An interview with Lincoln Brewster

Everyone has a story.
Lincoln Brewster is the first to admit that while his isn’t perfect, it’s bittersweet.

Every person has a story.

For some, that story is filled with love and happy endings. For others, sadness and tragedy. But for most, the story is both bitter and sweet.

On the surface, acclaimed worship leader Lincoln Brewster seems to live the fairy tale. With six acclaimed albums, multiple hit songs, a beautiful wife, and two children, his life seems pretty perfect—from the outside.

“It’s really easy for people to look at my life and say ‘you’re so lucky,’” says Lincoln. “And while I’m really blessed and exceptionally grateful to be where I am today, it hasn’t always been like this.”

An unstable world
Lincoln was raised the youngest of eight children in a small fishing town in Alaska. His stepfather was an abusive alcoholic, and Lincoln says his family life offered little stability.

“When you’re a kid, and you equate your father figure, your dad, with hurting your mom . . . that can do strange things to you,” says Lincoln. “There are still challenges I face today as an adult because of the things I didn’t get as a child.”

Lincoln says that despite his unstable childhood, he knew he could always draw strength from his mother’s love.

“She made mistakes, of course,” says Lincoln. “I think she was frozen by this debilitating fear she felt towards my stepfather. But I never once doubted her love for me. She’s loved me my whole life, and continues to do so today. That doesn’t make her wrongs OK, but it covers them in a way that I can understand them.”

Don’t go it alone
When Lincoln was 12, his mother finally escaped the shadow of her husband, and she, Lincoln, and two of his siblings were finally free from the abuse and tragedy of that broken home. But through his teen years, Lincoln struggled to find role models. He says he went through a string of friends he tried to mold into father figures and role models—but all they could offer was friendship.

“We’re created to have those parent figures in our lives,” says Lincoln. “I found myself counting on my friends to be strong father figures and counselors. They couldn’t stand up under the responsibilities I was putting on them.”

And when friendships fail, isolation often quickly follows. “When you’re in pain and when you’re in crisis, the worst thing to try to do is go it alone,” says Lincoln. “It’s hard to let others in, but you have to find a way.”

Lincoln says as a teen, he made the conscious decision to begin to let “safe” people into his life—youth leaders, pastors, and counselors. These re­lationships helped him to finally find some solid ground. He also found the incredible, boundless love of a true Father. “I think people going through crisis need to know one important thing,” says Lincoln. “God is crazy, head over heels in love with you.”

Finding your identity in a loving God is far more lasting and stable than finding your identity in friends or romantic relationships. Once you’ve established that relationship with God and found that group of people who hold you accountable, the things you know start to overshadow the things in your life that don’t make sense, Lincoln says.

“There will always be things that happen beyond your control,” says Lincoln. “But at least make good choices with the things you can control. As a believer, you need to rely on the things you know and run all of your decisions through that filter.”

A story of healing
Lincoln says this process of faith, positive role models, and good decision-making eventually brought him to a place where he really started to live for something outside of himself. And that was a good thing. “When you’re not the entirety of your world, that’s not bad!” he says.

Today, Lincoln says he works hard to set boundaries in his life and to remove himself from dysfunctional and dangerous relationships. His desire is to create a peaceful home for both himself and his family. It may not be a fairy tale, but it is definitely a tale of healing and redemption.

“I am living, breathing proof that God can take somebody with a messed-up past and still do something with your life. There’s no such thing as damaged goods in God’s kingdom.”