I asked Mom where she normally sat during concerts with Nancy. “Oh, somewhere off to the side. In a space reserved for family,” she said. Well, for whatever reason, the first concert I attended with Mom and Nancy had family sitting in the FRONT ROW, smack dab in the middle of the large church worship hall, planted firmly at Charlie Peacock’s feet. Protesting that we weren’t front row kind of people, we ended up there anyway, not wanting to abandon the one family member who was holding seats for the Webb family.

Turns out the Art*Music*Justice event was an amazing evening of music and social awareness. And when I tried to forget that I was sitting front and center, I found myself lost in the most worshipful concert I’ve ever attended. I heard Derek Webb, Nancy’s son, play years ago at Covenant College when he was with Caedmon’s Call. The Caedmon’s album I bought became the soundtrack for many of my travels over the next four years. I had also heard Sandra McCracken play at Covenant Seminary, and more recently I’ve been a frequent listener of this great album, The Builder and the Architect. But Sara Groves, Brandon Heath and Charlie Peacock were fairly new to me and I thoroughly enjoyed their songs and stories that night. If the tour is coming to your area in the next two weeks, you should definitely go. It’s an inspiring evening.

I learned one more thing that night. Tour buses, as cool and glamorous as they are, contain *tight* sleeping quarters. Nancy showed us the teeny bunk where her grandbaby sleeps. Super cute, but again, teeny! It blew my mind to imagine all the folks on the tour sleeping in one bus and I couldn’t help but wonder what happens when Sara Groves’ kids wake up with bad dreams or when the stage crew/merchandise guys snore too loudly. The bus seemed to me to be a traveling commune—everybody together in one space. I bet they all know each other really well when the final concert comes around!