Nov 11- wee hours of the morning and my random shuffle artist generator on my Ipad comes up with The Tom Edwards Band.
Back in my Mississippi Youth Minister days I was pretty well-connected. I sort of knew everyone and they knew me.
A lot of my connections came from serving at the best kept summer camp secret ever- Mississippi Super Summer. In the early years of Super Summer I think we had 4 or 5 "schools". By the time I left Mississippi, Super Summer and grown exponentially and the number of schools had at least doubled. In addition to a Camp Pastor and Camp Worship Leader, each school also has a worship leader for the week so there's lots of opportunities for guys and gals to get some exposure.
One of those guys I met at Super Summer back in the day was Tom Edwards. Man, I'm a sucker for an acoustic guitar player in the first place and Tom is a great guitarist and a really strong song-writer. He can do all the "covers", he can belt-out an old hymn in a way that will bring tears to your eyes...but gosh, the dude can write some great songs too. His voice...I don't know, somewhere between velvet and butter.
One of my favorite memories of working with Tom was a couple months after Hurricane Katrina. Our church sanctuary was toast. Soppy, wet toast. We had cleaned-up and relocated to our gymnasium. All of our upstairs education space was being used to host visiting construction workers and teams. School resumed about 6 weeks after the hurricane and with it we attempted to resume our "normal" Wednesday night activities which included our mid-week worship service called 605. I wanted to kick it off in a special way so I invited Tom to come lead worship for us. He actually had another gig lined-up but he wanted to come come help us out and the guy who originally had him booked was very gracious in allowing Tom to be with us instead.
In all honesty, it wasn't as big a night as I hoped it would be. We didn't have a room full of kids (we were in the gym instead of the youth room which was still being used by teams) and I don't really remember much about the night.
What I remember is Tom's servant heart to be with us...and I remember all the other times, mostly at Super Summer, when I was always thrilled to worship with him.
Obviously I haven't been in "Youth Ministry" in Mississippi now for like, 7 years (has it been that long ago?) and I haven't kept up with Tom much except through Facebook...but what I know in so doing is that he has continued to impact a generation in Mississippi and beyond. He's a staple worship-leader for myriad churches and youth leaders. He is a worshiper; and he brings others with him. My "well-done" really doesn't mean much...but I believe he'll hear it in eternity and it will mean a whole lot more.
I have a couple of his CD's which I don't think are on ITunes but his two latest projects are available there. By all means check it out on ITunes and www.tomedwardsband.com
Back in my Mississippi Youth Minister days I was pretty well-connected. I sort of knew everyone and they knew me.
A lot of my connections came from serving at the best kept summer camp secret ever- Mississippi Super Summer. In the early years of Super Summer I think we had 4 or 5 "schools". By the time I left Mississippi, Super Summer and grown exponentially and the number of schools had at least doubled. In addition to a Camp Pastor and Camp Worship Leader, each school also has a worship leader for the week so there's lots of opportunities for guys and gals to get some exposure.
One of those guys I met at Super Summer back in the day was Tom Edwards. Man, I'm a sucker for an acoustic guitar player in the first place and Tom is a great guitarist and a really strong song-writer. He can do all the "covers", he can belt-out an old hymn in a way that will bring tears to your eyes...but gosh, the dude can write some great songs too. His voice...I don't know, somewhere between velvet and butter.
One of my favorite memories of working with Tom was a couple months after Hurricane Katrina. Our church sanctuary was toast. Soppy, wet toast. We had cleaned-up and relocated to our gymnasium. All of our upstairs education space was being used to host visiting construction workers and teams. School resumed about 6 weeks after the hurricane and with it we attempted to resume our "normal" Wednesday night activities which included our mid-week worship service called 605. I wanted to kick it off in a special way so I invited Tom to come lead worship for us. He actually had another gig lined-up but he wanted to come come help us out and the guy who originally had him booked was very gracious in allowing Tom to be with us instead.
In all honesty, it wasn't as big a night as I hoped it would be. We didn't have a room full of kids (we were in the gym instead of the youth room which was still being used by teams) and I don't really remember much about the night.
What I remember is Tom's servant heart to be with us...and I remember all the other times, mostly at Super Summer, when I was always thrilled to worship with him.
Obviously I haven't been in "Youth Ministry" in Mississippi now for like, 7 years (has it been that long ago?) and I haven't kept up with Tom much except through Facebook...but what I know in so doing is that he has continued to impact a generation in Mississippi and beyond. He's a staple worship-leader for myriad churches and youth leaders. He is a worshiper; and he brings others with him. My "well-done" really doesn't mean much...but I believe he'll hear it in eternity and it will mean a whole lot more.
I have a couple of his CD's which I don't think are on ITunes but his two latest projects are available there. By all means check it out on ITunes and www.tomedwardsband.com
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