Visible Year 1: If Something is Worth Doing, It is Worth Doing Badly

GK Chesterton, the most quoted author of the 20th century and famously leading CS Lewis into faith with his wisdom, apologetics, and humor, once said this. People bristle when I use this quote, but I do use it regularly. Chesterton intended us to realize that something that is important should be attempted, even when not perfected. This would describe our first year of Visible Music College, which was conceived and determined to be brought into existence in February 2000. It started with me and a vision from God for a place with spiritual, professional, and academic elements for creative Christians.

Without any students or a finished location, Visible was born in the summer of 2000 (as Visible Community School of Music and Worship Arts).

I visited a half dozen Christian music festivals with a booth, some flyers, 16 hour days, a passion for training, and some goofball sales tactics which belied my sense of humor and seriousness for the kingdom. On July 31, 2000 we had one student signed up and we had prayed for 20 to start. We also had a closed down old restaurant with a greasy kitchen yet to convert to a college. But by the start of the school a month later, we had 21 students, two freshly developed classrooms (with beanbag chair seating), and a studio under construction. We had a reception desk and a place for students to live at people’s homes for housing. The Home Depot buckets for drum kits demonstrated “worth doing badly” as we were starting with zero dollars and a dream.

Without going into long reminiscence, I recall the 4 drummers, 4 bassists (one who played french horn before this), 4 singers, 4 guitarists, and 4 keyboard players with 1 audio guy and a great balance of new music and fun times building out the school while attending classes in the mornings. Vox Anothen was the first rock band from the school and Phil Q and Aislynn were emerging artists, along with two Krystals and much more. We did a year of training and even did a short tour at the conclusion of year one.

I love that bold starts produce some great fruit and I still stay in touch with many of these staff and students - I hope we all remember those days fondly!