Song Review - You alone can rescue

There is something great about a new song catching on fast. Maybe it is just random chance that people love a song the moment they hear it, but I doubt it. I think there are two things at play; the Holy Spirit and a really great hook!

This song, You Alone Can Rescue by Matt Redman, is obviously inspired by the Holy Spirit and has been a hit this past year. We introduced it around this time last year in preparation for Easter and it was a favorite from the first time through it.

To start off, being the music geek that I am, I really appreciated the placement of the song on the original album (We Shall Not Be Shaken). The first few songs set up a place of dependance for mankind on a God who is faithful and loving. When we come to this song we first take inventory of our place and our state (See verse 1). There is this understanding that God loves us, He is faithful, and His grace is sufficient despite our inability which leads us to a truer understanding of the lyrics in the chorus (and title) "You ALONE Can Rescue".  This incredible God (as we will continue to see throughout the remainder of the songs on the album) is our only hope at true life. 

The Second verse sits in harmony with the first and talks about how God has made a way for us to to be rescued. Notice that this line "when our hearts were far away" connotes that despite our condition His love goes further still! We really have nothing to do with it! Jesus does it!

By far my favorite line in the song is, "You came down to find us and led us out of death". Powerful! Aren't you excited for that. We see in this some rich theology. As Christians, our sin, shame, filth, and death has been taken to the grave, buried and our new life is raised with Christ from the dead. That which was dead now is made new.  So we read this line again, "You came down to find us and led us out of death" and we are reminded once again that this is Christ's work not ours.  I don't know about you, but I trust Him over me any day.

The bridge is just a proclamation of this "highest praise" that the chorus speaks of. "We lift up our eyes, lift up our eyes. You’re the Giver of Life!" Jesus, our Lord, is the Giver of Life and we lift our eyes to Him in humble adoration because of HIS work.

You Alone Can Rescue
Who, oh Lord, could save themselves,

Their own soul could heal?

Our shame was deeper than the sea

Your grace is deeper still

You alone can rescue, You alone can save

You alone can lift us from the grave

You came down to find us, led us out of death

To You alone belongs the highest praise

You, oh Lord, have made a way

The great divide You've healed

For when our hearts were far away

Your love went further still

Yes, your love goes further still

We lift up our eyes, lift up our eyes
You’re the Giver of Life

Great song. 

Thanks Matt for another rich song.

- Luke

Creating an Environment of Worship Visually - WorshipVJ.com

I've been wanting to highlight a friend and show some new creative elements that are being used in Visual Worship Arts and I got an email from him about a session he is leading at the Song DISCovery Creative Conference in Nashville. So, I figured I would pass it on. Take a look. This is pretty fascinating stuff and really brings a new element of creativity to our worship.

Thanks for all that you are doing Stephen. Take a look at his website: http://worshipvj.com/

The Church used to be known for being the most creative, artistic force on the planet. Centuries ago, the Church commissioned visual artists to paint its ceilings, create stained glass images, and architect the most provocative buildings in history. Of course, many agendas, motivations, politics and power struggles were involved in the creative process (which is the same case today)...but at the end of the day, some of mankind's most stunning art was created...art that tells the Story of God!

But along the way, something happened. And a large portion of the Church threw visual art out the window. Beauty no longer had a place in the world of theology...and the Word of God was limited to text on a page and the academic preaching of a sermon. But things are changing.

The Church is welcoming art and beauty back home into it's mission & worship. And it's very exciting to see it unfold. And it's pretty messy, as well.

Pastors are trying to figure out how to manage and lead artists. Artists are learning to be pastors and visual prophets. Churches are making films. Worship leaders aren't leading with just songs anymore...they're leading with visual media! More eyes are on HD screens these days than they are on the cross, baptistry, or pulpit. And with "environmental projection," you can turn your once blank worship center into an image-filled cathedral of Story!

A generation of visual artists is rising up... and it's full of storytellers, film-makers, painters, media directors, graphic designers, VJs, lighting designers, photographers & more! The artist is the new pastor. And the media director is now the visual worship leader.

More than ever, there must be time & space to have conversations about what is happening... and to receive training and teaching so that we can lead and create in ways that bring glory to The Creator. And it's important to have these conversations in community with our musical worship leaders, songwriters and authors.

So all you visual worshipers out there, this is the summons. Come to the Song DISCovery Creative Conference in Nashville this April, and interact with others who are in the same boat as you. Click here to register today! And use code "VJ25" when you register to receive $25 off registration!

