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.

You inhabit the praises of Your people…

…so the Psalmist says (Psalm 22:3).

Where is God?

It is my firm belief that God does not live in buildings. A church is not the house of God because God lives there when there is no-one else around.

Looking back into the Old Testament, God’s presence was in the Holy of Holies in the Tabernacle. This seems to directly contradict what is stated above – God evidently lived in a place, even when there was no-one else around.

This all ties in with Christmas and the Incarnation, but more strongly with Easter, and specifically Communion.

Because Christ died, we can be with the Father. The New Covenant, sealed with Jesus’ blood made this so. This is what we remember, and symbolise at Communion.

Communion is something quite complex and therefore confusing – I read an interesting take on it in an extract from a book called God Still Matters by Herbert McCabe, given to me to prepare as part of one of my Cambridge interviews for Theology. McCabe states that Jesus is not in paradise, Jesus is paradise. This sets an interesting spin on the purpose of Communion – by symbolically eating the body and blood of Jesus, we are having paradise infused into us in some way. At first glance, this seemed like a fantastic exposition of the true purpose of Communion, a real ‘lightbulb moment’ for me. However I’ve come to decided that I’m not entirely satisfied with McCabe’s idea.

This is where I make a tenuous link with the question above: ‘Where is God?’

God does not move in buildings when there is no-one there – have you ever heard of God repairing the brickwork, or updating the interior design? Of course not, for God is a God who deals in relationships and love. When God moves, His Spirit is in people. This is why a building can never be called a church, because it is simply a shell.  A church is the group, or fellowship, of people who meet together in that shell to worship… God is in them, not the building. We see this idea repeatedly in scripture, most memorably where Paul talks of our bodies as the ‘temple of the Holy Spirit.’ (1 Corinthians 6:19, NIV).

Until this summer, at events like Soul Survivor, my visual imagination of the healing power of God was a streak of light from the sky, filling the tent and touching people wherever it went, not dissimilar from the scene toward the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark, when the Nazis open the Ark of the Covenant and are struck dead by this ‘light force’.

Now, I have come to realise what actually happens – the power of God does not come from the sky, but from the hearts of the people in the tent, who worship Him. God is not in buildings, He is in His people.

This is where Communion starts to make sense – it symbolises one’s acceptance of Jesus into their heart. By eating His body and drinking His blood, He becomes part of us.

The chorus of the song, ‘The Same Power’ illustrates this beautifully:

‘The same power that conquered the grave lives in me, lives in me…Your love that rescued the earth lives in me, lives in me.’

We can have the power of God within us, if we so desire.

‘Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with that person, and they with me.’ – Revelation 3:20, NIV.

This helps us to understand the concept of worship. We should worship the Lord our God with all of our being, our bodies, our minds, our hearts and our souls. If we can do this, then God will truly be inhabiting the praises of His people. He inhabits us, and our purpose is to praise Him. We are His praise.

I want my life to be pictured as a mirror – constantly reflecting something brighter and better than I, constantly showing others the way to be with the Father.

Jesus Christ is the Saving One.