30th_Anniversary

When she showed up at the requested rehearsal, she seemed even more bashful than before. When we asked her to share with us how and when she came to know Jesus, her response was, "I think I've just done that." We looked around at one another and her. Generally we would suggest a longer waiting period for one reason or another before asking a brand New One in Jesus to get involved in ministry. But there was something about Joyce and a sense in our hearts that convinced us to consider otherwise. "Okay, let's see how it goes".

And to this day I rejoice that the unique comfort level we had that evening allowed us to join hands together with Joyce and begin ministering together. She has been a beautiful rock of consistency and faithfulness in both Sonrise and later Branches. When my thoughts are drawn to those times, my recollections of her are always rich and they warm my heart.

Shira

Shira (Shira, means "song" per Nancy) was Jay Haugen, Sharon (Chestnut) Haugen, Nancy (Perkins) Hann, Lee Chestnut, Apryl (Mott) Ballard and John McDonald, with banjo help coming from Dan Malmgren. Ed Ryan ran the sound for the group. The instruments were acoustic guitars, with bass and drums added later. The vocalists were a bit more than high school age who had a young folk group sound that I found refreshing. Denny Collins, our photographer, as a compliment once said, "When I hear that group, it's like I'm getting a big drink of a glass of milk". They had a trio of guys voices and a trio of girls voices so the vocal options were almost limitless. Add to that a male voice (John's) who could sing lower than any human I've known personally and you had a group with an amazing vocal range.

When I taught at Central High School, my students who would come to the programs would tell me that Shira, due to their big vocal sound was their favored group. It's always fun to test the vocal limits of a group like that, so there were a few a capella things like "I Got Me a Home In Heaven" that they were able to pull off that perhaps others couldn't even try. The youth and innocence of the group is probably best demonstrated by the "testimony" of Lee Chestnut, who said that after long periods of drugs and women, he finally received Jesus and became a Christian at the age of two.

I know that a majority of these folks still get together on an annual basis to celebrate friendships they have enjoyed for more than 30 years.

The Danley Band

This band was built around Wayne Danley. It had a few names, depending on who was joining him on stage (alias The Hand in Hand Back-up Band with Milf and Mott, etc.). Wayne ran sound for some of the bands and was very articulate in his faith and could tell stories like no other. Wayne also came from Calvary Chapel in Southern California and knew a bunch of songs that many of the bands sang there. When he sang, his voice was like shimmering glass. It was unusual and strong. So some of the other Hand in Hand band members agreed to form somewhat of a back-up band to get Wayne on stage.

One of the most fun times I can remember in practice was when we all learned 17 songs in one rehearsal. It couldn't have been done without the amazing musicianship of those who offered to help. They were Terry Hann, Greg Williams, Don Nelsen, Apryl Mott, Matt Chew, myself and Chuck Frakes helping out the first time or two.

I never had to worry about whether the emotion or content of any of the songs I wrote for Wayne would be missed by the audience. He also just happens to be one of the people, who, when they happen to speak, have the kind of personality that compels you to stop and listen. That characteristic is something that I believe the Lord continues to bless him and others with at the Neighborhood Ministries where he currently serves.

The New Beginning

The New Beginning (band) started in late 1967 and lasted for nine years. It has included Bernie Rolfe, Dean Mowen, Jan Treadwell, Bob Grove, Melanie (Kinkle) Healy, Nancy (Ervin) Conner, Dave Judge, Linn Goss, Ardie Stookey, Laurie (Stern) Killingsworth, Joyce (Woolary) Allen, Tim Olsen, Mark Novkov, Steve Tessitore, Nancy (Novkov) Roberts, Allyson (Podratz) Janos, Sandi Rhodes, Barb (Smith) Tessitore, Mike Greenwood, Dave Reno and Tom Allen as our "manager".

They sang all over the Southwest with Phoenix as home base. They started as a simple folk band accompanying the rich vocal textures with acoustical instruments (including guitars, stand-up bass and a banjo, mind you) and as time went on wrote their own music.

As they added other musical instruments, including drums and later electric guitars, they actually faced a bit of flack from some in the religious community in those days about including those instruments in songs and lyrics about God. Some churches at the time, not knowing us or our motives, considered us rebels who were compromising something, somehow. The NB thought that the Psalms that referenced "playing skillfully with a loud noise" was their guideline and humbly continued to use all kinds

of instruments (including the cymbals and drums).

The New Beginning was trying to get the clear message of Jesus out to folks. Part of that message can be sullied, when paying for the message is part of the deal, they believed. An unspoken policy of presenting their program, without asking for any money, or passing the hat in any way seemed to them the best way to give the gift of the Good News.

Though this would not make a lot of sense in maintaining a church situation, it did make sense for what they were trying to do outside of church walls.

They received a lot of requests for recordings of their unique music. Since most of them were students, paying their own way through college, the idea of the expense of producing a record album seemed out of the question. It occurred to a young Veteran, Bill Hiser, recently returning from serving in Vietnam, to sponsor getting a recording session and see how it went. The NB was humbled by this offer, but went into the studio, laid down the tracks in one take, had some pictures taken outside an old two story house, dressed in post Civil War attire, went to ASU and processed the photos themselves, took them to the printer

along with some album cover info and had 500 copies made. They were all sold in three weeks. Though we continued to

receive requests beyond that, we never pressed another batch.

New Beginning (Album)

Special Guest Artists:

I Know Somebody

Bob Meighan

The Circle K Song

John Tatum

Something's Happening

Happy People

Makes Me Strong

Someone Came Walking

Reach Out

See the Man

Boxcar

In the hearts of the members of the New Beginning was the seed of a dream to have a place where all Christians, having Jesus as the highest common denominator, could work together to provide an environment where that could happen. They believed it was God's will since Jesus had asked for it. They had sung for years and shared getting to know Jesus on college campuses and various reach-outs, including many with Campus Crusade for Christ events during the school year and community reach-outs around the state of Arizona with Bill Thrall and Arizona Bible Camp's Teen Leadership Training Team during summer months for years.

They did one summer in Phoenix at a Christian Coffee House called the LOC (Love of Christ) where they did their program and sang each Saturday night for 3 months. The results were so blessed that they wondered if that kind of environment could be produced over a longer period of time. Each week, the kids who had just received Jesus would bring their friends who also received Jesus and so on. Dozens of kids received Jesus that summer at that Coffee House.

The "Daydream"

There is part of the story of the future of the group that I have not told a lot of people, but I tenuously include it here. The reason for my concern is the notion that this may sound a bit off the wall, or perhaps "super" spiritual, which is not my intent. Even so, it is an important event in my mind, providing me conviction to stay on target for the ministry goal that seemed before us.

Here's what happened -

One afternoon after school at ASU, I had returned to my apartment above the home of a nice couple who lived in downtown Phoenix. I had just had a late lunch and sat down on the couch in the small living room. As I relaxed there - and I don't remember if I actually fell asleep or not - I do remember "awakening" with a very strong image in my head - almost like a short video clip. Though it may seem just a normal every day daydream, it didn't feel that way. As a matter of fact, the sense I had was that it was very important - frankly, as important as any sense that I could ever remember having.

