The Journey

This post is really about diversity and worship at The Journey. But I'll begin with a huge thanks to J.R. (aka Courtney Peebles) for letting me participate as his guitarist in his CD release show last Friday night. We had a crowd of somewhere between 300-400 people, 10-15 of which were Journey folks. The reason I write to you about this is because I feel we made some huge strides in moving towards diversity in the congregation and in Sunday worship and J.R.'s show was a huge part of that.

Let me set the stage for you a bit. With no music to read and only two rehearsals, I was the only white member of J.R.'s phenomenally talented band, and I was trying to figure out how to play hip-hop music on the electric guitar to a crowd that was about 95% African-American. I felt out of place in a seven-piece band where I knew no one and everyone but me seemed to know exactly what to do. I questioned my guitar playing, my confidence and even the clothes I had on.

The cool thing is that if you've listened to J.R.'s music or know his vision for this ministry, you've seen that J.R. is really interested in diversity and crossing boundaries with his music. He doesn't want to be just another gospel artist or even another R&B artist. He likes the crunching riffs and screaming solos of electric guitars. He likes pop and alternative rock. And all these things come into a fusion with his music. Still, this is not easy for J.R. either. Just before the show, I could tell he was nervous. "What's on your mind," I asked him. "Giving the people what they want," he said. "That's what's tough about being an artist. You want to do your own thing but people are also expecting something." This new album was a leap for J.R. and I knew what he was getting at. We were blending hip-hop and gospel with alternative rock and even J.R. wasn't sure about how people would take it. It got me wondering if his faithful fans would boo me right off the stage.

But they didn't boo. They cheered, they sang and they were right with us the whole set. I rocked the electric guitar the only way I knew how and prayed that it was good enough. Then at the end, J.R. introduced the band. As he said each of the names, the crowd cheered and that member soloed on their instrument. I was the only member left and as he introduced me, he spoke about the Journey and its strive for diversity. He said that he attends the Journey because our heart is to become more diverse and that "heaven will be a diverse place." Then J.R. introduced me as his guitarist and his worship pastor, saying, "How many of you all's worship pastor would come out for this?" After he said my name, I played a face-melting solo and the place went crazy.   J.R. and I have spoken about our burden for diversity many times and had very good talks. But it was an all-out astonishing thing to hear him preach it to a crowd that was not white or diverse and then see them accept me and even cheer for me because of his rallying call.

It's interesting to me that he and I are many times saying the exact same thing to different groups of people and having the same worries about how it will be received. I'm asking a similar question to the one J.R. did that night: How does the Journey move forward and still give people what they expect (what we call the "Journey DNA")?  There's a lot to this, and adding an urban flavor to the music isn't as simple as anyone may think, which is a huge reason I played in this show. I wanted to find out how a band performs with a DJ playing tracks underneath. I wanted to know what a guitarist does in electronic/synthesized hip-hop.  I also wanted to network with other musicians who are playing different music than I normally play. I'm very hopeful that the connections I made will some time make it into my worship band on Sundays. I think through J.R.'s music and his message, and through my very presence on the stage as a leader from the Journey, we crossed a ton of boundaries Friday night. You may not see the results of this for a while, but the progress was huge in that the door was simply opened. And certainly God is using a man like J.R. to help people outside and inside the Journey bridge that diversity gap.