The Lord began to speak to us at a festival in Moodus, CT (1999). A planned Sunday morning Gospel Sing-a-long began without a leader present. The folks who came out took matters into their own hands and gathered around one notebook full of songs and sang. Michael asked for everyone’s attention and prayed for God’s blessing on the gathering. As we walked away from it, the Lord put on our heart the idea of having a gospel sing ministry that would include a free songbook to include not only songs but a gospel message like a tract. We prayed over this and asked the Lord to lead us and confirm this to us if it was His will. A few weeks later at another festival, an older lady came over and put her arm around Michael’s shoulder and said, “If there had been a little book with the words in it, we could have all sang along at Moodus.” We took this as our answer.
From this point, we spoke with our Pastor and told him the idea we had for a ministry to Bluegrass Festivals. He was supportive and with his help, we put together the gospel sing book. The following spring (2000), we began the ministry by contacting promoters with the idea. The first couple of years, we promoted the gospel sing with flyers and hand-outs to the MC’s at the festivals. Since then, it has grown to a point that for most festivals that we do, the gospel sing is included in the festival program. This has brought out great crowds, even in the rain.
Over the years, the relationships we have forged with the folks who attend these festivals, has given us the opportunity to minister to them at a deep level. The Sunday morning Bluegrass Gospel Sing and Jam has become only a small part of the overall ministry. We set up a booth with Bibles, and tracts and information about the ministry, which has become the central place for many great spiritual discussions and prayer requests and counseling. THIS is the real ministry of the Bluegrass Gospel Sing and Jam.
