Worship leader Dan Carson is known for being an innovator of sorts. He founded the First Priority of Texarkana, which is a campus Bible club ministry, and he also created a sing-along trax resource for youth and children’s ministries.
Three years ago, he started another company, Dandee Cases, which designs and builds custom road cases for musical instruments. Today, their client list includes popular Christian recording artists such as MercyMe, Shane and Shane, Charlie Hall, Chris Tomlin, and the David Crowder Band.
“We started building cases to meet the needs of our own worship band, but it wasn’t long before our friends and fellow worship leaders were requesting cases for their bands,” he explained. “After requests for 150 cases, we decided to go on the internet with it. (www.dandeecases.com) We create custom cases for guitars, amps, PA systems, drums, racks, you name it.”
Carson, a graduate of Dallas Baptist University and Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, has been involved in music and youth ministry for 30 years and shows creativity and ingenuity in everything he does. He currently serves as the creative arts pastor at First Baptist Church of Texarkana, where his wife, Cary, teaches a 12th grade Sunday school class and leads the youth discipleship program. They have two children, Deeann and Daniel. Deeann is actively involved in the church, and Daniel is the electric guitar player in Chris Tomlin’s band.
For the past 12 years, Carson has been leading worship at events around the country with a worship band called, “The Honey Grove Ball Team.” They especially enjoy leading worship at youth camps and conferences. “I have seen God do some really cool things during the worship times at camps,” Carson notes. “Watching students and adults engage and commune with God is very humbling, and to hear them say that God really spoke to them during the worship time is very rewarding. It’s a blessing to be used by God.”
The band’s name was chosen in honor of Carson’s father who grew up in Honey Grove, Texas. “My dad was from Honey Grove, and when I was young, we would sit in church and he would write on the church bulletin, ‘Honey Grove Ball Team,'” Carson explained. “When I wrote a song in memory of my dad, there was a phrase in the song, ‘my Honey Grove Ball Team is taking the field.’ It was then that I realized that my Honey Grove Ball Team was more than just my immediate family. It included more than 30 people that are in vocational ministry today, that were called to the ministry while they were in my youth group. What a blessing to know that the Honey Grove Ball Team takes the field every day!”