I'll try to describe the "video clip". It was apparently a New Beginning Concert somewhere. Steve Tessitore, the drummer, also sang and had a phenomenal voice - one of the most enchanting (if that's the right word) male voices I've ever heard. Anyways, we normally performed a song where he would get up from behind the drums, come forward on stage, take a mike in hand and tell the story of the song "He Ain't Heavy, He's my Brother" while I accompanied him on acoustical guitar. Well the daydream "image" was kind of like that. But, we were in someplace that I did not ever remember playing at. We were kind of stage left. The stage had a warm lighting glow and Steve's drums were somewhat in the background, barely seen because they were in a sort of angled alcove. I was standing behind him, playing the guitar and behind me was some sort of rough looking sound panel of some sort. The stage seemed to be almost cozy - apparently not large. We both had our eyes closed.

That was it -

That particular scene happened dozens of times in New Beginning concerts - absolutely normal. But the feel and the place were not from history and did not feel normal. The best word I can describe it with is, during that brief moment, it felt like "home".

The Bible Study

The NB a while later began a weekly Bible Study, meeting at Dean and Sandy Mowen's house, asking Bill Thrall if he would be willing to teach it, since he seemed to have the same kind of heart we had for ministry. We studied the book of Romans. I remember one particular night when we were in Romans chapter 12. We had just read the section "I beseech ye, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a holy, living sacrifice..., that ye may be able to prove the will of God".

We started to continue on after Bill talked about that section a bit, but Steve up and said "Wait a minute." We all looked at him, wondering what was going on. Steve was a young Believer, like a lot us of in that room.

"I haven't done that."

"Done what?"

"Done that - that offering Paul's talking about. Can I do that right now?"

There was a bit of a quiet. And I can't remember the exact nature of the discourse the following few minutes - if it was trying to clarify what the nature of the sacrifice was or whatever, or if Bill simply said, "Yes, you can."

So, in the middle of that Bible Study, Stevie did that - apparently for the first time -

"God - I want to do this - give my body to you as a living sacrifice - so You can do your will in my life."

I have been blessed to be part of several holy moments in my life. Needless to say, that was one of them.

There are times when I wonder how or why God chose to use a clump of young kids to pull off what He did those days.

This is an example of why. Without questioning why or how - no guile - no showbiz - simply responding honestly and humbly to God with who we are to do what His Word tells us to do.

As such, I shouldn't have been surprised, that a couple of weeks later, during our Bible Study, in one of our plethora of discussions about what this ministry thing should be called that another one of those "Wait a minute!" exclamations came out of Stevie.

"Why don't we call it Hand in Hand? It's like we're in God's Hands, reaching out our hands, along with others to get the message of Jesus to people."

After a moment of almost stunned silence the discussion was over - We began to pray for this new thing that was going to be called "Hand in Hand".

Hand in Hand Community Concerts

So with the name and concept somewhat defined, we set out to let the community know what our plans were.

An awesome roommate and friend, Denny Collins who, as a

budding photographer had an amazing gift of capturing the

essence of personality in a picture, offered to snap some

photos of the New Beginning to use as promo shots.

Bill Thrall rounded up some contacts to manufacture silk-screen poster backgrounds for the pictures to be posted and away we went.

Boy, were we in for a surprise when we tried to get the word out to the local churches about what we wanted to do. Bill Thrall took the brunt of a several negative responses from Pastors who thought we were out to steal their kids and start some kind of weird music cult.

We were floored - another questioning our motive thing - as much as we pleaded the cause, the more it seemed they were unwilling to commit to helping. Those "hands" seemed unwilling to reach out with us.

Bill and I went over to Calvary Chapel in Costa Mesa and met with Pastor Chuck Smith to see if he had any pointers, since they had some music things going on. Though he acknowledged that new music is a good thing, he wanted to make it clear to us his strong conviction about getting the Word out. "Music can be a blessing - but it doesn't make us grow - God's Word is what makes us grow." We couldn't agree more - that was an inclusion in our program we were already committed to.

Eventually, we were able to get at least one church, Mike Greenwood's home church in Mesa, a Baptist Church, to join with us and help promote a "Hand in Hand" Concert there. The concept was to have the high school and college folks in the church bring their non-believing friends where they would be able to hear some new music and the message about how to receive Jesus.

We also passed out comment cards at the end of the concert. The audience was asked to give us feedback on what their thoughts were about the program and the concept. Bill had several Teen Leadership Training members come who had been prepared to follow up the new believers.

Denny Collins also came along with his camera to try and capture some of the evening on camera. One of his behind the scenes pictures was definately behind us. He had innocently found a way into the empty baptismal behind the stage, framed a picture of us from behind and happened to use a lens filter that created a cross of light out of the spotlight directed toward us on the stage.

Bill Thrall, who had a lot more history with churches than we novices, saw Denny and moaned, perhaps sensing the indignation and sense of disdain that may be forthcoming from any older church-goer who may have thought their baptistry and church was being desecrated.

We were not even aware of the photo episode until a week or so later when Denny showed us the pictures he had taken that night. It just so happened that we were considering recording another album and were looking for a suitable picture. Before that we had considered naming our second album "Lullabye" and had posed Bill's daughter Joy (I think she was four or so) at a piano where Denny had done his magic capturing the sense of innocent beauty of the child. The song Lullaby was written to promote the simple joy of returning to Jesus as a child, abandoning the trudging religious, lifeless lifestyle that can sometimes waylay us, and enjoying Him as a trusting child.

But when we saw the picture from the baptistry, another song we were in the process of recording suddenly seemed to be more appropriate - People Who Walk in Light. Though our concern was that the a wrong impression might be had by those thinking the title was making a statement that we were boasting about walking in the light, the good thing about the picture being from behind us, our faces not showing, but the bright light of the cross before us being the focus of attention, made perfect sense.

People Who Walk in Light (Album)

Special Guest Artists:

People Who Walk in Light

Jim Krupa

Walk on the Water

Bonnie Krupa

Benjie DuCaine

John Pruitt

Come (for the Re-newing of Your Mind)

Pam Shipe

Jesus Never was a Sinner

Marlene Lusher

Lullabye

Dan Malmgren

Hey

Michelle ...

Fruit of the Spirit

see: http://heavenly-grooves.blogspot.com/2007/10/new-beginning-people-who-walk-in-light.html

Though there was a general lack of community response, the offsetting conviction of our hearts was that this Hand in Hand ministry was from the Lord. So we began to think of other options.

One that we had not considered was the possibility of purchasing our own place and starting this thing. None of us, aside from Bill, knew what a credit rating was and certainly didn't have the wherewithal for a down-payment, much less an income that would support a building and the appurtenances that would be required for concerts.

As a matter of interest, the Bible Study that had started in Dean and Sandy's home had moved to the local Phoenix YMCA. Some older folks (older than mid-twenties, anyways) who may not have had the same music tastes, but did have the same heart for God and obedience to him decided to name the Church that they decided to start up "Open Door Fellowship".

