A Grammy-winning gospel collective is playing Shillong. The church bringing them has been there since 1841.

Where the money goes

The proceeds are not funding a tour. The Assembly says they will go to its humanitarian, education, healthcare and development work — the ordinary running costs of a church that has been doing that work in these hills for a very long time. Its social arm, SELDA, has been running since 1974.

"The funds raised will help strengthen that work," Diengngan said.

That is the sentence worth slowing down for, because it inverts the usual shape of a story like this. A church hosting an international act is normally spending money to draw a crowd. This one is filling a ground in order to pay for schools and clinics.

A church older than most of the music

The Khasi Jaintia Presbyterian Assembly belongs to the Presbyterian Church of India, and its roots run back to the Welsh mission. Thomas Jones reached Sohra in 1841. The Assembly's current Moderator is Rev. W.P. Marbaniang.

That is one hundred and eighty-five years of continuous presence in the Khasi and Jaintia hills, and it shows in the numbers. Meghalaya was 74.59% Christian at the 2011 Census, one of only three Indian states with a Christian majority.

It also helps explain why a gospel concert of this size is plausible here and would not be in most of the country. Shillong has been called the Rock Capital of India for decades, with a live-music culture that long predates this announcement. Bob Fitts, Petra and Don Moen have all played the state before.

Who is coming

Maverick City Music was founded in Atlanta in 2018 by Tony Brown and Jonathan Jay, and built around a rotating collective of songwriters and singers rather than a fixed band. It has won five Grammys from fourteen nominations: Best Contemporary Christian Music Album in 2022 for Old Church Basement, made with Elevation Worship, then four more in 2023, three of them alongside Kirk Franklin. It performed "Jireh" at the 2022 Grammy ceremony.

"Jireh", "Promises" and "Talking to Jesus" have each topped Billboard's gospel chart.

Which members are travelling to Shillong has not been announced, and that matters more for this group than for most. The collective's line-up has changed: Chandler Moore and Naomi Raine, two of the voices most associated with its best-known songs, both left in October 2025. Anyone buying a ticket on the strength of a particular voice should wait for the organisers to name the line-up rather than assume it from the records.

Local Meghalaya musicians will also perform. No names have been given yet.

If you are going

Tickets are sold online only, through RockskiTickets.

Two details are not yet settled, and both are worth knowing before you book. The venue is given as Madan Polo in the announcement and in the Meghalaya press; the ticket page lists SRGT 2nd Ground, Polo Grounds. They may well be the same place described two ways, but the organisers have not said so.

The prices differ by source too. The English-language reports give three tiers — ₹1,000 Silver, ₹2,500 Gold and ₹10,000 for the Patron's Lounge, with donors of ₹10,000 or more receiving a certificate signed by the artists. The Khasi-language press reports ₹1,000, ₹1,500 and ₹2,500, with the certificate from ₹5,000. We have not been able to reconcile the two, and the ticket page is the place to check before paying.

Gate and start times have not been published. Nor has any word on a livestream, which in a state where a great many people will not be able to travel to Shillong on a December Saturday is the question a fair number of readers will have.