Some of the questions came from you guys and this clip is Kathryn’s response to Roger Buzby’s question:
“what was happening in your life when you wrote the song ‘Hungry’?”
It’s an amazing story…
Every Saturday for over 3 years a team from Causeway Coast Vineyard has been praying for the sick on the streets of Coleraine. Every week people get healed and many have come to faith in Jesus as a result of initially experiencing the love and power of God.
Mark Marx, who heads up this ministry, tells me that the model is so simple and reproducible that hundreds of churches are now beginning to run with the idea in their local areas.
Anyway, here’s a short clip of what it looks like in Coleraine.
For more resources and stories of just some of the amazing healings check out Out-There.org
You also might want to check out ‘Church Has Left The Building’ Conference at Causeway Coast Vineyard for more of this.
I’ll be interviewing Kathryn Scott on the subject of songwriting for OpenSourceSongs.com and rather than dreaming up questions that I think might be relevant to the subject of Christian Songwriting I thought I’d survey you guys.
So here’s what I’d like you to do. Leave your question(s) in the comments section below and I’ll get Kathryn to answer them.
If you’re on my mailing list you’ll get to hear when the interview is published.
Worship music in America and the west is now an ‘industry’.
That’s not necessarily a condemning statement after all Jubal, the first musician documented in Gen 4 was listed with his brothers by their professions. One brother was in agriculture, the other in manufacturing and Jubal was ‘the father of all who play the harp and flute’. It’s what he did for a living which, by the way, included fathering, mentoring and developing other artists too.
But any time you get an industry forming then the mixed motives of human nature kick in to some degree. Sometimes the industry has to self sustain and churn out product just so that it continues to exist.
So do we really need any more worship songs? There are more being written and distributed now than in any previous generation.
When wrestling with this here are three thoughts that found their way to the conscious part of my brain.
1. God likes songs. The biggest section of His book is a collection of songs.
2. If the universe’s main function is to display His glory (Ps. 19 ) and it’s expanding at an accelerating rate then it seems that even creation cannot contain enough expressions to voice worship to its creator.
3. The very last statement of the Gospels says: Jesus did many other things as well. If every one of them were written down, I suppose that even the whole world would not have room for the books that would be written. I think the same is true of worship - there can never be enough expressions of response to the love of God.
Maybe I’m justifying to myself yet more worship songs being added to the mix but here are a few samples of the new ones including a 4/4 guitar driven version of ‘Be Thou My Vision’ that has proved popular in night clubs, festivals and even churches!
The new album download version is ready.
I’ve got a pre-release copy of the new album ‘Mercy Tracks Me Down’ waiting for you to download.
Here’s what you get:
All the tracks im mp3 format (which means you can play them on your computer, iPod or any other type of mp3 player (or even burn them to CD).
All the chord charts (thanks to Simonas in Lithuania - sekluma.lt)
All the Power Point Files for songs (thanks to Roger Buzby in North Carolina - RogerBuzby.com).
PLUS
If you get your copy BEFORE MIDNIGHT on SUNDAY I’ll also send you the download version of ‘We Say Yes’. This is a 9 track studio demo recording which includes some of my songs that made it on to the final recording of Engage24 plus some others that will make an appearance on future recordings.
So, if you’re quick you get 2 for the price of one - all this for less than the cost of a fast food meal!
There is a favour I’d like to ask too. I’m looking for some reviews that I can use when the official CD launch comes around.
If you decide to grab a copy now and review it, I may use your comments (with a link) on the official MercyTracksMeDown.com website when it goes live.
In the meantime you can get your subscriber’s pre-release copy here:
Remember if you get it before Sunday I’ll follow it up with a copy of We Say Yes for free
I’m still putting the final touches to the website for the launch of Mercy Tracks Me Down worship album (www.MercyTracksMeDown).
In the meantime I thought it would be good to let you hear what the songs would sound like with just 2 acoustic instruments. Not everyone has a full worship band to recreate the arrangements that we listen to on worship albums so I hope this is helpful in demonstrating that simple acoustic worship can be equally effective.
Let me know what you think.
