08496
July 10, 2008
Stairway to heaven
Montreat’s music leader prefers ‘enabling’ to performing
MONTREAT, NC — In recent months, Jeffrey Harper has played in front of more than 18,000 fans of such supergroups as Stone Temple Pilots, Lynyrd Skynyrd, and the Hank Williams Jr. band.
Jeffrey Harper, 23, music leader for weeks 3-4 of the 2008 Montreat Youth Conferences. Photo by David Ealy But he’d trade it all “in a heartbeat” for the gig he’s got right now: music leader for the 2008 Montreat Youth Conferences here this week and next (July 6-18). More than 1,300 high schoolers here for week three of the six-week summer youth conferences appreciate the choice he’s made.
“This is my dream job,” Harper, 23, tells the Presbyterian News Service July 9 in an interview between leading music for the morning plenary and rehearsal for the impromptu choir of youth conference participants who will sing at Friday’s closing worship. “I’d do it full time if I could.”
This is Harper’s second summer leading music for youth conferences here. He’s also led music at “Montreat West” in Colorado and for middle school conferences here. Next winter he’ll play in the “house band” for Montreat’s college conference with his rock’n’roller friend John McClure, professor of homiletics at Vanderbilt Divinity School. The two both live in Nashville, Harper having graduated from Belmont College there last December.
Every gig at Montreat is like old home week for Harper, a native of Birmingham, AL. “My mom was an adult leader when I was still too young to participate,” Harper says. “I’ve been here every summer since 1996 except for one. A lot of the folk here are former counselors of mine.”
Because he’s led music at so many Presbyterian events — presbytery and synod gatherings as well as Montreat — preparing the repertoire for the Montreat Youth Conferences is not difficult, Harper says. “I’m supposed to write one theme song for the conference, but I write two — one more upbeat for morning plenaries and one slower for evening worship.”
This year’s upbeat tune mirrors the conference theme: “Throw Open the Doors!” The more worshipful song is entitled “Alive.” Both were completed just hours before the conference began July 6. “I can’t write without the pressure of deadlines,” Harper admits with a chuckle.
Jeffrey Harper (left) rehearses a musical number for presentation during one of the Montreat Youth Conference plenaries. Photo by David Ealy
The more important preparation for Harper — especially after the temptations of the arena-rock road with the likes of the notoriously drug-addled Scott Weiland of Stone Temple Pilots — is spiritual. “Getting the right mind-set and spiritual grounding is so important,” he says. “But it usually clicks right in when I enter the [Montreat] gate. This is my favorite place in the world.”
Harper says Montreat offers him the same kind of spiritual environment he hopes the high schoolers here will experience. “One thing I love about Montreat is people let go of their inhibitions in a good way. It’s a free, open honest space for spiritual resetting,” he says. “It gets me back on the road for how I should be as a Christian and to exude that to all those around me. It reminds me how much I enjoy being a full-living Christian.”
Harper’s ability to follow his musical calling wherever invitations from Montreat, presbyteries and other PC(USA) groups lead him is in no small part due to the support of his wife, Britt. She’s an optician and on weekends the two perform together in a “covers” band. Harper describes himself as “a part-time stay-at-home husband.”
“We live comfortably,” he says, “Sometimes I think I should get a day job, but Britt is supportive as can be — she’d rather I share my music than live luxuriously. She’s my rock.”
For Harper, his music is all about loving God and the kids with whom he shares his music. “I love being able to share the gift I’ve been given and to be really good at youth ministry, which is what this is, you have to love it.
“When I’m at Montreat,” he says, “I’m enabling, not performing.” | 
