REVIEW REVISITED: Aaron Keyes – “Dwell”

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By my standards, Dwell – by Atlanta area worship pastor/artist Aaron Keyes – is one of the all-around best corporate worship CDs of all-time. Serious! StuG’s production is fresh, even by todays standards, the songwriting is Grade A, & the songs are almost all corporate, & adaptable for almost any style of congregation. To top it all off, this is where Michael W. Smith‘s latest hit single, “Sovereign over Us”, originated from! If you’re looking for a great listen, but also would like to find a number of singable, new-to-you corporate songs to use for your congregation, look no further. Here’s the “revisited” review…
(stick around after the review for links to my live interviews of Aaron, as well)
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Artist: Aaron Keyes
Release: Dwell
Label: Kingsway

 

 

 

Highlights: “I am not the Same”, “Sovereign over Us”, “Song of Moses”, “Dwell”, & “Lavish Your Love”

I vividly remember when I first heard Chris Tomlin’s newly released CD “Not to Us”.  Up to that point, apart from a couple “worship hits”, Tomlin’s catalogue had been pretty pedestrian, yet out of the blue he released a CD from which I used no less than 7 songs corporately, & which was a trend-setter production-wise for the next several years. Enter “Dwell” by Aaron Keyes. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Creativity, Music Review, New Music, Resource, Shannon, writing Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

The Real Reason we do not Sing

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WhyWeDoNotSingThere has been much talk across the blogosphere this week on a topic I’m thankful is being discussed: the struggle to get a church to actually participate in corporate singing.  The conversations was begun – a few months ago – by Jamie Brown in “Are we headed for a Crash?”  Good observations.  Leading to helpful responses by David Santisteven and Dan Wilt, both of whom made some very good points.  More recently, the Kenny Lamm of the North Carolina Baptist association has chimed in on the subject as well. Having led worship in a wide variety of churches – from traditional a cappella hymn singing to free-form, “Spirit-led”, 3 1/2 hour charismatic praise, and everything in between – I’m familiar with the problem.  All it takes is one Sunday morning service with the room staring back at you, uttering not-a-peep, for us to go home contemplative, asking, “What did I do WRONG?”  That said, though they make many good points, I’m not convinced any of the fore-mentioned blogs gets to the heart of the matter.  Here’s why…
[Read more…]

Filed Under: Resource, Saint Lewis, Shannon, Theology Tagged With: , , , , , , ,