man.of.depravity

Anytime I hear about something that usually costs money being offered for free I am usually skeptical. I’m sure you are too.

But check this out, right now you can download the latest album by Downhere for free. No catch. I’m not kidding. I did it a few days ago and have been listening to it since then. I met the band a few months ago when they played at Sunset. Great guys with some awesome music. I think it is so awesome that they are willing to try new ways to do music in today’s industry.

Download it here and then let me know what you think.

So I’m stting at Willow Creek Art’s Conference waiting for something to happen. And then bam…this begins. Basically it is a drumline followed by the song “Let God Arise.” Also in the video is a man who found Christ in prison and during the video there is a guy doing a modern dance. It was really sweet to watch. Sorry it is a little long, I just wanted to include the entire drumline because it was so awesome. So awesome, that you should watch the whole thing.

Creative Chaos @ the Soul.

How sweet is that?

True Love is one of my favorite songs right now. It is by Phil Wickham. Rose, Janet, and I went and saw him record a live, acoustic, worship album tonight. First off, the worship concert was awesome. Phil played his stuff and mixed it in with some well known hymns. He is one of maybe 4 or 5 Christian artists who can be awesome with just an acoustic guitar and his voice.

Earlier in the day I had some time to get together with Brody and Randy. It was awesome to get to know both of them a little bit. They work with Phil and a few other Christians artists. Primarily they help with the online presence of each artist and even more specifically they help them have an effective blog. I’ve been reading Brody’s blog for a while now, so it was cool to hang out with someone who I met through blogging (it works people). What happened tonight was lots of conversations between Phil and Brody about doing something like this tonight: making the live album free, and showing the live feed of the show on Phil’s blog. So even though I was there to experience it all, many more will experience it by downloading the songs from his website and others watched the concert live on his blog tonight. Very cool.

Brody gets it. Music is changing. Artists have to change with the times. Tonight was an example of how to succeed in the changing music industry.

This is why I tell everyone that I’m not that good.

Phil Wickham’s cover of: “Hallelujah”

(HT: Brody Harper and Phil Wickham)

This past week Spence Smith wrote a great blog titled “Worship Artist vs. Worship Leader.” He has a lot of inside perspective, and knows a lot of people who are one or the other.

Some of Spence’s mains points were:

1. Being an artist is a lot of pressure and work.
2. Not all Christian bands or artists show Christ with their lives, actions, or words.
3. There is ministry to be had for both church worship leaders and traveling worship bands/artists.
4. If you want to make the transition from leader to artist you better be darn good.

This has put some thoughts in my head.

Within christian music, worship has basically become a genre, but I don’t know that I totally agree. We think of worship as songs that can be sung in church, but that is a pretty narrow view of worship. Truly, all Christian music should be worship or it isn’t really christian. There are some “Christian” bands that do less to honor God than some “secular” bands. There are a lot of Christians writing and playing in bands that do not profess to being Christian bands. There a lot of Christians playing in Christian bands who do a disservice to what Christianity is all about.

I think the ability to develop relationships with a congregation and community is something that most worship artists are starving for. They are constantly trying to write the next great song for churches and constantly traveling. I am blessed to be at a place where I serve the same area and same people week in and week out. The music we played 2 weeks still matters and the conversation we had months ago matters too. Artists like Chris Tomlin serve someone new every night. While being an artist might be really cool, I don’t know that it will always lead to a more fulfilling life.

Ever since I started playing for adults I have been told that I should record and get myself heard…that I could make it big. I guess I don’t see this as the end all. First off I don’t enjoy writing all that much. Second, I get wiped out from playing 3 or 4 times a week with practices and services, playing every night might kill me.

What do you think….

Is it really better to be a worship artist than to be a local church worship pastor?

Are all Christian bands worthy of our respect just because they call themselves Christian?