Behind the Praise - Sunday August 10, 2008

"My God Lives"
This song is from the Fellowship Church recording "My God Lives"
This song is on "Songs from the Key of Life" the first worship recording from First Hurst or you can click if you are interested in purchasing a recording of the song
http://mp3blog.org.ua/archives/july2006/mp3/rock/b60d2d0c.html

"We will Dance"

Click here for the lyrics:
www.worship.co.za/solo/renew12.asp

Learn more about David Ruis here:
www.davidruis.com/

Click here to worship along with song:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=GfIBQRT7UVY

“Be Thou My Vision”
The text (Rop tú mo baile) is often attributed to Dallan Forgaill in the 8th century; in any case, this text had been a part of Irish monastic tradition for centuries before the hymn itself was written. It was translated from Old Irish into English by Mary E. Byrne in “Eriú," Journal of the School of Irish Learning, in 1905. The English text was first versified by Eleanor H. Hull in 1912, and this version of the lyrics is the most common. However, slight variations of these lyrics are sometimes seen. The first verse of Hull's version follows:

Be Thou my Vision, O Lord of my heart;
Naught be all else to me, save that Thou art
Thou my best Thought, by day or by night,
Waking or sleeping, Thy presence my light.

Thus, the English translation of the hymn itself is fairly recent and the Elizabethan vocabulary and structure is somewhat an anachronism. Be Thou My Vision has become the quintessential Irish hymn in English-speaking churches and is often sung around St. Patrick's Day. Despite its traditional nature and the seemingly archaic quality of the text, Be Thou My Vision has become a popular song performed by Contemporary Christian musicians, such as Rebecca St. James and Ginny Owens.

Click here to read about the origin of the hymn:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Be_Thou_My_Vision

Click here to listen to Rebecca St. James version
www.youtube.com/watch?v=5XZ3ja-quhA

Click here to hear Fernado Ortego's version:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=PfhsOQyZqtg&mode=related&search=

"Are you Washed in the Blood"

This song was writtne by Elisha Hoffman. Hoffman (1839-1929) was an American minister and Gospel song and hymn writer who wrote the words and music for such familiar hymns as "Are You Washed in the Blood?," "I Must Tell Jesus," "Is Your All on the Altar?," and "What a Wonderful Saviour!"
Click here for a bluegrass arrangement:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=LyI1ab0hgFI

Click here for an arrangement by Loretta Lynn:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=LXUKWiwmWew&feature=related

Click here for an arrangement by Alan Jackson:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=SNGDTTiM_v4


"God of this City"

The following is a short version of how this song came about.

Nov 2007, Bluetree are heading out to Pattaya Thailand to participate in an event arranged by Belfast missionaries living in Pattaya, Thailand called Pattaya Praise. We’ve no expectation of the event; we were just looking for an opportunity to serve somehow.We didn’t know much about it before we left, but Pattaya is a dark place. It’s a small seaside town notorious for it’s sex trade. Throughout our time there we heard countless stories of girls who are bought from their parents for a price, sold to the sex industry at ages as young as 5 years old. Arriving in Pattaya the spiritual climate seems to change, it’s hard to define, but there is a very tangible change. On the bus journey in we’d been our usual cheery selves, but entering Pattaya at 10am and turning on to a street lined by girls ready for business, the bus became very quiet. We’re in total shock. It’s a sunny day but it’s incredible how dark it feels.’Walking street’ we learn is the epicentre of the sex trade in Pattaya, it’s about a mile long and at night springs to life with neon signs. Thai people are generally conservative in their dress sense – it’s generally considered provocative to bare your shoulders. But on their street the girls are wearing very little, and offering anything you can imagine for a price. It’s easy to look around with human eyes, see the depravity and get angry. You see older men walking hand-in-hand with young girls – as a daddy, that’s hard to take in. It’s easy to get angry, it’s easy to judge – but that’s not our job, so we grit our teeth.

We were in Pattaya to be part of a praise event not far from this street, the soul purpose of which was to worship and show God’s light in a dark place. We wanted to play more than the scheduled slots while we were there, so we found out that one of the bar owners would let us play a worship set in her bar on the proviso that we brought as many from the missions team who would buy coke-a-cola all night. We walk in to the bar which is about the middle of walking street, girls are lined up on the stairs waiting for business. We get set up, we’re really nervous and quite uncomfortable but we kick in to a familiar beat of worship and soon it’s ok. God starts to speak and we started to move in to this spontaneous song. The truth is when you worship in a place, you start to see God’s heart for that place. What would God say to a place like this?Amidst the depravity God say’s, I’m the God of this City, I’m the King of these people and Greater Thing are Yet to Come, Greater Things are Still to be Done HERE. The song wasn’t written before that night, but we came out of the bar having worshipped with the song that is now the title track of our album – God of this City (Greater things). The song isn’t just for Pattaya – it’s for your city, and it’s true. By faith we must expect that greater things are still to be done

How Chris Tomlin picked the song up:
Chris and his band heard it while Chris was doing worship at a conference out in the UK. Bluetree was also in attendance and Daniel Carson (Chris' guitarist) heard the song and told Chris to come over to give it a listen. Chris didnt make it in time to hear the song, but talked with Aaron and heard the story of the song afterwards and brought the song to Passion and Louie as they planned to do their Regional USA tour and World Tour.

Click here to hear the story behind the song:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=o1PFh8FAbfQ&feature=related

Click here for the Bluetree version:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=XqQhZKpZVCo&feature=related

Click here to worship along with Chris Tomlin:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=d61LamkXfwk

"It is Well"
Click here to read the story of how the song was written along with the rest of the story http://exchristian.net/exchristian/2003/09/it-is-well-with-my-soul.php

Click here to watch a video depicting the story behind the song
www.youtube.com/watch?v=6qVF4nicqew

Click here to watch the Gaither video version with David Phelps
www.youtube.com/watch?v=wPFVijGcLtI

Click here for a video detailing the story behind the song
www.bluefishtv.com/ProductDetails.aspx?cid=1005&id=1498

Click here for more background information:
www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/It_Is_Well_With_My_Soul

To listen to the song click here:
www.cyberhymnal.org/htm/i/t/i/itiswell.htm