Deja Vu

One day, after several weeks and visits to differing buildings around the valley that were being offered for sale, and not finding anything that seemed a match, Bill and I happened to go to a small building on a side street in Central Phoenix. It happened to be an old church, no pews or chairs, whose open "sanctuary" I couldn't help but notice, due to my music training in acoustics class, was proportioned well for sound. But other than that, it was pretty run down, with frayed, red carpeting, missing ceiling tiles and generally unimpressive. Bill and I walked towards the front, to the small stage area and stepped on to it.

I happened to turn to face the left side of the stage and gasped. I looked further left, towards the rear of the stage and noticed an angled alcove, bracketing the opening for a baptistry.

Time stood still for a moment. My heart began racing. I turned and looked up at Bill. He could tell something was going on but didn't have a clue. My voice could only whisper "This is the place".

Though Bill didn't know why I'd said it the way I did, he could clearly tell something spiritual was going on and suggested immediately that we both kneel down and pray.

It was all a blur, time standing still - and the feeling of "home".

Less than a week later, the little church called Open Door Fellowship found a way to come up with the money needed for the down payment. Brian Donais was cutting out large wooden plywood words and painting them yellow with green trim.

We hung the sign -

Hand in Hand

Open Door Fellowship elected to be low profile and supported the Hand in Hand ministry for all the years it was in operation. They never put a sign with their name on the building. There was never any announcement during the Saturday concerts advising the kids to come back on Sunday morning. ODF kept their word to the other churches in the community and never used Hand in Hand as an opportunity to increase their own numbers or bank accounts.

Thanks Bill, Mel, Gary, Doc and the rest -

"That they all may be One, that the world may believe" was Jesus prayer for all believers on his last day before going to the cross.

As already mentioned, in the hearts of the members of the New Beginning (and apparently others), was the seed of a dream to have a place where all Christians, having Jesus as the highest common denominator, could work together to provide an environment where the message of Jesus could be presented and demonstrated and presented as clearly as possible. They believed it was God's will since Jesus had asked that the believers be one, so that the world would believe that God sent Him.

So now we had the place - we all referred to it as:

The Building

As noted previously, the building was a bit rough and would require some work before we could start the concerts. Brian had done the awesome Hand in Hand sign/logo and placed it above the tall porch, which was supported by four 20' tall columns. The big rectangular building needed new paint, inside and out, a lot of cleaning (especially those bathrooms!), dust off those big funky lights (I'm told they were called chandeliers - we soon were able to find a nice church who wanted them), replace the ceiling tiles and (oh Lord) that red carpeting had to go.

But we were a bit strapped for cash and so had to find other options for making the flooring new, since it was, in fact, a pretty big floor area. I somehow recalled, when I had been working my way through college at the downtown Del Webb Building (as a building porter), that whenever a new tenant would move in, there would always be carpet leftovers that were stored in a large room in the adjacent parking garage. So I contacted my old boss, Marv Todd, and asked if we could sort through it and see if there might be enough to do the entire floor. Well, there was a lot of carpet, but there were only partial rolls. Then it occurred to somebody that we could perhaps do it the hard way and patch it together. Even so, there wasn't enough to patch all of the same color and pattern. But the offered carpet was new and in good shape, so we decided to carpet the floor an even harder way - we would take the different good pieces, cut them in squares and rectangles about 2x2 and 2x4 and sew or glue the entire floor as a patchwork carpet. If it would be anything, at least it would be clean, new and homey.

John Hunyady said something about the pathagorean theory and generally snowed us about how to make sure the squares were cut properly - but somehow they fit right. Several of us probably blew out our knees cutting it and hot-gluing it together. I don't know how many times I scorched my fingers with that carpet melting iron and tape. Even Bill Thrall was on the floor on his knees with me - actually, we got to spend a lot of time talking about our relationship with Jesus without any showbiz and it made for one of the sweetest labors of love I've been a part of. After about a week and a half, as we were standing on the stage (the red carpet was okay there) and looked out at the floor, the room had come alive with warmth and color simply with the addition of all that different carpet. It became a trademark of the building.

With the budget limitations, when we considered providing seating, we determined that since we had been a part of young peoples gatherings where they just sat on the floor, and seemed to enjoy it, that the thickly padded new carpeting may be sufficient. Actually, when people started coming, it seemed that they would find their personal carpet square, sit (or even lounge when no one was looking) or sit on the floor next to the wall.

After a few concerts, we started to notice a "ring" around the perimeter walls of the room, about sitting head height and determined it might be best to put some kind of wainscot there. Fancy wood didn't make sense for a lot of reasons, so I located some new burlap rolled material and stapled it around the perimeter (after dunking it into a fire-retardent product of some sort). It added a bit of barniness to the room, but seemed to be a good match.

Stevie happened across an old farmer who had demolished an old oak barn who wanted to get rid of the wood so it wouldn't be a fire hazard. So, one day, there was stacked behind the building a huge stack of grayed lumber that Steve and Tom and others cut up and nailed to the stage area lower walls. It added more barniness to the feel, but also made it seem friendlier.

The only missing element was a proscenium above the stage area to block folks eyes from those ratty lighting fixtures we had on stage (limited budget fodder). It occurred to me that there were some open frames in the stack of wood, connected together with rusty hinges that might be the right size. When I brought one in, I stapled some of the leftover burlap to the insides and looked it over. There were just enough of the frames to provide sections for the proscenium and a few that could stand, like a room divider behind us, on the inside corners of the stage - they helped hide some of the sound equipment.

As I now look back, I was adding the final piece of the "video clip" furniture to the stage. Whether wittingly or not, I'm not sure, but there it was, behind where I would stand during concerts, sometimes playing acoustic guitar while Stevie sang "He ain't heavy, He's my Brother."

The final piece of the building's personality happened a while later when the room started to fill up and we needed to make more room for the audience. One of the amazing things about the concert room was the sound. It had a very high ceiling with perforated ceiling tiles and was otherwise well proportioned acoustically. Up to that time the people running sound for the concerts sat on the floor with the PA equipment and cords running up to the stage. Since that was how we'd done concerts for years, we didn't think twice about it. But it became apparent that things needed to change.

There was an alcove just inside the french double doored entry that had a kind of roof over it. It was about 6 foot deep and 10 feet wide. I guess the previous users thought that was the best solution for some problem, instead of running the walls all the way to the ceiling, since the ceiling was about 15 or 16 feet high. Anyways, during concerts, I would look back at the wasted space on the top of that "roof" at the rear of the building and wonder if it might be useful for something. Well, it occurred to somebody that it could be used for a sound room.

This probably didn't get suggested by the sound men, since you couldn't stand up on the platform without bumping your head on the ceiling - and they preferred to be where they could hear the music best - out in the audience. But after a while, when the attendance began to be such that we needed to make room or else turn people away, the sound men deferred and we moved the mixers "up on the roof." We enclosed the sides and put the barnwood on the outside of it. The sound men would climb up a barn-looking ladder, crawl through a 4' tall door opening on their knees to the soundboard mixer and run the sound. Many times, during practice and concerts, they could be seen sticking their heads out of the opening they called a window to get a better idea of what the audience was hearing. I guess in some way you could say they were on their knees before God and the Mixer. Anyways, they certainly were a humble bunch of servants who made it possible for more folks to hear the Good News about Jesus. (PS - As time went on, lots of folks liked to hang out in the sound booth during rehearsals! - Nancy did!)

