us showing up and making the signs and sitting down. And they're so thrilled we sang a song or two. And.
But the real heroes are the ones that are just that had put together the safe house and these women that have taken this leap of faith to step out of this incredibly dark and intoxicating world.
And then another example was we went.
We actually went down to El Salvador with convoy women, and Mariah and I went down. And it's a women's program in El Salvador because so much of this, as you well know, speaking of swimming upstream, is about lack of education, it's about lack of opportunity, and it's about desperation in family dynamics. And so there's no other place to turn to other than this tragic infrastructure that is human trafficking. And so part of their role in El Salvador is to just offer education and safety. And we got to give them these, you know, these practice priceless necklaces. And you could just see, you know, as you tell the story, and particularly as a man, you know, telling the story about what I feel like our role is as men towards women.
They're just those moments just imprint on your mind. I mean, it's very ground level. You're in. You're in the.
This is day to day. You know, these women are taking it one step at a time. But, yeah, those are two examples of probably more about profound impact on me than even maybe I. Arguably I had on them. But, yeah, there's an anonymity to it.
[00:26:16] Speaker B: Yeah. And what you're articulating, Joel, is what we have come to articulate internally at love justice as the brokenhearted anointing. And that scripture of like, lord, break my heart for what breaks yours. And it's out of that brokenhearted anointing that you do what you do. And this kind of piggybacks into the next question pretty well. And I know you touched a little bit on, you know, the roles and biblical roles, but how does your faith influence your commitment to fighting human trafficking and supporting justice initiatives?
[00:26:52] Speaker A: I know I keep driving back to like heritage and family dynamics and whatnot. I think I'm at a point in life where I just realized there's a lot of different humans in the multiverse that Joel Smallbone could have been. And a lot of them are actually probably pretty self serving and pretty dark versions, you know, and so I, I just, I really, I really feel like I stand on the shoulders of so many giants when it comes to perspective and opinion. And, and as, as you brought up, Hannah, just the grace of God, that there are these documents that we can study that both have, you know, I've gone through some of the Old Testament and I'm like, you talk about women's rights and you talk about, you know, just, it's just so dark. And then I'm equally bouncing back to the story of Jesus and I go, here's a guy who was born into a tyrannical, imperial environment where women had about, as, you know, much rights as a canine did.
And you know, as a result, you can imagine that all of these awful things, rape, trafficking, slavery, it was all there, it was all in the forefront. And yet really, from every documented piece that we have of him, you go, this guy first of all loved his mom and he lifted her up like in, in a world where like women were pushed down, he lifted his mum up and didn't want to do this miracle at this location. But he's like, his mom's like, go do it, son. And when he's in excruciating pain at the end of his life, the main concern is his mom. Like, he goes to this fella, John is like, john, look after my mom for me. You will be her son. Like, passes her on to him and him on to her. This man was funded by women. Like, the first person that he ever shared that, that he was the son of God too, was a technically in that day, a terrorist woman.
You know, the first women that found out that he had risen were the first people were women.
He. So you see all these interplays, not to mention how much you know, he rose. He wanted to raise up marriage and celebrate the institution of marriage and protect that. He didn't talk about so many other issues that I feel like in modern religion we wish he would have talked about. But he talks so much about the poor and the needy, the widows and the orphans, and he talks about the rise of women as, at least in the way I read it.
And so you can only denote if you're going to dedicate your life to following this guy, that one of the key things that I have to do as a man is look at his example and go, man, he.
He was strangling out these, these, these terrible things. And what I love about Jesus too, and, and the way it has. My faith has evolved in aligning my life with him, is that I think it's a. To quote another great New York thinker, Jason, I think it's Timothy Keller. He talks about how we're still really in the infancy of understanding Jesus because there's so much time preceding. We're only 2,000 years into this thing. But what Jesus did is he really, he worked. He to slowly but surely strangle out things like inequality and sexism and slavery and so on. And so that when you do fast forward, even though we're in the infancy of what it means to understand the teachings of Jesus, you know, for the first time, as you would well know in human history, every sovereign nation in the world recognized that slavery is wrong and deplorable and bad. Well, that's a massive leap, by the way, for the laws of the lands to. For the first time in human history, this has happened. You know, we're having the conversation about women's rights and the rise of women, and we're seeing it in real time, you know, so I am, I am hopeful in some way that progress is being made.
