For three years, senior Sam Johnson has been a member of the youth band at Church of the Resurrection. For three years, she has participated in Wednesday night worship at Rezlife. And for three years she has been blessed with beautiful friendships and the opportunity to grow closer to God through music.
The seven band members: seniors Emily Kozacek and Johnson, junior Hunter Moseley, worship leaders Cutter Gage and Cory Ryan, in addition to members from other schools Jennifer Lowe, Matt Chipman and Kyle Goebel have played at a few churches around the area and led worship at Rezlife youth group.
However, during summer of 2010 a future opportunity was presented to them. This would allowed Johnson and the rest of Rezlife band to see what a positive impact their music truly had on others.
“A little conference came to our church from the leadership institute,” Johnson said. “Our band led worship for that group and the ‘big wig’ saw our band and was like ‘we really want you to come lead worship’.”
His offer was for them to lead worship at the Youth 2011 conference. Youth 2011 is an event that occurs once every four years. This year’s was held during the month of July at both Purdue University in Indiana and the convention center in Sacramento, Calif. Each lasted a total of three days.
“Youth 2011 empowers kids to stand up and take charge and teaches them that they’re able to do anything,” Johnson said. “Youth is more than just a number and anybody can do more than the norm.”
The band found out that they would be leading this event about six months before it was scheduled to happen, although the worship leaders knew about it a year in advance. However the event remained in the back of their minds for most of that time.
“We didn’t even really think about it until a month before,” she said. “That’s when we realized we were going to lead worship for 10,000 people. We didn’t know how big it was going to be, but we were excited to share our music.”
Throughout the year the band practiced through leading worship, and then a month before they began to have daily practices some lasting for three hours. The night before they left they had a barbecue to celebrate their successes thus far and have a little bit of fun.
On July 13, the band boarded their flight, paid for by Youth 2011, and made their way toward Purdue University in Indiana. The conference started the following day.
“On Thursday and Friday we sang at Bible study,” Moseley said. “On Saturday was when we led worship. It’s a really cool thing when you’re leading worship and you look into the crowd of thousands and make eye contact with just one person.”
After performing, Rezlife band would sign autographs of the people who appreciated their music.
“It’s like they thought we were famous, and we’re not,” Moseley said. “I guess we were to them though.”
Due to the fact that they were so popular at this event, the band had to be escorted from destination to destination.
“Purdue was a huge campus and we couldn’t walk anywhere without being bombarded,” Moseley said. “We got driven around on golf carts so we wouldn’t get stopped by fans. We also had golf cart races and that was pretty rad.”
Aside from signing autographs the members also got to hear the stories of the students who they’d positively impacted because of their performance.
“This boy had been wanting to start a youth band for so long and he was so inspired by us,” Johnson said. “He was talking to his pastor all week and now they’re jump starting a youth program at his church. It’s crazy how [our] band of 16 and 17 year-olds inspired these kids.”
Another kid took a different approach to show his appreciation for the band and all they’d done.
“One boy painted a picture and gave it to Cutter and on the front of it, it had lyrics ‘in His ocean of love we all sink’ which was kind of a play on words,” Johnson said. “He also wrote a whole letter on the back saying the music we introduced to him changed his life and he sees God so much through us.”
The trip not only impacted those who attended the conference, but it also impacted the band members.
“The first trip was such a ridiculous experience I can’t even put words around it,” Johnson said. “It was so amazing to see kids all come together and worship God. Everybody was very open with their worship and they weren’t intimidated by us or anything like that. That was just really really fun. A great way to start off our mini tour.”
With only a week between the two trips the band was more ready to relax than continue their daily practices.
“For Sacramento we just prepared for one day but we didn’t really practice,” Moseley said. “We just talked through all of our sets.”
On July 27, Rezlife band left for part two of the Youth 2011 conference in Sacramento. It was a completely different experience to the band.
“The majority of the kids had never heard contemporary music,” Johnson said. “They all came from traditional worship. They just thought that we were some punk teen group with loud music. It was so different from what we experienced in Indiana.”
However, it just took the youth in Sacramento a little bit of time to warm up to the idea.
“On the last night they changed and were crazy just like the kids in Purdue,” Moseley said. “You could finally tell that they were there to worship too.”
Unlike the trip in Purdue where all the band really had time to do was eat, sleep, sign autographs and lead worship, this trip allowed a little more free-time.
“The boys became addicted to the game Risk on their iPhones & iPads,” she said. “They literally played it every waking moment. Hunter even made these girls come to him for an autograph because he was being a brat and playing Risk in the corner.”
Despite the girls getting slightly irritated by the boys and their new found addiction, the experience was still a positive one.
“It was really different but each was amazing in its own way,” Johnson said. “We were blessed to get to go. I think what we’ve done will never ever end and people will always know who we were.”
Even though this is her last year as a part of Rezlife band this trip helped her realize that music and worship will always play a major role in her life.
“I never am really going to grow out of the music career,” she said. “It’s my way of expressing how much I adore God. You worship through actions and words, music has always broken me out of my shell and made me more confident as a person. I feel like my music career is never going to end.”