Thursday, former “Glee Project” participant Cameron Mitchell graced the Pedestrian Mall with a performance and a mission.
Ignoring the rain, Mitchell played and sang some of his original songs as students passed swiftly by on their way to and from class. Several volunteers from Faith Promise Church stood under and around a small tent joyfully handing out free T-shirts and information about their recent campus church plant.
Michael Wallace, UT campus and high school pastor with Faith Promise Church, said the main goal of Mitchell’s visit was to help promote the UT campus Faith Promise Church.
“In October we opened a church here on the UT campus,” Wallace said. “We meet back and forth between the Alumni Memorial Building and the Clarence Brown (Theatre). We always meet at 11:30 (a.m.) on Sundays, so we’re still trying to get the word out and let people know that we’re here to help.”
Wallace worked with Mitchell at a church in Texas before moving to Tennessee, and invited Mitchell out to help promote the new church plant. Mitchell also performed for Wallace’s high school ministry in a concert on Wednesday night.
“I wanted to come out and sing, and I used to lead worship a lot and he told me that I would have an opportunity to do that,” Mitchell said. “I had an opportunity to do some of my own songs and sing some worship, and I love performing and I wanted to come out and see Michael Wallace and sing for Knoxville.”
Wallace said Mitchell’s story is inspiring and something that he wanted Mitchell to have an opportunity to share. After being offered a role on the teen-show, “Glee,” Mitchell turned it down.
“Cameron made a great decision to say no to that,” Wallace said. “(He recognized) that the greater importance was to represent his relationship with God in every avenue of his life. His story was one that was really unique, one that we really wanted to help people recognize.”
Mitchell was excited to have a chance to share his story again and was quick to say that though he faced some difficulties, the overall experience was something that he would never want to lose.
“I was on the ‘Glee Project’ this summer,” Mitchell said. “It started in June and it was a great experience; I really enjoyed it and had a lot of fun. It definitely had some twists and turns and some ups and downs, but I really loved it and it was a great experience.”
Through his experience on the “Glee Project,” Mitchell has been met with decisions and opportunities, both difficult and exciting, that he would never have imagined.
“My story with the whole ‘Glee Project’ is that on the show, they had a theme — sexuality — and they asked me to kiss some girls and do some things I wasn’t really comfortable with,” Mitchell said. “So I decided to walk away from the show and it was this huge controversial thing with the creator of ‘Glee’ and everything... I chose to walk away and since then I have been blessed with some amazing opportunities so it kind of worked out.”
Mitchell, who is currently living in Los Angeles and working with a label, said he enjoyed his visit to Knoxville and is looking forward to what the future holds for him. He’s currently working on building his fan-base and keeping up with online media.
“I have like 230,000 Twitter followers, I don’t even know, something like that,” Mitchell said. “But, yeah, right now my goal is to get YouTube videos out there. In today’s world that’s kind of bigger than anything. So, just trying to get videos out there, trying to get my name out, write songs, but at the same time keepin’ it real.”
Because of his Christian roots, many people have asked Mitchell if he will pursue a focus in Christian music or if he will continue in the secular realm. Mitchell said that though this is something he has considered, he feels that he will be more effective as a secular Christian artist.
“I feel like I’m reaching more people being out in the world than if I were to just make worship songs,” Mitchell said.
After a few more questions, Mitchell confessed his real reasons for coming to Knoxville.
“I wanted some Cheerwine,” Mitchell said.