We’re starting the sermon on the mount this week, specifically a passage that modern bible translations have given the subheading: beatitudes. As we study Jesus’ words and see him flip upside down our understanding of being blessed, “It is Well” seems an appropriate song. I’m sure many of us can reflect on a time when our soul shouldn’t have been well by the world’s standards, but with the grace and power of the Holy Spirit, we were able to have a peace and joy that surpasses all understanding.

This version of the traditional hymn was done by Michael Bleecker, the same guy who wrote “Overwhelm Me” which seems to have become a favorite at Origins. My hope is that hearing and singing it in a non traditional way will cause those of us who’ve known this song for years to re-listen to the lyrics. It is such an incredibly powerful song and I don’t want for us to pass by it without hearing the truth in it and worshiping through it. I hope you guys like it.

I recorded this while I was in New Mexico a few weeks ago and it was pretty awesome being in the mountains and singing this song. I’ll shout out a special thanks to Justin Caldwell for all of the help recording as well as the vocal coaching.

I can’t wait for the concert!

This is the view from the balcony at this house, which is why singing the lyrics “praise Him under open skies, everything breathing praising God” is so inspiring and fitting:

I hope that you enjoy this song when it comes up Sunday morning “in the company of all who love the King.”

A couple of things to note… 1) this is my new guitar! 2) this is just a quick preview so you can hear how it goes – the actual song on Sunday will be structured somewhat different.

Oh, the girl singing is Whitney. She’s just one of many talented musicians at Origins. It was a blessing getting to sit down and record with her. Thanks, Whit!

I would usually post a video here, and I did record a video, but I can’t find the stupid cable to get the stupid video off the stupid camera. I’m not frustrated at all . However, since I record the audio directly into the computer and sync it with the video, I do in fact have the audio, so I will at least post that.

I used my electric this week instead of my acoustic and I also threw in an ambient “pad” in the background that was made by this dude, who blogs about guitar and worship. Thanks for the pad, I’ll be using it Sunday!

Anyway, I really like this song and it fits perfectly with the sermon series that we’re in. Give it a listen below and check out the lyrics as well. I hope you’ll dig it.

As usual, I only give this one take because I don’t have time to do a real recording, so please be forgiving of my singing and a couple of wrong chords.

We’ll be starting off worship with this Sunday morning. It’s a super easy song and will likely be familiar to some of you.

Oh yeah, some of you may remember my new delay pedal…I decided to figure it out a little more and I recorded this video using the pedal which is why it’ll sound a little weird (weird but hopefully good!).

Matthew 7:8, Matthew 21:22, Mark 11:24, Luke 11:10, John 16:24, James 4:3, 1 John 3:22, 2 Chronicles 7:14, Psalm 2:8.

As I reflect on these verses I realize how little I pray and how weak my prayers are.  I hope I can step up to this week’s challenge and begin to pray big!

This song, by Shane Barnard, is a reflection of these verses and others.  We’ll sing it right after the message and I hope that it draws us into the message and turns our hearts to worship.  I’m looking forward to this week and what everyone’s response will be.

This Sunday, Brannen will address those questions and more as we start a new series going through the book of Ruth. Hopefully this song will be a great time of reflection after diving in to God’s truth. Come ready to learn and ready to worship. But come as you are – Origins is a place where it is safe to have questions, doubts, or insecurities.

*disclaimer: as usual, I don’t have time for multiple takes unless I flat out miss a chord or lyric, so expect some mistakes and some off pitch singing in places

Anyway, I didn’t want to leave you all (all 2 of you) with nothing until the end of the week, so I’ve decided to post an old recording that I think you’ll really like. Before the newest version of the iPhone came out, the one that has video recording, one had to jailbreak their phone in order to do any sort of video. Well my buddy, David, had done just that, unbeknownst to me. So when I was goofing off on the guitar at Jeremy’s house and David was holding his iPhone up, I figured it was trying to get a funny still image. Turns out he was recording the whole thing, which resulted in the video below. Enjoy!

I find it strange that we are so quick to praise unimportant events in our life, but tend to be so quiet concerning God. Think about it, “have you seen such and such movie!?” or “did you see that catch!?” or “that was the best weekend ever!” or even “you’ve got to try this beer!” The act of praise comes naturally to us, we praise when we experience something that stirs up excitement in us. Yet when is the last time you went to work on Monday morning and when asked how your weekend was you responded with, “it was awesome, I had an incredible encounter with the God yesterday at church.”?

This song starts out with the charge “make a joyful noise to the Lord all the earth” then acknowledges that creation itself is crying out to the Lord. Finally it hits the Crowder-added bridge of “I will not be silent, I will not be quiet anymore.” I’m guessing he had thought the same thing I just mentioned above and has a deep desire to proclaim the goodness of our God. I’m excited about the message this week and I hope this song moves from being a cool lyric to a reality in our lives that we will not be quiet about our God who loves us with reckless abandon.

Disclaimer: I didn’t do a lot of takes on this recording and listening back makes me cringe a little. It’s been way too long since I’ve done studio recording with guitar and it shows in how bad I change the timing throughout this video…I think I started off way too slow and kept wanting to speed it up. Please forgive…I’ll see if I can set up a click track for next week.