We showed the following video on Sunday morning at The Gateway Church.  It pretty much wrecked me when I first saw it last, and again when I heard it on Sunday morning paired with Paul’s message.

The performance was originally done live by a guy named Mike Perez, and then he recorded it and made this video.

It is a call to just worship.  Not “just” in the sense of “hey man, why don’t you just worship.”  But in the sense of our worship being just.

The entire thing is ridiculously powerful, but the lines that really broke me are these:

me way drown in justice
and may we be resuscitated with hearts transformed
with hearts that mute the musics noise
because they long for a worship that responds
to the angelic callings of the orphan and the widow
a worship that feeds
a worship that quenches thirst
a worship that isn’t irritated by visiting hours or prison doors
a worship whose sense of smell can stomach
the stench of urine and unbrushed teeth
whose sense of sight can bare an urban crown of thorns;
lice filled hair and bloody nails
whose sense of touch and embrace can loosen the grip of domestic violence
whose sense of hearing and concern can fill the void
shaped by the held-back “i love you’s” that
turned dreams into nightmares and nightmares into realities
a worship whose purpose is to shine outside the dry walls of the church
where a world waits, and a God watches
the question, the challenge; will you worship

So yeah…chew on that for a few days.

~chris

With each series we do at The Gateway Church we try and have a local artist create a piece that represents their interpretation of the topic. For our Origins series, Anna Farrand created an incredible piece! You have to see it in person for the full affect, but you can get a glimpse with this photo.

Here is her explanation of the piece:

The theme of this piece came from the book of Numbers and the first census of the twelve tribes of Israel, paralleled with our lives today and the census of 2010.  The background is a collage of vintage maps that create the land of the twelve tribes where Israel is today. The top layer is an intricately cut-out map of downtown Des Moines. The goal was to create this almost graphic, blank, top layer that represents today’s google map society, contrasted with detailed 1960’s road maps representing where we came from.

Make sure to check out more of Anna’s stuff at her website, annafarrand.com.

~chris

Another fun video for you fine folks that are trying to not do anything productive

A painter starts with a blank canvas, and as a musician, your canvas is silence. You don’t want to cover it all up. So if you know what you’re doing as a musician, you play the silences. You can’t fall into that trap of trying to get everything in and playing so fast. You have to take time and pace yourself. Otherwise, technically you may make people go ‘wow’, but it doesn’t make good music. – Keith Richards

Sometimes when you work in a certain field you can get tired of things quickly just because you’ve had so much exposure to it.  This is why Es and I are both terrified of having our secret dream of becoming food critics come to fruition: what if it makes us not like food anymore?

Anyhoo, I find myself in this scenario with worship music.  Most of it sounds the same, which sucks.  But I always find it difficult to write – and be happy with - something that doesn’t sound similar to what other people are currently doing.

A few days ago I watched the most incredible special on Neil Young called “American Masters.” Apparently it’s a series highlighting different art and music icons on PBS.

To be honest I didn’t know a whole heap about Young and probably couldn’t name too many of his songs other than Old Man and Heart Of Gold, but after watching this special about him I am definitely going to be listening to his music and reading more about him.  He said some things that really made me think, and his approach to music and songwriting is completely wrong according to most other writers of his day, and most people today.

A few quotes that really stuck out to me:

“I didn’t spend 10 years in the 60s and 70s creating something so I could be a prisoner of it … You know if you’re trying to stay in the favor of the public, you’re a loser – you’ll never get there.”

“I made a record that no one wanted, so it failed.  But I succeeded.  I didn’t lose because I didn’t get caught up in success.”

Anyway…I am definitely feeling motivation to break out of my mold, which is eerily similar to other peoples molds, and write some different stuff this year.  I will probably rarely succeed, but I suppose I won’t succeed if I don’t try either.

There are a few worship bands/songwriters that I have come across that are doing something truly unique in one way or another.  You may not necessarily agree, but I think that these are some of the best unknown (or less-known) worship groups out there.  (And if Derek Webb actually releases a worship cd this year, than I’m sure it will make next years list.)

So hopefully this may give you some new music to listen too, and hopefully you’ll have some new music for me to listen too as well.

