As mentioned in Wednesday’s post, my wife Holly performed for the first time at Bellevue Community Church for their yearly Vision Night. Vision night is similar to their mid-week service except that the topic is on the Church itself. Dr. David Foster talked about the vision of BCC, where they’ve come from and where they are going, that sort of thing. Even though he was referring to where BCC is headed, as usual he also gave me a lot to think about my life as well. 🙂
The music is always incredible there. Lionel Cartwright does an amazing job as the Creative Arts Director and some of the best music in Nashville is found at BCC every weekend. I know that Holly was truly honored to be asked to sing backup. BCC is chock full of top notch musicians and having the opportunity to perform with them is a big deal. Don’t believe me? Well keep this in mind, Lionel has 2 Top 20’s, 3 Top 10’s, and 3 Top 5 hits, one being a number one song, “Leap Of Faith“, to his credit and that’s just scratching the surface. 8)
Cherill Long lead the first few songs. She has a wonderfully soulful and powerful voice and it’s always a treat to hear her sing. Lionel demonstrated once again at what a versatile musician he is, by ripping a great Hammond B3-ish organ solo during one of the songs. I’ve lost count with the number of instruments he can play. Lionel lead a song and then Cherill was back for another foot stomper. After the announcements, Cherill’s daughter sang Everywhere by Michelle Branch.
Holly did a great job singing backup. She had excellent stage presence and it was clear that she was really listening and supporting what the other artists were doing. Case in point – on the final number, Cherill lifted her hands in the raise the roof gesture and Holly picked up on it immediately and chimed in. It was funny, but it showed that Holly was really listening, which is rare when it’s your first time on stage with a new group of people. Granted, I may be biased, but I’m brutally honest when it comes to music, as Holly knows. 🙂
All in all, it was a great night. Holly had a great time performing, we had a great time singing along and listening to Dr. Dave’s message. Even if you haven’t made it out to BCC yet, you really ought to go visit on Sunday. It’s a great church. Oh, and if you want to see some of the photos that I took and some video too, select this link edit: deleted.