It was recently brought to our attention that some of you on our worship team have been a little left in the dark about our upcoming worship album that is currently underway. And that's because you missed our last Worship/Tech quarterly vision-casting meeting a few weeks ago. (but don't feel condemned! there's forgiveness at the cross, my friends!) Anyway, so we thought it only made sense to go ahead and do some catching up to speed on the old blog.
A few weeks ago, we began tracking the first song of what will turn into our second Journey Worship album. Although we've been tossing around the idea of another album for a while, it didn't come to fruition until a few weeks ago when we realized that we had a new commercial airing on TV soon, and we needed a song for it. So, that got the wheels turning and the excitement brewing. After talking with Kurt Masteller for some time about the idea of working with him as the engineer and mixer, the timing seemed perfect. So, "Your Love" was completed about two weeks ago, and is now on the commercial. In addition to that, the plan is to release it as a single on iTunes very soon so that it will help us raise both finances and buzz for the rest of the project.
Now, if you're on the worship team, you may be wondering about your own involvement in the project. Great question. Here's the deal, in a nutshell. We want to be sensitive here, because we all feel a sense of ownership on the team. Simply by nature, though, not every instrumentalist or vocalist will appear on this album IN THEIR NORMALLY ASSIGNED ROLE! BUT, .. and I stress BUT ... everyone WILL have an OPPORTUNITY to be on the record in some form. It might involve gang/choir vocals. It may involve your creative input outside of the actual tracking process. But the bottom line is, on a project of this nature with a team as large as we have, it becomes difficult to include every single person (much like the live recording was). That being said, we will have days during the process where we invite as many of you as can be there to come and sing gang vocals. Or to come and just hang out and have fun with us during the process. The Masteller's have graciously opened up their home to us since Kurt's studio is, well, ... in his upstairs. That being the case, though, it creates an additional challenge of how many people can participate in the recording process AT THE SAME TIME. So, we must work in shifts. And we must schedule out people in advance. And we must be patient with each other as we do this. (And, not to mention the fact that the Masteller's live in Fuquay-freakin'-Istanbul ... it's quite a drive for many of us!)
That being said, though, we desperately want you all to feel a part of this project--to stake claim in this project. Because if it's only the baby of a select few, than it really doesn't contain the heartbeat of our church as a whole. And yet, we believe in each of the songs on this project so much that for us, they are an echo and an expression of what God is doing at Journey and in RDU. And so our desire as a worship leadership team is that each of you feels that way as well. Each of you are vitally important to this team and to our church, so please understand the enormous task it is to have to choose who plays and who doesn't play. Each of us needs to put our own feelings behind us and ask what's best for the project as a whole and what will best honor the name of Jesus with the resources and talent He's put at our disposal. I know that I'm preaching to the choir here, because each of you guys are team players and have that kind of servant's heart already, or you wouldn't be on this team. So thank you. Thank you for understanding. And thank you for your patience.
Please help us by snuffing out any negativity you might hear from team members. The way that you guys handled the live recording was phenomenal. There was little to no negative comments from those who didn't play or sing on it. And that honored Jesus. We are sincerely asking the Lord for the same response from this project. We want this project to be God-honoring in every way possible. There are no rock stars here. There are no elites. We are all on the same team and we all want the same end goal, and that is to magnify the name of Jesus.
You can also help us by spreading the word. The goal is to have it in hand a few weeks before Christmas much like the live recording from 2 years ago. Once the single is released, we'll need each of you to tweet it, Like it on FB, and tell all of your friends (and enemies) to go download it (even your computer-illiterate mom!)
That's the scoop. If you have hate mail to send, please direct it to adam@takeajourney.org. :)
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