Photos: Gospel Music & Story Festival Celebrates Faith

The first Gospel Music & Story Festival, a brainchild of Novi residents Dr. Mike Balon and daughter Elisa Balon, celebrated faith Saturday on the campus.

The festival was free to attend and included faith-based music and storytelling. The Balons organized the festival in a mere 12 weeks and hope that it is the first of many.

"Think of this event as practice for heaven," said festival co-founder Mike Balon in his address to the crowd. "I think we'll spend the first thousand years or so in heaven singing and telling stories, and that's exactly what we'll be doing today."

Elisa Balon is a music teacher and director of the Providence Park Place Choir, and her father is a physician at the hospital. They combined Elisa's love of music and Mike's love of a good yarn to create a day of music and worship in an outdoor, non-denominational setting.

Churches, choirs and service groups from all over the metro area participated, and the festival featured more than 20 musicians and storytellers.

Alfred Daniel, Chaplain at Providence Park Hospital and pastor of This Rock Baptist Church in Ann Arbor gave the invocation at the beginning of the day.

"This festival is an opportunity for members of this community to express their faith and to join in celebration and worship in the ways that suit them best, whether that's by singing, telling stories or volunteering," said Daniel.