I finally got my hands on the album and had a chance to give it a good listen.  If you have followed Crowder’s music, experimentations, books, awkward interviews, side projects, 3+4=7′s, simple praise songs, crafty grassroots to synths style changes, 20 sec songs, musical interludes, elaborately crafted satyrical blog entries, long song names, comical stories, and REASON beats…you should love his final masterpiece: Give Us Rest (A Requiem Mass In C [the Happiest of All Keys]) is truly a masterpiece.

Crowder has always had a powerful way of arranging his songs, stylistic changes, and genre crossing into a cohesive theme that tells a story. This is not limited to just the individual albums either.  Whether it was intentional from the beginning or not, Crowder has successfully orchestrated a concept spanning every album over his entire career that ends in this grand finale.  And, although he is typically credited for many of the fun, catchy, pop-worship songs being sung in churches today, there has always been a haunting depth that reminded listeners that there was an unsettling aspect to the God these songs were written for.  I think Crowder would be pleased to know that we had fun but we felt the tension along the way too.

As the final album moves forward you can’t help but catch a sense of weariness from the songs.  Not that the songs are tired in any way but that the writer and band are ready to lay the burden of these songs down after carrying them on a very long journey.  It’s been a great ride Crowder Band…it is finished.

Heart Cry

My soul, it thirsts for more of You.

My heart it longs to be with You.

These eyes, they wish to gaze Your face

…and be with You my King.

                       -Haendel Balzora

LEAD SHEETS!

If you’re a rocker, you might want to get a hold of some new lead sheets!

 I posted a few new worship songs on the resource page.  

Check it out if you are interested!!

Over the past year, I have been seeking out what it means to “hear from God.”  My interest really took off after I was at the Worship Intensive with Aaron Keyes and interacted with Jamie Winship and others at Grace Fellowship in Snellville.  It was one of those times when I got to be around trustworthy people that told unbelievable stories as if they were just commonplace.  Since then, I have read books, listened to lots of Podcasts, had phone/skype conversations, watched a really cool movie called Furious Love, and I have spent a good amount of time listening to my Father in heaven.  This whole learning process has been really helpful for me and I can see that it has rubbed off on others too.  There are some things that I KNOW God has spoken to me and other things that I THINK God has told me.  I am careful to weigh everything through the filter of scripture and I love to get other peoples input to help me discern some things [that's community right?].  The beauty of it all is that I have learned to act in obedience more and I have begun to fear less what others may think of me.

The fear of looking irresponsible to those around me has been the biggest hindrance in my pursuit of hearing from God and acting on what I hear.  I am learning to let go of that.

A couple weeks ago, I was watching Conan [that's right] and a picture popped into my head.  The thought of me walking out my back door, through the empty field behind our house, and to the street on the other side was nagging me.  I didn’t want to go.  It was warm and cozy in our house, my wife and son had fallen asleep, and I was in the middle of Conan!!  I could easily have told myself that it was just in my head but, since I had been trying to act on God’s prompting more, I got curious, wrote a note to my wife, and went for a stroll at 10:40pm.  This is how it went:

I began walking around and praying for God’s direction. This led me to a neighborhood steets which, eventually, led me to cross paths with a boy walking parallel to me across the street.  I had been praying that heaven would be present in the streets as I walked them [...Your will be done on Earth as it is in heaven...] and the word “heaven” was on repeat in my mind.  Eventually, he turned down another street and I kept walking.  I told God that if I came across him again [which I thought was unlikely] I would tell him “heaven.”  Oddly enough, as I doubled back to go home, I came across the boy.  Imagine walking in the night and a 6’7″ red haired man walks towards you and says, “HEY! are you all right??” It would be weird but the kid responded quickly with, “yeah, are you?”

I continued to speak to him telling him that God told me to get up, take a walk, and tell him the word “heaven.”  I asked him if it meant anything to him.  He replied “Yes” and told me about how he had just ran away from home.  He mentioned that he had gotten into an argument with his parents and left but he had felt that something told him to go home after two hours. We had a brief conversation and eventually parted ways.  It was a powerful encounter.

Think of all the adventures I missed and the opportunities I lost because I wasn’t listening, I wanted to keep watching the movie in front of me, or I allowed the fear of man to stop me.  I pray that the Lord of all creation speaks to you.  I pray for courage to listen to Jesus and do what He says.

Resources I enjoyed:  4 Keys to Hearing God’s Voice by Mark Virkler [summery online], Walking With God written by John Eldridge, The Practice of the Presence of God written by Brother Lawrence, A Simple Guide to Hearing God by Felicity Dale, The Furious Love Movie, and Teachings by Jamie Winship at Grace Fellowship.

Ed Waken is part of a house church network in West Phoenix and CMA Resources.  I value his thoughts so I thought I would throw this article about worship at you! Click this to check it out!

Watch You Make All Things New right here:

I love the way this church gives so much freedom to their musicians and artists to unleash their creativity and passion.  I am looking forward to the songs they are releasing in this next album. It’s called For The Honor and its out on the 21st of November.  I wouldn’t say they are breaking brand new ground but they are passionate about their music, the quality is definitely up to par, and songs are solid, congregational worship songs!   They have been releasing videos and sneak peeks on their site here.