The People

Bill Thrall was the person from Open Door Fellowship who provided the mature oversight and leadership of the ministry. Tom Allen handled most of the day to day details that allowed me, as Program Director to concentrate on the Saturday night Program development. I auditioned groups and individuals and came to all of the rehearsals to check on the status of the music development and contributed, from time to time, suggestions and training that I believed to be helpful. I even began to write music for some of the bands, and hoped to encourage with some disciplined rehearsal techniques the abilities to provide a good musical presentation.

The people who as a general rule that were involved in the ministry were mostly young High School and College aged people. Most were single. At the start, there was a core of about a dozen or so young people who were not in bands who were committed to be at every ministry activity. Eleven of those people were guys. Nancy Perkins, the sole female for a while, was the beloved and protected little sister of the group, whose quiet spiritual strength and encouraging smile brought a unique strong personality to the core of the ministry.

We were fortunate enough to continue to have Denny Collins provide the visual chronicling of the ministry with his amazing photography. If anyone wanted to know what Hand in Hand was like, a series of Denny's pictures, at least visually, told the story.

I will discuss some of the bands and individuals in the bands a bit later on. There are some really cool histories and stories there.

What I will say here is that the make-up of the bands, more often than not, was quite unique and even another example of differing backgrounds, but one heart for Jesus.

No titles or denominations were mentioned in the programs. But there were individuals from baptist, apostolic, bible, lutheran, brethren, pentecostal and methodist backgrounds, just to name a few, not including a few new arrivals who didn't even know what the differences may have been. But the differing backgrounds all seemed to be a unique tapestry for Jesus to display the unique one-ness we had in Him.

Moreover, the love among the members on stage was apparent - both to each other and the audiences watching them.

The Programs

The New Beginning had long ago determined to use language to communicate the message of Jesus without using "cliches" or words or phrases that might be confusing to anyone who may not have a church background. If an important word needed to be used and there was any question whether it needed clarification, it was defined, along with a couple of examples. Our brother Paul, when writing the letter to the Corinthians had a similar concern, though directed towards another aspect of folks gatherings, about speaking to crowds with words that didn't make sense to them. We took that as kind of a directive for how we would communicate with those not familiar with church "lingo."

Some of this was quite easy, since several of the members were recently "off the streets". Even so, this does require a bit of work sometimes and the practice had to be monitored, since other folks from around the valley and the country were invited to be a part of getting the Word out. It was my responsibility as Program Director to review the things that were going to be said, including personal stories and song introductions to assure, as much as possible, that the thoughts that had been prepared had taken this communication essential into consideration.

The net effect was that words like atonement were not used before it's definition was already clear and clarified with an example or two. Other words that fell into this category were saved, justified, born again, etc. In lieu of the all encompassing words, the definitions were used. Atonement became something like "when God himself found a way to make things right". Saved became something like "the day I received Jesus," and so on.

What we found is that the people sharing became fresh in their thoughts and presentation because they had gotten in touch with the meanings of these precious, sometimes all encompassing words. Over time, they had become "familiar" with the words and had begun to gloss over the huge significance of them. But as they found a way to communicate them with those not familiar with church language, the truth of it not only was clearer to the audience, it was fresher to them. And so the presentation became refreshing even to those who were sharing.

And I think most would say that freshness was something that was part of every Hand in Hand program.

But the bottom line was that there was never a call to a creed or a denomination or was any other human cultural idiom spoken about or was criticized or lifted up that night -

They lifted up Jesus.

And every program included, normally towards the end, a presentation giving those who'd come

an opportunity to receive Jesus that night.

This same kind of practice was used in the selection of the music performed. As much as possible, the songs were designed to be simple, straight-forward ideas and words, that would hopefully be thought-provoking for the audience. The music style and difficulty level of the songs was monitored so that the presentation matched the skills of the performers.

No one wanted to have poorly performed music distract from the message we were trying to get out.

Every Saturday, the performers would arrive anywhere from 3 to 5 o'clock, depending on the time they needed to get their sound and equipment set up. Everything was set so that Tom Allen could open the doors at 7:30 to allow folks in. By then the band and the MC were offstage, in a side room praying.

Programs started (when there was initially only one concert) at 8 PM. There was no front curtain, so the MC and performers would enter the stage area simultaneously at about 7:58. Everyone would take their place so that when the MC made the introductions they were ready to go.

The Programs were generally of the two set variety. If a Band had enough good material to perform for both sets then that one band for the evening could be expected. Otherwise the two sets would be represented by two different groups or soloists. Several times during the program we would have to ask everybody to scoot forward to make room - a lot of times, it was like packed sardines!

During the program, Tom Allen and others would hang around outside or walk the parking lots. Tom eventually became the Administrative Director. Though not gregarious and somewhat soft-spoken, he has always had the unique ability to talk with people he's not met before, especially those who some might call "rebels" or even outsiders. There were several times when people had come with others and had gotten up to go outside during the concert, because they had started to become a bit uncomfortable for one reason or another - most of the time it was a spiritual discomfort. Anyways, Tom was always there and was able to chat with them. There wasn't a place on that property that Jesus wasn't taking care of spiritually.

At the end of the program, the MC would say a few things and then introduce the comment cards. Band members and select others would hand out the yellow 3x5 cards with green inked type as well as your standard golf pencils. We would ask the audience to give us their feedback, as well as let us know, if they wanted to, that they'd received Jesus that night. There was also a box they could mark if they wanted to be on our mailing list, or if they wanted to be more involved with us. We asked that they hand the cards to the person in the back, on their way out.

The bands would, after the concerts, hang around the stage, prepared to talk with anyone who approached them. If the person who approached them was someone they'd not met before, the question was asked if they'd received Jesus that night. There were many times that additional folks were added to the kingdom after the formal program was done.

Then after the audience was gone, about 10 PM-ish or so, the band and MC would gather together and pray and review the comment cards and pray again. There were lots of tears during those afterwards meetings, reading the cards and knowing God had used the people in the program, (sometimes the imperfect program) to get people to Jesus. It was always humbling.

When all was clear, the bands would tear down their equipment and head off. A lot of times, since the evening had been so sweet, the folks in the programs would head out to Coco's or somewhere, just to hang out and bask in the sense of what had happened. During the years that Hand in Hand was going on, Coco's did a good business. Bob's Big Boy did pretty good too!

The following Tuesday morning, the staff would meet together and review the comment cards. At first Tom called all of the New Ones, as a matter of follow-up, to assure, as much as possible that they were being connected to fellow believers. If they'd come with someone who'd brought them, they were encouraged to meet with their friend and look into going to church with them.

If that opportunity was not available to them, we had generated our own follow-up program from a conglomerate of information we had garnered through the years. Some of it had come from Wayne Shuart's Bible Study and some from other trusted sources. They were simple, fill in the blank type things where the answers could be found in their Bible - sometimes the ones we provided them. Some of the staff and band members would set aside Tuesday nights to meet with the New Ones and lead them through these simple studies. After a while, others who wanted to be a part of the ministry to these New Ones made themselves available. It was awesome to see the excitement grow in the New Ones, who brought their friends - and so on.

