Jimmy McLoud

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Jimmy McLoud, 17, is the founder of Sanctuary. He is the lead singer and plays guitar and keyboard. He plays Ibanez electric guitars, Ibanez acoustic guitars, uses Zoom, Danelectro and Boss guitar effects and Yamaha keyboards.

His favorite part of being in the band is seeing worship from a whole different perspective. He says, "When you're singing and praising, it's one thing. But when you have the opportunity to lead and share with others in worship and see what happens, it gives you a different look at what worship really is and should be."

He says, "We know that God has given us all of our talents and abilities. Without Him, we are and have nothing. There is no way we can ever return anything close to what he's given us, so we give back with what we have. We try to make our music an offering, not a show. It's ok to have fun, but we see our purpose as assisting Christians in worship to God, not performing as most people understand performing."

He played with the Greenford Christian Church Praise Band for 5 years and has performed alongside Jim and Diane McLoud of Christian Training Ministries. He is a Senior in High School (fall 2002), and future plans include graduation from high school, and enrollment at Roanoke Bible College. He wants to go into full time Youth/Music Ministry.

He is a member of Greenford Christian Church, in Greenford, Ohio, and also enjoys playing piano, skating, all sports but especially basketball, and hanging out with his friends. You can e-mail Jimmy at jimmy@ctm1.net.

How Jimmy got into the Band

It all started in June, 2000. My youth minister, Chuck Holton, was the dean of a High School week of camp at Elkhorn Valley Christian Service Camp. I wasn't going to go to the week because no one else I knew was going to be there, but Chuck asked me to go to play drums with him for the worship.

At first I didn't think I wanted to go, but after I thought about it I decided it was only a week, so I went. It turned out to be one of the best weeks of my life.

I got to the camp hours before anyone else did, so while the faculty was having their meeting, I played carpet ball. But then people started to come, so I went down to the basketball court to play for a while.

That's where I met Nate. We played for a little bit and I remember him being really shy, but we got along really well, so we hung out a lot that week. Later on that night I met all the other campers and quickly became the "kid with the white hat." That's another story though, a long story.

So to make this story short, at the end of the week there was a talent show I really wanted to do, and I was just going to do something myself, but then things started to happen.

Chuck and I did the worship at night along with Brandon Nash, the bass guitarist from Crimson Cross, but during the day Jill Dornfeld led it. I played guitar for her, and we got Nate to play drums. Later on Tuesday, Nate and I were goofing around on the instruments. I started to play something on guitar and Nate picked up a cool rhythm on the drums and we jammed for a while.

Then we noticed that we were playing the worship song "Sanctuary," and we decided to do that for the talent show. We got Jackie Scott to play keyboard for us and we asked Liz Miller to sing.

So we entered the talent show and the rest is history. We know God brought us together, because there's no other way we'd have wound up playing together in the talent show. So we've chosen to do what we think He'd have us do, and that's where we are today.