WTAMM 'Recommended Reading' Archive
Presenting Mr. Ed Grice, CEO of EST-Productions
Wednesday, October 31st, 2007
The Bio of Ed Grice
Ed Grice, is the signature voice for Ephesians Six Ten Productions, an audio production company that is most known for providing audio production solutions, like radio commercials, voice imaging and audio for video production. Their newest venture is a devotional resource that combines hip-hop and urban music with a dramatized narration of Paul’s Letter to the Ephesians titled “The Six Beats of Ephesians”. The project utilizes an urban mix show style approach with transitions, and voiceovers that the company is most noted for, along with variety of different hip-hop and urban music styles that provide a canvas for each chapter of the Book of Ephesians.
In the late 1980’s Ed Grice, committed his life to Christ, and began his service in the Kingdom of God as D.J. E.S.T., with one of Holy Hip Hop’s, pioneering groups Apocalypse, in Houston, TX. The group was discovered by P.I.D., and was signed to Frontline Records, out of California. Apocalypse, was also active in television ministry, producing and hosting a television program, that aired on local Christian television station KLTJ. The program, which shared the named Apocalypse, was also syndicated to other cities in various parts of the United States. Ed Grice, hosted a teaching segment, produced music, and ministered in song as a regular on the program.� Apocalypse, worked along side pioneering Holy Hip Hop artist like P.I.D, D.O.C., S.F.C., Dynamic Twins, Scott Blackwell, and others.
Ed Grice, has served in radio and broadcasting for over 17 years. He is known mostly for his work at the former KYOK-1590 AM, in Houston, TX. In the early 1990’s, KYOK was one of the Country’s few, all Rap/Hip-Hop stations (attempting to mirror Southern California’s former KDAY 1580 AM). It was during this time that Ed, hosted Houston’s first Holy Hip-Hop Radio Show on KYOK, that aired on Sunday morning’s. In 1995, after KYOK was sold to Faith Broadcasting and formatted for Gospel Programming, he joined the staff as an Air Personality and Music Director. During his time at KYOK, he experienced God prospering the works of his hands and advancing his career to serve as Program Director / Station Manager, and taking on various on-air shifts including hosting the “Wake Up & Worship Morning Show.” During Ed’s, four-year tenure at KYOK, his contributions to Gospel Music and the Community were acknowledged in several ways including being featured in the Gospel Music Industry Round Up in 1999 as one of the Countries influential Gospel Radio Programmers. While KYOK, was owned by Faith Broadcasting, it remained in the Gospel format four years then sold to ABC, and formatted for Radio Disney.
Just prior to being honored by the Houston Holy Hip-Hop Achievement Awards in 2002, for his pioneering contributions to Holy Hip Hop in the late 80’s. It was impressed upon him by God to return to hip-hop ministry with a vision for providing worship centered hip hop resources that reach beyond evangelism, to aid in discipleship, edification, and spiritual growth.� The first installment was “Chronicles of Worship-The CrossRoad Mix Show” release in late 2004. “The Six Beats of Ephesians” marks the second installment in those efforts, and the beginning of what hopes to be a series of urban dramatized scripture narration projects.
Ed’s, vision for “The Six Beats of Ephesians” and subsequent projects like it, is to have them embraced by Pastors and Youth Leaders as devotional resources, and teaching tools for Christian discipleship, and spiritual growth. In an effort to do so, Ephesians Six Ten Productions, has developed group discount and fund raising programs for Churches and Youth Ministries.
Ephesians Six Ten Productions, continues to provides audio production service for a number of Churches, Ministries and Businesses. Affordable pricing makes it easy for small and mid-sized businesses and ministries to have professional grade audio imaging.
For additional information on audio production services or products contact Ephesians Six Ten Productions at (281) 999-3EST (3378), or via e-mail info@est-productions.com. You may also visit on line at Ephesian Six Ten Productions or Chronicles of Worship.
My mouth shall speak of wisdom; and the meditation of my heart shall be of understanding.
