A Life Played Out By Providence

SIDE BY SIDE

An interview with College Church Member John Innes.

Seated at the keyboard of a piano or organ, the distinguished-looking silver-haired gentleman appears to play effortlessly. If he seems familiar, he has performed on countless occasions for churches, concerts, Moody Founder’s Week and Billy Graham Crusades worldwide before millions of people.

His musical achievements hardly seemed likely in his early years though, that is apart from some divine interventions.

As a young boy growing up in an industrial town in the north of England, he never dreamed he would someday go on to a music ministry of playing piano at evangelistic events all over the globe.

He was a doctor’s kid living in Bradford, Yorkshire. Perhaps, like many of his peers, he would eventually work in the textile industry centered there. As a boy, he happened to take piano lessons, but had no aspirations of what he would one day become: composer, arranger, conductor, studio musician, minister of music, record producer, recording artist and concert artist of great accomplishment. Certainly, ministry was not on his radar.

“My father was a physician and had his office in the house with a waiting room for patients. He had office hours in the morning and evenings, and our house schedule revolved around that,” as he tells it. Those were the days when doctors still visited people in their homes as well.

But then a boyhood friendship became God’s instrument to help change the course of his life forever. John Innes was a boy of nine or ten when “fortunately for me,” he says, he made friends with a boy the same age who lived on his street. It turned out that the boy’s father was the pastor of a church in town. That pastor’s kid invited the doctor’s kid to go with him to Sunday school.

John’s parents were not churchgoers. Religion just wasn’t a part of his household. He had never been to a church. He resisted the invitation at first, but after a while John agreed to go with his friend to Sunday School. He says that’s where he first heard the gospel, “because it was a wonderful, Bible-believing church.

“It also happened that that was the first opportunity I had to play piano in church, around age 10 or 11.” His Sunday school was putting on a program for the kids. Because he had already been taking piano lessons, the leaders asked John to play the piano for the program. He says he had not received Christ at that point. That led to his becoming a regular accompanist for the church throughout his teens.

Listening to John tell his story gives the impression of one being led not by any human career plan but instead by God’s providence, from one connection and opportunity to another—and another.

“My days in Bradford were very meaningful, mostly because of the church I got involved with. So those were very formative early years that really set me on a different course than might have been the case if that had not happened.”

When John was 16 an evangelist came to speak at his church for the main service, which took place on Sunday nights in the 1950s. John was playing piano for the service that night. The evangelist gave a gospel invitation. John realized he had never committed his life to Christ and never received him as Savior despite hearing about it during those early years at the church and being active in the youth group. He had been convicted of his need but had been putting it off. “I became convinced that this is the night I need to do this,” he says. “That was when I truly came to Christ. I remember the peace that came into my heart at that time”

A few years later, John was playing at a Christian conference in a seaside town in Yorkshire in 1957. Once again, providence led him, in an unexpected way.

“An American missionary on furlough came to the conference, heard me play and said, ‘you would do well to study music at Moody Bible Institute in Chicago. They’ve got a great music program, and it would be a good opportunity for you.’”

In those days it was quite difficult to get an immigrant visa to go to the U.S. Besides, John remembers telling the missionary, “I don’t know anyone in America.” The missionary said, “let me see what I can do about that.” The missionary wrote to an MBI professor and asked him if he would be willing to sponsor John as a student at Moody. “The professor decided, sight unseen, and took me on.”

So, in the fall of 1957, John completed the application process, and by Christmas he was accepted to come as a student to Moody for the next fall term.

Then he began the application for the visa, trusting that if this was really of the Lord then all these things would work out. In the summer 1958 he received his immigrant visa and in August 1958 he came to Chicago. It turned out to be another real turning point in his life.

In those days Moody’s radio station WMBI had a lot of live music programs—student ensembles, chorale groups. “There were many opportunities for someone like me to accompany them on piano. That fall I began playing for them on WMBI.” John also auditioned to join the Moody Chorale conducted by Don Hustad, head of the music department at the time. Later Don began serving with Billy Graham’s music team in 1961.

That would lead eventually to John’s first opportunity to serve with the Billy Graham team. It happened one night during the Billy Graham crusade in Chicago at McCormick Place in 1962. Cliff Barrows, longtime song leader and music director for the crusades, wanted to go home for a day to be with his wife who had just given birth to their fifth child. Don Hustad took over leading the choir for that night, and he asked John to come and play for the service in his place. John was a junior at Wheaton College then. “That’s when I met Billy Graham for the first time. It was the beginning of my connection with the Billy Graham music team.”

That junior year at Wheaton brought another connection: That’s when he first met his wife, Janet. She was a student at Moody then and came to Wheaton to do a program for WMBI. They were introduced by a friend who came with him. After John graduated from Wheaton in the summer of 1962 he and Janet were married. She initially would travel with him to Billy Graham events, though that became less feasible after they had children.

John would go on to spend most of his adult life spent on the Billy Graham team, from the summer of 1963 until 2008, about 45 years. “I can see looking back how God put his hand on me when I was still a kid in Bradford, playing in the church, coming to Moody, and eventually to the Billy Graham team. Those are some of the wonderful ways God sometimes leads you in your life.” Never in his wildest dreams as a kid in Bradford could he have ever imagined that he would go to America and do all these things.

