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Lyrics
and theology . . .
I try to keep to the scriptures as tightly as possible, and
a fairly centerline bible based theology. I do write from my
own experiences and passions and almost all of my worship music
comes directly from my own daily worship and study
time.
My
philosophy . . .
. . . I would say that I think too much, and frankly what
matters is the gospel of Jesus Christ. Every time I feel I
have something deep figured out I realize I have mostly just a
desperate need to get back to the gospel, and Jesus' words. For
everything I have learned in this life, I have discovered so much
more that I don't know. I will say, there is nothing like a
deep philosophical discussion at the wee hours, to thrill my
idling brain, yet I find it is a sure cure for insomnia for most
normal people, so, well . . . there it is.
I have long considered and debated in my busy head, as to what I
felt my real "gift" was. A
seemingly futile quest, until this year, as I am old enough I
guess, to look away from my own reflection long enough to realize
that my own life was never meant to be about me. Paul
learned to live with his "thorn in the flesh".
Aside from my bi-polar, from which I am in a God-given remission,
I seem to be multi-thorned. One of them certainly is my
rebellious nature. Not in the way that comes to mind first,
although my dad certainly bore the brunt of my perfecting this
prodigal-son-like-infirmity, yet I have always had a hard time
allowing God to dream the dreams for my life, and lay my own
down. I am gaining ground, praise God, in seeing the fallacy
in my own limited and arrogant vision, and I pray each day that
God's dreams and purposes for my life come front and center in my
own sites. (thank you Pastor Rick Warren).
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The alternative would have been to
decide the countless mistakes made, were worth nothing, and I had wasted a
major portion of my life. God has apparantly chosen to use
use every tear cried, and every lesson learned, to fuel my
writing. Indeed I will, someday write a book entitled,
"10,001 things that don't work—a testament to the art of
being human."
I have performed for years, both secular and
Christian music. Studio work, commercial, etc and had
some amount of fun, however,
writing has
always been as much therapy as art, and my first love (Save God of
course). One day I read somewhere
that your "life's work and gift" was easy to
discern. I was a bit put off, and somewhat bemused, but I
pressed on, reading further. It
continued by announcing something so simple, and yet something
that changed my life, yet again, not because I didn't know this little truth,
but because I had been running from it. Basically, it is the
obvious tenet that your true "gift" and "life's work" was
where you found your greatest passion and was that very
thing you had to do or die.
I love leading
worship and have done that for 25 years. I am solid in my
sense of "call" that God has asked me, for this season
in my life, to do just that. However, every day I live, the
dark days and the bright, the joyous and the deeply not-so-joyous, I find
that two needs keep me alive when met. 1) I have a desperate
need to praise and worship my God from the moment I wake until the
moment I finally sleep. In my home, bed, car, back yard, nature, and
in the company of fellow human beings seeking the face of our awesome
God. In the face of the darkest night, and even when God
himself denies me intimacy with Him, I must praise Him.
2) I must write. I write songs,
journals, poetry and stories. I write so much every day, I
go through keyboards several per year—ok, admission, I pound on
the keys with clumsy abandon. So much comes from my
"fertile mental blender" that most of it stays in my
computer, banished for being better therapy than good product.
However, God
gives me a fair amount of worship music to use in public, and
those songs that settle to the top, I use in our church and offer
you here.
Ok, the long way
around the fence, but I warned you I write or die, to everyone's
dismay at times.
I have decided to
publish these songs for use by anyone who would find them useful
in worship. You will find a growing list of worship
songs, as I get time to load them up. I will include a clip
of the song, one time through, and a "Word document"
that contains the guitar chords. IMPORTANT The
recordings are really, really bad. They are there just to
give you an idea of the melody, and progression, that occasionally
I have not notated adequately. I will only put up songs that
have been used many times in worship and have proven to be
effective. As you no doubt already know, some things just
don't work out the way you imagined, and those songs I will put
back into my computer, somewhere deep into the back corner, where
they will not be found or bother anyone again. I direct a
full band, and have on stage any given week, two electric guitars,
bass guitar, acoustic guitar, keyboards, drummer, conga player,
and singers. However, I have a firm belief that a song, if
it is indeed a song, can be done with any combination of
instruments down to a single guitar or piano.
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