conversations from the couch

A whole bunch of us are going to see Jeremy Riddle in concert tonight in Ft. Collins. I’m excited to hear him live because there’s a cool story how we connected with him for NYMC. This was a God-thing. 

Last spring we wrestled through tough decisions on which Christian bands to hire for the evening concerts at NYMC. I thought this would be the fun part of event planning, but working with some of the booking agencies was sometimes pretty discouraging. I realize it’s a business like anything else, but the conversations just felt so far removed from the DNA of the event. ($40,000 for a 30 minute set? You need to have WHAT in the green room? ) 

Actually, I almost quit at that point, my job was so burdened by a number of shallow administrative details it just sucked the fullfilling ministry part right out. I couldn’t justify the sacrifices on my family if this was it. So I was driving to our final band meeting, fuming and praying (nice blend), and a song came on the radio that blew me away. I didn’t know the singer or the title, but I pulled over and wrote down the lyrics. 

I came bursting into the meeting with the news that we had a band for the Saturday night general session concert, but I’d have to google the lyrics to figure out the song/title/artist first. The team was much less inspired about this God-delivered song, but we ended up giving it a shot. About 2 hours later we figured out the mystery song and artist–Sweetly Broken, by Jeremy Riddle. I contacted his booking agent (the part I always hated) discovered that Randy McCoy, Jeremy’s agent at Creation Associates, actually lived a few miles from Group.

Randy wanted to meet for coffee before we signed anything though. He explianed that Jeremy doesn’t book events that just want him as a “gig”.  He values the integrity of his worship ministry, and chooses opportunities that fit his filter of authenticity. A few cups of coffee later, we had Jeremy Riddle filled into the Saturday night spot, and I had a new favorite song I listen to whenever I need some inspiration.