Worship Musician Magazine April 2022 | Page 71

business , it just felt , we felt like the Lord was moving us into a different season . And it was a huge leap of faith . My daughter was seven years old . And if you were to go into a bank and say , " Here ' s my business plan for moving to Nashville ," they would say , " You ' re insane ” because it ' s all about just getting here and making connections with people . So , there ' s never much of a plan . We just had to jump and do it . But before we put an offer in on any house we were moving some of our belongings to a storage facility in Goodlettsville , which is just north of Nashville . We asked the lady that was working that storage facility , " Do you know any good churches around here ?" And she said , " I really don ' t ." She said , " But I know a lot of people say great things about Long Hollow ." And we were like , " Okay , that sounds great . We ' ll try them out Sunday ."
So we went to Long Hollow Church and it was such an immediate decision . And we didn ' t even have to communicate , my wife and I just kind of looked at each other at the end of the service and we went , " Well , that was easy . We know where we ' re going to attend church . We don ' t know where we ' re going to live yet , but we ' ve at least got this established ." And so , I actually attended Long Hollow for about a year . And the musicians , as you can imagine , being Nashville musicians , are operating at such a high level . I thought , " They ' re never going to need me on that stage . I ' m not even going to tell them I play ." It just seemed daunting to me , but I finally felt the need to , after about year of attending , reach out and tell them , " Hey , if you ever get to the bottom of your list of a hundred guitar players , and you ' re in a bind on a Sunday , call me ."
And to my surprise , after I sent them a video showing that I could at least form chords and play some leads , they started scheduling me immediately . And I began cultivating some of my best friendships with the staff at that church . And those are some of my closest friends . It ' s so interesting because I would never attend a church looking to just make contacts for a career . I would never do that .
But God just had the most interesting way of pulling people into my life at that Church that , when I got to a point where I didn ' t have a lot of work , they recommended me to a gentleman named Terry Thompson , who ' s the tour manager for Jason Crabb . They needed a guitar player . And then a guy named Jeremy Brown , who is the finest ear monitor engineer I ' ve ever met in my life , who ' s at Long Hollow , recommended me and the drummer , now drummer for Diamond Rio , Micah Schweinsberg , both of them from both angles recommended me to their tour manager . And before I knew it on New Year ' s 2019 , I was playing with Jason and we haven ' t stopped since then .
[ WM ] Wow . I ' ve got a question about Jason . Is he really as terrific a guy as he seems ? He comes across so nice . He ' s also got a great voice . I mean , he just seems like a super guy , what ' s it like ?
Spence with Jason Crabb
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