In the middle of the organized chaos that is the National Religious Broadcasters Convention, I had the opportunity to sit down and talk with Christian music artist, John Schlitt. From a plush second floor conference room, we talked about his latest solo album The Greater Cause, his relationaship with the Faith and Freedom Coalition and what he has planned for the rest of 2013.

BC: Why did you title your CD "The Greater Cause?"

Cause means what you believe, your belief system or your reason for what you do. I was trying to figure out what we were going to call this record and one morning while I was going through my quiet time, my wife, Dorla, saw I was struggling and said to me it's the cause, what's your cause. What's the greater cause. So basically, she, my wife picked the title. We have 11 tracks that have a cause theme to them all the way through, including my tribute song to my wife called "The Gift" (celebrating the couple's 40^th wedding anniversary).

BC: What's your favorite track on the album?

Faith and Freedom is probably my favorite because it states without faith there's no freedom and without freedom there's no faith. Do we have the right to have freedom. Ask the Russians, the Soviet Union, for so many years where they were not allowed to have faith.

BC: How long did it take you to create The Greater Cause?

Off and on, about two months. It was very quick. I'm not the kind of guy who reads a Bible verse and decides to write a song about it. I'm more of an entertainer. I'm a front man.  It's the blessing God has given me. When I'm in front of people I'm able to speak and present a song. I don't enjoy writing that much, I enjoy it when it's finished. It's such an amazing satisfaction to have something that was in your head come forward. Now I have a new system where I write with my son-in-law and a couple of other guys, and we will sit down for a couple of days and start with nothing except an idea I have. I'm very blessed to have been around long enough that the top guys will work with me. And because they're willing to work with me we were able to get a CD of that quality out that quickly.   

BC: How did your relationship with the Faith and Freedom Coalition come about?

The song "Faith and Freedom," we wrote the song long before we heard about the coalition. I didn't know anything about them. I work with ACL J a lot and they were featuring my song "Faith and Freedom" and one of the people there commented how well it would work well with the Faith and Freedom Coalition. My wife is a Googler, so we checked out them out and I thought my song "Faith and Freedom" would be amazing for that organization. So we sent the Faith and Freedom Coalition the song and they loved it.

BC: What is it about the Faith and Freedom Coalition you like so much?

I like the fact they believe in faith and freedom. The found fathers created the constitution with the understanding that you had to have God guiding you. God has always given us freedom but he's also given us guidance through the holy spirit. So when I see an organization that believes in that I'm happy to help out.

BC: Looking forward to the rest of 2013, what do you want to accomplish?

I want to do a Christmas album. This last Christmas season I felt as though I was really missing out. I really would have liked to contribute to what I call seasonal praise. Christmas songs are what I call seasonal praise because they're played only two months out of the year. Six traditional and four praise Christmas songs done in my style, they'll be a little more aggressive. Also, I want to tour some this summer, perform The Greater Cause for people.