Anybody
who calls himself a “musicianary” is really serious about his role in music in
the Creator’s world. That much can be said about Keith Lancaster, a guy who’s
in touch with the “Covenant of Love” that he feels compelled to proclaim through
the gift of music he teaches to others. It was around 1996, and whether Keith
was in Cullman, Alabama (see the map-picture here) – where he lives currently –
or somewhere else is not clear. Did he actually conceive the song while there,
or was it during one of his many ventures on the road to teach acapella music?
Cullman is just a point of contact for Keith and what he does, really, as his
biography makes clear. He has what he calls ‘…the greatest instrument of music
ever created’. He’s not boasting, but instead recognizing Him who gave and
still guides Keith in what he does. He – God -- is the keeper of the covenant.
Keith
Lancaster’s life has multiple facets that all lead back to the music and the
God who has given him this role as a ‘musicianary’. @Musicianary is how you can reach him, the
culmination of what began even before 1982 when 25-year old Keith established
the Acapella Ministries. It was an outgrowth of the singing group ACAPELLA that
Keith and three friends started in Tennessee, and which has spawned several other
groups – Acapella Vocal Band (AVB), Vocal Union, The Lancasters, and Durant. So,
in 1996 during the midst of this burgeoning music ministry, Keith wrote about
the covenant embedded inside a Divine love that he was experiencing and communicating
in all his travels. What had become crystal clear to the middle-aged Keith,
some 14 years after he began to form his vision for his life’s work, was that
God was still at work to ‘keep His covenant of love’, a refrain he has us sing
to remind us that God’s still active in each of us. What precise circumstances
motivated Keith to write ‘Covenant…’ is not clear from any of his online information.
Yet, just read a bit, and you surmise that he must feel his cup overflowing,
and that when he and his wife Sharon (his co-musicianary) travel to conduct
Praise and Harmony workshops, Worship Leader Institute gatherings, or “Singing
at Sea” cruise vacations, they are conduits of a special bond with God. It’s
not surprising that they’ve been to all 50 states of the U. S., as well as
provided training for worship leaders from other nations through the worship
institute they facilitate.
Do you suppose
that the Lancasters feel just an obligation to travel and do what they do to
make better singers among those they meet? It’s much more than that, wouldn’t
you say? They must feel that God’s mission in their lives is something in which
they’ve become emotionally and spiritually invested – God’s purpose is theirs
too. A life spent joining voices together in a common adoration is a pretty
special thing. In fact, it’s probably pretty hard or nearly impossible to adequately
describe it; it has to be experienced. And, once you have that sense of exhilaration
wash over you, you keep coming back for more. That would certainly explain what
has been going on with Acapella and its offspring since 1982. The Lancasters
didn’t invent this, but they’re doing their part to underscore the phenomenon…and
its real origin. It’s all Him.
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