We began to get help from all kinds of places. One place of note was our mailing list flyers. Doyle Meyer not only ran sound from time to time when the NB was playing, he also ran an antique printing press that someone donated to us. Every week or so you'd see him in the kitchen with that ink-stained apron on, nursing that machine on to get one more copy printed. We scheduled the performances with the groups and soloists months in advance. At the start, we did a pretty vanilla monthly listing calendar of upcoming concert performers, tri-folded it and sent it out. One of Tom's "outsiders" who was somewhat of a soft-spoken artist kid wanted to help. When Tom asked how, Harold said he thinks he could help with the flyers. Tom thought he meant with the labor of putting the mailing out - but what he actually meant was that he wanted to help in the design of the flyers.

Oh, my. When he brought us his first cartoon strip that was to be the upper section of the flyer, we were blown away with how he captured the fun and fresh essence of Hand in Hand. The mailing list requestors doubled by the next month. I can't help but believe part of that was due to folks looking forward to how Harold Graves would handle the continuing adventures of characters finding out about Hand in Hand. I particularly liked the space mice expedition/adventure.

Hand in Hand continued to grow. Concerts were consistently packed. There was a concert every Saturday night without fail, presided over by someone from the home team.

The High School Assembly Concerts

Even so, due to our desire to reach even more of the community, we put together a special program for the schools in the community.

Since I'd been a Teacher at Central High School, I believed that a program about "America's Contribution to the World of Music" would be good for lots of reasons.

First of all it would definitely be informative. Sometime school assemblies are not that great. Secondarily, there had begun to creep into popular music at that time a lot of subtle and sometimes blatant lyrics that degraded music in general and used drugs or sex or whatever to sell their music.

I have always been impressed by the master Big Bands writer and performer, Duke Ellington whose remark about music rang as true from the first time I heard it. He said there are two types of music - one that is an expression of true passion and emotions. The other type is written to turn a buck.

It was clear to me that there was a lot of music that was using these drugs and sex gadgets to get the kid's "bucks", as well as promote ancillary thoughts and behavior that in the long run could hurt the kids. In our minds it was a legitimate warning that school administrators could more than likely buy into.

One of the Hand in Hand bands, Branches, was fortunate to have excellent musicians who were more than capable of performing the plethora of music of differing styles and time periods. They made the commitment to learn and perform the program I'd arranged, as well as made the sacrifices to be at all of the performances - somehow making arrangements with their daily schedules, education and jobs to pull them off.

The program started with some of the good examples of late seventies pop music we thought were "real". And then, starting with the first truly American song style - the Negro Spiritual (Ain't-a that Good News, sung a capella), we took the audience through the past couple of centuries with samples of the music that best represented the USA. We also tried to give a sense of the feelings of Americans during those times, as represented by the music.

"The voices we listen to determine a lot of what we will become" was the sign off before the last song of the program. The School administrators asked us to close with one of our own pieces of music, sort of as a thank you, I guess.

We closed with one of Jim Krupa's songs - "Never know who you are" which has an interesting rhythm-talk section towards the end that says,

"Well, listen to me people, what I tell you is true

Get your head together, so you know what to do -

'Cause if you don't know Jesus, you don't know you -

If you don't know Jesus, you don't know who you are -

Never - never know who you are!"

The Administrators also told us we could have our concert schedule flyers out and available to give to students if they wanted them. Thousands did pick them up on their way out, many smiling at the comic strip on the flyer - and tri-folded green flyers were in the back pockets of most of the High Schoolers we saw when we were leaving the schools.

Amazing -

Tom Allen reminded me that we sang at 43 School Assemblies.

In the weeks following the start of the assemblies, it became apparent that we would have to go to two Hand in Hand concerts a week. An added Friday night wouldn't work because of student activities on Friday nights, so we did double concerts on Saturday - one started at 7 PM and one a 9 PM. In the months that followed, literally hundreds of kids received Jesus.

We are Thankful Concerts

The staff and musicians were all humbled by the phenomenal events that continued to take place at Hand in Hand. As a matter of course, it seemed to us that we wanted to take the next step of "being one, that the world may believe" by joining the community together just to say thanks to God for the awesome things He's been doing, as well as say thanks to those whose chose to support Hand in Hand. We also had special christian-artist guests who performed for part of each of those concerts each of those three years - Denny Correll, Chuck Girard and John Fischer.

In preparation for the music part of the program, since several bands and soloists would be performing, I had created some praise like chorus melodies that were designed to be contrapuntal (a music word meaning that the different melodies would all compliment one another and "fit" harmonically) and asked the performers to write their own verses with lyrics to complete their individual songs.

When it came time for the program, the audience was asked to learn the simple chorus parts as instructed by each of the bands and soloists during their segment of the program and encouraged to join in singing on the chorus parts.

As the finale of the program, each of the leaders of each part of the performance would join in with the band on stage and at the appropriate time start singing their chorus. Then after the first chorus iteration, the audience singing along, the second performer would begin singing their chorus alongside the initial one, layering the music parts with the audience. A third chorus was included in the sound and even a fourth on one occasion.

For me, hearing those thousands of people sing a new song they'd just learned that evening, in multiple parts and melodies, in a rich texture of voices joined together as one to give thanks to God is one of the highlights of my life.

The Move

You can imagine that things started to become hectic around the building on Saturday nights. People were parking all over the place, including up and down the streets due to limited parking, especially when the two concerts were transitioning. We never had a complaint from any of the neighbors, and I don't remember any screeching tire noises coming from the streets when the programs were over.

We had made an attempt to purchase a vacant lot adjacent to us for more parking, but the owner of that lot was not interested in selling. As a matter of fact, she had recently received an attractive offer from a developer who wanted to purchase the property and construct an apartment complex. We couldn't even get the chance to bid it, due to the timing.

We were being put into a position that would require that we consider moving.

At the same time, Open Door Fellowship also began to have a heart for inner city ministry and so decided to move to that area for proximity reasons. Out of that move Neighborhood Ministries was begun. Good friends, Wayne and Kit Danley, continue to serve that community faithfully, along with Billy Thrall (Bill Thrall's son). The Neighborhood Center transitioned out of ODF to form their own corporation and is a hugely viable Phoenix inner city ministry, highly honored by the Lord with amazing fruit.

For quite a while, there had been discussions about starting several Hand in Hand ministry locations and associated Open Door Fellowship support churches around the valley, since our support base seemed to be able to accommodate it. Though several young couples went away for pastoral training as preparation for that possibility, it didn't materialize the way we'd hoped.

In the end, for a lot of reasons, the move apparently wasn't a good one for Hand in Hand, so it ended after nine years.

But we had been able to see, at least for a short period of time, what it was like to see Jesus' prayer, "that they all may be one, that the world may believe" fulfilled.

Camelot

My good friend, Wayne Danley, a phenomenal writer with a great gift of dialectic, during the wonderful days of Hand in Hand, wrote what I believe to be an excellent piece on the impact and personality of the Ministry -

It was called, "I Have Seen Camelot".

