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.

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:

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.

Praise Is Rising

It’s Palm Sunday on Sunday, when the church remembers Jesus’ entry into the city of Jerusalem riding on a donkey, 5 days before He was crucified.

Crowds met Him, shouting ‘Hosanna!’ and throwing their cloaks and palm leaves on the ground in front of where the donkey walked.

Paul Baloche has recently made a cracking video for his song, Hosanna. I will say that it bears an uncanny resemblance to Tim Hughes’ video for Counting On Your Name, but this isn’t a criticism! Hosanna, also known as Praise Is Rising is a fantastic song to be singing or listening to on Palm Sunday, so here is the video for you all.

Click here.

True Love

It’s been a long time since I posted anything on here, so since it’s a week until Good Friday I thought I’d share one of my absolute favourite songs with you.

True Love is by Phil Wickham, from his 2007 album Cannons. You can listen to it here on YouTube. What I think I’ll do is talk about each bit of the lyrics separately, what they mean and why they are so powerful.

Phil uses ‘true love’ as a name in the song – it refers to Jesus, the only perfect human being to have ever lived, who was ‘full of grace and truth.’ (John 1:14, NIV.) Jesus reveals the Father to us, and God is love. So Jesus reveals the love of God to us – Jesus is true love.

Come close, listen to the story
About a love more faithful than the morning
The Father gave his only Son just to save us

The first verse is pretty self-explanatory – it establishes the theme of the song and talks about the faithfulness of God’s love – ‘more faithful than the morning’. This reminds me of part of Lamentations:

…his compassions never fail.
They are new every morning;
great is your faithfulness. - Lamentations 3:22-23, NIV.

Musically, this part of the song is open and full of space – it’s reflective, and Phil’s voice has a tenderness about it that helps to get across the mercy that God has for all of us.

The chorus gives us a comprehensive understanding of what went on when Jesus died. I was thinking about this the other day and I was realising how much of a monumental event it is – we know that the death of Jesus probably the most important thing to have happened for the whole of history (as Tim Hughes’ song Happy Day describes it, ‘The greatest day in history’).

Hear Your People Sing

Yesterday I managed to get to the HMV Forum in Kentish Town for WorshipCentral’s live album recording…

What a night! Tim Hughes, Ben Cantelon, Nikki Fletcher, Luke Hellebronth and Al Gordon led a variety of songs with the WorshipCentral team – it looked and sounded amazing. However, my favourite part wasn’t the music, it was the worship.

There is something profound about gathering together with thousands of other people to dance around, shout and sing out to God. The music last night allowed for people to get totally lost in the presence of Jesus, and we saw the Holy Spirit come in power in many places.

Mike Pilavachi spoke briefly but powerfully on what the Christian faith is, describing it beautifully as a dance. I love Mike’s passion to see people come to Christ, as following Him is not about coming to a religion, it’s about coming to a relationship. He mentioned that when we worship, we are joining in with all the hosts of heaven, who are always worshipping the Father, God Most High.

We were treated to a great bunch of songs, including Counting On Your Name, At Your Name and Wake Up from Tim Hughes (from Love Shine Through), All Glory and Wait For You from Nikki Fletcher, New Day and Saviour Of The World from Ben Cantelon and Alleluia and Because Of Your Love from Al Gordon. We also sang a few ‘classics’, like Happy Day, Spirit Of The Living God and For Your Glory (with the Matt Redman ‘lift up your heads, you ancient gates’ additions). Such amazing songs, full of truth and  passion.

If I had to pick one song that stood out, it would be Spirit Break Out, by Luke Hellebronth and Myles Dhillon. Luke sang and Myles rapped… It was such a passionate cry for the presence of Jesus. Here’s the lyrics in case you don’t know it, you can also listen to a demo of it here on WorshipCentral.org.

