Healing Hannah, Healing Me: You're invited

I've been a part of East Bayou (now "The Bayou Church") since 1998.

And in all the years that I've been there,

I've never once invited anyone to church just to hear me sing.

It's never been about me, but only about Jesus-
who is worthy of all our praise, our love, and our adoration.

Besides, there's so many great reasons to come to The Bayou Church.
I mean, Jesus shows up.

The God of all creation is worshipped and adored and meets you right where you are, warts and all. Folks are real there. I've made lifelong best friends at The Bayou.

There are so many reasons to choose The Bayou as your home to worship.

But this week, I want to invite you to come to church with me to support me

as I sing my last Sunday with the folks at The Bayou in Youngsville.

I want you to come and see what we've got going on in our little church.

It's something pretty amazing.

Five years ago I was asked by Youngsville campus pastor Andy Tribe to go on a journey with him:

To open the doors of a Youngsville location of East Bayou with him.

To build a band from the ground up.

To leave all I knew and step out in faith to lead this new body of Christ in song.

And it's turned out to be the best five years of my life.

But it was not just about going to church and leading worship.

We built something from the ground up. We built friendships.

We built community in Christ. And we've gotten to see God at work.

Andy is an amazing person. And not just because he is my pastor and my boss.

He's just a great guy. He's the real deal. He doesn't pretend to be better than anyone else.
He's just honest and sincere, and just as messed up as the rest of us!

And it's been SUCH a blessing to work with this man.

But let me tell you how the band came to be...

In the early days, Randy "Brud-n-law" Simon and Daren Moody helped me out by picking up instruments they hadn't played in years, just so we could have a band on Sunday morning.

Brian Petry has been with me since the start, and I don't know what I would have done without him. We played together at the Lafayette location and he agreed to help me out in Youngsville because he believed in what we were doing out there.

He's a CRAZY talented drummer and a good friend.

I don't know about other singers, but I anchor to the drummer. And I knew that if BP was behind the kit, it was going to be a great morning.

Then one day, this friendly bearded guy named Glenn Lancon walked into our church.

That was Christmas eve, 2010. And he's been by my side every single Sunday since.

He's supported me as a leader, he's brought excellent musicians to our church, and He has grown tremendously in his walk with Christ. It's been amazing to see what God has done in his life, and my life is richer because he's in it.

And see those guys behind him? That's Gordon Aloisio on the left.

He can flat out PLAY the bass, folks. The level of musicianship rose exponentially when he came on board.

And he's a superb human being as well. I'm blessed to call him friend.

The guy on the right is Glenn's son, we affectionately call "lil Glenn."

The kid's got MAD skills.

And I've been blessed beyond words that I've gotten the chance to play music and worship the Lord with these guys.

And then there's Jill Merkl.

She's quiet and reserved, and you'd never know that she has a really major job where she deals with multi-million dollar accounts every day. And you'd never know that she can play jazz piano like nobody's business. She has become a dear friend to me and I'm so privileged to know her.

So many other folks have been with me on this journey: Chalan Thibodeaux- bass player extraordinaire and one of my best friends; Linton Broussard- another amazing bass player and super person; Mona Tribe- who has sung by my side every week since the day we opened; Louis Bourque- drummer and all around great guy; and many other folks that I'm thankful for.

And of course our awesome techies, Jeremy, Scott, Tyler, Dana, and Julie.

They've given of their time every single week that we've been open to make us sound great.