As time has gone on, this image somehow becomes even more vivid as it relates to Hand in Hand. And though Camelot may possibly be a myth, the intangibles that made Camelot seem real were real at Hand in Hand.

From my understanding, King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table only served their part of the planet for a short while. But all the unique strengths and differences of the individuals, as they submitted to the call of the King and had committed themselves to serving the noble things of the kingdom with and for the people they encountered and served, have come to be revered.

The reason I continue to be amazed at the comparison with Hand in Hand and say this is because there is not a week that goes by that incidental stories of people whose lives were changed for good, due to the simple clear message presented by Hand in Hand, and the sacrifices of the "Knights" committed to the "cause", doesn't come across my path somehow.

In Camelot, there were heroes and sacrifices, failures, enemies and treacheries. Hand in Hand knew each of those as well.

I know these "Knights", and it must be said that if any of the persons who had committed to this reach-out would ever get the sense from others that accolades were due them, they would humbly say, and rightly so, - no - that it was God who pulled the whole thing off - and their sacrifices were their gift to the King.

So as I write these things, it is not to draw attention to the "Knights", but to their King and His cause -

"That they all may be One - that the world may believe."

Thanks, Wayne - and the rest of you who stood with me around that table - Hand in Hand.

The Bands and Soloists who frequently performed at the Programs

The New Beginning

The New Beginning was the house band for Hand in Hand whose story has been partially chronicled earlier. Even so, here are some tidbits about some of the individuals. During the Hand in Hand days the members were Nancy Conner, Joyce Allen, Barb (Smith) Tessitore, Mike Greenwood, Dave Reno, Steve Tessitore and myself.

Nancy Conner still reaches out to folks and is an amazing counselor and pastoring group leader at ODF. Joyce Allen has been a worship group leader and heavily involved with young people for years - a gracious and intelligent mentor and rock solid writer. She currently is an administrator at ODF, assisting the Worship Pastor. Tom Allen has served as an Elder at ODF and continues to lead individuals in meaningful Bible Studies to this day.

Steve and Barb Tessitore, after Hand in Hand, became more involved in worship at the Calvary Chapel they attended and eventually lead worship in their Phoenix area church for years. Currently, they are involved with a Calvary Chapel in Washington State. I've always loved Stevie's voice. If you've missed hearing him, here's a couple of his songs I think you'll enjoy.

Play "The Way He Feels About You" Play "Street Preacher"

Mike Greenwood later played with Sonrise and Trilogy in Hand in Hand, and after Hand in Hand, he and his wife Lynn were worship group leaders at ODF. He currently helps other churches when they need his services. Dave Reno was a youth pastor while playing at Hand in Hand and later lead the group Still Water at Hand in Hand concerts. After Hand in Hand he headed back east and I hear has started several churches there (Go Dave!!).

Glory Road

Glory Road consisted of Terry Hann, Rob Brunner, John Heath, Bob Cochran, Greg Williams, Brian Jones, with Jay Haugen and Don Nelsen helping them get started. The sound was handled by Mark Walker, Bruce Novkov and John McDonald. Glory Road was one of those bands with a bunch of different types of church brands involved. They produced an excellent album - Gory Road -"Exit".

The instrumentation eventually became two acoustic guitars, electric lead and bass and drums. All of the band members sang at different times. They had a musical style that was popular during that time, but were also able to compose some unusually interesting songs that had a style of their own. The lead singers were Bob Cochran and Rob Brunner. I was never able to write

a note that Rob wasn't able to sing. What a range that guy had! John Heath also did lead vocals on the songs he wrote as well, and had one of the best appreciated lead guitar tones. Greg Williams brought a lot of music style to the band and his unique approach to his songs and guitar playing were not the typical garden variety - boy were they fresh!

The band had a huge following of High School fans and enjoyed a long history of exciting music and ministry. Their album, "Glory Road - Exit" got a lot of air play around the country and Terry's messages at the end of the program were always a joy to listen to. Glory Road had the privelege of playing all over Arizona as well as Texas, California and Colorado. In their peak years they averaged about a concert a week both at Hand in Hand and elsewhere.

One of the fond memories I have is of Glory Road's early days when they were still putting together a full compliment of instruments. One thing they were missing at the time was a drummer. I must say, and this is confirmed by others, that drumming is not my strong suit. Even so, in an after school rehearsal I was attempting to drum for the song they were working on. It definitely was pitiful. Add to this that I get somewhat flustered when I think someone is watching and it makes it worse.

Jay Haugen was a Jesus "freak" at this high school who had the patched up overalls and the Bible with the beautiful patchwork cover. Today, he happened by the building and had brought a friend of his, Don Nelsen. They were hanging out at the back of the building. After a more than terrible last chorus of drumming, in frustration I belted out, "Is there anybody here who can play these things". Without as much as a question to his friend, Don, Jay yelled out from the back, "Don can play". I said, "Well - you - (and I pointed the drumsticks at Don) - get up here"! Don was the bashful type as well, but yielded to the request, sat down at the drum set, took the battered sticks I handed him and started playing. Wow!

Today, after more than 35 years, Don and I enjoy an awesome friendship and I would say partnership that has been God-ordained and blessed. There hasn't been a time I know of when Don has been asked to do something ministry wise that he hasn't done with his whole heart and generously. He still plays drums from time to time at ODF.

Randy Thompson

Soloist Randy has had one of the more far-reaching solo ministries in the Phoenix area and had traveled extensively since the days of Hand in Hand. His musical style had been compared to all kinds of popular solo artists, but his desire has been to simply sing songs about Jesus and his relationship with Him. Currently, Randy is the Worship Pastor at Open Door Fellowship. He has recorded several albums and CD's which have received a lot of radio airplay, especially in the Phoenix area.

Sparrowe

Rand Mozingo, Gordon Barr, Greg Ferguson, Bonnie (Lake) Currey, Larry Lee and Joe Wehunt made up the band. Joe Vance and Russ Yost helped with the sound for Sparrowe.

The instrumentation included acoustic and electric guitars and bass. Rand and Bonnie were the singers. Rand Mozingo is a prolific writer whose ability to open windows out onto God's landscape of love, in my mind, is unsurpassed. He was the writer for all of Sparrowe's songs. He continues to write poignant and beautiful melodies and songs and has one of the most phenomenal voices I've ever heard. I don't think there's another singer that I'd rather sing Gospel, Rock or Blues with than Rand. His writing style used different harmonic structures, but kept a good rock feel. The band had a good handle on their instruments and produced an awesome sound in live performance.

Sonrise

Sonrise was Mark Novkov, Nancy (Novkov) Roberts, Carol (Novkov) Nelsen, Joyce (Tipton) Dickinson, Don Nelsen, Mike Greenwood, with Linda Bradshaw and Denny Collins and Mike Rehm helping them get started and Stu Golladay and myself helping out later on. Bruce Novkov was the sound man (and occasional harmonica player - we would coax him from behind the sound mixer and have him play on at least one of the songs - fun stuff!).

