Joe Niemand Reveals All
by Janine van Niekerk

Joe: "After school I went through some rough years, I got involved with drugs. I didn’t have any kind of relationship with God or time for the church. I was raised in the church, but I had gotten tired of religious people. My mother has always been an amazing Christian, but growing up in the church and seeing behind the scenes how things worked, really put me off Christianity. So for me I could not be touched in the church, because I had too many hang-ups in the church. I gave my life to the Lord on the mountain, alone... because He had been cornering me.

I actually wrote a song that had something to it. Every time I listened to a recording of it, there was some kind of presence to it… some kind of peace, some kind of something. The moment I put it off it was gone. Somehow I understood that something in that song was not in the rest of my life. It started showing up the rest of my life as quite empty. It was a song I wrote for an AIDS film, and it was recorded on my debut album, “Shadow.” There was something in the song that spoke to me in a way that I couldn’t understand, because I wrote it. Then more people started talking to me about God. In the beginning it was kind of irritating, because I had my life and the good parts I enjoyed, the bad parts I tried to forget or drink away or whatever.

So one night I was exasperated, and I drove up a mountain and said: "Cool, if You want to talk to me then talk to me… let’s settle this, because I am not doing too well with the suggestions. I was very angry at God. I felt that everything that had happened in my life was kind of His fault in a way. You know how you are.? You are angry, you don't know why. You feel hopeless, and you feel like you shouldn't be. Everything in the world promises to be everything and then turns out to be nothing. And once you get to that place, you realise that you have all the things that should be making you incredibly happy, but you have never felt deader in your life! So you start wondering what the point is of it. What are you doing here? What is going on?

For instance drugs, sex and rock & roll ... It has a very slow hand. It pulls you in. You go out to have an amazing time. You think that you are in a privileged position, and that you are very cool. But if you do it long enough, and you are honest with yourself, cracks start appearing and you start asking yourself, so is this all there is to life?"

So up the mountain he goes and asks God to say something. Joe: "No, I have never heard the audible voice of God, I don’t think I would have survived that. But He spoke to me through a person who came up the same mountain at two in the morning. It was a huge place, and the guy came and parked right next to me. I had been sitting there for hours, stubbornly saying that if God wanted to talk to me, He better do it now, because I was not leaving until he said something. So eventually I said, well if You want me, then at least let me talk to someone about You. Because of my religious background, I would never do that. (The falseness of Christians… even religious leaders with their own agendas who use the name of God to manipulate people… there is still nothing in the world that gets me more than that.) So if you want me, at least let's get the conversation going… because I feel You are trying to tell me something, but I am not sure what that is and it is getting to me now.

So this guy pulls up, and they are both staring at another mountain a little further on. And Joe gets this urge to speak to the guy. And as he gets the urge, he thinks… there is absolutely no way he was going to strike up a conversation with this stranger, driving his dodgy car, in a completely secluded spot like that… there was just no way…

So the guy walks away, leaving his car behind, then comes back and stands about three metres away from Joe. Joe physically gets a pressure on his chest to talk to the guy… and he still resists! Then at last Joe can not handle the pressing any more and he simply says: "Excuse me…" and the guy turns around and looks at him as if he had said something about his mother. And Joe presses on and says: "I came up here tonight to talk to God, and I am waiting for Him to say something and here you pitch up… so what do you think about that?

Joe: "The guy looks at me and says "Djei moet sieker kerk toe gan." (You should probably go to church)

So Joe thanked him and the guy got into his car and drove off.

Joe: "I was so disgusted. I said please tell me that was NOT Your attempt to talk to me because… where is my burning bush? And then… You see all the Christians I know that feel God speaking to them talk about a little voice… that was the first time I actually felt a voice inside me speak to me inaudibly, and just ask me a question. It just said: "What was it that you asked me for?" I said, I asked you for a chance to speak to someone and I asked you to tell me something. And it just came to me: “you spoke to a complete stranger at two ‘o clock in the morning about Me – and he said that you should go to church… maybe that is not a bad place to start'… and I was like… OK"

Before I had gone up there, I had written down everything I had wanted to say to God on my phone. The idea was that when He pitched up I would take out my phone and and say OK cool point #1…

After the guy had left, I opened up my phone, and I didn’t recognise anything I had written down. Reading it again, it became something that God was saying to me… and it completely flipped my mind! I was completely freaked out! That was what I needed. I had been so arrogant, so full of myself and cynical.

What I needed was God taking a little time to show something of Himself to me in a way I did not expect Him to. It completely humbled me in that moment and put me in a place where I could go… OK, You win! That was March 22, 2003.

When I got home I started looking for a church where I could live out my new found faith. That was ironic because of all my issues with the church. It was weird that the first thing God told me was to go to church. Unlike the olden days where I went because I had to, my journey was to go to church and realise that it is not about all the people and what I believed about them. Even if what I believed was true that was not the point. The church is about God, and if I am interested in God, then I need to live with the imperfections of His church."

About his music… it is not about his image (you will never see his pic on anything), for him it is about the music. His first album after that was about his journey to become a Christian (Reborn). Now his new album (This is War) is about his journey to make a Christian life work.

No frills, no fuss… just real Joe Niemand.