A step of faith leads Dan Dúet’s music ministry to Africa and beyond

Singer/songwriter Dan Dúet is raising funds for a Catholic music tour of South Africa with Franciscan and Friends that leaves on Dec. 29.

BY CAROL BAASS SOWA TODAY’S CATHOLIC

SAN ANTONIO • Late on the night of Dec. 15, Dan Dúet, the director of a department at Goodwill Industries and a parish music minister, was deep in prayer. A Christian music singer/songwriter, he was finding it increasingly difficult to effectively do justice to both his 16-year corporate career and his music.

For the previous six months he had been struggling to discern what to do and that night he again found himself telling God that as soon as he had financial security and a business structure in place, he would devote himself 100 percent to music ministry. That night he sensed the Holy Spirit telling him that “as soon as” would never come and he needed to take a step of faith. If he waited for everything to be in place first, it would be merely making a career change and not following God’s call. Dúet knew then that he needed to step out in faith.

“And at that moment, the Scripture that came to me,” he said, “was of Peter getting out of the boat onto the water. As long as Peter focused on Jesus, he was fine. It was when he allowed himself to become distracted with the waves and the thunder and the lightning and the rain, when Peter got distracted by all of that and took his eyes off Jesus, that’s when he began to sink.”

Dúet suddenly felt at peace and the next day began drafting his resignation letter for his full-time job. His boss was not surprised and even supportive. “I expected this five years ago,” she said.

Still, Dúet admits, it was scary leaving the security of a good job with a good company and its benefits. At the same time, he found it exhilarating. “For the first time in my life,” he said, “I really was now going to depend on God for absolutely everything in my life. And that was, and continues to be, very exciting.”

Now free to follow his calling, Dúet embarked on a 5-week concert tour this past summer throughout the Midwest. The tour took him to the Catholic Association of Music (CAM) national conference in Eureka Springs, Ark., where he had the opportunity to meet and speak with John Michael Talbot and José Melendez, brother of Tony Melendez.

It was at the conference he learned what he had begun to suspect — that, bye and large, there is not a market for Catholic contemporary Christian music. “In the Catholic Church,” he noted, “we embrace liturgical music and sacred music, but when it comes to the contemporary, it’s not that people in the Catholic Church reject it, it’s just not a part of what we grew up with.” The same is not true in Protestant churches.

While some at the conference tended to take a defeatist attitude regarding this, it made Dúet only the more determined to knock on church doors in an effort to make contemporary music by Catholic artists a part of Catholic culture. “I just want to do my part,” he said. “I feel that’s part of my calling.” He sees change coming about already through ministries such as ACTS retreats and retreats of a similar nature in other parts of the country. “Those are the parishes that are opening the doors,” he said. “Those are the ones who are embracing contemporary Christian music specifically by Catholic recording artists and finding a value in the music coming from somebody with a Catholic perspective.”

He noted that 90 percent of the churches he contacted about performing on his tour had turned him down, even though he offered to perform just for “love offerings.” John Michael Talbot shared with him that had Dúet been a Protestant, 90 percent of the Protestant churches would have welcomed him with open arms.

While attending the CAM conference, Dúet’s music ministry took a giant leap forward when Denis Grady, a Canadian Catholic singer/songwriter and international director of CAM, asked him to be one of four U.S. Catholic acts traveling on behalf of Grady’s offshoot of CAM, Franciscan and Friends, taking their music to CAM members in South Africa. Dúet was honored, but wondered how in the world he could manage financially, not only to pay for the trip, but live for five weeks without an income, since the trip would run from Dec. 29 through Feb. 1.

Within 24 hours though he contacted Grady and told him he would go. “God’s going to find a way,” he said. Shortly, doors he had been knocking on since January, without success, began to open. People started contacting him saying they wanted to contribute to his trip and asking him to come out and speak. Now several fundraising concerts are in the works — the first at Holy Trinity on Wednesday, Oct. 1, at 7 p.m., with a second set for St. Pius X in November and another still to be scheduled, plans for one in Houston having been waylaid now by Hurricane Ike.

This will be the first time Dúet has sold tickets for his concerts — $10 per adult, $5 per student and children under 11 free. A large collection of Coca-Cola items was recently donated to him out of the blue for a silent auction at the Holy Trinity concert, and at all of the fundraiser concerts he will be raffling off a gift basket of Catholic music CDs, after putting out a request to other Catholic artists. CDs have been pouring in ever since.

Dúet has also been asked to be the group’s liaison with their South African contacts on the tour, as well as selecting the remaining artists. Grady himself and John Grassadonia were already down to go, and Dúet will be announcing who will fill the remaining two slots shortly. In South Africa, the group will visit Cape Town, Victoria and Johannesburg, helping with a series of conferences and workshops similar to the U.S. CAM event and participating in special events as well as daily liturgies with South African musicians there.

“We’re going to be going to AIDS hospices, universities,” Dúet related, “any place that we can go to bring hope through music, specifically as Catholics.” The emphasis, he noted, is to bring the message, “What you do here in South Africa is important to the church and it’s important enough for us to have to come here to tell you in person what you are doing makes a difference.”

It will be a mentally, emotionally and spiritually grueling trip, Dúet admitted, with two or three events scheduled each day, and he expects the North American musicians to learn as much, if not more, from their South African counterparts as their hosts will from them. “It’s going to be very, very, very challenging,” he added, “but I know it’s going to be very rewarding.”

Adding to the sense that doors are beginning to open for him, Dúet was asked to present the keynote address at the Youth Spectacular held here in February, for which he wrote the theme song, “Transform Us.”

And he was recently named a finalist in five categories for the United Catholic Music and Video Association (UCMVA) Unity Awards, known as the “Catholic Grammys,” which take place in New Orleans on Oct. 25. He is up for Song of the Year, Songwriter of the Year and Country-Gospel Song of the Year for his “Traces of Jesus,” as well as a nominee for Male Vocalist of the Year and co-nominee with Raul Santiago and Matt Di Filippo (a young musician he has been mentoring) for Album Packaging of the Year for Di Filippo’s debut album.

Dúet’s “Traces of Jesus” also appears on a compilation CD by Spirit Wing Records that is up for two awards: Praise and Worship Album of the Year and Pop/Contemporary Album of the Year. And it all started with a step of faith.

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