Lord of Life Praise Team
Top Memphis Musicians Help Church Extend Modern Hand
By Lisa Kelly Eason
Special to the Commercial Appeal
Posted January 31, 2009
The concert was nearing an end when the inevitable happened -- someone in the audience shouted out "Free Bird!" The church on Poplar Pike near Germantown filled with laughter.” Somebody had to say it," Rick McFarland replied over the mic during the Lord of Life Praise Band's recent Saturday night concert. McFarland and the other band members have heard the request countless times over their musical careers. The big difference this time was that the crowd was sober, though not somber.
After spending much of their musical careers playing smoke-filled bars and nightclubs, these musicians now can be found on Sundays performing at Lord of Life Lutheran Church's 11:15 a.m. contemporary service, called Access God. "We have some of the best -- if not the best -- musicians in town here at Lord of Life, and as we get older, we all seem to want to dedicate our talents to something more meaningful and much larger than ourselves," McFarland said.
The band consists of McFarland on acoustic guitar and lead vocals; Dave Wiggins on electric guitar; Keith Tomes on keyboards; Duane Cleveland on drums; Bob Tait on bass guitar; and Roy Brewer on violin and mandolin.
Their collective experiences include appearances on "Late Night with Conan O'Brien" and "Austin City Limits," opening for or performing with such acts as Willie Nelson, Al Green and R.E.M, and traveling the country and the globe as professional musicians. All have played the Memphis bar scene with various bands over the years, and performing for a church crowd represents a major departure for some members.” I’ve spent my whole life playing the devil's music, and now I'm playing God's music," Tait said.
Bill White, senior pastor of Lord of Life since June 1999, said the contemporary service on Sundays was added in the spring of 2005 "to reach out to folks who are un-churched or de-churched." "The band is outstanding," White said. "We really enjoy (the contemporary service) and are committed to it. We have great hopes that it will continue to grow." He said that while the traditional service at 9 a.m. is beautiful, the appeal of the contemporary service is that churchgoers can come in casual dress, and find coffee and doughnuts as well as modern music. "We want people to relax, come on in, check it out and enjoy some great music," he said. "You might also hear some things that might be a blessing in your life."
McFarland and his wife, Karen, first became acquainted with Lord of Life when their daughters attended preschool there. "We met Pastor White and fell in love with him," McFarland said. About an hour after attending a Lord of Life Sunday service for the first time, a church member left a loaf of warm, homemade bread at the McFarland home. "That one act of reaching out made us go back the next week, and we've been going ever since," said McFarland, who joined the church in 2004. "That really touched us and let us know we were welcome."
McFarland, 47, began his work with the contemporary service on a volunteer basis, occasionally playing guitar and drums in the band. Two years ago, his involvement grew into a part-time job as worship leader, arranging songs and assisting in planning the service while working full time as a retail sales manager.
He became a full-time employee of the church in September, as contemporary worship and outreach coordinator. McFarland wanted to assemble a professional band, so he enlisted several friends who've performed together off and on over the years. Some are full-time musicians. Brewer, who has a Ph.D. in ethnomusicology from the University of Memphis, is a violinist with the Memphis Symphony Orchestra and teaches music part time at Northwest Mississippi Community College. Others are what Tomes calls "weekend warriors," those who work full time in other fields while still playing music on weekends. Tomes plays with Walrus; Cleveland and Wiggins play with CornFed Mafia; and Tait with Work Release.
Tomes, a sales engineer for a data-storage company, said he and his family joined Lord of Life two years ago, after the McFarland’s introduced them to the church. ”Rick has taken it from an experiment to a ministry," Tomes said of the Access God service. "It's become something meaningful."
McFarland began playing percussion in sixth grade and attended the performing arts program at Overton High School. After he graduated from Overton in 1980, he became the lead percussionist for Libertyland and also joined a three-year USO tour, entertaining U.S. service members around the globe. While he spent most of his life playing secular music, McFarland said he started listening to contemporary Christian radio a couple of years ago and was surprised by what he heard. "I didn't realize that there's such excellent music in this genre," he said. "Once I started listening to it, I fell in love with it."
He has since written the theme song for the Access God service and a few other contemporary Christian songs, and in December the church began a monthly concert series featuring local contemporary Christian artists who also play secular music. McFarland said discovering the genre led to a unique way to combine his talent and faith. "This provides me a way to serve God and feel comfortable doing so," he said.