Sincerely,
Stephen Proctor
General Session Speaker
Song DISCovery Creative Conference


[Text & Images from: Worship Leader Magazine, Email - Subject: Hone Your Craft as a Visual Artist. Copyright (C) 2012 Worship Leader Magazine All rights reserved. Used by permission.]

New song for Easter! 'Christ the Lord' by Paul Baloche

So excited to sing this song on Easter morning. "Christ the Lord" is a wonderful new song by Paul Baloche echoing the meaning and essence of the hymn "Christ the Lord is Risen Today".

Here is a video from Paul explaining how to play it. One of the many practical videos that Paul has offered to the worship community displaying his heart for seeing worship leaders equipped for ministry. You can find more at leadworship.com or just search for his videos on Youtube.



The Lyrics are great and give a "sing a new song unto the Lord" feel to this hymn which is seen as foundational to many worshipers. Plus it is fun to play and sing!

Let's do a comparison!

Christ The Lord

VERSE 1
Son of God proved His love
That while we were sinners Jesus died for us
No more shame, no more fear
Our Savior is alive for ever, God is near

CHORUS
Christ the Lord is risen today
The Lamb of God has taken our sins away
Love's redeeming work is done
Raise Your voice! The King has overcome
Hallelu- jah, Hallelu- jah

VERSE 2
By His grace, long ago
Our sins were as scarlet, now they're white as snow
Love was nailed to the cross
His dying and His rising has changed our hearts

CHORUS

BRIDGE
Made like Him, like Him we'll rise
Ours the cross, the grave, the sky
(Repeat)

CHORUS
Christ the Lord is risen today
The Lamb of God has taken our sins away
Love's redeeming work is done
Raise Your voice! The King has overcome, Hallelujah!
Christ the Lord is risen today
The Lamb of God has taken our sins away
Love's redeeming work is done
Raise Your voice! The King has overcome
Hallelu- jah, Hallelu- jah
Oh, Hallelujah!


Here are the lyrics from the original Hymn to compare. The bolded parts are common themes the underlined are direct quotes, and the italics are places where Paul captured the 'overtones' of the meaning:


Christ the Lord is Risen Today

Christ the Lord is risen today, Alleluia! 
Earth and heaven in chorus say, Alleluia! 
Raise your joys and triumphs high, Alleluia! 
Sing, ye heavens, and earth reply, Alleluia! 

Love's redeeming work is done, Alleluia! 
Fought the fight, the battle won, Alleluia! 
Death in vain forbids him rise, Alleluia! 
Christ has opened paradise, Alleluia! 

Lives again our glorious King, Alleluia! 
Where, O death, is now thy sting? Alleluia!
Once he died our souls to save, Alleluia! 
Where's thy victory, boasting grave? Alleluia!

Soar we now where Christ has led, Alleluia!
Following our exalted Head, Alleluia!
Made like him, like him we rise, Alleluia! 
Ours the cross, the grave, the skies, Alleluia! 

[the last two lesser sung stanzas - not in the hymnal at my church]

     Hail the Lord of earth and heaven, Alleluia!
     Praise to thee by both be given, Alleluia! 
     Thee we greet triumphant now, Alleluia!
     Hail the Resurrection, thou, Alleluia!

     King of glory, soul of bliss, Alleluia!
     Everlasting life is this, Alleluia! 
     Thee to know, thy power to prove, Alleluia! 
     Thus to sing, and thus to love, Alleluia!


All in all, I feel that Paul did a great job bringing new life to this hymn's legacy with Christ the Lord. For people like me to did not grow up singing these hymns, songs like these are much welcomed because we need to hold on to the great content and truths that have stood the test of time. Yet, we get to do so in a way that is enjoyable to us! With lyrics that bring clarity and not mystery.

Thanks Paul, looking forward to this Easter!

Luke

PS> Another great song this Easter (while we are on the topic of hymns) is Evan Wickham's He's Alive. Take a look at that when you get a chance! Great chorus with addicting melodies to "I Know That My Redeemer Lives".

Great article - Urban Church Planting

I know that my blog is more or less geared toward worship leaders and concepts of worship, however, once in a while I come across something that is valuable for ministry in general. This is geared toward church planting and has some valuable ideas and thoughts (even for established church workers).

Take a look!

Article: 10 things to know about planting a church in the urban context
Author: Jerome Gay Jr.
Source: The Resurgence
URL Link: http://theresurgence.com/2012/03/06/10-things-to-know-about-planting-a-church-in-the-urban-context

-Luke

Great Post from Audiotuts+

I came across a great post from Audio Tuts+ that outlines some great ways to clean/avoid extra noise in home recordings.

Enjoy.

