Tour Day 9 – New Birth Church in Murrieta CA

Hey everybody, Joseph again!  I hope you are all enjoying hanging out with me a little every night. I am certainly enjoying it!

Today, Matt and I started the day trying to remind everyone to put on their – Matt’s words – “fake it face”.  You should have seen the zombies that rolled into the breakfast room in the hotel this morning. Disney did a number on all of us, and there wasn’t a person in there that wanted to be awake; I’m including sponsors. I’m sure most of you have a “fake it face”.  It’s what you put on for Monday morning after vacation when you have to go back to work.  When you have to snuggle a crying baby at 2 a.m.; you don’t want to, but you do it anyway.

But what we had to do this morning was important. We pulled up to New Birth Church about 9 a.m. and started setting up for our first performance since we live streamed for you last Tuesday. Fortunately for the singers, the church provided an extra burst of energy that provided the singers all the motivation they needed for their fake it face. It was a multi-cultural church that thoroughly embraced the black-church tradition of fiery preaching accompanied by a LOT of congregational involvement and periodic augmentations of the preaching from a vintage Hammond B3 (if you know you know). I imagine many (most) of the singers had never seen anything like that. When we sang “Brighter Day” you would have thought the roof was going to blow off the building. Dancing in the aisles, hands waving, you get my drift. The singers LOVED it. I think that is one of the great things of New G – getting to see church traditions that are likely vastly different from your own.

This evening was the log awaited tour worship.  About this time every year, the singers are finally feeling the full effects of long bus rides, annoying quirks of their friends, and the fatigue that comes from being extremely busy non-stop. Tour worship is way that our worship committee gets to help our singers reconnect to the mission of tour, God, and each other. This year we all made necklaces out of decorated wooden crosses and had a mass re-induction to the group.  You could imagine there were tears.  So. Many. Tears. But, especially for teenagers, sometimes you need a good reset experience that brings you to tears, and this year didn’t disappoint.

Well, friends, that wraps it up for tonight. Tomorrow we’re off the Prescott, AZ!

No Sheryl Crow tonight.

Joseph