Warner & Harper record hymns
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Troy Warner and Nancy Harper share their gifts of music.
Since childhood, Troy Warner’s life has been intertwined with the Chrisman Christian Church. When the family moved to Chrisman, when he was in grade school, it was his neighbor, Mable Krabel, who invited him to the church.
“She was the Sunday school director here for a long time and Ruby Neil was the Sunday School Teacher,” Warner said.
While attending, it was Nancy Harper, who was playing the piano. Troy had always been interested in the piano. His mother recalled that he would crawl up to the bench and peck around on the keys. It wasn’t until he was ten that he began to play. “I would sit back with my family and I would pray as a kid that I could play like Nancy.”
Warner’s grandfather bought him an old upright piano from the Nazarene Church for him to play. Troy began to play ‘How Great Thou Art’ with just his left hand, then incorporated his right when he was more comfortable.
Though the family moved away when Troy was in the fourth grade, he spent the summers with his grandparents, Bill and Veda Hoult. Bill was a deacon at the church as well as serving on the church board.
“I wanted so bad to be the youth minister here, so I came in 1989-1991 and I was the youth minister here after Tom Black,” Troy said.
After his time as the youth minister, Troy began to pursue being a pastor, taking classes with Liberty University. Since that time, he’s ministered in Illinois, Florida, Indiana and Ohio. Though he had many churches, the Chrisman Christian Church was still in the back of his mind.
“I really wanted to come here to be pastor when Kenny Bass retired. I always had hopes that I would be the senior minister here, but that didn’t happen. I went to Paris for ten years,” Warner said.
After the minister left the Christian Church, Troy would fill in on Sunday nights for evening service. Ruby Neil told Troy that he needed to pray about coming home. “Several times, people had said you need to become our minister and I just took it as flattery. I think it was Ruby that kept replaying in my mind,” Troy said.
Troy continued to play at nursing homes with Nancy, who stopped by one day when she was in Paris. It was then that he expressed that he felt like God wanted him to come home. After praying about it, Warner put his resume in and in December of 2019, he became the senior minister at the Chrisman Christian Church.
Once becoming the senior minister, Troy wanted to do something to show his talent along with Nancy’s. The pair started doing Facebook videos of them playing different hymns. People told them they needed to make a CD. “I thought that’s wonderful, but it’s not cheap. God worked through Nancy and she made the contact and we went into the studio,” Warner said.
Nancy Harper is no stranger to recording music. Harper, along with Troy and Vicki Hollingsworth made tapes and offered them at concerts as a ‘love gift’. Harper also has many CD’s of herself and even made two awhile back thanks to Joe Hollingsworth.
“He allotted me so much time and I got through the first one and didn’t have to repeat it, so he said ‘might as well do the second one’ and I just kind of threw that together,” Nancy said.
Since the previous recording studio was no longer in business, Nancy took to Google to find someone new. She was able to contact Jordan Cundiff, who is a Danville native. Cundiff now lives in Nashville, Tennessee, but comes home a few days out of the month to his recording studio. He’s known for being a recruiter for many musical groups. “He was very nice and cooperative on the phone and was only in Danville a couple of days through the month,” Harper said.
Nancy and Troy went to Cundiff’s studio in Danville to record their 11 song CD of hymns. The songs are all instrumental and both musicians have their own solo.
“We’re just sharing our gift that God gave us to play,” Troy said.
If you would like to purchase a CD of Troy and Nancy, you can contact the Christian Church for more information. Stop by the church office or call 217-269-3000.
