Shala and the Sugar Beat Boys

In 2025, Shala and the Sugar Beat Boys began experimenting with a simple idea at Bountiful Community Church: What might happen if we opened the doors of the church and invited the community to come make music together?

That idea became the BCC Music Factory, a series of community music nights held in the church gym. Rather than creating another traditional church program, we wanted to create a space where musicians and music lovers could simply gather. We hosted open mics, jam sessions, dancing, live music, and opportunities for musicians of different ages and experience levels to share the stage.

The emphasis was never on perfection. It was on participation, belonging, creativity, and joy.

The church gym became a different kind of sacred space—amplifiers and microphones came out, musicians plugged in, people danced, strangers played songs together, and relationships formed around the shared experience of music.

For me, this became an important experiment in what ministry beyond traditional worship can look like. Church does not always have to begin with a sermon or a sanctuary. Sometimes community begins when someone opens a door, sets up a microphone, and says:

Come in. Bring your instrument. Bring your voice. There is room for you here.

Shala and the Sugar Beat Boys helped provide the musical center for those gatherings, but the real music was created by the community itself.

The BCC Music Factory reflected something I continue to believe deeply about ministry: our sacred spaces are meant to be used. They can become places where the larger community encounters hospitality, creativity, friendship, beauty, and belonging.

Sometimes ministry sounds like prayer.

And sometimes it sounds like a bass guitar, a drum kit, a room full of people, and somebody shouting:

“One, two, three, four!”