In celebration of our latest Joint review and the upcoming new Hillsong CD/DVD release dropping next week, they’re leaking some incredible videos on some incredible blogs so go get ‘em!
Start here with Los and Brooke Fraser’s stunning I Will Exalt You
Then here with Tony and No Reason to Hide
Then with Ben and You Hold Me Now
Then Pete with We Will See Him
I think Fred’s next
Hi. Remember us? 3 guys who review new music for you to feast your giddy little ears on?
Well we’re back with a new release from Hillsong and an additional blogger! WOOHOO!
Pre-order it here at Amazon
Synopsis: Disclosure: I listen to, and play, a lot of Hillsong music. Hardly a week goes by in our church that there’s not a Hillsong tune somewhere in the setlist. There’s so many of them! And while I listen to both live and studio albums, my preference (and Hillsong’s strenght) is the live worship CD.
Faith+Hope+Love is right in Hillsong’s wheelhouse. This has everything one could want in a live worship album: intimate moments, worship anthems, and musical themeatic consistancy. You can put this in an feel like you are at a worship service, even though it was recorded at three different venues. What’s more, this album combines the talents of Hillsong’s main worship band with the youth band Hillsong United. So you wind up with the talents of “mates” like Joel Houston, J.D., Darlene Zchech, Reuben Morgan, Brooke Fraiser, Mia Fields, and Nigel Hendroff all on one record. It’s like a Hillsong All-Star game.
Bottom Line: That said, there’s only a few songs that seriously “pop” out for me personally, but the record is consistantly good throughout, and has several songs easily converted to congregational worship. And there is enough musical variety here to please a great many people, and a great many worship moods. This album certainly keeps the bar high when it comes to live worship albums, and should be in anyone’s collection.
4 out of 5!
Must Haves: “God One and Only.” – I’ll admit to being a bit of a United junkie, and this is the kind of worship anthem I like. “I Will Exalt You” – Two words: Brooke Fraiser. “Yahweh” – I’m a sucker for Reuben Morgan worship anthems, and this is a good one.
In Church: As stated, we are very used to doing Hillsong and United songs, so some of these will be easy for us. “God One and Only” for sure. “Yahweh,” “Glow” stand out for me, but almost anything on the record will work in a worship setting.
Synopsis: I can’t believe I’m saying this but I LOVE THIS CD! Now, Hillsong has had a slow burn on me. I’ve only joined the bandwagon in the past few years and probably because they’re starting to graduate some musicians and they’re sound is (as I’ve “complained” about in the past) is becoming blurred between what Hillsong and Hillsong United is. This release also shares musicians as well as songs between the two camps but I absolutely love it.
I split this CD into quarters: Tracks 1-3 have an awesome flow starting off with a Unitedish opener and rush through to Glow with it’s in your face swing. Tracks 4-6 hit the worship stride with each song being 7+ mins. Tracks 7-9 pick it back up again with a United Cover. Track 10 stops you immediately, the most stunning track of the CD and sweeps you through to the final track witch is another United cover and probably one of my most favs!
Bottom Line: For fans of Hillsong United but wanting more congregationally friendly worship for “big church” this is such a solid release! Get you some! It’s got something for everyone and a great flow for a worship CD!
4 out of 5!
Must haves: His Glory Appears is one of those stop you in your tracks songs (harkens to Soon.) Glow is a fun swing song! I Will Exalt is my favorite +7 minute song 
You Hold Me Now is such a killer song as well.
In Church: Again, I think that Hillsong’s releases are more “big church” friendly and this is a worship CD so if you’ve got the talent then you’ve got the songs!
Synopsis: It wasn’t that long ago when we reviewed the latest Hillsong United album. This new album from Hillsong shares a song (No Reason To Hide) with the United album. The album sound is certainly not as ‘rowdy’ as United’s. Instead it is more of the signature Hillsong sound we’ve heard over recent years.
The album starts off great, then kind of slumps. There is a little peak a few songs near the end, but not enough to revive the rest of the album for me. It kind of slips into neutral with no drive. Don’t hate me, I’m just stating what comes to me listening to it.
Maybe they need to bring Mike G back to write some killer songs? Just a suggestion
Bottom Line: Have Hillsong hit the end of the road?
3.5 out of 5
Must Have Songs:
The First And The Last – great start to the album.
