Worship Songs
November 15, 2009
"There is Power in the Blood"
This hymn was written by Lewis E. Jones.
Born: February 8, 1865, Yates City, Illinois.
Died: September 1, 1936, Santa Barbara, California.
Buried: Altoona Walnut Grove Cemetery, Etowah County, Alabama.
A classmate of evangelist Billy Sunday, Jones attended the Moody Bible Institute. After graduation, he worked for the Young Men’s Christian Association in Davenport, Iowa; Fort Worth, Texas (1915); and Santa Barbara, California (1925). Hymn-writing was his avocation. Lewis E. Jones wrote this song in 1899. Jones wrote this song at a camp meeting at Mountain Lake Park, Maryland.
Click here for a gospel arrangement:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=im1Mgg7Dz-g
Click here to worship along with Mahalia Jackson:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=QaNUzh1dVPw
Click here to purchase the Bart Millard version:
"He Knows My Name"
This worship song was written by Tommy Walker. Tommy shared in a recent interview his conversion and call experience:
When I was 11 years old – that was a very big year in my life. That's when I gave my heart to the Lord, and I started playing guitar. This group Love Song, which was one of the first Christian rock bands of all time, was touring through town. That night they were in my living room, and Chuck Girard – the piano player – was playing my mom's baby grand piano, and we were singing a few songs together. It was one of those moments. I said, "That's it. That's who I want to be when I grow up." It was actually a very profound moment. It's through worship music that God really touched me and spoke to me. It's only natural I'd pursue that.
The following is how Tommy wrote the song:
The story of how “He Knows My Name” was written is not very exciting, nor is it inspirational. Basically it’s a story of just trying to be faithful to do my job. In that way, it is a story of self-discipline. Let’s just say, routine discipline stories are far from riveting. However, the fruit of the smallest act of discipline and obedience can be quite another story altogether. When my pastor, Mark Pickerall, wrote a sermon with the title “He Knows My Name,” he asked me if I could write a song to go with it. I felt utterly uninspired that day; but out of the discipline of song writing, which is part of my job description, I dug in and gave it a shot. I remember thinking as the words and music began to come to me, “Wow, this is the simplest song I’ve ever written. Maybe it will work in kids’ church”. Well, I went ahead and finished it – something all songwriters struggle to do when something isn’t coming out just right. And like a good, obedient, somewhat disciplined worship leader, I taught it to my church and basically, nothing happened.
A few months later, the women of my church sang it at their women’s retreat and suddenly God moved. They told me that a sense of the love of God entered the room in such a powerful way that many of them were weeping and experiencing all kinds of inner healing. When I heard this, I thought maybe I should give this song one more try. The following weekend, we sang it at church and sure enough, it happened: People began to weep. But the funny part is that I also began to weep. God was speaking so intimately to me, reminding me that He knew my name and was concerned about the things that concerned me. *(pg. 3, He Knows My Name – Tommy Walker, Integrity Press)
Click here to read more about Tommy Walker:
http://www.tommywalker.net/
Click here to listen to Tommy’s music on his myspace site:
http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendID=97429791
Click here to worship along with the Promise Keepers worship team:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=hXsiWoyjw60
Click here to purchase “He Knows My Name”:
“Sweeter”
Israel Houghton serves as one of the worship pastors for Lakewood Church in Houston. Here is a portion of his amazing story.
I really should have been one of those abortion statistics you read about. My mother became pregnant with me when she was 17. My mother's white and my biological father's black. Her family wasn't supportive of their relationship and gave her the choice to have a back-alley abortion or to be disowned. I'm here because of the decision she made-and because of her conversion shortly after that. So when I lead worship, I'm crazy. I realize how fortunate I am to be called by God and to be protected, to be covered by him. I'm incredibly grateful.
Click here to listen to the Lakewood church version:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=97a3tV-X334
Click here to purchase the Lakewood version of “Sweeter”:
"Your Grace is Enough"
Matthew "Matt" Maher is a singer/songwriter/worship leader originally from Newfoundland, Canada, who later relocated to Mesa, Arizona. He has written and produced 3 independent albums, The End and The Beginning (2001), Welcome to Life (2003), and Overflow (2006). All three albums were produced by Maher, with Welcome to Life and Overflow both being co-produced by Maher and Nashville engineer Jeff Thomas.
Matt is most known for his song, "Your Grace Is Enough", which Chris Tomlin recorded on his 2004 Gold release, Arriving. The two met at a Youth Specialties conference held in Phoenix when Tomlin's band was asked to "back" Maher up. Tomlin instantly fell in love with the song. Since then, the song has become a popular worship anthem. Matt recorded a new version of the song, combining both his and Tomlin's versions, for the album Empty and Beautiful. The song was released as a single on iTunes in March 2008, and reached #2 on Billboard's Adult Christian Contemporary Chart, where it remained in the top ten for over 8 weeks.
Click here to learn more about Matt Maher:
www.mattmahermusic.com/index.php
Click here to visit Matt’s myspace:
www.myspace.com/mattmahermusic
Click here to listen to how the song was written:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=QIgGHA27nG4
Click here to worship along:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=wtnE_e1LylY
Click here to purchase “Your Grace is Enough”:
"To God Be The Glory"
Tommy Walker arranged this great hymn by Fanny Crosby. Fanny Crosby was probably the most prolific hymnist in history. Though blinded by an incompetent doctor at six weeks of age, she wrote over 8,000 hymns. About her blindness, she said:
"It seemed intended by the blessed providence of God that I should be blind all my life, and I thank him for the dispensation. If perfect earthly sight were offered me tomorrow, I would not accept it. I might not have sung hymns to the praise of God if I had been distracted by the beautiful and interesting things about me."
