We Don't Want the Glory

You are high above us
And through Your awesome power we're sustained
Your majesty astounds us
For You've revealed the glory of Your name

We come to You
Laying down our pride, so You'll be glorified
Only You
Are worthy of our lives

We don't want the glory, no
It's all for You, all for You, Jesus
We don't want the glory, no
It's all for You, all for You, Jesus

We are Your creation
Depending every moment on Your grace
And through Your revelation
We're humbled as we fall upon our face

We come to You
Laying down our pride, so You'll be glorified
Only You
Are worthy of our lives

We don't want the glory, no
It's all for You, all for You, Jesus
We don't want the glory, no
It's all for You, all for You, Jesus

You are so high
Lord, we bow down so low
We're down on earth
While You reign from Your throne
And all that You are is the only thing
That deserves all glory
Lord, we give You glory alone

We don't want the glory, no
It's all for You, all for You, Jesus
We don't want the glory, no
It's all for You, all for You, Jesus

This song can probably be summarized in the line "We come to You, laying down our pride so You'll be glorified". It was one of my first attempts at writing a more upbeat worship song and I wanted to get the right perspective of what it means for us to come to the God of the universe in worship. That perspective actually ends up being the very reason we worship Him, because all glory is due Him. It's so easy to lose the perspective that all glory for all the we do should be given right back to God because He is the only One who is worthy of our lives.

Now I know that this song focuses more on the transcendence of God and doesn't deal with the wonder of his immanence (trust me, there are many of those songs to come!) but it puts forward the fact that "From Him and through Him and to Him are all things. To Him be the glory forever! Amen." (Romans 11:36). The very air we breathe and the voices we use to sing these songs come directly from the God who upholds the entire universe in His sustaining grace. And our only right response to this revelation is to fall down on our faces before Him, and give Him all the glory.

I won't delve into my thoughts on worship here, but this song is a good starting point for it all. As a fun side note, I found a voice loop that says "He is the creator and sustainer of all the worlds. Whether those worlds are known or unknown to mankind." Needless to say, that had to go at the beginning of the song! I'm trying to find a way to get what I have up online. Hopefully by the time you read this, you'll also be able to listen to it!

First Recording Session

Saturday, 24 January 2009, was officially the first day of recording. I began with the appropriately titled song "We Don't Want the Glory". This is probably going to open my "Songs from the Sanctuary: In the Congregation" CD because I feel as though it so clearly captures what worship is all about. It's a song that gives the right perspective of God and of us ... which is where any true worship must begin.

I spent about 3 hours on Saturday and about another 2 on Sunday and am starting to get what I like on that song. Recording the songs the way I am creates a couple unique challenges though: Firstly, I'm the only instrumentalist. This wouldn't be my first choice, but for what I have right now, that's just the way it has to be. Hopefully I'll be able to get more musicians when I do this in the future, but for right now, I'm just trying to get the songs down and that requires me doing it when I have the time. That forces me to use what I have available ... a couple guitars (all acoustic ;-), my keyboard and the multiple loops and midi sounds found on my Acid Studio 7 recording software.

This means that I have to record what I can audio-wise and then try and find drum loops and various electric guitar and synth loops that are going to fit. Once I found those for this song, I discovered that the acoustic guitar didn't quite fit with the drum beats and had to re-record that. I was also disappointed to find that, unlike with Garage Band, I can't just make my acoustic guitar sound electric so that's going to create some interesting isses when so much of what I want to do has electric guitar elements to it.

Well, it's a challenge, but that's what I'm up for. I loved the time spent recording over the last couple of days and I think these challenges are going to force me to be more creative. I'm really beginning to think of recording as a new form of composition ... working with what you have and creating something beautiful and artistic out of it. There's a little bit more work that I'd like to do on this song before I post it for initial thoughts (if anyone even reads this blog) and we'll see where we go from there.

The Beginning

So, this seems to be the beginning of something huge ... and exciting! I wrote my first song back in 7th grade and it was called "That's the way life is". It went something like

when life is really tough

and its hard to get through

and it feels like the whole world's against you

hey, I tell you

thats the way life is

Since that first cynical song as a 12 year old, I've doubled in age and written somewhere between 200-300 songs (some not much better than that one ;-)

I just graduated back in May with my Bachelor's degree in Music Composition and have taken a much needed break from music and life in general over the last 6 months. God's used this time to take me deeper with him, help me find my definition apart from my music (something most musicians struggle with) and just heal me up from a good deal of burnout. For Christmas this year, I got some recording equipment and am now able to finally do something about the catalogue of songs I have.

Last night, over dinner at Macaroni Grill, Bekah and I began to talk about where we're heading musically and I began to share with her an idea I had of recording a couple different CDs of my songs, grouping them topically for added significance. As we began to talk about it more, I grabbed the crayons and started working through the initial ideas, sketching it out right there on the paper tablecloth.

Today, over my lunch break, I worked on the idea more and I'm really excited to have a tentative outline of what the 3 CD set is going to look like:

Songs: A Trilogy

1. Songs from my soul - Repentance & Renewal
2. Songs from the Sanctuary - In the Congregation & In the Closet
3. Songs for the Seeking - Earth & Eternity

They are, in essence, 3 CDs made up of 2 contrasting halves each which could be their own 2 EPs in and of themselves. I'm still working on which songs will go in each (although I've got a pretty good idea for most of them), but as this whole process unfolds, I'll let you know more about the different songs and the ideas behind the different CDs.