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"Today is the Day"This song was written by Lincoln Brewster with Paul Baloche. Lincoln believes there is power when we sing God's word back to Him. Psalm 118:24 "This is the day the Lord has made, let us rejoice and be glad in it." We are to live each day as if it's our last.
Click here to listen to Lincoln share how he wrote the song:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Pved9U-P1g
Click here to listen online:
www.last.fm/music/Lincoln+Brewster/_/Today+Is+The+Day
Click here to worship along with Lincoln Brewster:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=ngHP6ppfRw4
Click here if you'd like to purchase this song:
"O Magnify the Lord" (Regi Stone/Michael Popham)
Click here to learn more about Regi:
www.registone.com/
Michael Popham, who has published and sold 1,000,000 units during his 26-year Christian music ministry. His songs such as "Here in This House" have been recorded by Christian music artists and choirs, including Christ Church Choir, Vicky Yohe, and the Talley Trio. His praise and worship songs, including "At Your Feet" and "God Is My Refuge and Strength," have reached #1 spots on CCLI's recorded charts and been sung by churches all around the world. Popham is one of the worship leaders at Holy Trinity Community Church in Nashville.
“O Magnify the Lord with me, let us exalt His name forever,
O magnify the Lord with Me let us sing praises unto His name.
For the Lord is good let the earth sing out, his mercies endure forever,
with a joyful song and a mighty shout proclaim His name forever.”
"Love Lifted Me"
Click here to sing along:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=Th_L2IA94Gg
Matthew 14: 30-33 (NASB) But seeing the wind, he became frightened, and beginning to sink, he cried out, “Lord, save me!” Immediately Jesus stretched out His hand and took hold of him, and said to him, “You of little faith, why did you doubt?” When they got into the boat, the wind stopped. And those who were in the boat worshipped Him, saying, “You are certainly God’s Son!”
Rowe and Smith wrote this song in Saugatuck, Connecticut. According to Rowe’s daughter:“Howard E. Smith was a little man whose hands were so knotted with arthritis that you would wonder how he could use them at all, much less play the piano…I can see them now, my father striding up and down humming a bar or two and Howard E. playing it and jotting it down.”
Click here to purchase the Statler Brothers arrangement:
“Draw me Close to You”
Kelly caught "the worship bug," as he calls it, about 12 years ago while attending a worship conference at his California Vineyard church. He was on the worship team and was able to spend some time with Canadian worship leaders Andy Park and Brian Doerksen. A couple of years after the conference, he started leading worship, as well as writing worship songs.
One of those songs was "Draw Me Close."
As it happened, Kelly had just finished a church service in late January 1994, but his heart was not quite in it. "My heart was heavy that day because I had come to the realization that I had put my ministry in front of my relationship with the Lord. So I literally cried out to Him, "I lay it all down again to hear You say that I'm Your friend." Within 20 minutes, he says, "the song just spilled out."
"This song has always been intensely personal for me," Kelly adds, "and continues to bring me back to my knees, that my relationship with God should come first before the call, the vision, and the ministry that He has given me."
At first, he didn't actually use the song at his church because it was such a personal song. "I cried when I wrote it," he explained. "Still, I actually thought it was a really different song, like something Barry Manilow would write." Worship leader Andy Park was the first to hear the tune, oddly enough, while he was busy replacing the kitchen floor in his house. "He had it playing on a boom box," Kelly says, "and when he heard the line, 'I lay it all down again,' he broke down."
Park then asked him to play on a live record in July of 1994, and asked if he would lead on the original recording of the tune. Over the next couple of years, Kelly was invited to do a lot of conferences, where he would be asked to present his song. But because it was so personal, he rarely did it.
The years following these were filled with struggle and disappointment for Kelly "We've gone through some tough times in the last five years. Times when I felt God was calling me to full-time ministry. Honestly, it's been very difficult figuring out my faith and my walk with God. During these years, 'Draw Me Close' became much more to me than an 'I'm in ministry' kind of song. It became much deeper for me. Life, and all the stuff we wind up going through makes it really hard to keep the Lord at the center. God ends up using pain and brokenness to draw us to Him. The song became very germane and poignant to those moments--a 'come home again' kind of song."
Kelly says brokenness, as he's come to understand it, is a universal experience throughout life. "The song connects with anyone who is going through brokenness." He continues, even years down the road to hear from people who've been impacted by the song.
