Video – You Are Good

Vice Verses

Seeing Switchfoot live at the Shepherd’s Bush Empire earlier this week was incredible – possibly one of the greatest gigs I’ve ever been to. As ‘frontmen’ go, you don’t get much better than Jon Foreman, and the musical accomplishment was second to none!

In the US, Switchfoot are quite big in the secular music stream, but over in the UK they tend to be more popular on the Christian music scene. Their lyrics are inspired – drenched in wisdom and the Spirit of God, strikingly relevant and beautifully poetic.

Their latest album, Vice Verses has some outstanding tracks – not least the title track. On Tuesday they also played a load of their older stuff – including my favourites This Is Your Life and Dare You To Move.

The song Restless is epic. It speaks of a search for God that doesn’t relent, doesn’t give up. ‘Always longing for the deeper ground’ shows the desperation.

I am restless
I am restless
I am breathless
I’m looking for you

I can hear you breathing
I can feel you leading
More than just a feeling

I can feel You reaching
Pushing through the ceiling
‘Til the final healing
Everything completing

Our experience of God is more than just a feeling. It’s real – He leads us and cares for us. He is reaching for us, desperate to take us with Him on His journey that He has marked out for us. It’s all about the final healing – when we are finally transformed into the likeness of Jesus and made complete.

Healing has always been a process – a process that we all need for various reasons. But some things will never be healed this side of heaven – the final healing. We have to trust God that He will carry us through to that point, until we are with Him for eternity.

A beautiful promise – Jesus wants us to take our burdens to Him, daily, and leave them there. He wants to give us His ‘yoke’ – which is easy and light. (Matthew 28:11).

He is longing to heal us.

Video – God You’re So Cool

Video – Royalty

Spirit Break Out

At the time of writing, Worship Central’s Spirit Break Out has just hit #14 in the UK iTunes album charts. (See my post Hear Your People Sing to read about when the album was recorded).

It’s an album full of passion, full of power and full of Jesus. It captures the essence of the Spirit of God.

Let us not forget that God can do more than we could ask or even imagine – He is always at work in us, transforming us into the likeness of Christ.

Let us pray for boldness to proclaim His love, His goodness and His grace.

Let us pray that hearts will be softened and eyes will be opened to see His face, shining through our lives.

Feel free to go ahead and buy it – a top ten hit would be amazing, but we shouldn’t be discouraged if it doesn’t get there. God is still using us to work out His perfect plan for us and His world.

Click here to buy Spirit Break Out through iTunes.

Spirit of the living God, fall afresh on us…

Phil Wickham – Response

I’m just listening to Phil Wickham’s latest album, Response. It’s stunning.

Phil Wickham is excellent – no doubt about it. From the beauty of his lyrics to the beauty of his unique voice, his music is a blessing.

From ‘At Your Name (Yahweh, Yahweh)’, which he co-wrote with Tim Hughes, to ‘Sun And Moon’ this album is full of truth about living life God’s way. As the title might suggest, compared to his others, this album is more focused on how we respond to God’s revelation, love and mercy.

If I come up with any other witty comment I might add it on but to be honest, I just wanted to recommend as highly as I possibly could! It’s going to stay on repeat for a good few days…

God Is Able

I’ve been listening to the new Hillsong Live album, God Is Able – it’s excellent. I can’t say there are any stand-out tracks, in the same league as Mighty To Save or Hosanna, but the whole set are good, solid songs with good thematic lyrics.

One thing which I’m not so impressed with is the incorporation of the ‘Ole Ole‘ football anthem into their recording of Go, which is a pretty cool song (Hillsong United feature it on Aftermath). Usually I quite like all the ‘whoa-oh’ stuff but this was a step too far!

The title track is fantastic – I’ve had it stuck in my head all day. The preemptive melody line and its syncopation make it particularly memorable – and it’s an excellent song to remember.

Verse 1
God is able
He will never fail
He is almighty God
Greater than all we seek
Greater than all we ask
He has done great things

Chorus
Lifted up
He defeated the grave
Raised to life
Our God is able
In His name
We overcome
For the Lord
Our God is able

Verse 2
God is with us
God is on our side
He will make a way
Far above all we know
Far above all we hope
He has done great things

Bridge
God is with us
He will go before
He will never leave us
He will never leave us
God is for us
He has open arms
He will never fail us
He will never fail us

So many short, punchy truths in one place can never be a bad thing. I think it’s easy for us to forget sometimes that God never, ever fails. We understand reliability in human terms – we know of people who are reliable and of people who are unreliable. But when you stop to think of the power behind the statement that God never fails, it’s mind-blowing. There is never a time when God lets us down. Ever. We need to begin to live like we truly believe it, because it is true, and it’s amazing. He is the unchanging, unfailing, always loving, always pure, always merciful God who is worthy of all our praise.

Avalanche

I’d love to take an opportunity to share with you a song from the album Aftermath by Hillsong United – Like An Avalanche. It’s an amazing song…

I must admit that the metaphors for God’s grace have been going a little mental ever since the ocean in How He Loves by John Mark Macmillan – David Crowder picked up some very similar ideas in Sometimes (on this year’s Passion album). This song could easily fall into the category of pointless metaphors ‘just because someone else did it’ but, ‘caught up in grace like an avalanche‘ is such a beautiful phrase, that it wouldn’t be fair. Well done Joel Houston & Dylan Thomas for writing it and to Jill McCloghry (I think) for singing it so beautifully.

