This past week, Paul Coleman, lead guitarist for the Newsboys (also with the Paul Coleman Trio) was performing at an event in Manassas, VA. Wherever he is, he always finds a church to worship with and this Sunday, because of a friendship with someone in our church, he came to ours and led the worship for both of our services. It was fantastic! Five of our youth, including my youngest son (in the red tshirt) got to play as his band. They even got to perform one of his latest songs, "The One Thing". And considering they only got meet and practice with him at 8 am that morning, they were awesome! Even he was impressed.
But what I was most impressed with was the way he interacted with the youth. A, my son, was not originally playing with them. But he needed another percussionist and A is the other percussionist for the youth praise band so he got the job on the bongos. 
Apparantly, A made quite an impression on Paul. When we went to say goodbye to him, Paul's first comment to me when he found out I was A's mom was "Who did A get that unique personality from?" Before I could answer, A said "It's all me." Paul just laughed and responded with "That's the perfect answer from you, A. That fits your personality." 
Paul led the musical worship for both services and then gave some interactive testimony with our minister that was so good it's hard to describe. I stayed in both services to listen to him and he gave different testimony in both. Both were fantastic.
After his testimony in the second service, all of the youth left to go to their own service and Paul went with them to spend the rest of the time talking with them and answering questions. I went to that and listened. Again, he was fantastic with the youth. We had a youth group of about 40-50 visiting from Maryland so there was quite a crowd and he kept their attention past the end of the regular service. 
I took a video of them playing his song "The One Thing" but it took too long to download on this post. I'll try downloading it on another post tonight. If you ever have a chance to see Paul, I would highly recommend it. He's great!
3 comments:
Wow, sounds like an awesome worship experience. Great that he was so interactive with the youth. I know they will remember that for a long time.
That's fantastic. I think it really speaks about the heart and commitment the artist has for Christ when they are more involved in the lives of others than seeking fame and recognition for hom/herself.
Years ago Larry Norman came to town. He had a 2 hour concert, followed by 2 hours where he sat on the steps of the stage and shared personally with every youth who waited for him.
It's refreshing to hear that's still the heart of God's Servants.
Congrats to "A" and his talented friends.
That is WAY cool! I love it when 'recognized' people can get down and personal with the kids who look up to them. It's really awesome.
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