New every Tuesday
-It's about every week I get a new song, and sometimes I record them, sometimes I sing them at a church or show, and most times they wind up on the shelf. Well I've been wanting to give this music an opportunity to be heard, So, from here on out I will be posting a song for you to listen to, as well as the inspiration, story behind, or meaning of the song. I pray this is a blessing to you, and please pass this on to anyone you think would be blessed by it. If you'd like a copy of any of the songs or the lyrics, email us at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
Seeing how we're on vacation at Lake George, I though it would be fitting to post the song I wrote up here a couple years ago. This place is so beautiful and always has the tendency to help me to relax, and move a little slower. To take time just watching the water and the islands. I hope you enjoy, but don't miss the correlation to life in the Spirit.
Early this past sunday morning God gave me a picture of sitting on the edge of heaven looking down. It turned into this song. This is one of those songs that moves me every time I listen to it. The majority of what I write is given to me. I can't explain it any other way. This song was definately a gift, and I want to share it with you. What do you pray for? If God is about handouts than it might work for you to convince Him why you really need something to happen. But, if everything He is points to longing to be with us, to know us, to care for and guide us in life than maybe the prayers that mean the most to Him and are the most worthwhile to us are the prayers that beg Him to be our Father, friend, companion, and guide. If you would like to know more of what it looks like to walk through life knowing your never alone, please send us an email. Kimberly and i would love to share with you the ways that God has been teaching and leading us.
Be blessed on your journey.
Before Psalm 139
...is about being in that place where I feel like my prayers just bounce off the walls. I had to work through this truth that I will feel many things, but I cannot base life or decisions solely on what I'm feeling in a moment. I may not feel like God is hearing me, but His promise that it's literally impossible for us to be away from Him proves that He always hears us. Psalm 139 has been my favorite for a while. It shows the level of intimacy God created us with, and desires to walk through this life with us. Maybe we've spent a whole lot of time trying to be better, trying to get things in order, trying to do... and He's waiting for us to turn to Him, to realize how close He is, how He longs to be with us, to satisfy us in the ways we desperately need to be satisfied. Take some time today and read Psalm 139, and put yourself into the words, into the cry. Maybe our prayer requests are peanuts, and God is offering a gourmet feast. How will we find out if we don't listen.
FEAR
I've been working on an album that's focused on uncovering the lies we're sold everyday. This song pictures fear as a man which makes him easier to identify and defeat. This is not a song for your listening pleasure. It is a song for the searching of your soul, written for the purpose of setting captives free.
When the going gets tough...
..those who trust get going. In a world where everything is based on a plan, on striving, on making us look like whatever happens in the future, it was our doing, unless if it turns out bad, narrow is the road and few are they who find the path of trust, the path of waiting on the Lord. This song was written when Kimberly and I visited Nashville a year ago, and still rings true to us now. If your back is against the wall, if everything seems like it's fallen apart, if the only place on this earth you felt safe is taken away, what will you do?
Everything in this world can be taken from me, but my peace, joy, hope, love, those are things that can't be touched, I have to choose to lose them.
Kimberly and I are in the middle of moving and so I am looking through the archives for the New every Tue, this was the middle song on what was supposed to be my first album released. A good friend of mine Troy Mouer, helped mix and create the artwork for the cd. Unfortunately it never left the books. It's called "the bridge" and the natural divide between our love and God's. It is about Him building a bridge for us, so that we could experience a love beyond this world.
Enjoy
Awake my flower ~ a story of love rescuing His beloved.
Shatter our Hearts
This is a song written for the disasters that are happening all around us. Specifically written for the tragedy in Haiti, it speaks of our need to engage our hearts in our giving and serving of others in need.
Color Changes
This song was written last week for a video documentary produced by my friend Nazari. It's called "color changes" and is about breaking down the barriers of race, sex, and any other judgements we've wrongfully made, by changing ourselves and by trading love for hate.
Enjoy!
This is a video from a recent show at Warm Hearts Cafe, of a song called "masked".
