MercyMe joins Grand Rapids Symphony for only Christmas show with orchestra in Midwest

One year ago on Thanksgiving Day, MercyMe was riding on a float in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, an experience that guitarist Mike Scheuchzer remembered as a surreal experience.

Tens of thousands of people lined the streets. Thousands more hung out of window or stood on roof tops.

As the float made its way down 6th Avenue, Scheuchzer could see people in apartments, celebrating Thanksgiving.

“To ride down the road and see that many people, crammed on the street, it was literally like being in a movie and right in the middle of it,” he recalled. “That was one of the most surreal things I’ve ever done in my life.”

Today, the Grammy-nominated band from Greenville, Texas, is preparing for its 2016 Christmas tour, which opens Nov. 29 with the Grand Rapids Symphony at Resurrection Life Church in Grandville.

So far, the band has only done about eight to 10 concerts with orchestra. But if Scheuchzer had his way, all of the group’s Christmas shows would be with symphony orchestra.

“It’s a stunning experience,” he said. “To add what an orchestra brings, it makes it feel that much more like Christmas. It’s really beautiful.”

Grand Rapids is the only place in the Midwest where MercyMe will perform its Christmas show with a symphony orchestra this holiday season, making the concert an extra special experience for them.

Grand Rapids Symphony Associate Conductor John Varineau will lead the concert.

“None of us are classically trained musicians,” Scheuchzer said. “It’s amazing to us to know how much work has gone into these players’ lives. We have huge respect for what these men and women do. We stand in awe.”

Naturally, MercyMe will play some of its biggest hits at Resurrection Life Church. Songs such as “I Can Only Imagine,” which became the first single in the Christian genre to reach platinum status with over 1 million digital downloads, made the group one of the most successful Christian acts of the past two decades.

But the Christmas concert featuring the ResLife Choir, led by Ken Reynolds, is full of holiday music.

“I used to hate original Christmas songs,” said Scheuchzer, age 41, with a laugh. “I want the traditional. I want Bing Crosby. I don’t want anything new.

Holiday music in their show includes “I’ll Be Home for Christmas” and “Winter Wonderland.”

“It’s hard not to get a smile on your face when one of them is playing,” said Scheuchzer, speaking recently by phone from his home in Franklin, Tenn., after wrapping up the group’s standard tour.

“We tried to run through songs we thought would connect live,” he said. “Some songs are beautifully recorded, but when you play them live, you don’t get the same energy.”

But the group that’s a past winner of two American Music Awards will play a couple of their original Christmas songs including “Joseph’s Lullaby” from their first Christmas album, “The Christmas Sessions,” in 2005; and “Our Lullaby” from “MercyMe, It’s Christmas!” released in October 2015.

“They’re both about relationships with what we believe is the true meaning of Christmas, the birth of Jesus Christ,” he said.

MercyMe currently is at work on its next album, due to be released in spring. But it’s still too early to know how the album will shake out at the end.

“At this point, it’s almost impossible to say,” said Scheuchzer, who co-founded MercyMe with lead singer Bart Millard in 1994.

“There’s not a formula to making records for us,” he said, adding, “It would make it a lot less stressful.”

Nonetheless, Scheuchzer said the group wrote its first single on the first day of work on the new recording.

“Usually we find our first single after three or four months of work,” he said. “Some of the songs aren’t quite where they need to be. The songs we’re finished with, I’m extremely excited about.”

The trick is to inspire fans without alienating them.

“Riding the line of creating the same feelings that they got the first time,” he said. “Hitting that emotion without taking the same road to get there.”

“We try not to make the second record twice,” he added. “If you do that too many times, they get tired of you.”