The Bridge Band – I got their CD in the mail as a free gift from Relevant Magazine.  I’m really glad I did.  It has some of Both Es and I’s absolute favorite worship songs on it.  I don’t think they are signed to a label or have any sort of distribution besides their website/itunes.  (Not that anyone needs it these days.)  The album doesn’t have the best production, and it sounds like the songs were possibly recorded at different times at different studios, but it’s still an incredible collection of songs.

The Glorious Unseen – A worship band with some of the most incredibly raw and passionate lyrics ever.  Their stuff definitely moves away from the current trends of worship music.  You won’t find any Tomlin, United, or Jesus Culture sounds on these albums.  Not that those are bad, but the point of this post is uniqueness and the balls to do something different.

Ian McIntosh – (More music here) Ian McIntosh is the keyboard player for Jesus Culture, which you may have heard of before.  Probably. His albums are pretty diverse.  They have a very ambient and ethereal sound to them, the feel that you’ll find on Sigur Ros, Explosions In The Sky, or This Will Destroy You album.  Great stuff.

Ryan Delmore – (More music here) I admire this guy a lot.  He seems like the most normal guy, but he makes some of the most incredible music.  His songs are fantastic and his lyrics are basically all scripture.  He has a great alt-country sound ala Ryan Adams and that whole scene.  So his music isn’t necessarily a new style, but as far as worship music goes you won’t find anything else like it.

Enter The Worship Circle – I really don’t know if this is a band, community, or what…but it’s almost always incredible.  From the electronic sounds of Village Thrift to the acoustic feel of Chair & Microphone Vol. 2, it’s worth listening to.

Trinity Grace Church – Trinity Grace is a really unique community of churches in New York.  I don’t want to spend too much time on them, but they are doing some incredible things.  I found out about their album because one of my favorite singer/songwriters is Zach Williams.  He also happens to be one of the worship leaders at TGC.  This album doesn’t necessarily have the most unique sound, as a lot of the songs are hymns.  But to me it is just saturated with something beautiful and powerful.  Multiple worship leaders, a mix of original and non-original material, but it came out being one of the most powerful albums I got last year.

Chris McClarney – This is the guy that wrote some of my favorite worship tunes, Your Love Never Fails and Your Love is Everything.  He is on staff at a church in TN, I believe.  His CD (Love Never Fails) is a studio album, which I am generally not a fan of studio worship albums.  They just never seems to be the same as a live recording.  Without going into all the reasons that could be, let me just say that his CD is oozing with the most worshipful spirit and passion of any studio recording I can remember.  It’s not necessarily the music or recording quality…it’s the heart that comes screaming through the speakers.

Anyway…I am sure this is not a complete list and I would love to hear some suggestions from anybody that might read this blog.  Anyone I should check out? I’m always up for suggestions!

~chris

I stand by my previous statement (that I may or may not have ever actually said out loud) that Bizarro is indeed the funniest comic/strip/cartoon out there.

I know it’s a little late, but here are two good Christmas themed ones.

Do yourself a favor, add his blog to your rss feed. It’ll make your day.

~chris

DesMo is a little like having our own personal Discovery Channel.  We keep learning learning all kinds of stuff!  Some of it we could care less about, and some of it we would rather just not know.  Like the fact that Taco Bell isn’t respected like it should be out here, or the fact that they charge almost 30 cents more per item.  (Maybe those two things are related?)  Or that kids in Iowa are legally supposed to go trick-or-treating the night before Halloween, which is called “Beggars Night.”

Some of the stuff we are discovering is incredible though, which brings me to my point.

Es is an incredible artist.

She went to an art class the other night with one of our new friends, Jen.  She had no idea what it was about or anything like that, but when she came home she had made these 5 awesome little baseball card-sized art pieces.  I don’t even know how she did it…some sort of mixed media.  But it blew me away!  I can’t wait to see what she does next!!

I took this with my iPhone, so you’ll just have to imagine how amazing it looks in real life.  Also, she did more – but I think she is planning on posting pictures on her blog later.  Consider this a teaser!

~kretzu