by David Dodd

That’s exactly what happened when three guys – Jason Barton, Collin Stoddard and Chris Lockwood joined forces to form one of the hottest Christian bands to emerge in years.

They were all pursuing solo careers; Jason was the closest to launching a solo career when he met Chris who was just accepted to the prestigious Berklee College of Music.  His bags were packed and ready to go, but once he sat down with Jason and they shared their dreams to glorify God in song, Chris took that leap of faith and unpacked his bags.  Soon afterwards, they met Collin, a young pianist whose talent won various composition competitions.  

It was a divine blast of Godly intervention as they stepped out of their solo career future to take the collective journey of 33Miles.   

 “It’s been really cool in hindsight to see how the Lord really specifically brought us together as a group of guys each doing our own thing, not really knowing each other, prior to 33Miles, “ Collin recalls as we all sit in a Nashville suite on a sunny summer day.

“One of the fingerprints I love to see is the similarity in ministry and heart that each of us have.”

Lead vocalist Jason adds to the thought.  “The Bible says: ‘Make the most of every moment, and whatever we do, whether it be eating or drinking or whatever, do it for the Glory of God.’  We were created for the glory of God which I think is why What Could Be Better resonates for Christians because in heaven, everything will be perfectly revealed and that’s what we’re created for.” 

The bands name reflects the years Jesus lived on earth as well as our own journey on this planet – our miles - so to speak, and what we do with those miles to glorify Our Savior. 

 In a sense, they’re proclaiming Frequent Flyer Miles for Jesus!    

“We want to make the most of our miles,” Jason explains, “We want to surrender to Christ and try our best to experience and help other people experience the glory of God.  We want to encourage them, and hopefully people will come to know the Lord and the church will be impacted and encouraged.   We’re here to love God and for God to use us to show His love to other people.  The journey is every day; we want to make the most of it.” 

From the very formation of the group, the guys admit they had nothing to do with it.  They were set to go at it on their own, but through mutual friends encouraging them to meet each other, they decided to give it a go, and right from the beginning, a friendship cemented as a band was created.

together. It’s hard not to give God the credit and to glorify God and to praise God for this because a year ago we had no idea we’d be here or have a single on the radio that’s doing as well as it’s doing. 

We’re just three guys that God pulled together and all we’re doing is singing our songs and hopefully reflecting Christ in all that we say and do.”

Collin adds another thought.  “We really want to influence the influencers.  That’s why we love to go into a church on a weekend because those are the people reaching their communities; those are the churches that have the relationships established.”

Chris agrees.  “We realize we can’t do everything, but the church is where God reveals His Glory on earth, and so if we can go into the church and impact that church, excite them about Christ and rejuvenate them, hopefully God will do that, wherever we travel God will use us to inspire them to inspire their community for Christ.”

“It’s kind of crazy how this whole thing happened,” Jason reflects with a laugh.  “I mean, we look at the last year and a half of our lives as providence, of God’s Hand being on every little aspect of it, every little detail, and bringing us together. I actually wrote What Could Be Better before I even knew these two guys. 

I sat down in a room with a good friend of mine, Sam Mizell, he’s a great writer and another friend of mine, Scott Davis, and we just started dreaming about heaven and what our lives would be like if we lived every day like we were on our way to heaven.

I think as believers we don’t do that, you know, we get bogged down and we let life pull us away from where our heart needs to be and that’s home.  As believers in Christ our heart can already be home.  Every day we have a reason to celebrate life, and we have a reason to rejoice and grasp onto every moment and revel in it and cherish it for what it is and know that when our time on earth is up, we’re going to go to heaven and there’s just going to be non-stop perfection and party.

And it’s crazy of me to think that when I wrote that song I didn’t know Chris and Collin but I believed that God was going to bring these guys into my life and that we were going to do this together and He did it.” 

“A lot of people are saying it just really makes them feel good, which is awesome to me because we want to sing music that encourages people about who they are in Christ, and encourages them in their walk and challenges them, and so to hear that’s the reaction people have, to hear that they might be having a bad day and they hear the song and it pumps them up and gets them excited again, wow.  We feel that God accomplishes His purpose through that song and we feel blessed to even be a part of the song and to be chosen to do what we do.”

Before we wrapped up, Collin wanted to add another thought that greatly impacted him through the various stages of the formation of the band.

“David, you had mentioned the importance of prayer earlier and I think there’s a lot of times when I don’t enter a situation prayerfully and I’m not bathing each day and each moment in prayer.  When I compare those times to when I do, it’s huge.  My heart, sometimes when I’m not praying, is not in the right place, I’m not continually humbling myself before the Lord and saying, ‘Lord, use this moment for your Glory, let my heart be focused through You, and not getting caught up in the moment, or getting caught up in the unknown or getting caught up in what I think.’

Exodus 14 is a huge influence for me when it says, You only need to just wait on the Lord, and He will fight for you.  And we have really seen that with everything that has happened to us, when we are in our own place of resting and are patient and we’re content where we are, you know, that’s when the Lord does His stuff and that’s when He moves forward, so it’s been a reminder to me that I need to just make a conscience effort to relax and let Him do the work.”