Lance Williams’ 7th Annual True Worship Retreat

Thursday, September 10 to Saturday, September 12, 2009 At The Shiloh Baptist Church in Plainfield, NJ

Some of gospel music’s biggest voices are coming to New Jersey to influence and teach the next generation of gospel artists, church musicians and Sunday morning worship leaders at the seventh annual True Worship Retreat. The event takes place Thursday, September 10th to Saturday, September 12th at the Shiloh Baptist Church located at 515-521 West Fourth Street, Plainfield, NJ 07060. Visit www.trueworship.org for more information.

The retreat kicks off Thursday with daytime classes and an evening sermon, worship service with Grammy-winning Pastor Hezekiah Walker. After another day of classes and workshops, there will be two Friday night concerts. There will be a Legends concert featuring Grammy winners Walter Hawkins, Vanessa Bell Armstrong and Tramaine Hawkins. At the same time, there will be a Next Generation youth concert starring Kierra Sheard, J.J. Hairston, Bryan Wilson, BET Sunday Best finalist Latice Crawford and Jonathan Dunn. The classes continue on Saturday with workshops on all aspects of music performance and music business conducted by artists such as Myron Butler and Maurette Brown Clark, Bishop George Searight, and ministers such as Bishop Liston Page, Bob Sorge and Bishop Donald Hilliard.

With mentors ranging from Donnie McClurkin and Donald Lawrence to Richard Smallwood, Williams has learned the ins and outs of the gospel world and says: “I wanted people to learn from each other during the conference. Initially, we were trying to get 100 people to come the first time we hosted the retreat in 2002 and we got 400 attendees. Last year we had over 3000 so people are hungry for this type of education. I always saw this as a local thing for New Jersey but last year we had people from all over the USA and as far away as Paris and South Africa.”

Lance Williams is one of New Jersey’s best-known, homegrown gospel artists. Over the course of his group Lance Williams and True Worship’s sixteen-year career, they have shared stages with the likes of Grammy winner Yolanda Adams and Kurt Carr. Williams’ latest CD I Live to Love You features tunes written by Donald Lawrence and cameo performances by Sheri Jones-Moffet and Jonathan Nelson. Williams is a worship leader at Highway Church in Paterson, NJ.