In a surprising move for 2005’s CCM Readers’ Choice Awards earlier this year, you named David Phelps your “Favorite Vocalist.” Well, we’ve got good news for you. With The Gaither Vocal Band’s youngest member striking out on his own, it appears you’re going to be hearing that beloved voice much more often.

There’s nothing like losing a hero. Just ask award-winning vocalist David Phelps, who, like any good songwriter, knew what to do in response.

Write a song.

According to Phelps, a firefighter named Ed Martin served as “the Mother Teresa” of his community, a rural town south of Nashville, Tenn., where Phelps lives. The head of the volunteer fire department and a hero by any measure, Ed always looked out for others through acts of kindness big and small, such as leaving a note on a car windshield: “I noticed your license tag was expired. You might look into that.”

Ed Martin died unexpectedly of a heart attack recently, grieving the town. Phelps, along with fellow writer/recording artist Cindy Morgan, wrote a song to preserve the instructions Ed’s life provided:

“?How to love your neighbor and how to love your wife/Wrap your arms around your children and pray with them each night/Thank God for all the good things/’cause the good things are enough/The ties that bind and leave behind a legacy of love.”

That song, “Legacy of Love,” is “the practical side of Christianity,” Phelps says. It embodies the admonition to love God and love each other — a way of life Ed Martin had put into practice.

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David Phelps intends to tell this story and many others like it, now that he’s a full-time solo artist promoting his latest project, Life Is a Church (Word). In June, Phelps walked away from his eight-year stint with the multi-platinum Gaither Vocal Band, a season marked with many awards and accomplishments across more than 30 projects. The Texas native ached over the decision, fearing,  among other things, the new venture might put his family at financial risk. “When you step out of a high-profile group like that,” he says, “you wonder, ?Will I just step into anonymity?'”

But he had struggled increasingly with his part-time solo career taking a back seat to the Vocal Band’s mission. More and more, David felt his own charge welling up inside. “When I would tour as a soloist, I would find so much joy in the freedom [to be] able to communicate to an audience with the gifts God’s given me.”

Phelps was also tired, playing 80-90 dates with the Gaither Vocal Band and then filling his calendar with some 50 additional solo gigs. He was short-changing both jobs, he says; and, alarmingly, for this devoted husband and father of four active children, when he arrived home the emotional gas tank was empty. Phelps says he found himself in a “dark place.” Sometimes he didn’t want to get out of bed. His mindset kept him from feeling like himself.

 

Copyright © 2005 CCM Magazine, Used by Permission

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