The KXOJ FREE Spring & Summer Concert Series is back, starting Friday night, April 18th with Shawn McDonald in concert at 7pm.
These free, open-air concerts are held at the Riverwalk Crossing amphitheatre in Jenks. Come early and grab a seat in bowl, or bring your own lawn chair and find a spot of your own. These concerts are a great way to get to know the artists in a way that is sometimes not possible in a larger setting. Come early and enjoy dinner at The Melting Pot and stay afterwards to buy a t-shirt or cd and have the artist sign it for you. The atmosphere is great and your whole family will enjoy the music and scenery.
We’ll be announcing several concert throughout the summer but our first two are already ready set! Shawn McDonald on April 18th and then on Thursday, May 1st we’ll present Kristian Stanfill from Passion! Both of these concerts will be fantastic so don’t miss them!
More about Shawn McDonald (April 18th):
Shawn McDonald’s life has been marked by a string of heartaches, bad breaks, and personal mistakes, events that have landed him both in trouble with the law and in love with the Lord – in that order. The streettough but tenderhearted McDonald has never shied away from telling his story – of growing up in Eugene, Oregon, as an angry, rebellious teen who was a drug addict and a dealer, looking for any and every way to escape his pain and a dysfunctional home. In 1998, at just 20 years old and at the end of his rope – and facing nine felony counts on a drug bust – McDonald cried out to God . . . and started turning his life around. He hasn’t looked back since.
When his first album, Simply Nothing, released in 2004, it was clear that this was a guy who would spill his guts into every song and every gig. His lyrics were bold, stark, palpably authentic. Ditto his shows, where McDonald shared his compelling testimony night after night, holding nothing back. “Honesty,” he said at the time, “is huge.”
Ten years later, it still is.
More about Kristian Stanfill (May 1st):
From all outward appearances, Kristian Stanfill was like a lot of teenage kids growing up in the suburbs in the 90’s in a fairly typical American home. He went to church, loved music, and even taught himself to play guitar.
As soon as the church youth group heard he could play a few chords, he immediately became the so-called “Worship Leader.” He learned songs by DC Talk and Audio Adrenaline, and eventually Passion and Chris Tomlin.
While the upbringing might have been typical, the kid was not. He didn’t just pick up the guitar because it was cool. He picked it up because, even without knowing how to play a single instrument, he had been writing songs in his head for years. He recognized a profound need to praise this God he was discovering, and he learned guitar to give voice to that praise.
Those kids who needed a worship leader could not have known they had chosen someone called and gifted by God to lead a generation. Someone who would grow not just to teach Passion songs to his youth group, but also to tour with multi-platinum selling artist Chris Tomlin and take the stage at Passion conferences and the Passion World Tour, reaching audiences numbering in the hundreds of thousands. Someone who would become the first artist added to the venerable roster of sixstepsrecords since its inception, joining the likes of Tomlin, Matt Redman and David Crowder*Band.