HISTORY: The Birth of No Compromise

HISTORY: The Birth of No Compromise

In 1996 I was offered to have 3 of my songs included on an upcoming Worship Album for Hosanna Integrity. I was excited. I met with the worship leader who would be producing the recording and he handed me the contract. It was a lot thicker than I expected. He left the room for a moment. I looked out the window at the water in the distance. I asked God, is this the path for me? I clearly heard Him say, “Do you want to be part of this move, or the next.” I whispered back to Him this question, “What is the next?” He said, “Souls”. I replied, “Then, I’ll choose the next.” He replied, “Then don’t sign this contract. Don’t ever sell your songs, and I will give you souls.” This request from God seemed simple. I honestly had no idea how much money could be made selling worship songs, or how many doors this decision would close. At the time, it was an easy and a simple yes from me.

A year later I was in a prayer meeting where the Spirit of God came in a very strong way. God gave me a vision that lasted for several hours. In every scene of the vision the words NO COMPROMISE floated in capital letters in the air. The end of the vision included instructions to help finish the work that the musician Keith Green had started. I didn’t know much about Keith Green. When I went downstairs to the little onsite bookstore, there was Keith Green’s autobiography entitled, No Compromise.

Almost exactly 1 year later, I was asked to lead worship for the same meetings where I’d had the vision. A few days before I left, God clearly spoke to me that I would meet Melody Green in the same place He had given me the vision. I felt so strong about it that I put together a list of questions that I would want to ask Keith Green, so I could ask her. When I arrived, sure enough, Melody Green was in attendance. Because of mutual friends we were in the same places and lunches together that week. I was able to ask her my questions. Several times she qualified her answer with, “I wouldn’t think this, but Keith would have thought…”

Keith Green was a passionate, imperfect messenger. He was a popular musician before he got saved. He had a radical conversion. He joined the small, budding Christian music industry. He eventually became uncomfortable with the secular business model for Christian music that was being used. He pulled out of his record contracts. He began to offer his tapes for buy 1 and get one free so you could give it to an unsaved friend. If you didn’t have the money to buy the tape, you got it for free, no questions asked. Producers tried to use current production methods for his recordings, but Keith didn’t like it. Instead, Keith would play live on his piano with the band to capture the live, organic feel.

Keith lived what he believed. Though imperfect and often doubting himself and the purity of his faith, Keith lived radical for God. He and his wife Melody began discipling many new believers that were finding Jesus. They filled their home with disciples, bought 2 more homes next to them and rented several others to accommodate all the people that were coming to Christ and needed discipleship. Eventually this led to Keith and Melody moving to a ranch in Texas to accommodate even more. Tragically, not long after they moved, Keith and 2 of their children were killed on the property in a plane crash.

July 28, 2022 will be the 40th anniversary since Keith Green’s death.
40 is the number of testing and completion.
It is time for a new generation of radical followers of Jesus to emerge, using new methods of distributing the word of God, songs from God and written works from God.

John 12:24 was the verse Melody included at the beginning of No Compromise the book about Keith Green’s life. John 12:24 - Most assuredly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it produces much grain.

NC GPL CREATION: How and why the NC GPL was created.

The year was now 1998. Other Churches and Worship leaders were asking me if they could sing my songs and use them on recordings. The only way I could find to release a song for free was to place it in the Public Domain. There were two major drawbacks to the Public Domain. Theoretically, someone could simply change a few words or few notes in the melody line and they could legally copyright the song as their own and even charge the original author to use the song. Secondly, that same year the Copyright Term Extension Act of 1998, was voted into law by the United States Congress, effectively ending works from ever again entering the Public Domain in the USA.

What to do. Is there another legal pathway? I consulted with a small group of like-minded lawyers and copyright experts; professors from Arizona State University and Yale University and an intellectual property lawyer in my city. We first studied the GNU GPL used to create and release LINUX software. LINUX was an alternative to Microsoft Software, excepted it was created by software coders from all over the world without compensation, so the world could use it in turn use LINUX for free.

Based on that GPL and other research, the NC GPL was born and registered with the Library of Congress in the year 2000, the first year of a new Millennium!

Since then many have expanded on this same concept. The most recognizable and understandable would be Wikipedia. Wikipedia calls itself the Free Encyclopedia.

“Wikipedia is an online free content encyclopedia project helping create a world in which everyone can freely share in the sum of all knowledge. The project is supported by the Wikimedia Foundation and based on a model of freely editable content.”

Basically, Wikipedia is created for free so it can be used for free. Wikipedia originally used the GNU GPL (the same license we used as a pattern) but has now migrated to the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 license.

We also considered using the Creative Commons license instead, but it does not contain all of the same protections and freedoms as the NC GPL. 

The No Compromise General Public License was specifically created using Biblical principals for the use for the use of the Body of Christ. It is a legal expression of the woman pouring her alabaster box out on the feet and the head of the Savior.