It’s Your Love – My favourite track on the album.
No Reason To Hide – Ok, I’m not sure I liked this on United’s album, but it stands out above the other tracks here.
His Glory Appears – nice song, but not sure how it would work congregationally.
You Hold Me Now – I like the song lyrics.
In Church: The First And The Last, It’s Your Love, You Hold Me Now
Synopsis: A live CD from all things Hillsong? Sounds good to me. This CD brings in Alumni vintage crew with some of the united crew further more confusing the heck out of us listeners. Which band is which?…and…How do they have so much time to write, record, tour and be in two or three different. I barely have time to pee myself.
Any way it is a classic Hillsong CD with classic Hillsong sound, but some added twists.
I came at this CD a tad worried because the joint just reviewed Sojourn with the highest rating and I was not too keen on last United CD.
Bottom Line: 3 words folks! Brooke Fraser Ligertwood. Seriously can she write a bad song? I swear I would listen to her sing menus at Dennys.
While I came listening to this CD a tad worried I was so surprised that while I am sick of the Hillsong sound this CD was awesome. Pulled me right into worship and got me centered on Christ. Rueben Morgan, Brooke, and Joel are brilliant and they shine on this CD.
This CD has a wall of sound kind of feel that makes you feel like you are right there worshiping with them
4 out of 5!
Must Haves: Actually many on this one, but a few major standouts for me. I love “For your Name” what a great song and awesome lyrics. Almost anthem like.
“Yaweh” is a great song by Morgan. When “I will Exalt You” came on the ipod I had to click repeat 3 more times. It took me a while to actually get to the songs after it because Brooke’s voice and heart and worship was so captivating. Glow is a real cool song as well. I love “His glory Appears”
In Church: For Your Name, Yaweh, I will be doing “I will exalt you” in a few weeks at a multichurch prayer meeting, His glory appears is a great communion song.
I love Jesus!
I also love Francis Chan
I’m so stoked for this book Forgotten God: Reversing our Tragic Neglect of the Holy Spirit.
I’ll let Francis tell you about it:
PREORDER? Yes thank you!
I can’t even concentrate today. This makes the 7th day in the past 4 weeks that I’ve been home and all I can think about is seeing them today when they get home from:
DCLA Friday through Saturday.
[Video embedded]
Blogging about DCLA is crazy tough because there is SO much happening here! Yesterday morning had us in a room with 800ish students broken up into small groups of about 8 students. Some of our students were Group Leaders and this was one of the highlights of the day for them! Meeting and sharing life with 7 other students from across the country! That morning we learned about our identity. That was God says about me is the most truest thing there is about me!
Afterwards, we had an hour or so to play. I was going to buzz the vendor circles and then get some work done and then play some ping pong. Instead, I barely made it through the vendor line! Joe made fun of me for not knowing a stranger and talking to everyone! I didn’t even realize it took that long but the crew here is amazing! Compassion, Invisible Children, Me.Glad, To Write Love On Her Arms, My Broken Palace, Blood.Water.Mission, many colleges and seminaries, and many more! I had 2 things against me:
1. My cool Toms shirt on. Toms, we love you and wow what a conversation starter!
2. My ability to have a conversation with a brick wall So yeah, an hour flew by!
I had to run to Duffy Robbins breakout session about Straight Answers in a Crooked World. Ole man is LEGIT! Wow. Hilarious and insightful! Reasons we make bad desicions:
1. We have a bad compass
2. When we have bad company
3. When we have bad comprehension
How we make good decisions:
1. STOP and look at where you want to end up
2. LOOK for the lie
3. LISTEN to the word of God
Then it was straight to the prescreening of the new movie To Save A Life due out in theaters January 2010. Full review soon. Still processing.
WOW. All that before our night session!
(Posted via iPhone)
DCLA officially kicked off last night with a roaring session from 7:45-11:30! It was intensely insane and amazing fun! There’s probably more like 5k students here rather than the initial assumption I had of 9k but that’s still nothing to balk at. My initial reaction to Youth Specialties: THEY GET IT!
3 stages set up through the middle of the auditorium where speakers, bands, comedians, and painters are constantly changing between!
Huge video screens on the side wall so you don’t miss a beat!
Various communication forms! We’re roaring through the story of the Bible and we went from: Spoken word- worship- speaker- video- speaker- special song- on repeat like every 10 or 15 minutes or so! 3 hours of info packed and packaged in a way that had us remembering and talking about it all night long!