Song of the Forgotten
This song is inspired by my trips to Romania. On my last trip there we spent a day in the village of Danceau, I was holding a beautiful little girl for most of the duration while the others in the team were handing out supplies. Before we left we stopped by a small hut to pray with a widow who was very old and was bedridden. As we prayed for her and wept over their circumstances I held her hand, frail, soft, it reminded me of the last time I held my grandmothers hand, and as we got back into the van I sat in the back with the lugagge pulled out my guitar and my journal and stained those pages with tears. I'm not even sure of all the reasons I cried, it just seemed fitting and it's just what came out, as well as this song.
True religion is this to visit orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world.
~violin by Joanna Dull
Where do I turn
This song was written for and by the people of Engage Community Church. Jon was speaking on "blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness for they shall be satisfied, and we decided to try something new. At the beginning of the service we asked the people what it looked like to be hungry, thirsty, satisfied, filled up, and so on. They described in detail words that portrayed these thoughts in their lives and minds. I spent the next 30 minutes writing thing song, not by my power, but by His, and this is what came out. It's more of a question of "where do we turn when life doesn't fill us up".
Be blessed
My sweet Mercy
This is another song written for the people of Engage Community Church, where Kim and I are serving. Jon has been speaking on the Beatitudes, and this past week was on blessed are the merciful for they shall be shown mercy. I wanted to portray this connection we have to mercy as a human type relationship, and was praying how to do that. Saturday God began to craft this idea and put it together, and out came, "my sweet mercy". I pray it not only blesses you but challenges you towards gratefulness and intimacy with our Father.
Frayed
Every once in a while I'll write a "political" song. I don't tend to share them a whole lot, because I feel that the more important place of focus is on our hearts and their connection to Jesus. But, their are still realities about the world we live in and at times I can't help keeping my pen of the topic. I was in Scranton, Pa. and was walking around downtown with some freetime on my hands, and I decided to sit on a bench outside of the courthouse. I was looking at the building and all the little intricacies inlaid in it's structure, and I noticed that there was a flag on a pole on top of the building set back a little. As I looked more intently at the flag I noticed that it was badly frayed, it must have been tossed around by the wind and gotten torn up, without anyone taking notice. So, I'm sitting in front of the symbol of Justice for our land, a courthouse, and on top of this courthouse is the symbol of our freedom, the flag, all frayed. Seemed fitting for the times we live in. And so I wrote this song....
The sower
This song is based off the parable that Jesus teaches on the Sower. I've been getting so much out of this teaching lately about our world, and our lives. I grew up thinking this passage was only about the seed of salvation. But, God showed me a few months ago that it's about the kingdom, which translates into how we see this world everyday, and the truth He tries to plant inside of us. I encourage you to read this parable before listening to this song. Matthew 13:3-23
Be blessed
Forgive me
I was up early one morning spending sometime talking with God, and became overwhelmed with the truth of the cross, with the truth of this life, and with the truth of my many failures to live with the Kingdom's perspective. This song began to pour out of me, as His love washed over me.
Be blessed
If We Hope
This song is a prayer, asking God that no matter what we do, HE leads us into and through it all. As you listen, may He "help your knees to find His throne".
There's a Call
This is a song that was written recently for a Brethren in Christ church conference. I find that there is always an invitation for us to join into the kingdom that surrounds us. It's our choice to just RSVP or to actually show up. The call is all about living beyond ourselves, living beyond what we see or think is right and comfortable, and wholeheartedly follow Jesus where He's headed. Enjoy!
Think on these
This is a lullaby written for my daughter, Hadassah, from Philippians 4:8, enjoy. For a cd of lullabye's great for lulling even the biggest babies to sleep, contact us:)
Puzzles
If the puzzles stay lost and the mysteries mixed. We stay the broken who can't find our fix.
