Your first Petra "experience"

[greenchili]

OK with all the negativity going on around here lately. I figured I'd try something new so here we go.

Name your first Petra "experience".

What I mean by "experience" for those detailed type is not the first time you experienced their music, or the first time you experienced them in concert.

But more like your first meaningful experience while listening to the music or while in concert, etc.

So there you go.

Your first meaningful Petra "experience".

I'll post something later but gotta kick out those polls before I get too scatterbrained.

[Petra Fan Canada]

I had already seen them in concert and enjoyed myself, but the sound was so bad (poor venue) that it was hard to make the lyrics out.

One summers day (I was 12-13) I was kickin back with my boom box (all of 5-10 AMPS ), and I read the lyrics as they were sung. At that point, I really got who they were. Judas Kiss came on, and then I realized 2 things. 1) As rockers, they were legitimate 2) for whatever reason, the Spirit burned within me as that song played pointing to the fact of how pesonally Jesus takes it when we do stray.

I've been hooked ever since.

[executioner]

My first Petra experience was in Orange, Tx in late 1981. I never before heard anything from this band called Petra and I didn't want to go, but a friend dragged me to the show and I've never gotten over it to this day. A point of interest I have to tell you is that it was the NSD Tour, but the first song they played was Judas' Kiss, and after the song Greg said something about it being off their new album, and also one they'd been playing in concert for a couple of years now.



Greg Volz
Bob Hartman
Mark Kelly
John Slick
Louie Weaver

[jimmye4563]

I've related this story before, but, it's worth telling again.
It was in November of 1986 when my grandpa(my mom's dad) died. He had been diagnosed with alzheimers @ a year or so before. We got word that he was fading fast. My mom was the only one who could go to Houston, TX(we were in Orlando FL) at the time. Anyway, to make this not so long---We all knew my grandpa was going to be going home to Heaven because he was a christian. I was feeling sad. The Holy Spirit "nudged" me to just start playing "Grave Robber" over and over. It really did minister to me; reassuring me that I'd see my grandpa again some day. My grandpa "hung on" until my mom got to Texas-as if he was just waiting for her to get there before he left this life on earth.
Even now when I start thinking of my grandpa, or, other loved ones, or, a loved one has died, I'll get "Not Of This World" and play Grave Robber @ 2, or, 3 times in a row.
That's the earliest "experience" that comes to mind.

[js3971]

I received Christ in October of 88, my senior year in high school. A friend of mine let me borrow some of his Christian cassettes. He had several cassettes that were in a radio type format. There was an anouncer, he'd tell about a group and the new album they were putting out, and then it would play a song from that album. They were kind of cool to listen to, and I'm not sure where he got these. I've never seen anything like them since.

Anyway, one of the songs was Petra's Get On Your Knees and Fight Like A Man. I then knew what those T-shirts I had seen my friends wear meant.

A little later we were on a ski trip to Riudoso, and on the way, another friend put a Petra cassett in. It was This Means War. And I thought, man, these guys are good.

I first saw them in concert in 91 or 92 on the Beyond Belief Tour in El Paso, Texas. When I first moved to El Paso in the summer of 89, I was excited because I thought there'd would be a lot of Christian concerts in a big city like that. Man was I wrong about that.

Rich Mullins, PID, and David and the Giants was about it. Finally in the summer of one of those years, Petra came. They were at the Special Events Center where the University of Texas at El Paso (Texas Western for those of you who have seen Glory Road) played their home basketball games. It seats about 12,000. There were about 6,000 on hand. It was awesome and so loud. The building was shaking, but I loved every minute of it.

[greenchili]

Funny that Judas Kiss should be mentioned. My sister and I was part of a tv media class and one of our projects was to do a little 30 minute radio show segment. I took the more power to ya album in so I could practice song queing. Pretty much everyone in the class were not christians so I got a fair amount of flack for playing religious music.

Anyways by the end of the class (2 period class) a couple of people were singing the lyrics to Judas Kiss. Now I doubt they had a clue what they were singing, but the song was catchy enough for them to like it. I never did a radio show, but I did help my sister work on hers. I can't remember if she played Judas Kiss or not though.

If anything they both counted as a time of witness for my sister and I. She was probably more aware of what was going on in the classroom. I had a tendancy to be in my own little world.

[jeffreykbaker]

I've had many meaningful experiences while listening to the lyrics of Petra songs. I don't think an album has been released in the past 20 years that is exempt.For me the one that is still fresh in ny memory is one from last month. The night before I had to fly to Burmingham to be processed for possible deployment to Iraq. I was watching Petra videos with my wife and 21 month old son. (One of our favorite things to do in the evening. I'm sure my son is the only infant in the world who thinks the world evolves around Petra. He asks to see the Petra videos almost every night and he was front and center in Dawsonville on 12/30/06 and even has 1 on of Paul's drumsticks as a memento. He loves drums.) Anyways, back to the story. We were watching No Doubt and we all started sobbing thinking that I could be headed to Iraq for 12-18 months. While listening to those lyrics God gave us a peace and an assurance that He was in control regardless of what would happen and He is much bigger than the army. The only way the Army could deploy me is if he allowed it. Anyway, I am glad that my son will grow up with Petra even if there aren't any new releases. The Holy Spirit can still use the old ones..........I already pre-ordered our copy of the Farewell DVD so we'll watch that one over and over too!