It’s been a big year, simultaneously one of the most challenging and fruitful years for me and my family. Started the year looking for a job, found one, then ended the year looking for a job and found one. God has been so graceful in how he’s lead our family, matured me as a father and husband and sustained us through many trials.

My wife is incredible and been just a rock of hope in the midst of stress and rough circumstance. We’ve been blessed this year and sheltered by God’s faithfulness and grace. Our family grew by 1 as we welcomed Adia Grace Campos to the family. That was incredible, born the day before Easter. Will never forget or cease to be amazed at the goodness God poured out on us then.

As we start 2010 I begin a new job that will change our family dynamic and rhythm, to what degree I’m not sure. But I’ve worked exclusively from home for the past 6 years or so and now I’ll be venturing back into office life. We trust God to work his goodness here and believe this will be an amazing year for us.

As for Our Rising Sound it’s been a great year. Here are some of the highlights:

• Topped the 300 RSS subscriber mark
• Loops downloaded/played 18,000 times … I’m really astonished at that figure
• Began doing custom loops. Really excited about this and thank you for all the requests that have come in for these. This has been really fun.
• Top post this year is still the dumb church sign debate (37,100 views this year, originally posted in 2008!). Crazy.
• One of my favorite posts from the year was “Worship Leaders: play songs your congregation doesn’t like“
• Most controversial post was probably “Jesus Culture we have a problem…your lyric“
• My favorite blog series of the year was “How worship music can be like bad hotel art“
• One of the most visited posts was John Mark’s explanation of the infamous “sloppy wet kiss”

Each year I like to look back and do some analytic reports on the songs we sung. Here are some of the interesting stats for my church’s song selection for 2009.

5 Most Played Songs

1. (13) Gloria 34 – Taylor Sorensen (loop available)
2. (11) With Everything – Hillsong (loop available)
3. 2 way tie with 10 plays each
   1. The World Can’t Take It Away – Ryan Delmore
   2. True Love – Phil Wickham (loop available)
4. 6 way tie with 9 plays each
   1. Dress Us Up – John Mark McMillan
   2. God of This City – Bluetree (loop available)
   3. Hosanna – Hillsong United (loop available)
   4. Jesus’ Name – Ryan Delmore
   5. Lead Me to the Cross – Hillsong United (loop available)
   6. Skeleton Bones – John Mark McMillan (loop not yet available)
5. 6 way tie with 7 plays each
   1. Come Thou Fount – Robert Robinson
   2. Everlasting God – New Life (loop available)
   3. My Soul Sings – Delirious (loop available)
   4. Rain Down – Delirious (loop not yet available)
   5. We Cry Out – Kim Walker (loop available)
   6. You Love Me Forever – Merchant Band (loop not yet available)

New Songs Introduced in 2009

• The World Can’t Take It Away – Ryan Delmore
• True Love – Phil Wickham (loop available)
• God of This City – Bluetree (loop available)
• Jesus’ Name – Ryan Delmore
• Skeleton Bones – John Mark McMillan (loop not yet available)
• Messiah – Phil Wickham
• Death In His Grave – John Mark McMillan (loop available)
• Live or No Longer Live – Kyle Campos
• Destructor – Red Letter
• Burning Ones – Jesus Culture (loop available)
• Lamb of God – Sarah Reeves
• Found – Hillsong United

Largest Drop in Play Count from 2008 to 2009

* denotes song retired (0 plays in 2009)

1. 3 way tie with 6 less plays
   1. * Salvation Is Here – Hillsong United
   2. Everything – Tim Hughes (loop available)
   3. I Am A Temple – John Mark McMillan
2. 6 way tie with 5 less plays
   1. * Coming Back – Desperation Band
   2. * How Great Is Our God – Chris Tomlin
   3. * Joy of the Lord – Twila Paris
   4. * Rescue – New Life
      
   5. Solid Rock – Delirious (loop available)
   6. Rain Down – Delirious (loop not yet available)

What did you play most in 2009?