The Billy Graham Crusade gave him a platform. (The evangelist preached the gospel to live audiences estimated at 215 million people in more than 185 countries and territories, according to the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association.) So, it’s safe to say that John performed before millions of people during his ministry.

According to the archives of the Billy Graham Library in Charlotte, NC: “As important as Billy’s preaching was, it took a good team of talented musicians to set the stage for the message to be heard.” John Innes was one of the “crusade musicians” a team of singers, organists and pianists.

As people got to know John, he was asked to do a lot of other things. “Over the course of those years I got to do virtually everything that I ever had any kind of ambition for.” He had the opportunity to write books of piano arrangements and worked with several publishers.

Through Bill Gaither and his studio in Alexandria, Indiana, John got involved in recording and became an orchestrator and conductor for albums by various people who came to know him because of the Crusade ministry. “For the Billy Graham team itself I did a lot of writing and arranging for the choir and some orchestrating too. I am so grateful that through that huge ministry so many other wonderful opportunities came about and gave me the chance to share ministry in a lot of different venues.”

As a notable example, a recommendation from Don Hustad led to his serving as a keyboardist at First Baptist Church, Atlanta under Pastor Charles Stanley for 10 years, from 1986 to 1996.

That occasioned his family’s move to Stone Mountain, GA, east of Atlanta, where they lived for almost 30 years. “I had to miss playing at the church some Sundays because of the Crusade ministry, but I was basically there a lot of the time.” John also played for many years at Moody Bible Institute’s Founder’s Week.

Six years ago, John was looking toward retirement, and he and Janet decided they would like to live somewhere closer to at least one of their four children and some of their grandchildren. Their youngest daughter and her family were living in the Wheaton area at the time. Her children were youngsters and “we could participate in the various events in their lives. We prayed about it” and made the move to south Wheaton.

Another connection brought them to College Church. John already knew organist H. E. Singley. “We thought, let’s go there and see how we fit in.” He has become involved in the music ministry, and on occasion he and H. E. team up on piano and organ for the Sunday morning services. He and his wife also participate in a small group.

A College Church member noted that John doesn’t typically have sheet music in front of him when he plays. “Most of the music H.E. and I play is music I have arranged and memorized,” he explains, and some of it is music that he had co-written or composed himself.

Former professional musician and current entrepreneur Greg Howlett has reflected on John’s influence on him. “I always have sort of seen John Innes’s piano work as pretty much the pinnacle of church piano in general. It is a stylish blend of modern and old, functional and artistic,” he writes on his website. “Pinnacle” in terms not only of the quality of his work but also of the era of piano being featured prominently in church worship and revival crusades.

Asked how church music has changed throughout his years ministering, John says, “Over the last 30 years or so the music has changed radically.” He remembers when the Billy Graham Crusades started bringing in bands doing rock and roll. “A lot of churches obviously now have music ministry that centers upon a worship team, maybe a group of singers on the stage and a band.”

He likes that College Church has a wide spectrum of what we do musically, including the music he values that has stood the test of time: instrumentals, brass, strings, sometimes an orchestra. “At the same time, we’re learning new music, songs written by people like Keith Getty.”

John says he would not feel super comfortable in a church where the music is limited, say, primarily to only rock. “It’s fine and I am happy for people who feel most comfortable with that. I realize for those generations growing up that was the music they heard and listened to.”

John says he has observed that people in the pews often don’t sing very much in congregations where the singing is being done for them by a group on stage. “I love that in College Church we have congregational singing, and I appreciate that for songs I don’t know the music is printed in the bulletin. And obviously the congregation is well versed in reading music, which is a great thing.”

“In the U.S. in general, I would say, in evangelical churches much of the music programs are being done by people who are untrained—people who play guitar and bass who do not read music. They are doing everything by ear, learning by rote. Same with the singers. Many of them don’t read music and have to memorize the songs. To me that’s limiting as to what kinds of things you can do.”

At College Church, John said, we’re privileged to have a much wider spectrum of music. “The people who are up there are musicians and doing a great job of that. We love the music at College Church.”

“The music love of my life is the piano. I am a pianist primarily. I do know how to play the organ and I enjoy that as well,” he says. (He has a master’s degree from Northwestern University in organ and has played both organ and piano for the Crusades over the years.) “I’ve always been a pianist and love the piano. The sounds you can get, what you can do with your fingers, is very special to me.”

Fittingly, an opportunity came for John to play for Billy Graham one last time, at the evangelist’s funeral service a little over two years ago. Well before his father died, Franklin Graham “asked me to be available to play at his father’s funeral whenever that might be.” He says Franklin gave him specific requests of pieces to play.

“One of main things I thank the Lord for every day is the way in which he led in all these different ways. It’s been one of those wonderful things you could never have planned for or thought about. Just the way God ordained it and arranged it. It’s been truly marvelous. I am very, very grateful.”

About the Author | Allan Sholes

Involved in College Church for over 20 years, Allan continues his work as an editor and collaborative writer in Christian book publishing. Formerly a newspaper reporter and magazine editor, he enjoys interviewing people and writing their stories.