BIOGRAPHY "So many times in this life, you feel like you're standing on the edge of a cliff but God keeps asking you to take that leap of faith and step into the great unknown." Much of the music found on Lucas Parry's second album, "Made to Fly," was born out of a year-long process filled with ups and downs, trials and joys. But the result is a group of songs that run the gamut of a faith-based life - offering praise and worship to a Creator ("Amazed") and a simultaneous commitment and challenge to share the Gospel no matter what ("Beautiful"). Lucas, who grew up in Australia, took an enormous step of faith in 2002 when he moved to New Jersey to marry his American sweetheart and pursue his music ministry. The testing of his faith came when his Green Card didn't - and kept him from working to support his new bride. "It was the hardest time I've ever been through," says Lucas. "In Australia, I was a school teacher and I ran two successful businesses, including my music career. But here in the States, I had nothing. I truly had to rely on God, new friends, my wife, my new family. It was the middle of winter, so there was nowhere I could really go - the closest I've ever come to being depressed. But God was teaching me a lot of important things..." One of those lessons: to wait on God's timing. Lucas strongly felt led to take a year off from ministry to focus on his marriage, though he admits the temptation was there to attempt to continue the momentum he'd built as a songwriter and worship leader in Australia. "During that year, though, God built such a wonderful foundation of communication in our marriage," says Lucas. "And He really taught me to seek His plan for my life and not my own. I got to the point of honestly laying before God my own hopes and dreams and aspirations and desperately seeking only His will." The first track on the new album reflects his passion for God and only God - "Revive Me" offers a hungry cry for renewed commitment, refusing to allow distractions to take the place of the one-on-one relationship with the Eternal Father. It's a passion Lucas wants to communicate and encourage towards those who listen. "Jesus said the core of everything we do should be to love God and to love people - that's how we as Christians are called to live. If we could be radical, do ordinary things in extraordinary ways, think of the lives that could be changed." The desire to change lives has been in Lucas since the day he took his first mission trip at age 18 and saw the impact of sharing the Gospel with people who had never heard. As a result, he has taken his music to multiple countries, including Australia, the United States, Africa, India and Singapore. Lucas has served with Youth Alive, an Australian ministry that hosts large-scale evangelistic events for young people. His song, "Beautiful," was recorded on Youth Alive's Elevate album, and "Cure," a song he co-wrote, was recorded on the One album, both albums meeting international success. He is an award-winning songwriter, most recently named winner of the 2003 New Artist Talent Search Showcase in Delaware and has performed in numerous music fests, churches and worship conferences. Continuing to walk in the calling and gifting God has placed upon his life, Lucas recently relocated from New Jersey to Nashville, Tenn. His newest album, "Made to Fly," is now finished and he looks forward to taking God's message to all on his upcoming spring tour.