Third Annual Christian Musician Summit to be Held In Nov.
An eclectic group of artists and musicians will be featured at the event including, Paul Baloche, Abe Laboriel, Matt Redman, Sheila E., Phil Keaggy, Lincoln Brewster, Michael Gungor, Vicky Beeching, and others.
The 3rd Annual Christian Musician Summit (CMS), a nationwide workshop and exhibition for praise ministries, will be held this year from Nov. 11-12 at Overlake Christian Church in Redmond, Wash., drawing hundreds from all over the nation and Canada.
Over 2,000 are projected to attend this year’s event, as compared to the 1,300 last year.
“I think the growth that we’re seeing can be attributed to God’s divine plan,” says CMS founder Matt Kees. “We’re doing our best to provide a place where the needs of churches who want their worship ministries to grow can be met.”
Get Our Latest News for FREE
Organized by Kees and Christian Musician Magazine Publisher Bruce Adolph, the CMS is a “place where we bring together those who want to learn with those who excel in their gifts and talents in order to equip the priesthood of believers to be excellent for the Kingdom of God,” according to the event’s website.
For Kees, the Summit is a way to help bring music back to its “primary purpose” of glorying God.
“God created music with a primary purpose to glorify Him,” says Kees. “From my standpoint, I think that the music coming out of the churches and Christian industry should be the best, because we’re using music for that purpose.”
An eclectic group of artists and musicians will be featured at the 2005 Christian Musicians Summit including, Paul Baloche, Abe Laboriel, Matt Redman, Sheila E., Phil Keaggy, Lincoln Brewster, Michael Gungor, Vicky Beeching, and others.
“Seminars are usually affiliated with a record label or genre which limits who they can have as their talent and roster,” explains Kees. “But that’s one of the cool things about our event, that it crosses stylistic boundaries.”
The event’s focus on contemporary music is for the sake of relevancy to the church youth, says Kees.
“I think we’re at a huge transition point in the Church where churches are realizing that organs and traditional liturgies aren’t necessarily reaching people the way that they used to,” says Kees. “Music, especially in American Christianity, is such a huge part of people’s lives and it’s difficult to reach a young person with a language of music that they can’t understand.”
While musicians are certainly the focus of CMS, this year’s event will also feature a number of workshops for Audio and Visual technicians including “Mic Selection and Usage” and “Developing a Technical Ministry.”
Another prominent feature of the Summit will be the exhibition portion, where companies such as Bose, Avalon Guitars, and Gallien-Krueger will be displaying and selling their equipment at discount prices.
“We’ve developed a lot of relationships with different companies and our exhibit hall is going to be quite large this year,” says Kees. “These companies are really discovering that they need to partner with the churches because it’s such a booming market, and many churches are looking to jump into the next century with the latest in musical, audio, and visual technology.”
To register for the event or for more information, go to www.christianmusiciansummit.com.