—Psalm 49:3
One Last Call-and-Response Song With Ray Charles
Saturday, July 28th, 2007 |
 Pamela Perry |
 Dr. Mable John |
Led to Lead Backup Singer Heeding God’s Call
This Recommended Reading Article Was Submitted By Ms. Pamela Perry of Ministry Marketing Solutions.
Beating the tambourine was nothing new to Dr. Mable John. She had done it for years growing up in the Pentecostal church. But something extraordinarily supernatural happened the last day she did it as the lead backup singer for Ray Charles in 1976.
Following Charles’ famous closing call-and-response song, “What I Say” he ended with the line she’d become accustomed to answering for nearly 10 years: “Baby, let’s go home.” She and the other Raelettes would always answer him with a rousing and melodious repeat, “Baby, let’s go home.”
But this night while exiting the stage she heard an audible voice that was louder than the instruments, singing, and cheering crowd. God boomed: “Let’s go home. I have work for you to do.”
“I told the group and they thought I’d lost my mind,” said the 77-year-old Louisiana-native who now lives in California. “They said, ‘We’re all going home, Mable.”
The three months following this pre-Christmas calling from God in the late 1970’s would prove to be among the most difficult of her life. She had been a devoted Christian since childhood, and had sung Gospel and secular music professionally for more than two decades with the support of her equally devoted family. She’d sung with some of Gospel music’s most famous people, made her mark as Motown’s first female recording artist, and had written more than 52 songs with Ray Charles. But now she had to make a choice to stop everything in order to understand clearly what God wanted her to do with the next phase of her life. Unbeknownst to her at the time it would include pastoring and novel writing.
So, in March she had a tearful meeting with Ray Charles to tell him she could no longer be his lead backup singer and director of the Raelettes. It was difficult to leave the group of women for whom she’d served as a protective second mother. But it was even tougher for her to feel like she was abandoning a man who’d already endured a life of tragedy.
“I didn’t know how (Ray) was going to take it,” John said. “Everyone else he was close to … either died or just left. I didn’t want him to take it as abandonment. But, he took it just as I prayed he would. He supported my ministry until he died.”
While she was relieved to have Charles’ support, the sibling of famous Blues Singer Little Willie John wasn’t sure how she’d be received by others. She wasn’t even sure that she wanted to totally yield to God’s plans.
“I didn’t want to (be a preacher),” said John who owns Fourth House Music and Otis Music Publishing Group and administers 20 other music publishing companies. “I didn’t like preachers because I’d seen too much dirt from preachers who say one thing and do another. And, I was worried that people wouldn’t accept me because I sang the blues. The older people said Blues was the Devil’s music and if you sang it you were going to Hell. But God told me to tell people about Him, not about me.”
So, that’s exactly what she’s been doing since the late 1980s as an ordained minister for Joy in Jesus Church in California with a doctorate in counseling, and through her leadership of Joy Community Outreach to End Homelessness.
She’s also spreading God’s word through another source she never expected: novels. She is co-author of Sanctified Blues and her newest co-publication, Stay Out of the Kitchen, which is loosely based on her life told through the character Albertina Merci.
“I never intended to write a novel,” John said. “I only wanted to do one book to tell my family story. But David Ritz said the way I explained the Bible and handled people he had a vision that I was the spiritual Angela Lansbury of Murder, She Wrote because I solve the mysteries of the heart. So, he wrote the first book and heard from the publisher within six hours when we originally thought it would take six months.”
Three months prior John had baptized Ritz, a Jewish man, in the presence of 70 other Jewish visitors and Singer Janet Jackson.
So, looking back, she doesn’t regret the tough decision she made more than 30 years ago to obey God’s audible voice on stage with Ray Charles. She has also kept the promise she made to her mother during her years singing secular music.
