Preacher Uses Low Voice for the Lord

Josh Friend is a preacher with quite possibly one of the lowest singing voices in Canada.

This singing preacher once toured North America with the popular gospel group the Torchmen, and today he serves as the pastor of Evergreen Community Church, a Christian Reformed congregation in Fort McMurray, Alta.

Neither music nor the ministry, however, were in his plans as he grew up in Owen Sound, Ont.

Like the biblical character Jonah, who ran from the call of God to speak a prophecy to the people of Nineveh, said Friend, he never wanted to get involved in music — or to serve as a pastor, for that matter. As a young man, he said, he liked to slick back his hair and picture himself as a lawyer.

He credits — or jokingly blames — his high school music teacher, Charles Tupper, with spotting his talent and pulling him into the world of music, which opened the door to where he is now.

But he didn’t see it at the time.

“I never wanted to be a vocalist or a musician,” said Friend in a phone interview from his home in Alberta. “I certainly had no idea how low my voice could go.”

God, however, had other plans, said Friend, recounting how one day near the end of his first year at West Hill Secondary School in Owen Sound, Ont., he had the task of giving some prospective students a tour of the school.

Everything went fine, he said, until they wanted to visit the music room, an area of the school with which Friend wasn’t particularly familiar.

Still, he took them in, where they met Tupper, who suggested they all step onto risers and, as he played the piano, sing “O Canada,” the country’s national anthem.

“We got up there and started singing. It didn’t take long before Mr. Tupper stopped and asked me to come down to the piano,” recalled Friend.

Standing by the piano, the music teacher asked him to keep singing. As Friend complied, Tupper fingered a couple of keys on the keyboard, looking surprised.

Tupper listened to the music from the piano and to Friend’s voice for a few seconds before saying, “That’s the lowest note I’ve ever heard anyone sing. You need to be in my music class next year.”

There was no saying no, said Friend, and Tupper sent him to the guidance counselor to sign up for his class the next year.

Friend dragged his feet a little, but he took the class, and it turned out that he fell in love with music — singing and playing instruments — so much so that he won a music scholarship to Martin Methodist College in Pulaski, Tenn.

While there, he sang and got involved with gospel music. After college, he moved back to Canada and eventually joined the Torchmen, one of Canada’s premier gospel groups. The Torchmen toured extensively, about 120 performances per year, and made several albums.

Sometime during that period, someone suggested that Friend enter a contest being put on by CBC radio in Canada. They rekeyed an operatic piece and were looking for people who could sing the lowest notes.

So Friend sent in a submission and entered the contest. “I got chosen without much difficulty. Only a few were chosen, and I was the only Canadian,” said Friend.

He sang his piece, letting his voice go deep. Pretty much astounded, the radio engineer, who was also a music historian, looked back through their archives and couldn’t find anyone from Canada who had ever sung lower.

“I can confidently sing a D0 (zero), but can sing the lowest note on the piano if I vocalize for a few days. That’s an A0. I have been recorded at E0,” said Friend.

For the musically uninitiated, that’s a little hard to follow. But if you listen to Friend on the song Roll Away with the Torchmen, you’ll get a sense of the quality of his voice.

Once, when singing at a Baptist church, said Friend, the preacher didn’t show up, and they asked him to preach. He gave it a try, liked it, and gave an altar call at the end, which drew some people to the front of the church.

After that, feeling the tug to do more than sing about God, Friend decided to try ministry work. Leaving behind the world of gospel music, he found a job as a worship director at Community CRC in Kitchener, Ont., where Darren Roorda, who is now the CRCNA director of Canadian ministries, served as a pastor.

“Josh was technically the worship director, but he was actually more of an ‘I'll do anything related to church worship — sing, train, plan, AV equip, etc.’ kind of a guy,” said Roorda.

It took some time, but the calling to be a minister never went away, said Friend, and it came to fruition when Roorda took him to visit Calvin Theological Seminary in Grand Rapids, Mich.

Friend enrolled at the seminary’s distance-learning proggram, and in 2015 he graduated and became a commissioned pastor at First CRC, Red Deer, Alta. Continuing toward a master of divinity degree, he became a minister of the Word in 2017, and in that year Friend took the position as pastor at Evergreen Community Church, not long after Fort McMurray had experienced devastating forest fires, along with much of that area of Alberta.

“The town was hurting, and the church was hurting when I arrived,” said Friend. But he dove right in, using his many talents to help soothe the pain and the losses people experienced.

On any given Sunday these days, Friend will play a range of instruments, from the piano to a guitar. He’ll also play drums and lend his voice to singing praises.

Then he’ll stand behind the pulpit to preach. And sometimes, while giving a sermon, he’ll break into song.

Over the past couple of years, the congregation has doubled in size. Friend said that he hopes his sermons, along with his music, have helped people step beyond the difficult experiences of the 2017 fire and other struggles in life.

“I’ve learned that music is a language all on its own,” said Friend. “It opens up new avenues to reach and speak to people. If you come here, I think you’ll see a vibrancy in worship.”

“The people at Evergreen,” he added, “seem to understand me.” These days, as he looks back, Friend thanks Charles Tupper for hearing those low notes in his voice, for seeing a special talent in the young man who once wanted to be a lawyer.

He also appreciates Roorda, who saw special gifts in him, for helping him answer the call to ministry.

“Josh is a warm and capable person who has immediate gifts in music and a natural love of preaching — which he has honed and developed over time,” said Roorda. “He is also very sensitive to ‘the other’ — that is, people who need Christ. He can be very mssional in his approach.”