Over the past few years, a couple of high profile Christian music artists have recorded his song. The Katinas recorded his song for Rocketown Records' Exodus project, taking the song to number one on Christian radio charts. Michael W. Smith recorded "Draw Me Close" on his Worship project, which sold over a million copies in just about a year. It's also on Smith's Worship live video and DVD.
Kelly, a soft-spoken man, is in awe of what's happened, yet at the same time he doesn't follow the charts or keep tabs on where the song is being played or how wide reaching the impact of the song has gone. "I don't even think it's important to know the hugeness of what has happened. I see it as only a gift from God to me...and it's turned into the gift that keeps on giving. People in ministry like to know that what they're doing is making a difference."
He also said he doesn't revel in the uniqueness of the song, choosing to look at this song's success in the larger context. "I've written 75-80 worship songs, probably had about a dozen published, and this is the one that has done well. It's really a bit of a phenomenon, if you ask me."
The song is based upon Psalms 73:28, 84:2, 16:2, 16:11, 42:1-2, 63:1, 73:25
Click here to worship along with Michael W. Smith:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=qWG9-PJFcK8&feature=related
Click here for another arrangement:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=ALzCQn8LA4M
Click here to hear an arrangement by Kutless:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=3-07PKW9PRI
Click here to purchase the Michael W. Smith arrangement:
“Doxology”
A doxology (from the Greek doxa, glory + logos, word or speaking) is a short hymn of praise to God in various Christian worship services, often added to the end of canticles, psalms, and hymns
This doxology has widespread use in English circles, in some Protestant traditions commonly referred to simply as "The Doxology" and in others as “The Common Doxology”, is:
Praise God, from Whom all blessings flow;
Praise Him, all creatures here below;
Praise Him above, ye Heavenly Host;
Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Amen.
This text, which was originally the seventh and final stanza of "Glory to thee, my God, this night", a hymn for evening worship written by Thomas Ken in about 1674, is usually sung to the tune Old 100th, but also to Duke Street by John Hatton, Lasst uns erfreuen, and The Eighth Tune by Thomas Tallis, among others.
Click here to hear and see the Doxology
www.youtube.com/watch?v=nHCGwJvKRBY&mode=related&search=
Click here to hear one of the most accomplished guitarist present a unique version
www.youtube.com/watch?v=zBE6dfT87yo&mode=related&search=
Click here for a Celtic arrangement:
"Redeemer"
One day Nicole C. Mullen was sitting in her music room, with her burgundy-colored Bible opened to the book of Job. She read about all the trials that befell him and how he was faithful nonetheless. And then she saw a familiar phrase that jumped out at her in a new way: "I know that my Redeemer lives" (Job 19:25).
"What a statement of faith," Mullen said to herself. At the time, she was struggling with personal trials of her own, but they paled in comparison to what Job faced. "If he could still proclaim his faith in the midst of misery," she thought, "then I should be proclaiming it, too." And that was the beginning of her song "Redeemer."
When she recorded her self-titled debut album, she included the song, which quickly went to the top of the Christian music charts. Its thoughtful lyrics, which celebrate the glory of God as revealed in creation and in the empty grave of Christ, won her Dove Awards for both Song of the Year and Song-writer of the Year in 2001. Mullen has since won many other honors (including Female Artist of the Year at this year's Dove Awards), released other hits, and sold more than 1 million albums. But it's still her heartfelt ode to God, "Redeemer," that moves concertgoers to tears when she sings it.
"If the Lord doesn't anoint it, it's just words," she says about the song. "I give Him the credit."
In spite of the accolades, though, Mullen is in an ongoing struggle to get her singles aired on Christian radio stations that, for whatever reason, tend not to regularly play music by nonwhite artists.
But she refuses to become bitter. "No matter what I'm going through, no matter what the issue, I know the Lord is there to see me through," she says. And she hopes everyone who hears "Redeemer" and her other songs experiences that reality, too.
Many people have told the singer that they've found hope through the message of "Redeemer." "We live in a hurting world," she says. "All of us struggle with health, money, natural disasters, and personal problems. I want people who hear my songs to know that Christ, though He is high above us, lowers Himself to be with us and in us."
Click here to worship along with Nicole C. Mullins:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=gFmu1eUouaA
Click here to purchase the Nicole C. Mullins arrangement:
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