Songs of praise and worship

Devotionals are a great companion to the usual daily prayers. These focus on thoughts relevant for the day and do often clear the air or provide tips on how to confront problems. I am sure many of you have at one time or another experienced this. You wake up wondering how you will get through a difficult day. Then you reach for the Daily Bread and there you find your answer, or even the right solution.

Incidents like those and the desire of many to lead Christian lives are what inspired Kingsway Music, the UK record label known as the sound of worship, to come up with the Worship Devotional series. Handsomely packaged, this is a set of 12 albums with booklets, one for each month of the year. Each one has two CDs with a song and the corresponding devotionals for every day of the month.

Let us take today as an example. Monday, May 21 has To The Ends Of The Earth by the songwriter, performer and worship leader from New Zealand, David Lyle Morris as the song of the day. It says, “To the ends of the earth/ to the ends of the earth we will go/ bearing the message/ That our God can be known/ To the ends of the earth we will go.”

The reflection of the day is based on John 4:35. It is also about how the Word has spread and the harvest that will come later: “Open your eyes and look at the fields, said Jesus as He pointed out that they were ready for harvesting.”

The prayer replies to this, “Lord, it’s amazing to see the momentum with which Your Gospel has spread like wildfire, across the globe these past two thousand years. Thank You that I have my small part to play in this great chain of events and human stories.”

Then because prayer is so much better if it is allowed to work changes for the better in you, there is respond. Under this title are the responses or reactions to the song, the reflection and prayer. These are the thoughts you might want to do something about.

“How much do you let God’s spirit work through you to bring the Gospel to those who have not heard it? How different would your neighborhood or family or workplace look if you vanished? Commit this to prayer and see if you can identify one step, however small, in the right direction.”

These thoughts and prayers can be read while listening to the songs or if like me you prefer to meditate and pray in silence then you can listen to the CD in your own time. The songs are performed by contemplative worship acts from the UK, New Zealand, Australia and the US like Matt Redman, Tim Hughes, Delirious? Stuart Townend, The Hudson Taylors, Mark Tedder and others.

The music in the Worship Devotional series is mostly pop, with a bit of rock and easy listening ballads. Taken as daily fare, these songs and the prayers and reflections provide encouragement and help one respond to challenges.  

Still on Christian music. The new singing duo that calls itself Where’s The Sheep? has recently released its self-titled debut album on the Vicor label. Made up of Ateneo students Hero Mauricio and Mike Shimamoto, the group sings soft acoustic ballads. The style is simple and very easy on the ears but the performances are always heartfelt. They sing, “Jesus, you have stolen my heart, I’m captivated by you, and you feel the faith of these boys shining through.” They really mean those words.

Subtitled Praise, Worship and Inspirational Songs, Where’s The Sheep mixes popular worship songs with new compositions by Mike and Hero. They prove themselves adept songwriters with the cuts I Am Home and the love song Buksan. I suppose writing about a topic close to their hearts made the job easier. There is also another original, I See You Lord by the famous tandem of Moy Ortiz and Edith Gallardo.

The other songs included which I must say are very well-chosen are Whom Am I, Deeply In Love, God Gave Me You and the three tracks where they sound their best in the album, Only Hope, Indescribable and Through It All. You can listen to these over and over.