Country music star Oliver Anthony recently announced a major life update that he would be leaving the music industry to pursue full-time ministry. Oliver Anthony, whose real name is Christopher Anthony Lunsford, posted a lengthy video to YouTube, explaining where he is at in life.
The “Rich Men North of Richmond” stay said, “I’ve decided that moving forward, I don’t need a Nashville management company. I don’t even need to exist within the space of music. So, I’m looking at switching my whole business over to a traveling ministry. He explained how he believes “our system is broken.”
Anthony explained that that he seeks to create a grassroots music festival called the “Real Revival Project” that will enact substantial change. “I have this vision for this thing that I’m calling the Real Revival Project, and it’s basically going to start as a grassroots music festival, but hopefully it grows into something that can literally change our landscape and our culture and the way we live,” he said.
Further criticizing modern culture, Anthony said, “I’m just somebody who thinks the whole way we live is a–backward and so stupid, and it serves nobody but the people at the top of the hierarchy that we no longer really need to serve,” he explained.
Oliver Anthony also made headlines last year after he shared the Gospel with Joe Roan after appearing on his podcast. The famous country singer outlined who the word of God had guided him amid his meteoric rise to fame with his hit song “Rich Men North of Richmond.”
“I was just so at peace being up there; it just felt like that’s where I was supposed to be. And with all of this, it has been [that way]. There’s no way that Chris from six months ago could handle what’s gone on the last two weeks, but I feel so empowered from all of it,” he told the famous podcaster.
Continuing to explain the value of God’s word, he said, “I’m telling you, like, again, I’m not anybody special, and I’m certainly not here to preach to anybody … but coming from somebody who was just in a really [expletive] up place, and I used that word with discretion, but it just describes where I was. That guy found a lot of peace from [the Bible].”
“I just felt hopeless, like almost the way a child feels hopeless when you can’t find your parent or something. Like a 4-year-old who can’t find his parents, I didn’t have anything left in me,” he said, describing a powerful encounter with God. “I don’t know, I just decided right then and there, I know I can’t do this anymore, but I know there are things I need to do. I just told God, let me do it and I’ll give all this [expletive] up. I’ll give up the weed, and I’ll quit getting drunk, and I’ll quit being so angry about things … and I’ll start over again and make Him the focus and not me.”
Featured image credit: Elk Mountain44 (Daryl Connor Thompson), CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:OliverAnthony_PressClub_Daryl_Connor_Thompson_23-08-23_7993_8.jpg