July 12, 2025
ROME, Ga. — Each summer, students and leaders gather at Shorter University in Rome to make a joyful noise at the Georgia Baptist Mission Board’s SURGE music camp. For some leaders, their involvement has come full circle. Once students themselves, they now strive to impact young musicians.
Kids choir director Ashlee Grace Chitwood Lewis and praise band leader Brandon Lewis—who are not related—both discovered their calling at SURGE and now serve as part of its leadership team.
Brandon, who has led the praise track for the past two years, enjoys watching students grow, which he calls one of the most rewarding parts of his year. “You get to see the kids get better and learn things, and all of it is based on glorifying the Lord,” he said.
Ashlee Grace has led the kids choir for the past two years. “To get to come back and pour into a camp that poured so much into me is really meaningful. It is really impactful for not only my musical life, but my walk with the Lord,” she said.
Ashlee Grace said that being around kids like you is why you go as a kid, but the way the Lord moves in your life while you are there through the friendships you make, through what he teaches you about your skill, and how he can use all that for His glory, is why people come back. “It’s a cycle of the Lord moving and training up the next generation for music and worship.”
For Brandon, working with worship pastors and ministers of music from across the state is particularly meaningful. “You get to meet these awesome kids who are incredible and love Jesus and that alone is amazing,” he said. “But, as a leader, you get to meet the other leaders. My favorite part this year was seeing the body of Christ, and seeing the team that God had put together to accomplish the things He wanted accomplished at this camp.”
One special experience for the students, Brandon said, was the opportunity to be recorded by Daniel Semsen, a publisher of choral music in California. Semsen, who experienced a brief version of the camp, was impressed because there is nowhere else that does it like this. This year, Semsen recorded a 100-voice student choir, and those songs are going to be put in a book that will be published for churches to use all over the United States.
The younger students also had a unique opportunity. Ashlee Grace said the kids were able to perform a song commissioned in honor of longtime camp staffer Ken Drane, who passed away in May. The campers sang a version of Chris Tomlin’s “How Can I Keep from Singing?” arranged by David Ray, a former SURGE staffer.
“Nobody else gets to say they were the first choir that sang this song, this arrangement of it,” she told the students. “It’s in honor of someone who poured out into my life as a camper and poured into so many other people. It’s really cool to see that cycle of how God is moving and how He is raising up the next generation of music ministers and worship leaders.”
Ashlee Grace and Brandon are both the children of music ministers. Lee Chitwood, Ashlee Grace’s dad, is minister of music at First Baptist Church Newnan and a Worship & Music consultant for the GBMB. Brandon’s father was a music minister and his adopted grandmother is Hildegard Stanley, retired dean of music and professor at Brewton-Parker College. She is a music camp pioneer who encouraged him to attend.
While Ashlee Grace’s SURGE experience began as a camper in fourth grade and Brandon’s started in fifth, both expressed the fellowship they felt meeting other campers with similar interests and backgrounds. “Finding music camp was like finding a whole group of kids all across the state who are just like me,” Ashlee Grace said. “And who love the Lord and want to use the talents he has given them to serve Him.”
“As a camper, you meet people you wouldn’t normally get to meet,” said Brandon. “And, those kids are like you. They like the same things you like. They have the same passions you have. They are pursuing those things.”
Both made lifelong connections at camp, as well as feeling called to pursue careers in music.
Brandon met his wife, Sally, at camp and is now the worship pastor at Warren Baptist Church in Augusta. Ashlee Grace, who met her best friend at camp, is a music teacher at White Oaks Elementary School in Newnan.
Brandon said there’s a lot that a student can gain from camp that goes beyond music. “Kids are learning about Jesus and the call on their lives and responding to the call,” he said. “It’s not just about music for the sake of music or music just for you to have. It’s about music that you can use for the glory of God and the building up of his church.”
