September 02, 2025

Worship band prospers for 13 years

By Dave Hon

Jeff Rousch and Glen Foster, along with Ron Wickman and Don Kelso met at Teen Challenge and came together from four congregations to start Christian rock band Rely on Christ. (Submitted Photos)

Thirteen years ago, Jeff Roush and three other dudes decided to start a band.

At the time, Jeff (guitar), Glen Foster (drummer), Ron Wickman (bassist) and Don Kelso (guitar) met at Teen Challenge, a faith-based rehabilitation center in Colfax aimed at helping recovering alcoholics and drug addicts. All four members are from different congregations.  The four decided to start Rely on Christ, or ROC.

“We just started all started practicing and praying, and we realized we all had the same idea and focus, and we formed the ROC band,” Jeff said.

Jeff said that the band is blessed with a lot of talent, but it still practices on a weekly basis. He also said the band has a huge fellowship that has grown in the last 13 years.

“We were all guys that played music in bars and different venues like that before we got saved, and after we got saved everybody just got involved in doing work for the Lord instead of the dark side of the world,” Jeff said.

Jeff also had been playing worship music prior to joining ROC. Jeff said the band has been very busy this year. It usually plays at various churches from May to November. This Sunday will be the fifth time in the last six weeks that it has played live. It also played at the Jasper County Fair.

ROC also has played at Teen Challenge, a rehabilitation event in Colfax aimed at recovering alcoholics and drug addicts, and at the women’s correctional facility.

“We’ve just kind of let God lead us to whereever we need to go,” Jeff said.

Jeff said the band has written more than 150 original songs and hardly ever plays cover songs. They also have a CD, Let Your Light Shine, with 11 tracks. Jeff said his favorite song, though not included on that CD, is “Jesus Get Ready.”

“That’s the direction God wants us to go,” Jeff said. “And it says in the Bible repeatedly to sing a new song, go into the world and sing a new song, and different things like that.”

Jeff said that whenever they play an event at a church, they tithe back to the church.

“That’s the cool thing about it,” Jeff said. “We’re all serving the same God, and we all have the same purpose.”

Anyone interested in booking ROC can contact Jeff at (641) 521-7701.