Our Church Youth Band Rocks

Happiness is finding your little place in the kingdom of God and doing it.

As for me, my little place at this point in time seems to be with our church youth band.

Now why a bunch of junior and senior high school musicians would put with an old man like myself is beyond me. But they seem to, and as long as they tolerate my presence I am glad to impart what little knowledge I might have about music to them.

I guess it all started about 3 1/2 years ago when I was invited (for some reason) to a church vision meeting. We were all supposed to write down one vision you had for the church. At that time most people had expanding our facilities since we were cramped for ministry space at that time (God graciously granted us to fulfill that vision). For me, I'm not big into buildings and stuff, so I remember writing down having a youth worship band that is equal to the grown up kids worship bands in importance.

Well, as often happens in the kingdom of God, when you have a vision for something, you become a part of putting the vision into action. Two years ago last September we started it up. Now I'm a classical musician with zilcho knowledge of bands, guitars, drums and stuff. Fortunately that year we had an excellent group of musicians (mostly seniors) who were able to help me along the process.

Let's see, we had Bryce (guitar, vocals) who was a worship leader who was later joined by a second worship leader Ashley (guitar, vocals and a wonderful voice) who moved to St. Albans midyear. We had John on drums, Katie and Jackie on vocals and Matt on bass. All but Matt were seniors. That year we should have made Orlando in the fine arts festival, but for some reason the judges didn't quite agree with me (we just missed). Still whenever we do "How Lovely is Thy Dwelling Place" I think of that version (Ashley had such a wonderful voice for it) as the gold standard by which all other versions are measured.

Last year I really after losing all of the seniors, I really didn't think we had enough to reform the band, but God seems to have disagreed with me. Matt stepped up and became a worship leader. During the course of the year Austin and later Ian (seniors from BFA) started coming to our church and joined in. They both are wonderful musicians on drums and vocals. Matt (a junior high student) was learning drums and joined in. It was wonderful to see Austin mentor Matt during the course of the year. And lest I forget, this was the first year for Shannon a Freshman at BFA. And finally midyear Eli, a wonderful bass player and musician joined the band. Eli is also like me is a Classical Music fan; we like to talk Beethoven and Mozart. And finally Ashley a junior in Swanton who lives fairly near me joined the group as a junior.

Both years we ministered in the "adult services" every six weeks or so. Since we didn't have a keyboard player, I filled in on the piano.

This year, I am more excited than ever about our group than ever. We played in church the Sunday before Thanksgiving and they were great.

Shannon and Eli have stepped up to become sort of co worship leaders. I did not realize Shannon had such a wonderful voice until this year. Ashley is now the senior member of the group on vocals. Matt has come such a long way on drums, but now I have a problem..two drummers. Brendan has also joined the crew and we have to rotate. Meanwhile we have some new members. Hattie has joined the group on vocals, and I want to work her in on piano. Matt's sister Ashley is also doing vocals and flute, while Matt's brother Cameron will be doing sax.

The wonderful thing is that we have the nucleus in place for a wonderful group over the next few years.

I am salivating over Fine Arts Festival this year.

Mea Culpa for any member of the band that I might have inadvertently forgotten.