This song has been a long, adventurous process. I didn’t write it as a corporate worship song, it actually came together after some wrestling I was doing with God over Lordship of my life. I spoke in a recent Sunday Set List at length about the background of the song but essentially dealt with me handing over my security to Jesus.

The song is based primarily out of Philippians 1, which was challenging to work out of. The text is supremely rich, just not the most melodic phrases to work with, so it was a challenge but I wanted to use it. This recording is from the 2nd time we ever played it live. There’s plenty left to do with the song arrangement wise, so this is pretty raw but I like to get a picture of where the song is heading first naturally before working on tighter arrangement details, loops and such. I really question my judgment releasing songs publicly that are so early in the process, but getting critique at this point is always helpful.

Credits:

Kyle Campos (vocals, guitar)
Kendra Rohl (vocals)
Josh Dailey (Bass)
Jon Utter (Drums)

 

 "Live Or No Longer Live" by Kyle Campos (Live) [7:40m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Lyrics:

Verse:
The passions of our youth, faded into sin
We laid waste to our call, and shame took us in
But you reached out in the night, left ninety nine behind
A dead man you found, filthy and bound
You loosened the binds, and life now I find

Lead me to live, lead me to live (x2)

Chorus:
Adonai, You gave me life
Now lead me in all that I do
Adonai, in this heart of mine
Shape me in the image of you

Chorus-Out 1:
Rejoicing in all things we sing
Christ be honored now
If we live or no longer live

Chorus-Out 2:
To live is for Christ, die is gain
We are not ashamed
If we live or no longer live

Now that David Crowder covered “How He Loves” pretty much everyone in the Christian music scene knows the song, which is great because it’s an incredible song that needs to be heard and sung. Fewer are probably aware that John Mark McMillan wrote the song (not Kim Walker) and that David Crowder changed a lyric that some in the church viewed as somewhat inappropriate. Out of that a silly little Christian controversy over the lyric was created. Here is the original lyric:

“So heaven meets earth like a sloppy wet kiss and my heart turns violently inside of my chest”

David Crowder changed the lyric after consulting with John Mark (which was a really cool thing to do by the way) to this:

“So heaven meets earth like an unforseen kiss and my heart…”

I personally appreciate the original line in its correct context. The people that have issues with it typically take it out of context and that’s too bad. I’ve had numerous exchanges on this blog explaining the context of this lyric and why I do not change it when I sing it.

It’s unfortunate John Mark needed to come out and clarify but I think it was an incredibly humble and mature thing for him to do and he did it very well. You should go read for yourself what John Mark has to say about the “sloppy wet kiss” but here it is simply and succinctly:

The idea behind the lyric is that the kingdom of heaven and the kingdom of earth converge in a way that is both beautiful and awkwardly messy. Think about the birth of a child, or even the death of Jesus himself. These miracles are both incredibly beautiful and incredibly sloppy (“gory” may be more realistic, but “Heaven meets earth like a gory mess” didn’t seem to have the same ring).

I think it’s a brilliant line that attempts to illustrate the love in God’s sovereignty though many times we fail to see his love in tragedy, it’s there. I love John Mark’s heart for Jesus, I love that he makes us uncomfortable with his lyrics, his songs are a gift to the kingdom but more importantly HE is a gift to the Kingdom.

One thing I love about Matt Redman is his passion for truth, for the gospel and for worship to be Christ centered. In this brief interview clip Matt discusses the over use of romantic imagery in worship songs and how that may negatively impact men in our church. I believe that to be true and to that point I remember attending one popular conference where at the end they played some worship song as people held hands and skipped down the aisle singing “we’re getting married”, an illusion to Jesus being the church’s bridegroom of course. It was one of the most uncomfortable worship moments of my life.

What are your thoughts on what Matt has to say here?

I wrote this song about a year and a half ago and it’s been a slow evolution from where it began. Lots of rewriting in every aspect of the song. I feel satisfied with where it’s settled. I’ve been working on a studio demo of it for a long time, so many false starts due to the rewriting. This past Sunday we recorded the set live through our modest FireStudio Project setup mostly for our own internal band uses. You have to listen to yourself to see where you stink.

The mix is pretty rough, lots of stuff we need equipment wise to get a decent live recording setup, but for a rough live demo, it’ll do. The song is about our lives as worship and love for Christ. I was tired of singing about it, praying about certain things and just ready to live it. Lyrics below and you can grab the How I Live loop here.

Song credits(Our Rising Sound band):

Kyle Campos: synth/loop work, guitars, vocals
Josh Dailey: bass
Jonathan Utter: drums
Kendra Rohl: vocals

 

 How I Live (Live) [5:52m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Verse:

I love you Lord
Cause you changed my world
Your son crucified
Be restored to your bride
You’ve come to this dark
And hardened heart
You spoke into night
And your spirit has brought me to life

Pre-Chorus:

And I want to show you more, of my love
And I want to show you more

Chorus:

How I live I love you Lord
You have changed, changed my world
How I live I love you Lord
Though this world might have stole you restore my soul, whole

Bridge:

I can’t believe what you’ve done, done for me
That I could receive all of your love
And your life has set me free

Recently Jonathan Dodson wrote an article at Resurgence talking about why many worship songs about God’s love are cheap. Jonathan’s main complaint is against “Jesus is my boyfriend” worship songs that in his eyes paint at the very least a narrow and more likely inaccurate view of why God loves us. His contention is we must understand the anger and justice of God to fully understand his love and that God is almighty God, not our boyfriend. I agree 100% with what Jonathan says, I don’t think we know God’s love unless we understand grace and to understand that we need to understand justice and how it meets on the cross.

