Where Are They Now: Big Tent Revival

When Big Tent Revival disbanded at the height of their success, frontman Steve Wiggins was left with a question that haunted him. “Well, what are we going to do now? If you’re not a lead singer of a band and a songwriter, what are you? And I had to realize that it’s possible to be Read More

When Big Tent Revival disbanded at the height of their success, frontman Steve Wiggins was left with a question that haunted him.

“Well, what are we going to do now? If you’re not a lead singer of a band and a songwriter, what are you? And I had to realize that it’s possible to be unemployed. But it’s impossible to be uncalled. So your calling then, is not your job. Your calling is something way bigger than your job.”

For years, Steve’s job *was* the music: writing songs, fronting Big Tent Revival, making records, and hitting the road. But once that ended, the path forward wasn’t obvious. Surrounded by close friends and mentors, he began to see a bigger picture. “You’re a creative communicator. You’re a big picture person. You take complicated situations, boil them down into simple terms. That’s really what songwriting is. Nobody is looking for a songwriter, but everybody’s looking for that guy, the visionary. Complex problem solving communicator. And now… that’s your call. That’s what you’re called to do”.

That realization launched Steve and Misti into a new season.

“I worked for Willow Creek Community Church. I joined the staff right when they were developing a thing called Multi-site Church. Nobody had ever done it before where they’re showing the video of a pastor and then a congregation meets in a cafetorium of some local school,” Steve recalls.

It wasn’t long before Greg Laurie called from California. “He said, hey, would you come out? We want to do that here. And so… it’s easy to leave Chicago in the middle of winter. We sold our house there. We moved. We were in California nine years”.

That move changed everything. Steve and Misti opened their home to young adults and started asking hard questions. “Why don’t you go to the college group? It’s the only question I want. Why don’t you go? I wasn’t paid to do that. I wasn’t hired to do that. But it just became a preoccupation beyond my occupation”.

The answers were eye-opening: complaints about rooms, times, teachers, and music. “There was no causality. But they were all consumer driven answers. So I realized that sometimes when we present to people, they come to church and it’s all perfectly produced. Well, then there’s no reason for them to do anything but to be drones, to kind of like The Matrix”.

Steve and Misti began walking students through Scripture directly. “None of them could name the Ten Commandments… none of them had ever read the New Testament, much less the Bible. A lot of these kids are grown up in church their whole life. They don’t know the Bible. Well, that’s the causality. And I said, you know what? How about we come next week and here’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to start reading the Bible and here’s my commitment to you. I’m going to read it to you. I’m not telling you to read the Bible. I’m going to read it to you”.

From those living-room gatherings, *Groundworks Ministries* was born. “Christians read the Bible. It’s just what we do. We read the Bible. We’re in the word every day. When you read the Bible, what does God do? Transforms your heart. And then number three, it communicates—I care about you as a person that I would do this for you”.

Today, Steve and Misti are preparing to take Groundworks into a new era with custom group-building software set to launch in 2026. “It literally allows you to go to our website and say, I want to start a Bible study. And here’s the track that I want to go on… and then on the day that you launch, we start sending you daily Bible information, daily Bible devotionals. It’s you and the Holy Spirit. I’m just setting the appointment every day”.

The passion is clear: “Get people back to the word, prepare people, go make disciples. Discipline to the word taught by the Holy Spirit for the purpose of knowing God and making him known and then turn them out to the fields which are white for harvest”.

From chart-topping hits to living-room discipleship, Steve and Misti Wiggins have spent the years since Big Tent Revival chasing something bigger than a stage. For them, the spotlight now shines on Scripture and community.

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