I saw this today on another blog and was floored by who was involved and the vision behind the whole thing.

Essentially, Martin Smith, the lead singer of the band Delirious, put together a group of songwriters, who have essentially written everything sung in the church over the last ten to 15 years, to put together an album to generate money for 16 charities around the world helping combat poverty, disease and helping orphans.  The group is called Compassion Art 

To me, this is how music helps and heals people.  It’s one thing to write a song and sing it on a stage, but quite another to use your music and giftings to draw attention to some of the poorest people in the world.

Here’s a live performance of the first song from the album and a little more info about the group.

This post is going to start with a lot of disclaimers, including the disiclaimer for all of the disclaimers, which is that if I don’t give these disclaimers I might internetally punched in the face for what I’m going to talk about by some of you.

So let me go back a couple of years.  When I started at Clovis Hills it was not uncommon to hear me say that I hate Christian music (meaning non-worship stuff).  I would have said that it’s all crap and the industry is filled with people who couldn’t make it in the secular market, but, because they like Jesus are able to carve out a career for themselves because Christians are too nice to tell them they’re no good.

Over the past two years I’ve had to listen to a lot of this stuff and because of that, along with my wife and Erica Foster telling me it’s not okay to hate christian music I have come to a point in my life where I can say that there is a lot of great stuff out there.  There are a ton of new artists that you can listen to without being embarrassed and without having to really dig for reasons you like them.  It was only until this week that I realized the problem is not so much christian music as it is Christian radio.

We have two christian radio stations in town and both are “listener supported” which means they are constantly having pledge drives.  Now, if you believe in these ministries and they impact you regularly, as they do for many, I’m not telling you not to give to them.  What I am asking is why both stations are having pledge drives at the exact same time?!

This, to me, is ridiculous.  Are you not aware of the other stations?  Was this decided upon by both parties, that we’ll just subject everyone to this at the same time?  I mean, seriously, what’s the deal?

Every other radio station on the planet is driven by demographics.  They do a particular style or genre and attract a fan base from that.  Not Christian radio.  We have one station that markets to all christians and so what you get is a hodge-podge of stuff from rock to hip-hop, new artists to songs like “Shout to the Lord” which are 20 years old being played in REGULAR ROTATION! (sorry about that).

As I’m writing songs more and more and exploring what options music may have for me, I have to believe that there’s good stuff out there and certainly, the secular music industry machine is not cranking out great artists by giving record deals to Paris Hilton and the like.  But come on, two pledge drives at the same time?  Making it impossible to hear even two or three songs in a row that are in the same genre?  And the hosts of these shows?  What the heck is the deal?

I’m sorry for the rant.  I don’t want to come off as some church-hating post-modern, but this radio thing has to be figured out.  If the message is truely “in the music” shouldn’t we be doing a better job of getting the music out to people?  If I want to hear “Breathe” I’ll put on my copy of WOW 95 and go to town, but it really should not still be on the radio should it?

Rant over.

I got together with Tim Douty again the other night and we wrote a Christmas song.  I’m hoping to do it at Christmas, that is, but I suppose it’s not a typical Christmas song; no mention of a baby, swaddling clothes or asses (it’s in the Bible), though believe me I tried.

I’m pretty happy with it, though we’re still trying to figure out a bridge.  I’m really feeling pretty good about where God has me lately in terms of my songwriting and feeling like working with Tim is only making it better; dude is crazy good on the keys.  I’m hitting the studio with cool mo Dee in not too long and hopefully, we’ll have some rough stuff to put up here.  Who knows, in the next few months we may be putting together a bigger project and seeing what happens.  As it stands now, I’m just enjoying writing songs and feeling like if I shake hard enough, some more songs might just pop out of this dome of mine!

There’s an idea that’s been bouncing around in my head for a while now about love. 

You see, I tend to get caught up in stuff; what I’ve got to do, where I’ve got to be and try and juggle a lot of things at one time.  It can, at times, wear on me, particularly when I’m not spending time with Jesus.

Recently, people have been telling me in a lot of different ways, that it’s really about love and if you can’t/don’t do things out of love for Jesus, it doesn’t matter anyway.  With that idea, I took one line of a song I was thinking of over to Tim Douty’s house (he’s one of our keyboard players in the band here) and in a couple of hours we had a pretty sweet worship song!

 It was such a cool process, writing with Tim.  I think we’re going to do more of that and hopefully, we’ll hear some of it at Clovis Hills soon!

I have a unique opportunity over the next several weeks.  I get to sit on the sidelines and not lead worship.

For the most part, my boss and I rotate, with some other peeps sprinkled in as scheduling allows and for the most part, that rotation is fairly consistent.  However, since my boss preached the entire summer and I lead worship, it’s now her turn to lead, allowing me time to learn some of the technical aspects of our weekend services and produce more.

This is exciting, as I can observe everything we do instead of just being focused in on the music and can think through areas that we can get better.  The other bonus is that it will give me a little more time to write and do some recording, which I’m pretty stoked about.

Trouble is, I’ve got nothing rattling around in my brain right now, as it is fried from planning meetings (good meetings mind you, just a lot of them).  So I’m thinking of some ideas and trying to make sense of them, but all I keep getting are melodies that sound too much like “I’m a little tea pot!”

A couple of months ago I, along with many other bloggers, posted a piece of Hillsong’s new live recording documentary about the song “Healer.”

That video has since been removed, as the author of that song, who claimed to have cancer, turned out to be a fraud.

Here’s his apology and more of how all of this happened.

As many of you are aware, Steven Curtis Chapman and his wife, Mary Beth, lost their youngest daughter, Maria, in an accident in May. The three youngest girls were playing when the Chapman’s son, Will, was coming home. Maria, excited to see her big brother, ran out to greet him and instead, ran into the path of his car and he accidentally ran her over, killing her.

The Chapmans had not spoken publicly about it until this morning when they were on Good Morning America with Diane Sawyer. It was amazing to see this family come together and love one another even in the midst of grief.

Hearing the entire family share their hurt and loss with the world was amazing, particularly as they shared of the hope that they have that sustains them. They spoke of their faith and how it held them together, but at the same time, shared that they had a lot of questions and that more than wanting people to be touched by their story, they wanted Maria back.

It’s hard not to see this family and be touched. They’ll be on Larry King Live on Thursday for the entire hour sharing their story. Please continue to pray for their family as now they share God’s love through their grief.

On Friday, Jenn and I got to see Lincoln Brewster. It was awesome! We went with Tim and Jill who both rock the house at Clovis Hills on a regular basis, and it was fun to get to hang with them outside of church.

The show was great; got to hear a couple of new songs and maybe even steal a couple of moves from a pro (don’t tell anybody though). My favorite part though, was getting a chance to worship with my wife. I love leading worship and getting to be on stage every week, but it was really nice to get to stand by my bride and sing praises together.

Here are some pics of our night.

A lot of people have an experience with Church music that’s different than what we do. In many churches people can just show up and play; not here. Being a part of the worship and arts ministry at Clovis Hills is a huge time commitment that includes rehearsals, three weekend services and prep time on your own, not to mention, the dreaded audition.

I’ve tried various ways to explain to people why we do auditions, but I think the best reasoning is found in this short video.

Enjoy.

Thanks to all of the singers and musicians in our ministry that faithfully serve and that passed the audition!

Big announcement.  It’s coming…