Not only are large group sessions intense but they understand the value of small groups. The other learning sessions are labs in which students get mixed up into groups of 8ish, have a student facilitator and an adult who shepherds 4-5 groups.
And the quality! Francis Chan? Yes please! Starfield? Ok cool! Kendall Payne? OMG! The videos? Like Jib Jab meets Apple! HI-LARIOUS! And 3 words: The Skit Guys! Man my cheeks hurt from laughing so hard! And those are just the ppl I knew. The rest of the group is just as dynamic.
Last night had us cruising from Genesis up to the Minor Prophets. Seems like the theme is Creation-Redemption-Restoration this year that goes hand in hand with the DCLA DNA of Be. Love. Serve. REPEAT. I’m so excited to get this grand overarching theme of the Bible! Even more so for the students. I know I didn’t get a grand sense of a Biblical theme until much later than high school!
So far I’ve met one fellow Twitterer, Jeff, and have 2 more on the agenda
If you’re out there hit me up. Pics coming soon! Pray for us, this has the potential to be an incredible experience for these students, maybe the most memorable of this year…their high school experience.
Amen and WOOHOO!
(Disclaimer: Mobile uploaded post from my iPhone so don’t bash my grammar! Haha)
Today was a week’s worth of thrills and spills! It’s hard to believe that we accomplished all the we did today in actually 1 day. So to make this a bit more manageable, here’s DCLA pre-DCLA.
This morning we woke up and the weather here in DC is unbelievable! Cool, windy, just beautiful. We took in a few museums before lunch, the Air and Space and American History. I thought that both of these would be terrible downders but in the Air and Space I found the space part totally exciting and some photographs of costellations that are linked to www.fromearthtotheuniverse.org go check it out because it’ll blow your mind! Especially if you dug Uncle Louie’s How Great is our God series!
In the American History museum the ocean exhibit rocked my world! Wowzers! It was amazing and also depressing. I found out that it is true that Coke’s been lying to us with their false advertising all these years. There’s no way that cute little panda bear could share his Coke with penguins because they live on totally different poles from one another!
The true spectacle of the day was the Holocaust museum. I’ve got to say that this was a ‘whatev’ kind of thing going into it. Everybody said you can’t miss it so we went and wow, I needed another hour or so in there! It’s truly a remarkable museum. It’s 3 floors of history and story and it just gets so intense. I made it all the way to near the end when there’s this little auditorium that shows video interviews of survivors telling their stories…I lost it…a grown man crying by himself with a room full of strangers is pretty embarrassing but its powerful and it just hits you.
It leaves me with so many questions though. It’s filled with stories of heroism and grace, as well as an embodiment of evil and hatred that is palpable. It really boggles my mind.
So I highly recommend it to anyone visiting the DC area! It’s well worth it. We had nearly 2 and 1/2 hours and I could have easily used another 30 mins to an hour.
THEN came our 1st night of DCLA which was WOAH CRAZY YEAH AMAZING WOWZERS! But I’m going to be a Circle Coach in the morning so it’s time for bed. More later!
DCLA twitterers/bloggers/etc. we need to hit up a time to meet in the Youth Pastor’s Oasis and network.
Follow me @worshipcity and facebook.com/connerbyrd
I lost Wednesday due to a 25 hour train ride to Washington DC but we are here and we are excited to see what God’s bringing to the capital! I can’t believe tomorrow’s Friday and the real fun begins. So stay tuned for fun stuff and updates I’ll be bringing from DCLA this weekend.
What’s DCLA?
Well I’m glad you asked. It’s a student conference that Youth Specialties holds like once every 3 years. This year’s attendance is supposed to be like 9,000. I’m super stoked b/c my main man right now Francis Chan will be bringing it! So my twitter account will be blowing up, facebook getting picture uploads, and I’ll bring as much as I can here to the blog!
If you’re here, please let me know. One of the things I hope to accomplish is some networking. I’ve already met 2 groups coming here to DCLA on the streets as we farted around.
Its these 1st through 6th graders that have made this week worth so much to me and many in our group! I couldn’t help but NOT give them some screen time, I mean seriously, who doesn’t like to see their mug up on the big screen!?! Hahaha. Please watch and please pray for these children.
