Wow!

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My latest project was helping the design of the Grace Midtown “Songs For the City” album.  It was more than a privilege to be a part of this project.  Not only did I learn a lot through it, but, after I have listened through the album… I am so glad I was able to design the artwork for it.  The album is, for a lack of better term, anointed.  There’s no real other way to describe it.

I believe it is slated for a release this Sunday morning at both Grace campuses.  Songs include tracks from Aaron Keyes, Pat Barrett and Ben Smith from Unhindered as well as Brett Stanfill and Reuben Bidez.

Many thanks to Mark Cole who helped me put all the artwork into implementation and checked all my spelling and credit verbage (haha).  I think I’ll make a post later on with sort of “The Evolution of the album” art work and you can see some of the earlier designs, and some of the past concepts that occurred before we landed on what went to print.

We did a stripped down worship set at Grace this past Sunday.  So many times we get so caught up with the lights and sounds.  We get caught up in the production and the design.  Sometimes it seems like we even program His Spirit out of the service with a mistaken belief that we can produce the Spirit through the correct environment.

It reminds me of the song, “Heart of Worship” by Matt Redman.  You know it.  But, do you know it?  We don’t “conjure up” the Spirit of the Lord.

It’s a healthy reminder for us to set aside some of those things, simplify it down to just us and Him.  That’s how it should be anyways.  The lights and sounds are not bad, but when they become the object or the distraction then we need to reconsider our motives.

Challenge:

Get in your closet this week and worship the Lord.

Go up in the old treehouse and worship the Lord.

Praise the Lord while you are alone in the basement.

Moses found God in the silence.

I challenge you to begin praising and worshipping the Lord when it’s not a “cool” environment.  Learn how to praise him when it’s pitch black in your closet where there are no LCD screens, hazers or intelligent lights.  Practice lifting up your hands and drawing close to him when there your emotions are maxed out to 10 from the candles and the music.

]]> http://www.alexmaeland.com/2009/12/09/true-north-acoustified/feed/ 0 http://www.alexmaeland.com/2009/11/19/recap-true-north-11809-w-spring-of-life-video/ http://www.alexmaeland.com/2009/11/19/recap-true-north-11809-w-spring-of-life-video/#comments Thu, 19 Nov 2009 23:58:06 +0000 alex http://www.alexmaeland.com/?p=409

Well, it was another very powerful morning this past week as we focused on Elijah and Elisha.  The idea was following.  The question was, “How well are you following?”  Elisha continually said, “I’m not leaving you.”  You may remember as we spoke about Ruth who said, “where you go, i will go and  your people will be my people.”  The Lord has given us grace and mercy, but that doesn’t make any less of his calling on our lives to be lead AND follow.  Have we settled into a mediocre, church lifestyle with no real action?  As you can imagine, it wasn’t the most “feel good message”, but then again, the things we need to hear can more often be convicting than uplifting.  It was a powerful morning with many people moved into action!

Check out the video recording of “Spring of Life”.

The worship set for the morning was:

1) Not To Us (B)

2) Spring of Life (B)

*Message

3) No Other Name – Unhindered (A)

4) We Prepare the Way (C)

5) Reign In Us (C)

We practiced a really cool transition straight from We Prepare the Way into the intro of Reign In Us, after which we played the whole song out.  They were both in the same key and it worked really smoothly.

This sure is cool… see how your latte’s add up!

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