I believe I made some brief inroads with them when, in the middle of my Lou Gossett Officer & A Gentleman rant, "Putcha toes on the white liiiine, you slimy worms!" I told them we'd eventually be doing fund raisers for the youth department, so the kids could go on ski trips or excursions to the amusement parks or, I dunno, buy themselves a big bag of weed— whatever kids do these days.

Instant connection: they knew I wasn't lost in my advanced years (I was an ancient 37 at the time), and I knew they had a lot more personality and individuality than their monolithic classing ("The Young People") suggested. And who would know that, within months of this adventure beginning, I would grow to know and love them as though they were my own.

Youth Coordinator Mildred Hayes, who had worked with me on my Riverside project some time before, once told me youth ministry is a lot like extending your hand to a child to help her walk, or to stand up after a fall. Only, with teenagers, you have to reach for them through a meat grinder.

Mildred has long had a real burden for youth ministry, which is often a thankless task as you tend to draw fire both from the teens and the moms— it's mostly the moms as few dads tend to butt in as much as moms do. Mildred and her team worked tirelessly to motivate the kids to do more than just hang out in back and gossip. She organized fund raisers, trips, a hugely successful fashion show, and numerous other activities that drew the kids together into a real force, a team esprit and a close-knit family. Most have gone off to college or moved away now, but, for the better part of 1999, we were titans.

Teen ministry is not for the faint of heart, but these kids banked major investment from several key angels: Mildred the visionary, Laurice the Energizer bunny who made everything happen, Pam the tactician, Colleen the goalie, and Georgeanna the Master Cylinder. Five friends who loved and supported one another, who had a burden for these young lives and were willing to invest time and money and energy keeping them busy and off the streets.

Mildred and her pals thought a youth choir would help galvanize the disinterested Cornerstone teens, and asked me to help start the choir. I brought with me the name New Witness, from my first band.

None of this would have been possible if not for the backing and friendship of the pastor. Donald Arthur Frazier, a recently retired NCO who had retained a cheerful nature and rich sense of humor despite a life-changing tour of Vietnam and a long military career after. Frazier was pastoring the conservative Baptist church in Fountain, in addition to serving as the Moderator for the Colorado Baptist Southern District Association. Frazier was never a conventional figure, a man of conservative values but contemporary expression of those solid core values. Frazier loved his family and loved kids and loved life and loved his God. Frazier was one of those true believers, a guy who didn't just talk about ministry but lived it. Inhaled and exhaled it with every breath. Frazier worked tirelessly for Cornerstone, his church. It was nearly all he talked about (other than the occasional Broncos game or Star Trek film; he loved to say, "Make It So," in his best Picardian and dissolve into laughter).

The Fraziers, Donald, Mildred, Chris, Steve, and Ashley, were my first real friends here in Colorado. Steve and I began working together at Emmanuel Baptist Church, the area's largest black congregation, where I served as bassist and Steve played drums under direction of the late Bart Reynolds, himself a man of great verve and enormous vision and talent. Bart's brother, Reverend Benjamin L. Reynolds, served as the pastor. Steve, Bart and I became fast friends and, eventually, I came to know the rest of the Frazier family.

I remember the exact moment, though, when I realized Pastor Frazier and I would certainly become friends. Dealing with some small issue concerning his family, the pastor turned to me, in the family room of his house, looked me in the eye and said, "Priest, I have one standard. In my home, in my church, it's the same standard— the Word of God."

Frazier was not a Sunday Christian. Frazier was a seven-day Christian. He was consistent. The things you liked about him in the pulpit, you'd find in his living room. The things that annoyed you about him, his more conservative side, were consistent throughout all of the aspects of his life. It's how he earned respect, if not always admiration, from friends and foes alike: this was who the man was. You didn't get one story on Sunday and another on Tuesday.

Our genuine love of music, kids, and Star Trek helped create a bond that endures to this day. I count the Fraziers as my first family here in Colorado, a colorful gang of five that never had a dull moment between them.

Frazier's support for the New Witness project was unequivocal. He had been praying for new ideas and new ways to engage his growing youth population, and this engaged Frazier on many levels. Not only did he endorse the project, he submitted songs and helped work harmonies and sang lead with them. He never let them go home, ever, without personally praying for them. On their debut Sunday, while the older congregants clutched pearls and sharply inhaled in shock, it was Frazier himself gleefully leading these young adults down the aisle in a James Brown Cold Sweat arrangement of (gasp) The Doxology. 

At the staunchly conservative Cornerstone church, Frazier allowed us to sing Lauryn Hill and Faith Evans songs (To Zion, Keep The Faith— NW's signature song), as well as (double gasp) rap patches through some of the funkier songs. He allowed R&B Producer Bari (a.k.a. Jabari Taylor) to produce thick funk tracks for the kids, which we sang over, to the great horror of the older congregants but the delight of New Witness parents, who saw the lethargy of their teens slip away.

The meeting of the minds was in the core values: academic excellence (Frazier saw all report cards), biblical accuracy (no matter how "groovy" a song was, it had to meet the test of scripture), personal conduct (strictly monitored at all times— nobody was ever going to accuse a Cornerstone kid of being less than the shining example of Christian youth). Remember: Frazier had one standard, and he was a man of his word.

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