Recent performances

The LaHaye Event Space hosted two concerts over the past two weeks

The band All Sons & Daughters led an audience in worship on Oct. 7 in the LaHaye Event Space. One week later, Matthew Smith & Indelible Grace took to the stage for another concert.

All Sons & Daughters

They quietly walked out onto the stage, into the pool of golden light. The audience cheered as each band member approached their instruments.

“We’re excited to be here,” David Leonard, pianist and vocalist for All Sons & Daughters, said. “This is the first time we’ve ever been to Liberty.”

The crowd welcomed the band with a loud wave of clapping and shouting.

Leonard sat behind the keyboard and began playing softly. He said there were two stations set up on either side of the stage. Each station had a space for prayer and communion.

A sketchbook and colored pencils allowed anyone to come forward and write out a prayer or intercede on behalf of someone else.

“These books have a lot of prayers and art in them,” Leonard said. “So tonight, if you’re feeling like you just want to pray over some stuff, we’d love it if you came down (the aisle) and partnered with us and prayed over the stuff that’s in this book.”

There was also bread and grape juice for those who wanted to come forward and take their own personal communion.

“Tonight, if you partake in it, we ask that you’d break off a piece of bread and dip it in the juice and remember that sacrifice that was given,” Leonard said.

The keyboard went silent. Leslie Jordan, the band’s guitarist, began strumming her guitar, encouraging everyone to sing together.

“We have a really unique opportunity to posture ourselves in a posture of worship tonight before the Lord,” Jordan said. “So we just want to join together in a song that we (the band and audience) know.”

Jordan began singing “Lord, I Need You” with only the sound of her guitar accompanying her. But soon the audience was singing along, holding their hands high in worship. The drums and keyboard were added during the following songs, which included original music from the band, such as “Rising Sun” and “God With Us.”

Jordan said she could feel God’s power throughout the concert. This was evident in the reactions of many of the audience members. One girl kept her eyes closed and her hands clasped in front of her, as if she was praying.

Jordan offered her own prayer from the stage.

“God, tonight you have our attention,” Jordan said. “Would you speak? Would you find us willing to listen, to lay down what it is that we are holding onto so tightly tonight, so that you can speak?”

The audience was then offered the chance to come forward and spend time at the stations. Jordan asked those who felt God tugging on their hearts to answer the call and come take communion or simply act as a prayer warrior.

“Please lean in and listen to God,” Jordan said. “I truly believe he has a unique experience for you in this space if you listen. These (stations) are just ways to help get the conversation started with God.”

Many responded to the invitation. People stepped into the aisles and approached the stations. Some knelt down and scribbled a prayer, while others quietly prepared their hearts for communion.

As the night came to a close, the band members left their instruments and approached the front of the stage. The only music came from Jordan, who continued to softly strum a few chords on her guitar. There were no microphones, no piano and no drums. Just the raw, acoustic sound of the guitar.

Jordan began to sing “The Heart of Worship,” and the audience slowly joined her once more. Before the song ended, Jordan stopped playing, and the only sound left was the voices of the audience echoing around the room.

While Jordan described it as church camp, others said the evening felt very “intimate” and “homey.”

“It was amazing,” Liberty freshman Malaika Butler said. “I loved how it wasn’t like a concert with a lot of clapping, and the glory went to God. It was like a
worship service.”

Matthew Smith & Indelible Grace

As the LaHaye event space dimmed on Tuesday, Oct. 14, blue and purple spotlights came awake onstage and welcomed the band as the four men stepped to the platform. The voices of the audience hushed to mere whispers, much like the quiet and calm voice of the lead singer, Matthew Smith.

Smith strummed a strong chord and quietly introduced the concept of Indelible Grace, the name inspired by an Augustus Toplady hymnal, “A Debtor to Mercy,”
according to Smith.

Smith’s hushed voice transformed into a strong, melodic note as he started to sing songs such as “All Things Are Ready” and “What Wondrous
Love is This.”

While the words to these hymns and others reflected from the projector onto the screen, the audience echoed the melodies of the emotional, truthful hymnals written many years ago.

“I like the way they embrace historic Christianity,” Liberty senior Dave Myhren said. “As a history major, it makes me feel good that we’re not running away and hiding from our history. We’re embracing it and breathing new life into it.”

Though the songs embraced new musical compositions, the words of the hymns remained mostly true to the original wording of the hymnals. Some of the hymns dated back 200 to 300 years ago, but the words still penetrate deep, especially for Smith.

“I hope that through these hymns, people will find Jesus more beautiful and more trustworthy instead of simply a life of religious obligation,” Smith said. “I hope that through these hymns, people can see Jesus has really come to set us free.”

Instead of staying on stage at the end of the concert, the band, not including Smith, exited from the stage as Smith continued to sing.

Smith, after a few more songs, started the Doxology hymn and proceeded to slide away from the microphone and exit the stage.

“It was not about Matthew Smith or any of the other band members,” Myhren said. “They were there to lead in worship and talk up Compassion (International), and you could see that at the end when we sang ‘Doxology,’ they were already exiting because it was not about them. They were pointing to God, so it didn’t really seem like there was
any ego there.”

Through old hymns such as “Hiding Place,” “All I Owe,” “What Wondrous Love is This,” and other hymnal selections, Smith and Indelible Grace gave ancient hymns new life. Through uplifting chords and upbeat melodies, they have been reworking old music for a new generation.

“I loved how honest these hymns were,” Smith said. ”They weren’t just about how great things are now that I believe in Jesus, but they were actually songs that you could sing in the hard times, about how you can depend on Jesus.”

Melodies traveled across the audience as some audience members harmonized boldly and passionately, singing along with Smith.

“On him almighty, vengeance fell, which would have sunk this world to hell,” Smith sang. “He bore it all for a sinful race to make our self his hiding place.”

Lyrics such as these from the song “Hiding Place” struck deeper than the base chords being played throughout the loud speakers, especially for Smith.

Smith said God wants his people to express their emotions and open up their hearts before him during the good times as well as the bad times.

“These hymns have been a way for God to teach me to feel what I’m going to feel, but feel it in front of him,” Smith said. “So much like the Psalms, where you get to express every emotion from the highest highs of celebration to the lowest lows of despair and sadness, God welcomes me and welcomes all of us to feel what we’re going to feel, but asks us to feel it in front of him.”

Smith continues to rework old hymns and will continue traveling on his tour with Indelible Grace, spreading the word of God and bringing old music to new ears.

CAMPBELL is the feature editor.

TILLER is a feature reporter.