The Liberty Quartet, a Southern Gospel ministry that has been touring for more than two decades, will make a stop in Centralia on Oct. 21
Royce Mitchell didn’t set out to spend more than two decades touring full time as part of a Southern Gospel ministry music group.
The walk of faith that led him as the choir director at a church in Boise, Idaho to form Liberty Quartet in 1995 with three choir members will lead the ensemble at 6 p.m. on Oct. 21 to the Centralia Community Church of God.
Liberty Quartet began touring full-time in 1997 and has performed at the Southwest Gospel Music Festival in Arizona and the Gospel Music Fan Festival in Alberta, Canada. Mitchell is the lone original member remaining in the group, but feels the message it sounds is as strong as ever.
“Most of the guys in the group have been ministry-oriented and two of us right now have been music ministers in a church, so we understand that side of it,” Mitchell said. “Our lyrics are very important to us, so we take a lot of time to choose the songs to create a worthwhile concert. When you’re taking people away from the business they have going on already, you want to make it worthwhile so that they leave with some nuggets of truth they can use throughout their daily walk with the Lord.”
Joining Mitchell in Centralia will be Paul W. Ellis as lead singer, Derek Simonis holding down baritone and Philip Batton in the tenor spot. Ellis has spent about eight years with Liberty Quartet since 2002. Batton joined in 2011 and Simonis came aboard in 2017.
As one of the few Southern Gospel full-time touring groups located in the Northwest portion of the United States, the quartet has traveled extensively to states west of the Rocky Mountains including countless stops in the Pacific Northwest.
As a non-denominational traveling ministry, group members have performed shows in front of all sorts of Christian communities, experience that has impacted their own relationships with the religion.
“I used to be pretty narrow-minded in my view of what constituted a Christian and who I thought would make it to heaven,” Ellis said. “Traveling in this group and meeting the people we have the opportunity to meet, meeting all those different Christians from different cultures and backgrounds has really expanded my faith to not be that narrow. We do notice a difference just going from place to place as far as the culture of the community that we’re in and the way people respond to our music.”
Ellis credits Mitchell with being the cornerstone of the group and having the faith to keep going through times when financial problems could have become too much, particularly during the recession a decade ago.
The group is registered as a 501(c)3 nonprofit and does not sell tickets to their shows. Patrons are encouraged to give offerings like they would at church, but that cash flow shrunk at the same time the national economy did.
Mitchell knew he was giving up a stable lifestyle when he left his position as a music teacher at a Boise school to become a church choir director, let alone a touring musician, but he wouldn’t think of going back.
“I have found it to be incredibly more exciting than having a salary you know you can depend on at a larger church,” Mitchell said. “With this, you go out and trust the Lord. God has been faithful every step of the way. It’s faith upon faith, and it can only grow.”