The vocal core of the group was "the Novkovs" - a brother and two sisters who had grown up singing together. Their vocal blend was the type that only DNA vocal instruments who also happened to have sung together all their lives could produce. And my, oh my, was the vocal harmonic style slick. It seems they could guess what each other's vocal nuances and dynamics would be - the tight trio harmonies were inimitable. You only have to hear a the chorus section of "Come Unto Me" to get the idea. It was a mass of tight texture that I'd never heard before - and possibly not since. It was unique. It was my joy to get to write some songs for the group and have that texture show up. The band's style was probably best described as country rock, but Mark Novkov's "Bygone Blues" and affinity for more bluesy styles were also enjoyed by the group.

Each of the members were also soloists. Mark had a bit of a picante edge on his vocal style. Nancy had a sweet soprano meandering liquid style and Carol's velvet lower voice machinations were full of warmth and texture.

The Album "Sonrise" was dedicated to two sets of parents - those of the Novkov trio and Don's Mom. Milt and Shirley Novkov, though from a church background that could have made it difficult for them to support what Hand in Hand was trying to do, believed in the focus on Jesus and supported the groups efforts and endeared themselves to all of the Sonrise members. Don's Mom had struggled through some major life issues, but provided Don with the foundation of God's Word that helped provide him the strength and courage to be the gift to the planet that he was and is.

There was a time when the "trio" was considering enlarging their instrumental sound and was on the look-out for perhaps some other musicians. They played at a Campus Crusade for Christ event in Tempe one night and a timid young college lady walked up to them at the end of the program and asked if they happened to be looking for other musicians. Normally those kinds of things, when they happen, don't usually yield the best opportunities for good auditions. They suggested that maybe they could discuss it later on. A few minutes later, we were in a side room when Carol Novkov said - "Do you hear that?". Somebody was on the piano in the main room, playing a very difficult piece by one of the popular secular fusion English bands at the time, Yes. We looked out to see. The song, "Roundabout", was being played, much to our astonishment, with high energy and proficiency by the timid girl that had asked us if she could audition. We asked her to meet with us at our next rehearsal and be prepared to share how she came to know Jesus.

Bernie Rolfe

Bright Shining Morning

Branches

Never Know

Trilogy

You are My Song

Sonrise

Bygone Blues

Glory Road

I See the Way

New Beginning

See the Man

Take a listen to a few songs done during the Hand in Hand days.

Hand in Hand

Sonrise

New Beginning

Glory Road

Shira

Bruce Novkov

Wayne Danley

Ed Ryan

Dennis Martin

30th Anniversary

I was asked a few years ago to put together a segment for the Open Door Fellowship 30th Anniversary recapping what made Hand in Hand special. It seemed like a good idea to me to weave the basic philosophy of Hand in Hand with the structure of the song the New Beginning sang, Walk on the Water.

I began the segment, singing the first verse as a soloist. The New Beginning came up from the audience and joined with me singing the chorus. As the names of the other individuals were called, they would come up out of the audience and join us on stage, placing their hands on our shoulders and joining in with singing the chorus, filling the stage with their presence and the music with their voices till the end of the presentation.

Walk on the Water

Verse 1

There was the Song – I was the Singer,

And somehow I knew the Song was for me.

I started singing – the Words became stronger

And wouldn’t you know the Song set me free.

Chorus

Walk on the water - just one more time

And when you do you won’t fall.

Walk on the water - just one more time

People on the other side must hear His call - - -

Narration: "And people did come – not just those hearing Christ’s call for the first time to fall into His arms of Love – but also those strengthened by His love then to serve others – "

"And so came Randy Thompson, Glory Road, Sonrise, Sparrowe, Trilogy, Shira , New Jerusalem, Still Water, The Wayne Danley Band, Just in Time, Peter Robb, Branches, Linda and Linda, Dave Lees and other guests from all over the valley and around the country who believed they were part of Jesus’ prayer – “that they all may be one that the world may believe”.

Verse 2

“Listen my children” I heard Him saying,

“You’ve got to go across to the land-

And when you go, the waters may falter

But bring back the ones who will take your hand”.

Walk on the water just one more time

And when you do you won’t fall.

Walk on the water just one more time

People on the other side must hear His call.

Narration: "And as Jesus’ dream for Hand in Hand became clearer, he put into the hearts of even others who never set foot on a stage the desire to help these New Ones discover more of who they were in Jesus."

"And so came Tom Allen, Michelle Mozingo, Roy Burke, Doyle Meyer, Nancy Hann, John DeForest and selfless others who never asked for more than to share with New Ones the preciousness of new life in Jesus."

Verse 3

I started walking on that sweet water –

Jesus had taken me by the hand

I started speaking – the words became stronger

And wouldn’t you know people reached out their hands.

Walk on the water just one more time

And when you do you won’t fall.

Walk on the water just one more time

People on the other side must hear His call.

Narration: "And also from the stage, joining with the hearts and voices of the Bands to tell their stories and lead New Ones into Christ and new life came Dennis Martin, Bill Folz, Mike Andrews, Sam Samolinski, Tom Carr and many others."

Why did God choose to bless Hand in Hand? How did He take a bunch of young people and kids and affect the history of this part of the planet? It certainly wasn’t because of skill and profound insight or wisdom of the people involved.

But their cry out to God each time the doors opened for a Hand in Hand program was that God would do for them what they could not do for themselves or others was heard. And all the practice and preparation was returned to God to use however He chose for that night to get the message to those He’d brought. And He brought street kids, church kids, high school dropouts, motorcycle gang members, and all kinds of other fit and misfit people to hear His Words about Jesus.

Hand in Hand never advertised Open Door Fellowship as the only place where New Ones could grow in Jesus. And so many of these New Ones became baptized at the churches of the friends who brought them to Hand in Hand. We have been told that there have been hundreds and hundreds.

Also sitting on the floor during those programs were young men and women within whom Jesus planted a seed of other possibilities. Serving in the valley and around the country today are several senior pastors who responded to Jesus call to pastor New Ones.

If there is a legacy for Hand in Hand, we believe that it was a time when and where Jesus prayer – “that they all may be one that the world may believe” was answered in a small way for nine years. And as we celebrate the 30 year anniversary of Open Door fellowship, the sense of grace and dependence on the Lord to do for us what we cannot humanly do ourselves still prevails. That first love is the key for our future.

Coda -

“Listen my children” I heard Him saying,

“You’ve got to go across to the land-

And when you go, the waters may falter

But bring back the ones who will take your hand.

“Goodnight everybody – see you here, there, or in the air!”

My Hand in Hand Song List

Here are a few of the Songs that I wrote that were utilized in Hand in Hand Programs.

This list doesn't include the songs others artists and band members may have written and performed. Part of my goal was to encourage others to discover their thoughts about Jesus and find a way to present them musically. I have been privileged to hear some awesome songs written and performed by my co-laborers at Hand in Hand.

Furthermore, there were songs by other national artists that some of the bands had discovered that matched their talents and added to their repertoire.

