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SINGING IS A MINISTRY FOR DARRELL RITCHIE
by Ann Beard, Homefront Editor
Taken from the Thomasville Times, (Sat. May 31, 1997)
Darrell Ritchie is singing some new songs these days, songs from his just
released album. The lyrics may be new, but the messages relayed are as old
as time.
It's what the Contemporary Christian singer does best - telling THE story
in plain and simple language, but not from behind the pulpit. Give him a
microphone and some backup music and listen to the spiritual tunes flow.
Ritchie views his chosen profession as more than a career. It's a ministry,
a calling, if you will. The "choosing", he knows wasn't by Him,
but by God.
For Ritchie, the best part of the concert comes at the end "....when
someone's down at the altar doing business with Jesus. I want to see peoples
lives change," he says.
For the past seven years, ever since graduating from college, the Thomasville
native has been singing in churches, witnessing for Christ through song.
Frequently, his stage is in a Thomasville church, and in March it was at
the T. Austin Finch Auditorium for "Ignite The Light", a Christian
youth rally sponsored by a number of area churches.
"We had 180 young people come forward and make decisions for Christ.
I almost fell over when we gave the altar call. It was awesome. We had about
600 people there. The churches really did it up right," he says of
the rally.
Ritchie was accompanied on that trip by RedLine, an Atlanta band he sometimes
teams up with for concerts. Most of the time, however, he uses the performance
tracks, minus the (lead) vocals, from his albums as the backup for his concerts.
Ritchie has produced four albums. His latest, released in April, is called
NEW WORLD COMING.
Ritchie considers it his best album to date and is getting good response
for the new songs it introduces, especially for the title song.
"'New World Coming' is the biggest surprise. It's the closest thing
to a rock 'n roll song that I've done. It's a pretty rockin' song, and I
wasn't sure I could get away with it 'in church', but the response has been
wonderful,." he says.
Ritchie wrote all but three of the songs on the album, including "Innocent
Eyes", a tune he wrote for his 10-month old daughter Kayla. He penned
"Daddy's Girl" on an earlier album for daughter Jennifer, age
5.
Darrell and his wife Michelle, a registered nurse, met while students at
Gardner Webb University. After earning his degree in Communications (with
a minor in Music) she persuaded him to settle in the Atlanta area where
she grew up. Contemporary Christian music had a stronger following and Atlanta
and the surrounding area, he said. "This area (the Piedmont) was pretty
much true Southern Gospel at that time, but I've watched that change. In
the last few years a lot of contemporary acts are coming through here."
Although his base is in the Atlanta area, he has traveled pretty much all
over the Southeast carrying his Christian message in song to large and small
churches alike. He performed 130 concerts last year, including a stop at
Calvary Baptist in Winston Salem, one of the largest churches in North Carolina.
While a student at East Davidson High, Ritchie played in the band and sang
in the chorus, but it wasn't until after he joined the College Concert Choir
at Gardner Webb and started touring, that he really got serious about music.
"I loved that. I loved living out of a suitcase. I though it was fun."
So much fun that he joined his first Contemporary Christian group, NewMatics,
which also traveled and sang during those college days.
It was about this time that Ritchie says, "I felt like God was telling
me this was what he wanted me to do."
After graduation, the group scattered to about four or five different states,
putting an end to the NewMatics.
"I felt the call to solo ministry, but I had no experience. I had always
sung with a group. I didn't know how to do it, but I prayed, 'Lord, you
open the doors and I'll go.' After that, I started getting opportunities
to sing in churches."
Ritchie remembers those early concerts. "I learned how to do by being
up there and actually doing it. When I first got started, I definitely wasn't
anything to write home about!" he says with a laugh.
But he found he was on friendly ground with his very first concert. It was
held at Memorial Park Wesleyan Church, his grandmother Ruth Parker's church.
Locally, he has also performed at Rich Fork Baptist and Greenwood Baptist
(two churches he had attended as a youth), and at First Baptist, Mt. Zion
Wesleyan, Liberty Baptist, and Thomasville Pentecostal Holiness Church.
He has a concert scheduled at his mom's church, Oak Hill Baptist, on July
6. He mentions both his mom and his late father, Bill Ritchie, in his new
album cover.
When he's not on the road in concert, Ritchie is in his home office in Lawrenceville.
"I'm my own booking agent and promoter," he says. Consequently,
office time is spent taking care of the business end of his career, as well
as the creative end - writing new songs.
Style-wise, Ritchie says he is most often compared to nationally known artists
Steven Curtis Chapman and Ron David Moore.
"I try to write in the same style. They write in a very everyday, conversational
style, and that's the way I write." He adds, "we, as Christians,
almost have our own language, catch-phrases we use in church. I try to avoid
that, because I want people who are not Christians yet to be able to listen
and understand."
Ritchie finds that his biggest audience come from youth - pre-teens and
teenagers to couples in their 40's or 50's.
But then again, he finds some surprises at his concerts. After one performance,
"A lady, had to be in her 80's, came up and bought on of my CD's."
And he finds young children are also receptive. "Little kids get the
posters off the walls and ask me to autograph them!"
Although that's an ego booster for the musician, it's the ministry that
counts.
Ritchie's aim is not fame and fortune. He looks at his life from a more
spiritual aspect. "From a ministry standpoint, it is to be in as many
situations as possible to be able to tell people about the Lord. That's
what my life is all about."