Upon graduation from Carnegie Mellon University, Marty Goetz wanted to be a star. He packed up with his friend Bert and moved to New York City. The duo played and sang for a while as “Bert and Marty” at various clubs, and later, at hotels in the Catskill Mountains. They were named “Best New Act of 1974.”
Then, Bert found Jesus Christ. Goetz couldn’t handle the new person his friend had become, so he broke up the act and returned to New York City.
Although he was very uncomfortable with his friend’s newfound zeal, he couldn’t shake the impression left on him by Bert. Around that time, his sights shifted from Broadway to pop music. So, a move to Los Angeles was in order.
During a visit to his parents’ home, Goetz found a Bible in a bookcase. “They were conservative Jews, and I have no idea why they had a Bible,” quipped Goetz. Compelled, he took it and put it in his Los Angeles-bound backpack. Between sales pitches of his songs to record companies, he would pull out the Bible and read it.
“It wasn’t long before I started to enjoy reading the Bible,” he remembered. “Having been an English major in college, I was very impressed that words in red were grammatically correct. Once I got past that, I enjoyed reading the gospels. I got hooked on it.”
Through the reading of the gospels, Goetz was able to identify with Jesus through their shared Jewish background. As the Jesus of the New Testament gained credibility with Goetz, he began to dig deeper, studying Jesus’ claims as Messiah. One Friday night, he looked out from a friend’s apartment balcony at a telephone poll. “From my vantage point, the brightly lit pole looked like a cross. That’s when I believe I was having a conversion experience.”
That following Sunday night, in 1978, he prayed to receive Jesus Christ and made a public confession of his faith.
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Shortly thereafter, Goetz began performing with Debby Boone and established himself as a voice for Messianic believers within the church. He went on to engage in other projects and activities, such sharing the platform with Greg Laurie at the Harvest Crusades. Sometime later, Laurie and Skip Heitzig asked Goetz to come lead worship for their seminar at the Billy Graham Training Center.
Thus began his long-standing relationship with The Cove. Now, he is hoping to inspire a love of the Scriptures within the hearts of those in attendance for his Evening at the Cove performance.
“Over the years, I see that I’m not so much a song writer, but a ‘Psalm singer.’ That night, I will sing some (Psalms) that are testimonies of my own life, of my faith in Yeshua (the Hebrew name for Jesus), and there are some I will sing to simply help the audience enter into the worship of God the father. I hope this will be a spiritually uplifting experience.”
He also wants to place a personal emphasis on his Jewish background in the hopes that the Jewish might see their connection to the Gospel and that Christians will see their connection to Israel.
“My heart’s desire is to see God working in our day to bring Jewish people to a knowledge of the Messiah, and Christians to a knowledge of their covenantal relationship with Israel. I want to see us as one body, preparing for the coming of our King.”
