Heaven + Earth

I think yesterday was a pretty historic day here in Canada. Most of you won’t have any idea why, so let me share. Yesterday, over 80 worship leaders and pastors in 8 different locations across Canada spent the entire day writing songs together for the Canadian church as part of something called WorshipRises. At the risk of using hyperbole, let me say that it was superfantasticallyawesomeandcool.

In our Moncton location at Lewsiville Baptist Church, we had the likes of myself, Jeff Somers, Jamie Cambers, Elizabeth Rhyno, Gordon Dickinson, John Ferguson, Brent Ingersoll, John Lamos, John Sherwood, Cody Matchett, Kurt Parks and several others whose names escape me at the moment (sorry guys and girls!). Each of us wrote with two different groups, one in the morning and one in the afternoon, and came together as a larger group to share what we wrote and lay it down on tape (or digital hard drive, but tape still sounds cooler). Once recorded, all songs or parts of songs from our location and the other 7 locations across Canada were sent to Chris Vacher (www.chrisfromcanada.com, he started this whole crazy WorshipRises thing) and Joshua Seller (www.joshuaseller.com, a fantastic up-and-coming worship artist) in Barrie for critiquing and further development. From this point on, they will network with the writers of the songs that deserve some further development and coach each team to make their songs the best they can possibly be.

As a participant in this historic event, here are a few observations about the whole experience:

1. Clocks and creative people hate each other. Starting and ending on time are great philosophically but practically impossible. I am as guilty (probably more) as the next guy. Fortunately the next guy was another creative type, so no one seemed to mind too much.

2. Asking 3 or 4 relative strangers to get in a room and create a masterwork together in just under 2 hours is as difficult as it sounds.

3. I think 2 or 3 masterworks were created yesterday, proving the age old adage that nothing is impossible with God.

4. Great songs can still be written with a G-D/F#-Em-C chord progression.

5. Laughter is both a friend and an enemy when collaborating. It can break the ice, but it can also sink the ship. My 2nd writing group of the day produced nothing, but we had a great time doing it :)

6. We have tremendous, crazy talent in the Canadian Maritimes and we should probably get together like this more often.

So thanks to Chris for pursuing this dream that God gave him, and including the rest of us in it, and thanks to Jeff for organizing the event here in Moncton. Looking forward to the journey ahead…