TESTIFY TO LOVE
finally tells the truth.
Today, a song I’ve sung a thousand times gets to mean what it always said.
Testify to Love drops today, originally recorded by Avalon, re-recorded by Michael Passons, Ty Herndon, and me. On Wednesday, we shot the music video. At the end of it, the three of us looked at each other, proud, and ultimately saying LOVE is for everyone. We hope you hear that.
I need to tell you why this is not just a song release.
Years ago, Michael and I were in Avalon together. Testify to Love was our biggest hit. It is a song about love without exception, love that reaches every corner of creation, love that testifies through every star in every sky. We sang it night after night to arenas of people. And then Michael was kicked out of the group for being gay.
The song kept going. He didn’t.
I was a Christian then who believed what I’d been taught, that some love was acceptable and some wasn’t. I was on the wrong side of what happened to him. That’s the truth, and I’m not going to dress it up. The long version of how I got from there to here is part of the memoir I’ve been writing, Testify to Love: Why I Left the Church and Keep Choosing Curiosity Over Fear. It is forthcoming. It took years, cost me a lot, and it is not a tidy story.
But here is what I can tell you about today.
Michael never needed to be redeemed. He was always whole and worthy. What he was denied was his rightful place in the group, in the song, in a community that claimed to sing about a love big enough to hold him. What’s happening today is not his redemption. It’s his restoration.
Ty came into my life later. Our friendship has grown over the years, and we’ve had the opportunity to make lots of meaningful music together. In 2020, Ty re-recorded another Avalon song, Orphans of God, with Kristin Chenoweth and asked Michael and me to sing background vocals on it. A few years later, I had the honor of officiating his wedding to Alex.
There's a thread running through all of this.
These songs always meant what they meant.
The friendships were always real.
What's changed is that we've learned how to stand inside them fully, as ourselves and as artists.
It’s the song finally telling the truth.
Wednesday night at Michael’s celebration party for this release, he called me his fierce ally. He called Ty his best friend. He named the honor of getting to do this single with us.
Watching him hold so much joy, standing firmly on his own two feet, sure of who he is and of the love he has to share with the world, is a beautiful thing to behold.
The cherry on top is that after all these years and all the ways I’ve changed, he has invited me back to his side. He also gave me his blessing on the first edit of my book.
And now, we are singing this song again by our own choice, with even deeper conviction this time around.
So today, listen to the single and watch soon for the video. And know that this is not just our reclaimed anthem, but also part of the soundtrack of my life and journey. It is about the love we testified to before we knew what it cost, the lines we crossed to find out, the places we had to leave because we realized they no longer honored all, and the people who let us back in.
More soon.
With love and celebration,
Melissa
As a kid who grew up on your music and loved testify to love then later deconstructed I can’t tell you how much this post meant to me.
Thank you for your honesty and for your being there for Michael. When I moved to live full time as who I've always been (a transwoman) I had to come out to so many people and as a result lost almost my entire friendship base. (My best friend of 30 years stayed around, and one close confidante from a former job, but everyone else either stopped talking to me and blocked me on socials or told me I was going to hell, that there was no way I could love Jesus and be a transwoman, that I will never find a woman who will love me because I'm a disgusting freak and will die alone, etc. A cascading wall of intolerance and hate.
Having been around CCM when everything went down with Michael, I remember the stories and rumors which were fed from record company staff, promotion people, etc. It's like the reveled in the chance to tear down someone who was an "abomination" (yes, that word was used.) All of that never set well with me, but I was never in a position to make any kind of difference. Ended up being fired from a CCM radio gig for having the audacity to have sin in my life. The whole time I walked that lonely dirt road alone being exiled from all things "Christian" I really kept wondering how they thought exile, exclusion and isolation some how would make me become "perfect."
Anyway, thank you again for what you're doing for Michael and other folks in the LGBTQ community.
(And on a side note, yes, we met back in the day when you were on radio tours. I remember you always having a kind spirit.)