I’ll stop wittering and let you take a listen:

The Hobbit

A couple of weeks back Peter Jackson posted this blog video on his Facebook page.

We have been eagerly awaiting The Hobbit ever since The Lord of the Rings film trilogy was completed. Preparation for it has taken a little longer than expected – indeed under the original timescale The Hobbit: Part 1 would be hitting our cinema screens this year. However things have been pushed back by about a year, so the release date for the first installment is December 2012 and The Hobbit: Part 2 will follow in December 2013.

I must say that Peter Jackson’s LOTR trilogy are probably my all-time favourite films. As a huge fan of the books and all things Middle-Earth, I think that (were he still alive) Tolkien would be extremely proud of them. They capture the essence and beauty of his fictional world with perfection.

I’m pretty sure that Jackson will continue with the same excellence in the production of these two films also.

Looking at the cast list, we are in for a treat. Martin Freeman fits the role as Bilbo absolutely perfectly – in fact if you listen closely to the very end of the video, the voice-over which sounds remarkably like Ian Holm is in fact Freeman from an early read through. Many of us will be familiar with Richard Armitage from The Vicar of Dibley or the recent BBC version of Robin Hood – he is an outstanding British actor who will add his excellence to the films. The same can be said for James Nesbitt (Murphy’s Law). I am pleased that Ian McKellen, Andy Serkis, Elijah Wood, Orlando Bloom and Christopher Lee will be returning to reprise their roles from LOTR – it’s important that that continuity between the films is in place as it will give the set of 5 films a sense of being part of the same thing, despite being separated from each other by about 10 years.

On the production side of things many familiar faces are back – in fact it’s pretty much the same team again. John Howe and Alan Lee are again involved in the artistic design (the latter can be seen giving a particularly ‘camp’ wave in the video) which is great to see.

Even from a technology point of view, Jackson isn’t cutting any corners. He is using thirty Red Epic cameras – at $58,000 a piece they capture video at unimaginable quality. In 3D.

All in all, I don’t think there’s anything that need be changed about the production and filming. We can trust that the team will truly do justice to Tolkien’s vision.

I must confess that, as someone that many might think is a little geeky at the best of times, I am the proud owner of the extended editions of the LOTR trilogy, and I have spent many hours browsing through the extensive extra content on the bonus DVDs in the box-set. Even for me it did get a little tedious but on the whole I find it fascinating. Film-making is such an art; Jackson is perhaps one of the greatest artists of our time. From the intricate designs and attention to detail on every single thing that appears on screen to the epic filming locations, The Lord of the Rings is truly breathtaking.

We are fortunate that someone has taken the time to compile all the video documentaries, interviews and galleries and preserved them on the extended edition box-set. What struck me as I was watching the video above however was that, in our time of overwhelming technical connectivity, the weight of video footage, photographs and blog posts from the sets of The Hobbit in New Zealand will be unimaginable. In some ways this is a little sad – we won’t get the privilege to have all things ‘hobbit’ in one neat set as we do with LOTR. Yet on the other hand it’s so exciting – we are privileged to be included in so many moments ‘behind-the-scenes’ as they are posted online for the world to see. Jackson’s Facebook page will be a place of beauty and fascination for at least the next two years as this fabulous story reaches its completion.

I think that that’s amazing.

Hugo Weaving (Elrond) visiting the set on Saturday.

It’s Alright

One of my favourite songs at the moment is called It’s Alright, by Brandon Heath.

Once again YouTube are being annoying and not allowing the video for the song to be embedded here, so here is the link instead: Click here.

Tiny boat on an angry sea
Sails torn and tattered
How could Jesus be fast asleep
Like it doesn’t matter
Soon as He opens His eyes
The storm just dies

It’s alright
Everything will be okay
You just hold tight
I’ll be with you the whole way
When you’re weak, I’ll be strong
Keep going, we’re almost home
It’s alright
Everything will be okay

Mother Mary’s got a broken heart
From the words they’re saying
Her baby boy’s being torn apart
By the world He’s saving
He says, Mother, don’t cry for me
You know where I’ll be

No promise of an easy road
Just a destination
Next time you forget your hope
Somebody’s waiting
Soon as you open your eyes
You’ll realize

It’s alright
Everything will be okay
You just hold tight
I’ll be with you the whole way
When you’re weak, He’ll be strong
Keep going, you’re almost home
When you’re weak, He is strong
Keep going, you’re almost home
It’s alright
Everything will be okay

It has beautiful imagery in it about the life of Jesus – calming the waves, His death. There is such a sense of reassurance, that it’s okay to just rest with God, because He is in control.

Now I had to think a little bit when I first heard this song about the chorus – is it really right to be singing, ‘It’s alright. Everything will be okay.’? Is this too much of a blasé attitude towards life? Most of the time, things aren’t alright, things aren’t okay. We travel a difficult journey, full of troubles, pain and suffering.

But I’ve thought a lot about it and decided that this is exactly the truth that we need to grab hold of. Jesus says:

“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” – Matthew 11:28-30, NIV.

Because Jesus died, it is all right. We have been made right in the eyes of God.

‘God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.’ - 2 Corinthians 5:21, NIV.

When we are weak, He is strong. Keep going, because we are almost there. Jesus, our Strength, our Shield, our Healer, our Provider, our King will hold us tightly if we ask Him to, and He’s never going to let us go.