An Acoustic Night of Worship with Matthew West at Winchester Church of God

I had this idea to host a concert as a fundraiser for SVTC. Not a church potluck with a guest speaker. An actual concert with an actual artist. The kind of night that fills a room and gets people through the door who wouldn't normally show up to a ministry event.

So I took a shot and reached out to Matthew West. First time we'd ever tried anything like this. And he said yes.

If you know Matthew's music, you know why he was the right person to call. His Billboard Award-winning song "Hello, My Name Is" was written about a Teen Challenge graduate. A guy named Jordan who was a college athlete, got injured, got hooked on Oxycontin, lost his scholarships, lost everything. He ended up at Teen Challenge in North Carolina, and that's where God started rewriting his story. Jordan sent Matthew his testimony, and Matthew turned it into one of the biggest Christian songs of the decade. "Hello, my name is child of the one true King."

That song is basically our students' story set to music. Every person on our stage that night could relate to Jordan.

Matthew had also just released "Grace Wins," which was already climbing the charts. That song hit different in a room full of people who know exactly what it feels like when guilt and grace go to war.

So picture this. Winchester Church of God. Packed out. Balcony full. Standing room only.

Matthew did a full acoustic worship set. But the best part wasn't him on stage alone. Our students formed a mass choir and sang multiple songs with him. Men's home. Women's home. All of them up there in their Freedom From Addiction shirts with their hands in the air.

Then intermission happened. Matthew and his band walked back out wearing our SVTC t-shirts. I didn't ask him to do that. Nobody did. He just did it. The room lost it.

That told me everything about who Matthew West is. He didn't just show up to perform. He showed up because he believed in what these students represent. The same story that inspired his biggest hit was standing right behind him on that stage.

By the end of the night we raised close to $20,000 for the ministry. In one evening. On our first attempt at doing something like this.

But the money isn't what I'll remember. I'll remember our students singing a song that was written about someone just like them, in a church full of people on their feet, wearing t-shirts that said the same thing Jordan told Matthew when he wrote that letter: I'm not who I used to be.

We're doing this again.

If you want to know more about what happens inside our program, check out what Teen Challenge is and where your donations go.