Click here to listen to the song:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=6qlfNZiDV4A
Click here to purchase Tommy Walker's version:
“Breathe”
A friend's suicide had left her reeling, but out of Marie Barnett's desperate need for God came a worship classic sung around the world.
Marie Barnett didn't consider herself a worship songwriter, although she had led worship with her husband John for years and wrote her own compositions during her personal worship time. John was the writer, penning what Barnett terms "tons" of worship music through the years (including "Holy and Anointed One").
"He's the worship writer," she explains, adding "I never sat down and wrote thinking, 'This could be sung in a congregation.' It was more between me and the Lord in my bedroom with the door locked."
But that all changed during a Sunday evening service at the Mission Viejo Vineyard in Southern California. The Barnetts were leading worship as they had done hundreds of times before, and words to what would become the worship song "Breathe" just spontaneously came out.
"We had been singing 'Isn't He' by John Wimber," Barnett recalls, "and my husband continued to play. I was so enthralled with Jesus at that moment, thinking I could never live, I could never even take a breath if I didn't have a word from Him every day. And so I heard those words-'this is the air I breathe, this is my daily bread'-and I started singing them."
Before she knew it, the congregation had joined her. Still, it wasn't as if Barnett left that night convinced she had a worship hit on her hands. There had been other spontaneous songs, but she soon realized "Breathe" was different. "People would come up to me at the grocery store and say, 'You know what we were singing on Sunday night? I've been singing it all week.'"
So they began to sing the song regularly in church and it continued to elicit a strong response, bringing many to tears. Barnett says even now she can hardly get through it. "I think the word 'desperate' digs deep into me," she says by way of explanation. "The longer I'm a Christian, the more desperate I am for God."
Not to mention Barnett was feeling particularly desperate around the time the words for "Breathe" came to her. A dance teacher by day, Barnett's boss of 10 years had recently taken his own life, leaving behind a note asking her to take over the dance studio. "He was very depressed and had just gone through a divorce and was on all kinds of weird medications and into New Age thinking," she recalls of the tragic incident. "He even came to church with me once right before he took his life and I was like, 'Well, what good did that do?' In the end, the event left Barnett with questions for which there were no answers. And that desperation came out in her songwriting."
Shortly after being written, "Breathe" wound up on Vineyard's Touching the Father's Heart #25 and seemed to be on its way to finding a broader audience. But if there's one thing Barnett learned from watching her husband's songwriting career, it's that the timing isn't up to us.
"We recorded the song for Vineyard and then nothing happened," Barnett says. "Not that I thought anything about it because to me it was just a neat thing the Lord gave to our church." Five years later, worship leader Brian Doerksen was putting together Vineyard's Hungry and contacted Barnett about including "Breathe." Then came Michael W. Smith's version on his 2001 release, Worship.
Barnett was driving in her car when she first heard the track playing on the radio. "I just started bawling. I love that version because at the end when he's saying 'Cry out to Him' it's like 'Oh! People are worshipping Jesus! Yea!'"
Since writing "Breathe" Barnett regularly contributes songs to the worship time at Vineyard Community Church of Laguna Niguel, the California church plant where she and her husband lead worship today. And she continues to run the dance studio as her late boss wished. With more than 600 students and 20 classes to teach each week, Barnett says the business venture provides her with plenty of material for her songwriting. And to round out her schedule, she also teaches at worship conferences, going "wherever people invite me."
Click here to worship along with Michael W. Smith:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oad8ov10AjY
Click here for a moving video:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=hwLgyMzzh0M
Click here to purchase Michael W. Smith’s version:
“Jesus Saves”
Hear the heart of heaven beating, “Jesus saves. Jesus saves.”
And the hush of mercy breathing, “Jesus saves. Jesus saves.”
Hear the host of angels sing, “Glory to the newborn King.”
And the sounding joy repeating, “Jesus saves.”
Freedom’s calling, chains are falling,
Hope is dawning bright and true.
Day is breaking, night is quaking.
God is making all things new.
Jesus saves.
This song was written by Travis Cottrell. After graduating with a church music degree from Belmont in 1992, Travis began to write songs. His first song, "It's Only Thunder," landed on Larnelle Harris' I Choose Joy. His next published work, Waiters: A Youth Musical about Waiting on the Lord, became the year's best-selling youth musical. He continued to write, and was working as an editor at a music publishing company, when out of the blue, the church he attended lost its minister of worship. At the church's request, Travis spent the latter part of '94 and most of '95 as the worship leader for Two Rivers Baptist Church, a 6,000-plus-member church in Nashville. It was during this providential season that God began to stir Travis' heart about worship.
God showed Travis John 4:23-24, which says, "A time is coming and is now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and His worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth." Travis began to understand that God had not created him only to be a singer, or even a worship leader, but to be a sincere worshiper of the most holy and high God.
"The opportunity of leading worship at Two Rivers Baptist Church that Dr. Jerry Sutton gave me was a blessing," says Travis. "The experience of working with that church body, choir, orchestra, and drama ministry was an unspeakable blessing. In planning worship, I began to learn at an early age how important it is to try to be sensitive to such a diverse group of people of ages and experiences."
Click here to listen to the song:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=RwZqhx8eSN4&feature=related
Click here to purchase Travis Cottrell’s version:
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