Year 16: From There to Here to There

Sometimes we have to go from there to here to there again. I am reminded of this when I think back to our 2015 starting group at Visible Music College. We welcomed our first “Chicago Campus only” students who never came to Memphis except to perform and visit for Winter Retreat. We welcomed our second student from Nepal. We welcomed our first student from Ghana. We welcomed students who would finish their degree at our future Dallas Campus. They defiantly came from “there” and we had a diverse group - from as far away as Hawaii and from all over Memphis, including two from Christian Brothers High School in Memphis.

We just remember them fondly as Kristian, Eulando, Dhiren, Abigail, Noelani, Kira, Kameron, Freedman, and Garrett.

Many of them had already tried “there” somewhere. We get a lot of students who find music college unrewarding and want to find people who understand and appreciate and love them. They find that in Visible Community, Others are fresh to college but would never have chosen ANY college if not for our program. So, we host new “theres” to “here” every year and are amazed at the distances they go from here to the next “there”.

We had two campuses this year and we had multiple shows in each location. Chicago Campus was energized for the region and Memphis was becoming more hometown flavored. We were building the idea of Dallas and San Luis Obispo in the background and had a great time working our Strategic Plan for “inspansion” (building the new locations in places that we were already joined with tightly rather than “sexy” sites). We were stretched pretty thin as this year kicked into high gear and were working toward our second major transition of staffing from the early days, the midtown days, and now the Downtown/Global days. It is always a growing experience for Hearst to be pulled in different directions of ministry, but we can best often relax and watch God work in new areas as we allow peoples’ paths to diverge.

Staff and student went from here to there. One is touring with Bruno Mars. One is leading church ministry in Chicago as a local “star”, one is working on more schooling, one is back in ministry at our original location in Lakeland at The Refuge Church on staff, one is back in Africa in ministry, one tried out for the Olympics and still plays music, one leads an important Sickle Cell awareness/funding/creative group in Memphis, and most are in ministry where their family is and are serving the church in some capacity.

You just don’t know where you will end up if you start moving towards a new “there”.