“I once was lost, but now am found,” we all sang in unison. “Was blind but now I see.”
There were seven hundred kids that last day of church camp, all from different schools in Texas. I was a seventh grader, twelve, and I had tagged along to so many church camps and vacation bible schools as a preacher’s daughter that I was excited to be with kids and believers my own age. One of the best parts of every church camp stay was when we sang together. People who were once strangers sang hymns that felt they like were written for just that shared moment.
We were in a huge church, and as we paused between the choruses of “Amazing Grace,” the pastor spoke on the mic. “There’s somebody here that’s going to use their voice to change the world,” he said. “They will use their voice to minister to others.”
We continued, and then I heard it: My own voice. “How precious did that grace appear,” I sang. “The hour I first believed!” I have spent years trying to describe the feeling, and I still have trouble. I felt a light upon me, and then the certainty of a calling. It’s my voice, I thought. And because I was twelve, I added, “He is totally talking about me.”
I realized I was walking forward down the aisle, the only person doing so. I felt wrapped in purpose. You have to understand how rare it was to just have one believer swept up at camp. Sometimes, peer pressure or a need for attention can make the front of the room a popular space. I reached the pastor just as we finished the song with, “And grace will lead us home.”
He invited everyone to do silent prayer and looked at me. “I just heard myself sing,” I whispered, “and I think that’s the voice that God wants me to use.”
“Well, let’s pray,” he said.
I felt like God had delivered me to myself, and I decided right there to give myself over to the ministry. I walked back, right past my friends, and went straight to the pay phone to call my dad at church. By then, Dad had been the youth minister for two years at the Heights Baptist Church in Richardson, a suburb of Dallas. We’d left Burleson after I finished third grade, then did a year at a church in Duncanville, which brought us closer to Dallas. But now my father had his dream job. It was a megachurch, so his salary doubled to $60,000, and being a pastor there was like being a rock star. Mom still taught aerobics and did as much work as my dad with all kinds of charity outreach.
I dialed Dad at work and the church secretary answered.
“Hi, it’s Jessica,” I blurted out. “Can I talk to my dad? It’s really important.”
“Hold on, Jess,” she said.
I looked back at all the kids. A girl came up, waiting for the phone. I could tell she was shy and being with someone who was timid always made me less so. At lunch, I had started sitting with kids at school who sat alone. It wasn’t that I felt sorry for them. I was grateful for the company. It’s like when you’re in line for a roller coaster and you find out your friend is even more scared than you—and you both feel stronger by joining hands. “I like your sneakers,” I told her.
“Thanks,” she said, smiling. She looked down at them as my dad came to the phone.
“Jessica?” he said. “What’s wrong?” I held a finger to her to say, “hold on.”
“God called me into the ministry, Dad.”
“Nooooooo,” he said. “No, no, no.”
He said it so loud the girl heard him through the phone. Her eyes widened.
“I know,” I said. I had grown up hearing about the politics of churches. In Richardson, we’d built up the youth group, but we did it by hosting dances and having cool events like lock-in sleepovers. Dad had studied to be an adolescent therapist, and his practice at the church didn’t treat kids like sinners. He encouraged self-care and communication with parents, which had proven effective. But some of the church elders still preferred the brimstone. He fought the battles so the kids didn’t have to, I guess, and he wanted something different for me.
“Jessica, you should think about this,” he said. “There are ways to be of service without—”
I turned toward the pay phone for privacy. “Well, I don’t think I’m gonna be a music minister or anything,” I said. “But I know now I’m supposed to use my voice to change the world.”
“We’ll talk about it when you get home,” he said. “But I’m really proud of—”
“I gotta go, someone’s waiting,” I said. I smiled at the girl and hung up. “I was called,” I told her as I walked away. “I mean, I made the call just now. To my dad. But I was called.” She laughed, so I laughed, and it felt good.
God was going to use my voice. It was weird, because I never really knew that I had a good singing voice. I just liked to sing. I’d sung solos in church since I was younger, and the one I remember loving most was “His Eye Is on the Sparrow.” My mom had started to enter me into vocal competitions the year before. But I thought that was just because Beth Pliler, who ran the dance studio where Ashlee and I took lessons, could tell I was miserable dancing. I would go to competitions in a whole new outfit and come in seventh and it just didn’t seem worth it. Beth was probably tired of trying to hide me in the corps when I wanted to stand out. One day I had been crying trying to get on point and Beth turned to my mother.
“Tina, they have all these vocal competitions when we do the dance competitions,” she said loud so I could hear. “Maybe she could do both.” I fell to the ground and gripped my poor toes. “Or, just,” she added, “uh, sing?”
I looked at my mom and nodded, wiping away a tear. “That’s a great idea.”
“She could really shine,” my mom said. So, the summer going into sixth grade, I did my first vocal competition, going to San Marcos, Texas, to sing “The Rose” in a big purple dress with giant sleeves. I won, and we kept on entering around the region, and I kept winning. Mom and I would go thrift shopping for stage outfits. Then, she started buying clothes at Dillard’s and leaving the tags in so we could return them. I know how that sounds, but she was trying to make me happy and we couldn’t really afford all those outfits. I’ve met my share of stage moms in my career, and she was not one of them. She pushed me to be excellent at whatever I chose to do, but she didn’t tell me what to do.
Two weeks after my “Amazing Grace” moment at camp, my mom was at church when one of her girlfriends, Cindy Caves, came up to her with a cutout from the Dallas Morning News.
“Jessica’s really talented and you should take her to this,” she said.
The producers of the The All-New Mickey Mouse Club had placed ads around the country looking for new talent for its third season. There would be an open-call audition at the Dallas Hyatt the following week. Mom knew Ashlee and I watched it all the time, singing and dancing along with Keri Russell and JC Chasez onscreen as Mouseketeers. The show was a weekly afterschool Disney Channel variety show with comedy skits and kid-friendly versions of popular songs. The producers specialized in finding talented kids who were also relatable, which was why they held open-call auditions for 50,000 kids around the country instead of just in Los Angeles, where kids got agents in kindergarten.
My mom brought the ad to Beth at the dance studio to see if she thought it was legit.