On the surface, it may seem like you've heard this story before: Student worship band writes songs and leads worship for youth/college service at local church. More and more kids show up, the ministry grows, and the band records an independent CD. Miles away, a record label guy hears the worship band's indie effort and signs them to a recording contract.

What happens next is anybody's guess. Instant radio success, summer festival gigs and big tours in the offing, or it's back to Sunday morning like a hundred Sunday mornings before. Either. Or.

But to get the real story behind Worth Dying For, the five-member worship band at Calvary Temple in Modesto, California, you've got to dig below the surface. Put aside 'the status quo,' the way it's been done, and make room for a deeper calling, a more passionate pursuit than music itself.

Slated for an April 2008 release, Worth Dying For's self-titled debut marks the national launch of a new youth movement, destined to impact youth culture in a whole new way. Birthed in the city-wide outreach of Calvary Temple's weekly youth event ("The Stadium"), which is aimed at shaking this generation out of its lethargy and despair, Worth Dying For is more creed than career, more mission than music. And the music—aggressive guitars, searing vocals and heart-provoking lyrics—speaks for itself.

"Jesus Christ and music are the two things that consume the thoughts and lives of this band," says 21-year-old Sean Loche, lead singer of Worth Dying For. "Combine the two, and you get what we love to do: worship. We are ordinary people that have a desire to show others how to fall in love with God in a deeper, more passionate way. The music scene today is heavily impacting our youth culture. The music that God has used us to write has changed our youth ministry and our city. Now, God has put it on our hearts to let these songs resonate in the hearts of the young people across this nation."

Featuring rock/pop anthems and intimate ballads, Worth Dying For, the debut CD, draws heavily on themes that define the band's mission: infiltrate, destroy [the darkness] and rebuild today's youth culture.

"Everything we're doing from the ministry to the music, we want it to make an impact on this generation," says 20-year old drummer Josh O'Haire. "We see so many young kids each week, so much that they go through, broken homes, depression, suicide. In mentoring them, I've seen how they feel like they're not a part of something... Our goal is to give them hope and something to be a part of, something real."

In January of 2008, the band—and more than 30 youth ministry interns at Calvary Temple—fasted 40 days in preparation for the ministry's move to a larger facility. "There's such an expectancy, such a stirring in our X18 mentoring group," says lead singer and keytar player Christy Johnson, whose husband Jeremy Johnson is one of the pastors at Calvary Temple. "We could just feel God doing something supernatural... We were convinced that if we moved to a bigger place, we'd see more and more students come. In just two weeks, we've grown by 200 kids... We simply can't wait to see what God is going to do."

"Our dream is to see lives changed," Sean continues, "to ignite and empower them to go out and do big things... It's not just about us playing songs, it's about helping them connect, letting a revolution begin with them...."

And through an active, growing MySpace community, as well as their ongoing mentoring work with younger bands coming up in their church, Worth Dying For's songs of revolution are reaching out beyond Modesto. Songs like the techno-party anthem "Let It Out" and their signature anthem "Revolution" give students a new language with which to declare their power as sons and daughters of the true, living God.

"We wrote 'Revolution' a little over a year ago," says 22 year-old Micah Berteau, guitar/lead vocalist. "The idea was to empower kids with the truth. We are the sound of a revolution; we can use our voices to tell people about God, to lift a generation up... We know we have to give up all we are to see this revolution happen in our city. When a generation realizes that, that's when a revolution can begin. As the lyric says, 'Today is the day we'll give it back to you."

Many of WDF's songs are born in personal times of worship, time alone spent with God in prayer and study.
           
"The biggest place we're seeing growth as a band is lyrically," Micah
says. "As we keep growing in God, he begins to give us even deeper, more mature songs. `At Your Cross' is a great example. I'd been praying for a
song to take us past the level we were used to, a song that would tap into a deeper presence." The song, he says, came to him at a youth camp, during a worship service there. Not forced or planned, but a natural result of being `at worship.'

"When I looked out in the crowd, everyone was bowing in reverence to
God," Micah says of the experience. "God's presence was so thick in the
room... We've felt that every time we play it."

In these and all their songs, the band says, the mission is front and center.

"Our message is: The revolution is you... one person standing up for Christ," Sean continues. "We have a different sense of Christianity than some do. We talk about duty, the forces of darkness and spiritual warfare, and we try to empower our kids, not to sit back but to engage, to stand up and realize that when they do that, they are empowered by the king of kings to fight the darkness. With Jesus on their side, nothing can stand against them..."

And their message, like their music, holds nothing back.

Guitarist Nathan Parrish, 27, sums it up. "For me, you can't really fight the darkness of our culture, you can't really stand up and be who God made you to be, unless you have ammunition to fight. When I was growing up, there wasn't anything for us to worship with, nothing to identify with. The music didn't belong to us... Today, with so much being fed to this generation, if they don't have something, anything to hold on to, to connect with, they won't be able to stand. Our desire is to give them something that can unite and empower them to stand strong and be courageous."

For more information on Worth Dying For, http://www.myspace.com/worthdyingformusic or  www.integritymusic.com