I also agree with Bob Kauflin when he talked about the importance of theology to musicians and songwriters. There are plenty of bad worship songs theologically, there are plenty I won’t play that are good musically but not lyrically. I think most can agree on that point, maybe not the specific criteria since our theology will differ, but at least that there are bad worship songs that shouldn’t be played.

But here’s the trend and attitude that’s bothering me as a worship leader, elder and songwriter and let me put this in big bold letters and address pastors directly.

Dear pastors,

1 song can’t explain every aspect of God’s character

If given the task to write a 4-5 minute worship song of God’s love I’m not going to be able to explain the full story of original sin, God’s wrath, the incarnation, death on the cross and resurrection. It’s just not possible to hit the entire story of scripture in a song. So please stop evaluating each and every song with the entirety of scripture and God’s character as the measuring stick. If given the opportunity you could find theological omission in every song ever written. And if we followed your critique we wouldn’t have any songs to sing.

I don’t have 45 minutes to go through each hermeneutic method, to explore the greek and hebrew texts and talk about the historical and cultural context inside my song. I know you do every Sunday at your pulpit as you should, that’s what we need you for, to guide, teach and encourage us theologically. But I as a worship leader and songwriter operate under different restrictions, many shared but many not.

Totality of the worship song rotation should bring theological context

Each individual song will only illuminate a very narrow aspect of God’s character, it will direct our worship in a way that seems theologically narrow when viewed in isolation. Just as if I took a 4-5 minute segment of your sermon it may seem theologically narrow. I know you guys complain about You Tube videos taking you out of context, yet you frequently turn around and do the same to your worship leaders.

Let worship leaders build a rotation of worship songs that glorify and exalt Jesus in different ways, all for who He is that together gives the body a faithful representation of Christ and his church. If you think you need a song that talks about justice, don’t tear down the songs about mercy, just have your worship leader write or introduce a song about justice. The problem isn’t too many songs about mercy and grace, it’s too few about justice and propitiation. (there aren’t too many poetic ways to rhyme with propitiation, that may be why)

In conclusion, elders, pastors, theologians, work with your worship pastors, encourage them, pray for them, give them ideas on new songs that will fill in the theological gaps of your worship. Stop making fun of all the songs and let’s write more good ones. Being a critic is cheap, being a faithful artist is challenging and worship leaders need your support.

Sincerely,

Worship Leaders

I had the great pleasure recently of interviewing Ryan Delmore of Vineyard Music and 5 Cities Vineyard. Ryan has a new cd coming out in October entitled The Spirit, the Water and the Blood.

In Part 2 Ryan and I discuss more on his band experience in the church and outside the church, we riff a bit on worship band improvisation and how the Vineyard has cultivated that atmosphere in its worship bands. I also asked Ryan about his songwriting technique and if he has 2 creative avenues, one for the church and another less creatively binding avenue for songs that might not be intended for corporate worship. His answer was humble and profound and I think is something a lot of new young worship leaders should pray on.

“If I get a good melody, or some good chords, I don’t wanna waste them on something that doesn’t point people to God.” -Ryan Delmore

If you’re a worship leader that plays outside the church in other bands I think this statement is a challenging one. There’s much more to that answer in the interview so listen up!

 

 Standard Podcast [11:21m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

In late April John Mark McMillan did a concert at our church and he was nice enough to sit down for a video interview with us. I’ve previously posted part 1 and part 2 of that interview and now, finally, here are the remaining 2 parts.

In part 3 we discuss deeply theological issues like, can you be saved if you use a PC and how bad was I going to woop up on him in Guitar Hero. Incidently John Mark was too scared to pickup the axe(you know that’s true JM). We also discuss all his musical influences.

Part 4 we get a little more serious and discuss what the church is getting right or wrong in our worship, how John Mark remains grounded doctrinally in his writing and what some of the ground breaking worship songs were in his view.

A few weeks back I wrote a post here about an idea I had for our church and that was to let our congregation write a worship song, literally. This was sort of a group songwriting exercise taken to the extreme. I value worship songs that exposit biblical truth and also draw upon life experience to bring it into context. I see value in both and try not to use one to the exclusion of the other. The problem is that when I’m the only one writing songs for the church the life experience that I write through might not be relateable for others or might not necessarily impact others in the way it impacts me. This is why biblical truth in worship songs should be paramount and not the other way around because the only thing we find true unity in is the Holy Spirit.

So I wanted to give the church a chance to give testimony to the mighty works he’s accomplished in each person’s life that others might not know about. Thus giving glory to God and magnifying Him for the great works right before our eyes. I asked the church a question and requested responses from the congregation. The question was, “How has God’s grace changed your life specifically?” and here are some of the amazing responses I received:

• Hearing the cry from the depths of my soul, God met me in my dark place and He saved me with His most honest embrace.
• I lived a life full of shame, now God is using me to bring others out of a life of shame through His grace.
• God saved me from my self destructive ways and is showing me His way.
• I lay weak in the hands of grace and receive His strength.
• God showed me His heart and healed a life full of pain, tears and fears.
• Shame welcomed my sin, but it was God’s grace that lifted me up.
• In my self hate I gave myself away, but God’s grace came softly to me and drew me by love and set me free.
• God’s grace for me has drowned out the religious view I had of Him.
• A life of mistakes and pain dramatically transformed by a hand of grace, too big to understand, that’s my Jesus that’s my King.
• God’s grace has spared my life, literally.

Amen.