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10 Questions with ... Austin French
October 4, 2021
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1. Please tell us how 2020 changed your relationships?
2020 changed my relationships to be more intentional. I was touring full time playing one hundred shows or more, and to be honest, I was getting to love my neighbor, who was in front of me at shows every night and on the road with me, but I wasn’t getting to love my actual neighbors where my family is planted as much as I would have liked to. In 2020 I got to meet my actual neighbor and spend time with them grilling out, getting coffee, and going on walks around our neighborhood. I got the chance to really get to know and understand the people that I live beside, which has never happened since I’ve had a full time music career. We started worship nights in our cul-de-sac and doing outreach right where we live. I learned that ministry is right in my backyard, so I don’t want to forget that my literal neighbor is just as important as my ministry. I want to be more intentional about where I am planted.
2. Share the most challenging part of the past year.
The most challenging part of this past year was seeing the whole year get canceled overnight. I thought, “God, I had all of these shows on the books and all of these plans that I made!” I had prayed for God’s provision over my life, and I was living in God’s provisions in my life. They were really comfortable, and when everything got stripped away, I realized that it was a lot harder to pray for God to be my provider than to just live in His provisions. The hardest part of this past year, especially with three kids and a wife at home, was saying, “God, how are you going to come through? What are you going to do?” I watched God open up door after door where He met my needs and really did give me my daily bread.
3. Some really great advice you received recently was…
Some great advice that I recently received at a coffee meeting was that you cannot outgive God. The more that we give, the more that we access the heart of God and live in a generous place instead of a needy place. Generosity inspires generosity, so I want to be generous to inspire others to give with the heart of God in mind.
4. How do you continue to deepen your relationship with Jesus?
I’m not really doing anything new; I just continue to dig. It’s just like my relationship with my wife. I’m continuing to pay attention to and learn more about her. I’ve learned that there is always more to learn and to never be satisfied with what you already know. In the sense of digging, I am exploring more of who God is by listening to a podcast called The Bible Project. I am digging into the Hebrew Bible and how it is written, the origins of how it was written, and the people it was written to. Just learning the way to read the Bible in the way it’s meant to be read has been a really sweet and beautiful process. Studying the history of who God is helps me understand who I am in a relationship with every single day. He is worth digging into more, and more, and more.
5. Share about that new song of yours.
Rest for Your Soul is the new song for me, and I wrote this song out of a season of desperation for rest. I have three kids all under the age of six years old. They can barely spell the word sleep, let alone do it. I find myself most days a little exhausted even after sleeping through the night. It comes with the territory of being a parent, and I’m OK with it! I’ve realized that even when I am well rested, I can be not at ease, at peace, or at rest. It was 3am when I got up with my little girl and thought to myself, “This is not the rest I thought a year at home would be giving me.” I realized that rest isn’t a situation that I can create for myself, but it’s a person. It’s Jesus. Jesus says it best to Mathew when He says, “Come to me all who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.” (Mathew 11:28) He can enter any kind of chaos and bring any kind of peace, stillness, and rest that we are searching for. We just have to come to Him and accept that He is enough, and when we are ready to do that, we will find rest in Jesus who is willing and ready to meet us no matter what the situation is. That is what my new song is for me: a reminder that Jesus is the rest that I am always searching for.
6. Tell us about someone who you really respect and why?
To be honest, the person who comes to my mind is my manager, Jason Davis. Jason is probably one of the guys in my life that has the most integrity. He loves people beyond just what they can give him, and I love that. Talk about being generous! I have seen what doing business with integrity and character looks like firsthand by doing business and having a relationship with Jason. I respect him 100%. He has become family to me. He has taught me that being a businessman is important but being a Christian who does business may look different in the world. This means giving more than you are given and loving more than you get love. It is the importance of serving people no matter what they can give you back. You are serving them to be more like Jesus. I look up to Jason everyday with everything that he handles and how he serves everyone around him with such integrity and generosity.
7. What would surprise people most about you?
I am a DIY guy. No matter what the project is, I feel like YouTube can teach me anything. One of my favorite stories about this is when my brother bought a motorcycle. Let’s keep in mind that I have never ridden a motorcycle in my life. The day that I shot the music video for Rest for Your Soul was the day that he called me and asked me to go pick it up. I think he probably thought that I would rent a U-Haul or a truck of some sort to transport this, but as soon as I heard that there was an opportunity to ride a Ninja Crotch Rocket Sport Bike, I thought, “There has to be a YouTube video for that.” So, I found a helmet from a neighbor and played the part of knowing what I was talking about at this exchange of the motorcycle. As soon as the seller left, I hopped on the bike and I pulled up a YouTube video on how to start up a motorcycle and drive it home. I don’t know if my wife would let me do it again, but I do love to try and figure out how to do newthings.
8. What’s on your nightstand?
On my nightstand there are books, journals, and probably some coffee stains. Ilove to sit in bed, read, and drink coffee in the mornings if I can. I read a lot of books from real estate books to coffee books to intentional biblical books aboutunderstanding concepts of the Bible. So you can find those kind of books and coffee stains on my nightstand.
9. What are you most excited about this year?
I am most excited to get back to playing shows. I find so much life in not just singing for people, but meeting the people that I wrote these songs for. I am anextrovert; number 7 on the enneagram. I love getting out and doing things. Staying still this year was definitely needed and it filled me up, but I am getting alittle claustrophobic. I am so excited to see people again, share my music, and hear people’s stories. I get so much inspiration from that.
10. What do you do for fun?
I love to golf! I rarely do it anymore with kiddos, but it is one of my favorite sports to play. I really sucked at it for a long time, but I had a buddy who taught me and now can’t stay away. It’s really fun, really frustrating, and really peaceful all at thesame time. I also love listening to podcasts. Sometimes I do this while golfing and also when I’m driving in the car
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