How to Minimize Noise In Your Mixes

Björgvin Benediktsson on Mar 1st 2012 

Home recordings are infamous for having noise. Background noise from outside and indoor noises from the air conditioning and people shuffling around in the next room. Home recording studios are usually never sound isolated enough. Even though you might have a great sounding room, with acoustic treatment carefully placed all over, you’re still going to run into sound isolation issues.

The biggest issue is noise, and in the following tutorial I’ll run through a couple of ways you can minimize the amount of annoying hiss and noise from your home recordings.

Image by: subcircle

Home Recording Noise

If you stop what you’re doing and listen to the silence in your studio, can you still hear something? Even with nothing really going on you can still hear the sound of the fan from your computer, and maybe some ambience noise from the outside. Especially if you live in an urban area or an apartment building. Then you’re dealing with a very high noise floor.

That’s the difference between the home studio and the commercial ones. The commercial studios, when quiet, are absolutely quiet. You don’t hear anything from the outside, the computer is in the other room, and the only thing the microphone will pick up is the sound of your instrument.

The Recording Stage

First of all, the best way to avoid dealing with noise is to not record it. Trying to soundproof your room is expensive but using blankets, gobos and such can minimize a lot of the noise. If you have a noisy desktop computer you should try to record as far away from it as you can. If you can’t do that, throw a blanket over it and put some sort of acoustic barrier between the microphone and the computer.

Also, the polar pattern of the microphone matters as well. Sometimes, pointing the microphone away from a noise source will result in a cleaner sound. In a home studio, a cardioid microphone is the best bet because not only can you point it at the sweet spot of the instrument, but you can point the back and sides to the noise where the instrument won’t hear it.

Careful With Compression


The noise floor in a commercial studio is much lower than the noise floor in your bedroom. Since you’re basically dealing with less dynamic range before noise, you can’t compress as much. Any compression at that stage also raises the noise floor since compressors raises the lowest levels of a signal and compresses the highest levels.

So if you’re working with signals that you know have a high noise floor, or recordings that are very soft and delicate, you might notice an increase in the background noise if you push it too hard with a compressor. You might not notice it too much when the mix is slamming and everything is at full blast, but if there’s a breakdown or a quiet part, it might become noticeable.

Clean Up Your Tracks


Edit your tracks. Delete the regions where nothing is going on. If there is a second or two between guitar licks and the noise from the amp is just humming away in the background, cut it out. Unless you’re really going for a live, garage-y sound, amp hum is really a pointless thing to add to your mix.

The same goes for any instrument. If you’ve recorded takes in one pass and there are regions where nothing’s going on, I can assure you can it’s giving you excess noise in the background. Faint atmosphere sounds in the background, headphone bleed and body noises from the players will all be picked up by the microphone, especially if you’re recording something like an acoustic guitar or a vocal.

Clean up your tracks and most of the noise will go away. Make sure the only sound coming from your tracks is music.

Using Gates


Cleaning up tracks can also get pretty tedious. It can be time consuming to zoom in and find the perfect point to cut every region. That’s when gates can come in handy. You can use them as intelligent editors. They lower the volume of your tracks every time they aren’t playing, and open up when they do.

They are a little tricky to deal with since you have to find the right threshold, attack and release but it’s definitely a better return on effort than cleaning up 40 different noisy tracks.

Guitar Hiss

Recently I was dealing with a few noisy tracks. One of the main culprits was a guitar simulator that I had inserted on the guitar tracks. The guitars were sounding great but for some reason the guitar simulator was causing a lot of hiss.

I discovered that the presence knob was turned wayyyy up. Once I turned the presence knob down the his went away, with minimal change in the guitar sound.

Electric guitars, especially when distorted, only sound noisy in the higher frequencies. You’re usually safe to EQ out the highs with either a filter or a high-shelving EQ. Usually it doesn’t do much to the guitar sound, but it can work wonders in making your noise go away.

Subtractive EQ


Boosting your tracks might make them sound better, but it also increases noise. If you’re boosting a lot in the higher frequencies, you’re introducing additional gain in those frequencies. With that extra gain comes extra noise.

Instead of boosting, cut instead. If you cut the low end, it’s the same as boosting the high-end, just without the added noise. Subtractive EQ is a cleaner way to EQ, and although I don’t do it enough, I highly recommend making it a habit.
Less Noise, More Fun

Now that you’ve reduced the amount of noise to your tracks, you can continue piling on the reverb and going crazy with the effects!

Due to their nature, home recordings will always have a little more noise to them. But hopefully, now that you’ve read this you will keep that in mind and try to minimize the amount of noise going in with your instruments