Me and and my partner DJ Fella and Anointed Voices have just came back from New Orleans, Louisiana from performing for the first live taping of the Bobby Jones Gospel Showcase. My partner DJ Fella and his group were excited about the extended invitation that they received from the bishop in charge of coordination of the event. During our stay in New Orleans, I realized that a lot of artist who were performing from all over the country were indeed trying to promote their music career, and what better place to do that than to get seen performing on Bobby Jones Gospel Showcase. Many of these artists and groups were down to earth, while from my perspective, others were what I call "HOLLYWOOD" in the head. DJ Fella and his group are well known for stellar performances all over the East Coast region, but when we performed on the pre taping of the Bobby Jones Gospel Showcase, the performance didnt go as planned at all. There were technical difficulties, but mainly the performance itself didnt go well. After the re-takes of the performance, we made our exit off of the stage with silence and hidden dissapointment. The majority of the dissapointment  lied on DJ Fella being the group leader who felt responsible for the performance. I knew that this is was truly Satan trying to discourage our spirits. The music is a ministry, but what I ve always realized is that everything that we do in our walk in Christ can serve as a ministry as well.  And I knew that the performance incident was truly a test from God for us to show our true intent in our ministry of music. I immediately encouraged the group that we need to hold our heads high in the midst of the audience and other performers to set an example of ministry in the midst of our messups. The audience actually embraced us showing us incredible love despite our less than stellar performance. I believe that this was a test for them as well to see where their hearts truly were, meaning whether they were focused on who the best performers were versus the messages and the ministries delivered and received. A couple of hours after our performance, we had talked about it and eventually found joyful laughter in the performance which aleviated a lot of stress and discouragement in the group, thus unifying us in prayer, rebuking that spirit of bondage that temporarily over took us.  We were coming from eating and encountered a New Orleans high school band that was just finished playing for a local convention for a private business, when we decided to just videotape some footage of us and the band just playing around. Just from that act alone, we ended up being invited to the band s school to perform our songs as well as having the school marching band LEARN AND PLAY OUR SONG WITH US ON THEIR SCHOOL AUDTIORIUM STAGE and to GOD BE THE GLORY THEY LOVED US!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  We were requested by the students who saw us to take pictures and to perform live outside of their school. This all occured a day after our performance at the Convention Center for the taping of the Bobby Jones Gospel Showcase.  

We were on the poor side of New Orleans where the relief efforts are disasterous and where tourist are discouraged to rarely go. But we were truly blessed to have the opportunity to see the real side of the city where we received our greatest blessing, just being able to minister to kids in New Orleans right in their city in their school, which is somthing that no one at the Bobby Jones Gospel Showcase got to do.

Truly this is an example of ministry in the midst of our mess up, which shows the favor that God has on what we do from the heart.  Its ministry and not entertainment for us.