Andy Smith Creative

So, we just spent the first week of 2012 at the Youth For Christ staff conference – fantastic teaching and a whole bunch of proper legends, YFC staff and year out students.  We were treated like kings, with rooms far too romantic to share with another dude, (although Pete was a great roomy) cooked breakfasts and carvery every night!  Brilliant.

A few people asked, so I thought I’d chuck up a few charts of new songs we did during the week.  Feel free to share them around.

Run – This song was written after my mate Ian did a talk about the Exodus – he told us about some of the Rabbinical stories that told of how even though the Israelites through the miracle of an incredible miracle – tonnes of water, suspended in a liquid corridor of salvation! – They still complained about getting mud on their sandals.  We wanted to write a song that captured that moment of transition through the miracle, looking up, breaking off the chains, running to freedom, running to Jesus.  Look out for this song on the Spring Harvest album 2012.

Place my head upon a rock –  This song was written off the back of a talk my may Tim did at church about Jacobs ladder.  The imagery stuck with me for a couple of weeks until I found myself lying on the floor, about to lead worship at a prayer event in Manchester called prayer storm – scribbling away on a piece of paper.  I stood up, strummed my guitar, opened my mouth, and out came pretty much what is now the first two sections of the song.  Going back home, I played it to Tim, and he set to writing the rest.  I love the process this song went through.  Hearing the word in a local church context, and then giving time for the word of God to resonate while pursuing the reality of that word in times of worship and devotion.  Then the creative process happening live, in the context of intercession and worship (which was slightly nerve wracking), then handed back into the context of community to find it’s fruition as song that encapsulates the journey of a family of people .  My hope is that this song creates space for an encounter of heaven opened.

In the valley – So, this song came from Ezekiel 37.  I’d been sitting with a phrase for a while – ‘Even in the valley, victory is my landscape as I lift my eyes to see’.  God was challenging me to look up and change my perspective in times where my circumstances keep me down. It became for me a model of how to view not just my life, but the lives of those around me and the seemingly insurmountable issues in our communities.  The bride of Christ has the permission to prophesy to the breath, and see life will rise up from the dust.  How awesome that we can do this in the context of worship and intercession.  Even the lost, the forgotten, despised and rejected will sing praises to the one who saves.

Isaiah 43:19-21

¹⁹ See, I am doing a new thing!
Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?
I am making a way in the desert
and streams in the wasteland.
²⁰ The wild animals honor me,
the jackals and the owls,
because I provide water in the desert
and streams in the wasteland,
to give drink to my people, my chosen,
²¹ the people I formed for myself
that they may proclaim my praise

Posted in resources, worship | 7 Comments »