Dove awarding winning praise and worship group Shane & Shane will be performing at Union College on Friday, November 13, for Family Worship during the Acrofest 2015 weekend. Best known for songs like “Without You” and “Praise the Name of Jesus,” these longtime friends and collaborators have dedicated their lives to creating worship music and helping other aspiring musicians do the same.
Shane Barnard and Shane Everett met at church while they were both attending Texas A&M University in 1997. Everett had just recently had a life changing encounter with God, after playing a gig with his former band in a darkened bar. “This bar was a picture of destruction for me,” Everett told Audra Smith and Will Dawson of The 700 Club. “I think it was just a picture, a word, and the Spirit kind of welling up within and creating new life and rebirth. It’s a miracle, and it happened there. I’m calling the guitar player in the band and I’m like, ‘Man I’m out! I can’t do this anymore.’ I want to love Jesus, that’s all I really knew to say. I just want to love Jesus.”
Barnard had a different experience at college. He led worship at a christian student group called Breakaway and began a recording career with another friend, Caleb Carruth. Together, the two released an album, Salvation Still Remains, in limited numbers. Barnard and Carruth both agreed to leave it at that, and parted as friends.
Barnard and Everett released their first official album together, Psalms, in June of 2004. Since then, the duo has recorded 19 albums and received Dove awards from the Gospel Music Association for their participation in two compilation albums: Glory Revealed and Glory Revealed II. Their latest, The Worship Initiative, shares the name of their new project to guide and train musicians, worship leaders, and songwriters.
These two friends have been together for over a decade now, and claim that their teamwork and accountability keeps their focus in the right place. “To be a part of each other’s lives, to be at the end of the day sharpened and to be desperate and crying out for a God who can satisfy us—I think that is why we are together,” Shane Barnard said in The 700 Club interview.
“My criteria when looking for concert performers is to find people who are worship centered, not just a band that plays music labeled Christian.” said James Dickerson, a sophomore exercise science major who coordinates Union’s worship concerts. “I really wanted to try and find people who encompass something compatible with Union. And that’s what Shane & Shane does—they are fantastic worship leaders.”
The concert will be held at the College View Seventh-day Adventist Church at the corner of 48th and Prescott on the Union College campus. The event is free and open to the public and doors will open at 7:00 p.m.
By Alisson Knoop, student writer