Kirk Franklin<\/a>, a 20-time Grammy Award-winning gospel artist.<\/p>\n“His music has gotten me through so much,” attendee Shamar Johnson said.<\/p>\n
Johnson said he had missed previous opportunities to see Franklin perform and was determined not to miss this one.<\/p>\n
“So many times he’s been in the city, and something has always stopped me from seeing him. But I refuse to miss him today,” Johnson said.<\/p>\n
Before Franklin took the stage, however, organizers canceled the concert because of lightning and approaching storms.<\/p>\n
“I was waiting to see Kirk Franklin!” attendee Robetta Jackson said moments after the announcement.<\/p>\n
Jackson said the event meant much more than a concert.<\/p>\n
“I have not been to church in three months. This was church for me today. Oh my goodness, I feel so bad,” she said.<\/p>\n
Another attendee, Cassandra Scott, said she understood the safety concerns but wished the evening had unfolded differently.<\/p>\n
“I knew that we were going to get caught in the rain. I think they should’ve started a little earlier. Now everybody’s all discombobulated and running, and hearing lightning,” Scott said.<\/p>\n
Although the evening ended before Kirk Franklin’s performance, many attendees said they were grateful for the opportunity to come together before the storms arrived.<\/p>\n
In:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Thousands gathered on Independence Mall Sunday evening for Gospel on Independence, filling the lawn with music, worship and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":230688,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[7865,69,71,70],"class_list":["post-230687","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-philadelphia","tag-music","tag-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia-headlines","tag-philadelphia-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/230687","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=230687"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/230687\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/230688"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=230687"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=230687"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=230687"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}