Influences, Part 3

I want to introduce you to Ed Plater... he's the worship pastor at Emmanuel Church, and he's one of my best friends and favorite psalmists.

I met Ed, maybe about 10 years ago... I was speaking at a church where he was serving as the Worship Leader. There were a couple of things that struck me about the worship that night: 1) "He's leading worship with a BASS!!" and 2) the fact that it was urban, yet different than anything I'd ever heard. As I got to know Ed more over the years, he would introduce me to music of the likes of Matt Redman, Chris Tomlin, The Katinas, Paul Baloche, Salvador, and many others. These artists are common to me now, but there was a time when I wasn't familiar with them at all!

Ed was definitely the catalyst that God used to move me in a different direction musically. Before I met him, I thought that maybe the Lord was calling me to multicultural ministry of some sort, and my philosophy and style of ministry had already begun to change... but the biggest hang-up for me was music styles. I still had a strong "urban gospel music" leaning, but God used Ed to start me on a journey of discovery as to how I could do music that would appeal to different cultures/races, without necessarily losing its urban flavor... and his influence on me musically has definitely helped shape in my mind what I've envisioned the music flavor of Mosaic to become.