TEXAS GOSPEL VOLUNTEER
The Rogers Family isn’t giving anyone time to catch their breath. Barely a month after “A place to spend the night” hit Southern Gospel airplay, and just weeks removed from the stately “Secret place,” the Horizon Records group is back again, this time with a reimagining of the classic “When Jesus comes in the clouds.” Three releases in the span of a few months is a good pace for any group, but for the Rogers Family, it’s become the norm.
The track opens with studio veteran David Johnson’s fiddle and Samuel Shields’ electric guitar, setting a lively tone from the first note. Samuel handles lead vocals on the opening verses, with sisters Hannah and Rebekah trading harmonies behind him and a banjo threading through for extra old-timey flavor. Soon the energy edges even higher, as Rebekah steps into the lead for the final choruses, and by the time the track winds down, the arrangement has climbed to a full boil, the kind that makes it nearly impossible to stay seated, let alone keep from tapping a foot or singing along.
“We are enjoying putting our own spin on this great classic red back song,” the group said in a press release to radio. “It’s been sung in many, many churches across the country, and we are excited to keep it going. It has the true southern gospel sound we love so much, and we’re anxious to share it with you!”
There’s a reason the song hits differently for this particular family. Long before it was a single, “When Jesus comes in the clouds” was a memory, one stitched into childhood church pews and Sunday mornings. “It takes us back to hearing it as children,” the group notes, “and it serves as a fresh reminder that all sorrow will be past, when Jesus comes in the clouds.” That kind of continuity, between what a song meant growing up and what it means now standing behind a microphone, is at the heart of what makes the Rogers Family’s music feel lived in rather than performed.
That sense of continuity runs deep in the group’s history. The Rogers Family traces its roots back to Northeast Georgia, where Ray and Helen Rogers first raised their voices in local churches, their daughter Kim playing piano alongside them. It was at a church in North Carolina that Kim crossed paths with Sammy Shields, and the two married in 1999, eventually settling in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains, where they raised three children: Rebekah, Samuel, and Hannah.
When Ray passed away in 2010, the family’s music ministry didn’t fade, it evolved. The next generation stepped into more prominent roles, with the children increasingly taking the lead while Kim and Helen remained steady, passionate fixtures within the group. Today, the Rogers Family, Helen, Kim, Sammy, Rebekah, Samuel, and Hannah, travels together sharing their love of Southern Gospel music, with Kim still anchoring the sound from the piano bench.
It’s a family that has weathered loss, generational change, and the natural growing pains of six people building something together, yet they’ve come out the other side with a sound that feels both classic and current. “When Jesus comes in the clouds” isn’t just another single for the Rogers Family, it’s a torch passed from one generation to the next, carried by voices that grew up hearing it in the very pews they now sing from.