Finally, there was a major project I had started that I'd hoped to use all of the house bands at Hand in Hand in. It was a somewhat ambitious project that I had started that I thought could perhaps be done annually around Easter. At first I simply referred to it as the Epic. Later on, the title became "The Memoirs of Maweth". Basically the idea was that the Death Angel is telling the story of mankind, beginning to end, from his memoirs perspective - that as the eye witness of the fall of mankind and other supernatural events, that his warnings would hopefully be heeded. I had begun to write the script in my last year of teaching, since the need for it had been reinforced by interviews with some of my students since it seemed a lot of the information about God and His Story seemed to be losing altitude in our culture.

I had already taught some of the bands a few of the songs from it that were used incidentally during Hand in Hand and other programs. Glory Road performed "The Seed". Sonrise sang, "Come Sunrise, Sunday Morning", and "Dayspring". Branches performed, "One Touch", "The Gift of Life" and "He is Coming" (from the last days section of Maweth). But the project was not able to be completed before Hand in Hand closed it's doors. As time permitted, I continued to work on it and after a few years finally wrapped up a general "demo" of it. An abbreviated section of it is available to hear below.

Anyways - here's my Hand in Hand song list. And I'm sure that as time goes on, other songs will come to mind that may have been archived somewhere way back in my mind's data base, though currently irretrievable, that could be added.

ArtistSong TitleRecorded and included on:

Bernie SoloAll God's Children Gotta Reason

Bernie SoloAnd He Knew of the Pain

Bernie SoloAre you Weary?

Bernie SoloBehold the Lamb

Bernie SoloDon't Weep for Me (Paul's Farewell)

Bernie SoloEarly in the Morning

Bernie SoloEvery Knee Shall Bow

Bernie SoloExtra, Extra

Bernie SoloHarvest

Bernie SoloI'm Growing

Bernie SoloIsn't it Curious

Bernie SoloLove Like No Other One

Bernie SoloOnce and For All

Bernie SoloPounding

Bernie SoloSong from Heaven

Bernie SoloShoulda known Better

Bernie SoloThere is a Song

Bernie SoloUnseen Eyes (words/Bobby Warren)

Bernie SoloWatchin Eternity Go

Bernie SoloWhat Good is Love

Bernie SoloWindow Pains

Bernie SoloYou Fill Me Up

Bernie SoloYou Turn Away

BranchesAlabam

BranchesBright Shining Morning

BranchesCastles in Babylon

BranchesHalleluia

BranchesHe's Calling You

BranchesI'm Not Ashamed

BranchesLift Up Jesus

BranchesLookin' for heaven

BranchesMake Me Over

BranchesOne Touch

BranchesStep by Step

BranchesThe Gift of Life

BranchesWanted Man

FriendsEarthstone Epitaph

FriendsTake it

Glory RoadAsbestos Underwear

Glory RoadEverything's Going to be Alright

Glory RoadGlory Road

Glory RoadHelp me Somebody

Glory RoadI See the Way

Glory RoadLift Your Hands to Jesus

Glory RoadSong Child

Glory RoadThe Seed

New Beginning15 miles out of Phoenix

New BeginningBenjie DuCaine

New BeginningBorn Again

New BeginningBoxcar

New BeginningCarry me Over

New BeginningCircle K Song

New BeginningCold was my Heart

New BeginningCome Follow Me

New BeginningCome for the Renewing

New BeginningDead End Mazes

New BeginningDoin' Fine

New BeginningFig Leaves

New BeginningFlight 647

New BeginningFruit of the Spirit

New BeginningGet Right

New BeginningHand in Hand

New BeginningHappy People

New BeginningHe Was a Friend of Mine

New BeginningHey

New BeginningI Found It

New BeginningI Know Somebody

New BeginningIf I could Show You

New BeginningIf you are Pondering

New BeginningIt's Now Time

New BeginningJesus I Want to Thank You

New BeginningJesus is Real

New BeginningJesus Never was a Sinner

New Beginning Lullabye

New BeginningMakes Me Strong

New BeginningMy, My

New BeginningPeople Who Walk in Light

New BeginningProdigal Son

New BeginningReach Out

New BeginningRelationship

New BeginningSee the Man

New BeginningShoulda Known Better

New BeginningSomeone Came Walkin

New BeginningSomething's Happening

New BeginningWalk on the Water

New BeginningWho's Gonna Stand

ShiraEverybody

ShiraFare Thee Well

ShiraGot me a Home in Heaven

ShiraHBJSGFRAWB

ShiraHeaven is Gonna be Swell

ShiraI feel the Sun Shining Down on Me

ShiraI'm Gonna Sing About It

ShiraKeep the Fire Burning

ShiraLet it Shine

ShiraQuest

ShiraSing unto the Lord

SonriseAngels Watchin' Over Me

SonriseCome Sunrise Sunday Morning

SonriseCome Unto Me

SonriseDayspring

SonriseHe Gives

SonriseHe is Coming

SonriseHoly Man

SonriseI Got News

SonriseI need Him

SonriseLead me On

SonriseLead Me Over the Rainbow

SonriseLet Your Light Shine in to my Life

SonriseLetting the Son Shine

SonriseLifta Me Up

SonriseLook Away

SonriseOh Don't You Know

SonriseSeekin'

SonriseSpirit Moving

SonriseSweet Water

SonriseThank You Lord

SonriseThe Road Must needs be Harder

SonriseThis is the Day

SonriseThy Love

SonriseTrying Every Way to Get Closer

SonriseWe All Need Recreation

SonriseWind of the Spirit

SonriseWonderful Counselor

SonriseWondering Why

TrilogyBlack and Blue

TrilogyChristmas is

TrilogyDancer

TrilogyHe's Alive

TrilogyHe's So Good

TrilogyKeep holding on

TrilogySculptor

TrilogySing it over

TrilogySinger

TrilogyVitamin D

TrilogyYou are my song

WayneBad News for You Who Read the Paper

WayneBuilder, Builder

WayneFig Tree Generation

WayneJesus is the Giver of Rest

WayneIf We Walk in the Light

WayneNo Excuse

WayneTake Me Home

We are ThankfulAlleluia

We are ThankfulThe Angels Sang

We are ThankfulWe are Thankful

We are ThankfulWe Magnify Your Name

MawethMM Overture

MawethDeath Angel

MawethNo Matter

MawethDominar of the Shadows

MawethAll the Difference

MawethXancor is a Liar

MawethBattle 1

MawethWhere do We go from Here?

MawethIf You See Him

MawethLegends

MawethDayspring

MawethOne Touch

MawethThe Seed

MawethThe Gift of Life

MawethCome Sunrise Sunday Morning

MawethBattle 2

MawethIt's Been Three Days

MawethThree Days in the Darkness

MawethLift your Wings

MawethJesus Rose Again

MawethCome Sunrise, third verse

MawethLast Will and Testament

Joyce

Tom

Bill

Grady Gammage Auditorium

Randy Thompson

Maweth Demo

Christmas

Trilogy Tribute

Sonrise Tribute

Sonrise

Sonrise Tribute

Sonrise

Sonrise Tribute

Sonrise

Sonrise Tribute

Sonrise

Sonrise Tribute

Website only

Sonrise

Sonrise Tribute

Sonrise

New Beginning Tribute