Spirit break out
Break our walls down
Spirit break out
Heaven come down

Our Father, all of heaven roars Your name
Sing louder, let this place erupt with praise
Can you hear it?
The sound of heaven touching earth
The sound of heaven touching earth

King Jesus, You’re the name we’re lifting high
Your glory, shaking up the earth and skies
Revival,
We want to see Your Kingdom here
We want to see Your Kingdom here

Thanks to David for the lyrics to the second verse! (See comments).

All I can say is that I can’t wait until the album comes out!

Love Shine Through

I’m getting really excited for March 21st, the release date for Tim Hughes’ latest studio album Love Shine Through. This one’s going to be a cracker!

Tim’s been dotting samples of some of the songs around the place which is a great way of preparing us for the musical feast we are about to enjoy.

His most collaborative project ever, Hughes further co-writes for Love Shine Through with Ben Cantelon, Phil Wickham, Nick Herbert, Nikki Fletcher and Keys Kraayenoord. Additional guest musicians adding their unique stamp on the album include members of Rend Collective Experiment on various instruments, Jesus Culture’s Kim Walker-Smith adding her distinct vocals, Michael Guy Chislet (Hillsong UNITED) on guitars, Josiah Sherman (The Listening) adding his keyboard work and Marc James (Vineyard, Verra Cruz) on slide guitar, background vocals. Additional backing voices on the album include: Jerry Brown, David Grant, Fay Simpson and Jesus House Gospel Choir. The album was mixed by Sam Gibson (Pearl Jam, Jesus Culture, Elvis Costello) and mastered at Abbey Road.

I’ve always been a huge fan of Tim Hughes. His songs are in a class of their own as over the years he has helped to shape and define what we have come to know as a ‘worship song’. Over his 15 years of songwriting, he has constantly provided a mix of profound poetry and beautiful melodies, helping to enable the church and the worshipper every step of the way. God has blessed him with such a wonderful gift in this area and Tim certainly hasn’t let it go to waste.

Perhaps his best known worship song is Here I Am To Worship, which featured on his first studio album of the same name. In many ways this song typifies Tim’s style – a simple but heartfelt, personal approach to God in the chorus and a wealth of deep lyrics in the verses – the line, “All for love’s sake became poor…” is a perfect example of the rich poetry in his writing.

Love Shine Through kicks off with Counting on Your Name – I posted its music video a while back. The song is an anthemic declaration of where we find ourselves – the only thing that we can count on to save us is the name of Jesus. It’s a cracking song that I can see being heavily featured in worship sets in churches throughout the country. Tim led worship at Momentum 2010 with it and it was so powerful.

The second track, God Is Coming, which Tim co-wrote with Martin Smith of Delirious? has been going through my head all day. The chorus is perfect:

Here You come
Running to find me
King of the universe
Yes, our God is the God who saves
Here You come
To light up the darkness
Forever glorious
Yes, our God is the God who saves

The chorus speaks of the God we see in the story of the Prodigal Son, literally running to meet us as we find our way to Him. Such a beautiful picture of our Father. The harmony (which sounds like Martin Smith) over the top of Tim’s vocal line makes this chorus one of the best I have heard for a long time.

Tim has also recorded All Glory, which was written by Nikki Fletcher (his colleague from WorshipCentral) – I have written a post about the song, which is here.

At Your Name is a co-write with Phil Wickham. Aside from the quite hilarious use of the rhyming pair “crumble” and “tumble” in the first verse, this is another one that is well worth a listen. It is the ‘New Song’ on WorshipCentral this month and you can find a chordsheet there too. I especially like the use of the word ‘Yahweh’ here. I’m not sure why but it’s something that makes the song stand out somewhat. The album actually features this song twice – one version is a more laid back, reflective piece, while the other is a full-on anthem, ready for worship leaders to take and use in services.

Many of the songs can be found as demo versions on the songs page of WorshipCentral website, along with chordsheets.

In addition, be sure to listen to the WorshipCentral podcast from March 2011 – there is an extensive interview with Tim about the album and the opportunity to sample some of the tracks. It’s a wonderful thing to be able to hear him chat about his experiences while recording and writing the songs and what some of them mean to him personally.

A full review of Love Shine Through from ChristianSonic can be found here.