“My mother knew the singing gift (whether Gospel or secular) came from the Lord,” John said. “She just said she prayed I didn’t go into the world or go crazy and to just hold on to the teaching and training she had given me. She knew I knew the Lord. She just didn’t want me to stray from Him. I never did drugs, smoked cigarettes, or drank alcohol even though I was in the midst of everything that was going on. God kept me that way.”
www.MinistryMarketingSolutions.com
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The Trauma Zone: Trusting God for Emotional Healing
Saturday, June 16th, 2007A colleague of mine sent me some information about a must-read book called The Trauma Zone: Trusting God for Emotional Healing.
Here’s a copy of the media release:
Philadelphia, Penn. – There’s enough tribulation, tragedy and turmoil in our world to drive a person over the edge. Managing insurmountable circumstances and coping with situations that are traumatic, have left many people – Christians included – drowning in their pain.
Everyone experiences emotional trauma at some point in their lives. Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) has become an unwelcome “neighbor.” PTSD can be brought on by everyday tragedies such as the death of a loved one, financial distress, or even relationship conflicts. Extreme circumstances like 9/11, the war in Iraq and more recently with the Virginia Tech massacre have increased the incidence of PTSD.
But now there’s real help and hope for those who feel they are at the point of a mental breakdown or besieged by devastating life problems.
For anyone struggling with emotional, mental or destructive patterns of behavior, Dr. R. Dandridge Collins has provided effective tools and invaluable resources for getting help. He is a Philadelphia-based psychologist, ordained minister and adjunct professor at Palmer Theological Seminar who has penned a book entitled THE TRAUMA ZONE: Trusting God for Emotional Healing (Moody/Lift Every Voice Publishers) released this year.
“The book teaches readers how to cope with overwhelming stress by understanding how trauma works, developing an individualized plan of self-care and taking your power back by trusting God for peace,” said Dr. Collins.
“No other self-help book on trauma integrates the emotional work and Christian faith.”
In the eerie, classic television show The Twilight Zone, characters caught in the zone wanted nothing more than to return to normal life. Similarly, survivors of severe trauma fall into The Trauma Zone – a place they want to escape from, but can’t.
In the book, The Trauma Zone, people learn how to:
- Cope with emotions such as depression, anger, anxiety, grief
- Get free from the pain of the past
- Get unstuck, get up and thrive in life
- Break destructive habits by getting to the root issue
- Face reality and create a life of peace and joy
Dr. Collins provides life-changing action steps, scriptures and simple prayers to help readers gauge their own readiness for recovery and find permanent solutions to their issues. Also included is a plethora of self-help resources, recommended readings and a section that shows a reader how to select a support person to help with the healing journey.
“Emotional trauma has the capacity to spin you in circles. You will need lots of support. Just when you think you have loosed yourself from its grip, trauma pulls you back and laughs at your face. Despite the setbacks, do not despair. God’s ability to heal is stronger than trauma’s ability to wound,” says Dr. Collins.
About the Author: Dr. R. Dandridge Collins, who has more than 25 years experience in the healthcare field, earned a BS in Psychology and Spanish with a minor concentration in French from Eastern University. He completed a Masters of Divinity in Pastoral Psychology at Palmer Theological Seminary. He Earned his Ph. D. in Counseling Psychology at Temple University as a Bilingualism Fellow. Dr. Collins is currently the proprietor of the Pastoral Counseling Network and lives in PA with his wife and family. For more information, go to www.thetraumazone.com.
To schedule an interview with author Dr. Collins, contact Pam Perry at 248.426-2300 or email info@MinistryMarketingSolutions.com.
The book entitled, The Trauma Zone: Trusting God for Emotional Healing (ISBN: 0802489893), by Dr. R. Dandridge Collins, retails for $13.99, and is available in fine bookstores nationwide including Borders, Barnes & Noble, Family Christian Stores and at Amazon.com.
Moody Publishers, one of the most trustworthy publishers in the Christian publishing industry, has partnered with the Institute for Black Family Development in the creation of a joint imprint — Lift Every Voice. The vision for this endeavor is to see African-American Christians encouraged in their faith through quality books by African-Americans. The company, based in Chicago, Illinois, has been in business since 1941.
Link: The Trauma Zone.