"I believe music has the ability to cause healing to come to people ...."

THAT STATEMENT BY ARTIST Phil Driscoll to the estimated 80,000 people at the April 25 memorial service for the 15 victims of the Littleton, Colo., massacre seems to be finding validity. Since the shooting at Columbine High School on April 20, examples of how Christian music has been used to comfort hurting people have surfaced repeatedly.

For Sunday's memorial service, Colorado Governor Bill Owens turned to Christian artists for the music. Amy Grant offered realism and hope through her song, "Somewhere Down the Road," and Michael W. Smith led thousands in "Friends." Driscoll was asked by U.S. Vice President Al Gore to sing and write a song for the service. He also performed his standard, "Christ Remains."

For Smith, answering Owens' invitation was "the right thing to do."

"I felt if I could just provide a glimpse of healing and hope through singing 'Friends,' then I was willing to go," he told The CCM Update. "From a spiritual standpoint of what was said and sung, the service was pretty amazing and the whole world was watching."

For Grant, the importance of being there to sing was overshadowed by specific remembrances of the day: "We visited some of the students in the hospital," she told The CCM Update. "A lot of those kids are still not out of the woods. Everywhere I looked, I saw families praying together, holding each other's hands. I hope there's not a family out there who hasn't reassessed the investment they're making in their kids."

Steven Curtis Chapman and The Kry were also in Littleton, at the invitation of area youth pastors, for a Sunday evening memorial service at West Bowles Community Church, where many Columbine High students attend, including Cassie Bernall, 17, who said "Yes" when asked by the killers if she believed in God. Chapman sang "Not Home Yet" and "With Hope," a song inspired by 1997's Paducah, Ky., school shooting.

"Hearing those kids talk about holding on to the hope of the Gospel, I walked away encouraged and challenged," Chapman told The CCM Update. "It's interesting to see how much music has seemed to be a soundtrack for the hope and anchor of the Gospel in all of this."

Last Sunday [May 2], Wayne Watson was scheduled to be at another teen-led memorial service. Josh Weidman, a 17-year-old junior at a neighboring school, organized the service and requested Watson, "whose music has helped him through so much," he told The CCM Update.

Repeatedly, media have reported on the hopeful outlook of Columbine High students. Reflecting on the memorial service, MSNBC-TV newscaster David Gregory mentioned the "spirituality" of the community and the "power of prayer." According to Weidman, many Columbine students are "strong in their faith and Christian music has been a large part of their lives."

At last Monday's funeral service for Rachel Scott, 17, a friend offered an interpretation of Ray Boltz' "Watch the Lamb," a song Scott had performed for a school program weeks prior to the shooting. Scott's father told Smith his and Amy Grant's music "meant so much to her."

According to KMG Records, the song, "Nothing Back," by According to John was a favorite of Cassie Bernall's and was used in a testimonial video shown at her memorial service.

One of the broadest Christian music sources -- radio -- was used effectively in the last two weeks, as Littleton's tragedy became the nation's nightmare.

KLTY-FM/Dallas was the first station to play Chapman's "With Hope." Jon Rivers, vice president of programming management for the station, added in sound bytes of hope-inspiring news reports from the aftermath.

"There was massive listener response," Rivers told The CCM Update. "People called in, saying they needed to hear this song. In a situation like this, no other radio [format] can offer as much promise as Christian radio."

KWBI-FM/ Denver's MD Mike Cizeski saw Christian music used as the station, located 10 minutes from the school, responded to the local events. KWBI was the first to play "Friend of Mine," the song written and sung by Columbine students Jon and Steve Cohen at the memorial service. Since the service, the station has been flooded with requests for Grant's "Somewhere Down the Road" and Driscoll's "Christ Remains."

"It's times like these when you discover if this music really offers life and hope," he said. "We've seen that the music stood the test."

Cizeski added that people are hearing the songs with "new ears," putting the songs into an immediate context."

Responding to the crisis, CHRSN and Moody Broadcasting Network cancelled their usual programming to air a three-hour "Right From Wrong" concert from Jonesboro, Ark., (the site of another school shooting) with Rebecca St. James and Josh McDowell. The two discussed the issue of violence in schools.

Christian music labels have stepped up to the plate to provide music as a tool of solace. Last Friday, Sparrow Records manufactured overnight 2,000 CD singles of Chapman's "With Hope." Though not serviced as a single, the label made the single available to radio stations.

Sparrow sent the singles to the Colorado coordinator for Neighbors Who Care, an arm of Prison Fellowship providing support to families of crime victims. The organization distributed the singles to 435 youth pastors who had gathered to discuss how to respond to their youth.

"If we can do something that will be a source of comfort, we want to be there," Sparrow Label Group's Leigh Ann Hardie said, adding that she is trying to be sensitive to the situation. "It's so appropriate that Christian music and artists be the ones to respond."

When Grant and Smith left for Littleton, Word Records provided them with advance copies of Streams CDs to give to families.

"Our hope is that over the next several weeks, we'll be able to get the project in the appropriate way to the people who are hurting," Word Entertainment President Roland Lundy told The CCM Update. "This has renewed a passion for what I'm doing. Obviously, we've created this project for times like this. I'm trying to be extra-sensitive and at the same time, I'm trying to balance my responsibility to get that record to the people who need to hear it."

Artists are in the process of planning ways to appropriately respond to Columbine High students as they resume school in the fall and the initial surge of public support wanes.

For Smith, that means keeping in touch with the kids he visited in the hospital and the Cohen brothers.

"I'm just going to be open to maybe being there at the beginning of the school year when they walk back in the school for the first time," he said.

Chapman said he is already talking about an event in Littleton similar to the "Concert of Hope" he did in Paducah six months after the shooting.

Temple Yard, whose lead singer Erik Sundin graduated from Columbine High School, is also planning to go to Littleton at the "most appropriate" time, said the group's manager Rob Michaels. Likewise, According to John is planning a benefit concert at Cassie Bernall's church in the fall when school resumes.

As copycat incidents have swelled to new heights in the last week, some artists and industry professionals are contemplating the need for supporting youth on the front end.

"To me -- and it's not just because it's close to my heart -- we have to somehow resurrect this 'Rocketown' philosophy," Smith said. "We're missing the mark. I guarantee that some of these kids don't want anything to do with Christian music. We're just reaching our little subculture. This just underscores the serious need to get out of the box."

"I'm asking the question, 'How can we as an industry not just look at Littleton, but instead, look at every city we go into and seek out the disenfranchised,'" said Michaels, organizer/founder of Artists Against Violence [The CCM Update, Oct. 26, 1998]. "There's a whole group of Eric Harrises and Dylan Klebolds out there that must be reached on the front end."

-- Lindy Warren