But, yeah, I will hinge my life on. I hinge my life on a lot of really the words of Jesus. And I don't think you can get around the way he feels about human trafficking. I think, I think. I think it's very clear.
[00:31:55] Speaker C: No doubt about it. No doubt about it. And I mean, everything you said, like, just the heart and the idea that Jesus lifted up, I mean, he starts his ministry with a passage in Isaiah that's fully focused on everything you just talked about.
And so it's hard to argue that foundation. And that's actually where Love Justice's name comes from, is verse eight of that chapter, Isaiah 61. So, like, you know that idea. And so I love that and I Love the way God is using you and Luke and the platform you guys have and Mariah as well, to communicate this message. And so, you know, as we wrap up here, like, what advice would you give to individuals that are listening, that are viewing, that really want to get involved? Like, we've said it already, like, do something.
What's some simple things you might encourage as we wrap up?
[00:33:00] Speaker A: Well, I'll say this. First of all, I don't, you know, I think you're, you're much more the experts in this regard than I am. But I. One thing I can do is advocate for you to your listeners. If you've made it this far on the podcast, I'll say, good job, well done, and you're in the right spot and you have the right heart, and half the battle is done.
Now, that said, this is, this is formation. Right now. This is what formation looks like, understanding who, what kind of person you want to be in the world and what you feel called and designed to champion. You do have to get in the game.
And this is, I think, you know, a word of caution. This is a very dark and as you both very well know, dark, heavy, tumultuous game, if you want to use, for lack of better word, to, to get into.
But I would also counter that by saying, I don't know if there are any causes that are closer to the God's heart than this, because it is driving. You know, you have pride over here and you have these other aspects over here, but the trouble with human trafficking is wrapped up inside human trafficking. It's literally all of the things that grieve. God's heart is wrapped up in this one thing. It's the greed and the pride of man. It's the selfishness of man. It's the loss of innocence for little ones. It's.
It's poor, it's the needy, it's the widows, it's the orphans. It's all wrapped up in this one piece. And so the fact that we were even talking about it, the fact that you're listening to this or watching this, is amazing.
And I think a good place to start would actually be to get with Love Justice International, because as far as formation is concerned, there's not a lot of formation around this issue, and there's not a lot of people that can be trusted around this issue. And so I think, again, whether it's a dollar sign or whether it's active time, time is the greatest thing you can give to anything in your life.
Show up and I'm gonna Lob the ball back into your court, Hannah and Jason, and saying how you can, how you can step in. But I will simply ask do something. You know, if you've come this far on this podcast, on this day, just do something, say a prayer and, and get in the game, you know?
[00:35:29] Speaker B: Yeah, thanks, Joel.
I'm just one maybe thing I'll leave you with. And just the scripture that's coming to mind as you're talking is just whatever you did for the least of these, you did for me. And I just like speak that over you guys tonight. I know you're on the road. You've been so incredibly generous with your time, generous with your words, your insights and yeah, I just, I love hearing the heart behind why you guys do what you do. And it's such a privilege having, having you share that with us this morning, this evening, this afternoon, whatever part of the world that you're in. And yeah, as you guys sing that song tonight, whatever you did on behalf of the least of these, you did for me. And so thank you guys for, yeah, just what you do. And it was a privilege talking with you today.
[00:36:17] Speaker A: Lovely to see you both. Give Jason, give your son our love. Caleb and Hannah, your man, our love and congratulations.
[00:36:27] Speaker B: Take good care of Ash for us.
[00:36:29] Speaker A: She's right here. She's right. She's just on the other side of the faithful. Ashley.
[00:36:34] Speaker B: Shout out for Ashley.
Amazing.
[00:36:39] Speaker C: Thank you so much.
[00:36:41] Speaker B: We are grateful for the generous support.
[00:36:43] Speaker A: Of the Love justice community.
[00:36:45] Speaker B: Please consider joining our family of donors.
[00:36:48] Speaker A: Learn more at lovejustice ngo.