This song is about the truth that this world will never cease to lack sense in our human minds until we see through God's eyes. I don't have answers for every tragedy, event or situation in life, But, I find my questions get lost in His presence, and the ultimate truth, that this isn't my true home.
be blessed
6 Million
In honor of Holocaust Remembrance Day, April 11th, I'm posting this song. Tragedy and horror will happen to us and those around us. We cannot stop every injustice, but what do we do with what has already been done? Do we stop to pray and think? Or do we continue on with our busyness and self-consumption. Rejoice with those who rejoice, mourn with those who mourn. Let us take a time of silence for so many lost, espcially since this is the family we have been grafted into.
Cloud Roll
It's easy for us to get comfortable in going to church every sunday, listening to the preacher, singing the songs, but to ask God to take control of our lives, to show us moment by moment what our reason is for living here on this earth, that's tough to do. We live in a society and a time that has taught us that this life is for us, and that God wants us to fit Him in. Shame on us and our arrogance. God doesn't get "fit in". He offers the opportunity for us to be called sons and daughters, to be joined to the inheritance of His first called children, Israel. Ask yourself this... "when's the last time I asked God how He was doing?" Can you answer that? We tend to think that He's fine and can handle everything and doesn't need any care directed towards Him. Does He need us? no. Does He long to have sons and daughters that care deeply for Him? what Father doesn't. May we see His heart and how often it breaks by our silly attempts at religion and boxbuilding. This is not a condemnation my dear friends, this is a challenge.
When it's time
This is a song about mourning loss. I find that when there are people mourning around me, there is a tendency for me to want to speak words or do something that will snap them out of it. As if to mourn is something evil. Our discomfort grows in the midst of others facing trial, look at Job's friends. Yet there's something to us simply sitting with them. Being a shoulder to cry on or an embrace. Of not speaking anything from our earthly perspective, but only that which the Father speaks through us. There are specific practices that God commanded the Jews to follow according to mourning the loss of someone from this earth, and it all revolved around time, taking time to heal. If you are in the midst of loss or know someone who is. Then give it time. This song was written for a family I never got to meet. Their son, who was also a new husband was my age, and his time on earth came to move onto a much better place. But, with their loss came much pain, and confusion. God gave me this song for them, and I'd like to share it with you.
Home is where the heart is
I've struggled for years with my own heart while on stage. Whether it's a concert or leading music at a church, are their parts of me that enjoy that attention, that even need what that gives me. I fear that the majority of our music in churches causes quite the war inside a musicians heart, whether they recognize it or not. This song is God talking to us about the importance of our hearts being involved when we sing. It's easy to get up and sing a well known "worship" song and not even think about any of the lyrics we sing. Especially in our privilidged country where it's easy to think we don't need Jesus to be our Everything. But this song is a charge to all of us to wrestle our hearts to the throne of God and pray every lyric.
Paranoia
Ever felt confused about life? Ever felt like there was no way for you to find clarity in what's going on around you? This song is apart of my journey. My struggle with confusion, finding God in the midst of it, and watching Him carry me through.
Psalm 91
I've always been leary of putting psalms to music with their rhyming in english, and the meter doesn't seem to fit our song structure. But, Kim and I really wanted to memorize this Psalm, and I knew that if I was going to remember it I would have to put it into a song. Psalm 91 is the Old Testaments promise of God's protection over the life of His children. It's full of God's promise to watch over us in so many ways. By declaring these promises in the midst of the storms of life we are led through them in a way that makes no sense to this world or our human minds. We have a God who loves us so much, cares for us more than we could ever believe, and protects us as a true Father. Why wouldn't we trust in His promises? Because of our own lack of faith? Than may God give us the faith to trust.
Be blessed, this is Psalm 91
TRUST
You say you trust but it's just not enough
to keep you from losing hope in what was promised
but I know that Hope can not be found in this earthly home
You doubt your ears and you welcome fears and barely get along
Your claim is on tomorrow sun as your doubts roll on
and I know that Hope can not be found in this earthly home
Oh how we all are in the midst of the war between doubt and trust. This is a little piece of my journey through this struggle. I find that there are so many doors that doubt walks right through in my life and lays claim on the throne of my heart. I wrote this song in 2006, and what has stayed true from then till now is that if I try to find my hope in anything in this world eventually it will always dissapoint.