« April 2008 | Main | June 2008 »
May 25, 2008
Song Video: Thorn In My Side
I shared the lyrics to this song this fall I think. We had a really rough fall with Sarah's pregnancy and I wrote a couple of songs about going through hard times. This one came to me in one evening. I think I might have written the bridge later that week, but other than that it was one of those quick songs that writes itself.
Click the extended entry to see the lyrics.
Continue reading "Song Video: Thorn In My Side"
Posted by Kirk Ward at 8:11 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
May 22, 2008
A rough night
The house is completely quiet except for the clicking sound of the computer keyboard. My 2 year old daughter is learning about the power she possesses through having a "big girl bed." Last night she excersized that power by waking up a 1:00 AM and walking into our bedroom. We spent the next couple of hours putting her back in bed and then waiting 5 minutes before she came back into our bedroom. She does seem to have a little bit of a temperature, so we were cutting her a lot of slack, but it was a little frustrating. My solution was to put her in bed and then sit in her room for half an hour until she drifted off. I felt like a prison guard.
In classic Murphy's law fashion, just when my daughter was asleep, my newborn son woke up ready for a feeding.
Now thanks to a low cloud cover that has made it a dark sunrise, the whole family except me are sleeping in.
Posted by Kirk Ward at 8:01 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack
May 17, 2008
New Song: Your Presence Is Here
Here's a rough demo:
This song was written with several things in mind:
-What does it mean to worship a resurrected Jesus? Because of the resurrection, we have the Holy Spirit as a gift within us and we no longer need a physical temple.
-How does the worship experience driven by the gospel and result in justice?
-I was also trying to write within the genre of a "praise chorus". These are short, simple and designed to be easy to learn and internalize within one service. There are so many bad choruses out there that I thought I would try my hand at writing a good one. You be the judge.
-I was also making a somewhat obvious reference to the song "The Presence of the Lord Is Here" as performed by Byron Cage. That song basically says that God's presence is something that shows up when we worship with the purpose of giving us a blessing. That's not bad, but the songs seems to take an attitude that is a little to close to the prosperity gospel. The special section at the end says, "I can feel the presence of the Lord, and I'm gonna get my blessing, RIGHT NOW!" I wanted to write a song that emphasized that being close to God results in sharing his heart for the oppressed, the broken hearted, the orphan, and widow.
-Finally, I wanted to write a song that would make millions of dollars for me. No, wait...scratch that.
Read on for the lyrics.
Continue reading "New Song: Your Presence Is Here"
Posted by Kirk Ward at 10:40 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
May 16, 2008
Hosanna Video
Holy Ghost Crazy Noise!
A few observations:
1) This is such a great song and it is straight up disco. Some folks would say that disco would not be an appropriate style of music to use in worship and I would present this song as evidence to the contrary.
2) Notice how KF's choir is all on mics. There's no condenser mics floating over their heads or whatever. That tells me that they way to get that hot, contemporary gospel sound out of a choir is to have them on mics. Last weekend when our youth choir performed this song, they had to battle the band's dynamics and we, the band, were pulling back on our dynamics a-lot. Hmmmm....
3) I need an outfit like Kirk Franklin's to lead worship. There's just something about white tails...
Posted by Kirk Ward at 12:33 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
May 15, 2008
Where was everyone last night?
Last night, our church had one of our Reconciliation Meetings and the turn out was pretty poor. Not many staff, not many elders, very few "non-anglos", and very few of the core membership. Per capita there was actually a lot of single white female students. What happened?
I have some theories:
-It's mid-May when young people are swamped with exams and projects and parents are bound to their kid's needs. If that's true then why were there so many students there?
-Poor communication. Our church tells people about events, but it is told in a way that never really communicates the true meaning. In our church, an announcement could be in the bulletin, mentioned during the announcements, and displayed on the screen during the service and it is still missed by most of the congregation or ignored. What can we do to communicate the value of events and programs in our church?
-South was not there. The South city congregation shows up. They are really committed to the church because it is a smaller community there. This meeting was U City only. You would not expect that a congregation that's maybe 60% larger would not be there for a meeting.
If you were there, what made you want to come? If you were not there, what was lacking in the meetings planning that might have helped you to be there?
Posted by Kirk Ward at 3:41 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
Recording Project '08: Dates are set for the first sessions
June 2, 3, and 4 I'm set to begin tracking the drums. I'm really excited that this is finally happening. I know that it was always just a matter of getting up the gumption to go ahead and start, but still it feels pretty crazy. I don't have any time frame for completion, so I know that it will take a long time.
I wrote another song this week that I feel pretty good about, and I might even want to get it onto this recording. I might try to demo it or maybe just record myself on youtube singing it so that you readers at home can give me some feedback.
Posted by Kirk Ward at 3:26 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
May 14, 2008
Salvador Lead Singer and Valasquez Married?!
I just read this cool interview on Christianity Today about the marriage of Jaci Velasquez to Salvador's Nic Gonzalez. It seems a little too perfect doesn't it. You can almost imagine the marketing execs in the bowels of the Nashville hit-machine sitting around dreaming up a crazy sham marriage scheme like when Troy McClure married Marge's sister, Selma in this one episode of the Simpsons.
I enjoyed reading the interview because it really showed the normal, real-life marriage and relationship issues that they have. I especially liked reading this response from Nic about how marriage has affected his songwriting:
Gonzalez: The impact of marriage was an amazing thing for me, as well the impact of my wife being pregnant during the writing of [Salvador's] record. Personally, I found I had become a little less interested in giving God thanks for the everyday things, like my health, the health of my wife, and the fact that we had food to eat. I kind of took those things for granted for a while. I was so used to working hard, and by the labor of your own hands you feel like you can accomplish anything. I don't know if it's the blood or just something in me that says I can make things happen; I just have to work hard at it to do it. But at the same time, God has allotted these things for me. God has allowed me to have these things. So I realized I don't want to be ungrateful. Instead, I wanted to be the guy that says, "You know what, God? I'm going to take a step back and write songs that honor You and tell You I'm glad where I am."
I can totally relate to Nic here. As a single guy, I wrote a lot of heady songs about theological concepts. Being married and having kids has made me much more conscious of God's daily portion of grace to meet my basic needs. The songs I've been writing lately have been very practical and real.
Posted by Kirk Ward at 10:30 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
May 9, 2008
Video about Morgan Freeman's Ancestry
Posted by Kirk Ward at 3:34 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
May 8, 2008
New Song: New Creation
I have tamed the Cakewalk beast and finally completed my first ever demo. It's pretty rough, but it gives a decent idea of how the tune goes.
The song was written as an obvious nod to the African gospel music that I have spent the past 3+ years trying to understand. It is intended for corporate worship and so it has pretty simple form, but I think it would be great with horns and full percussion and 3 guitars. Yes, Paul Simon did it first, but Africa is the wave of the future as far as the Christian church goes, so we should get used to it, right?
The message of "New Creation" is that faith in Jesus comes with a promise: the old is gone and the new has come. So it's a promise that can encourage us when we feel defeated, but it can also be a warning for us to examine our hearts. The ending vamp goes through a long list of old/new characteristics. It will play a lot better live as it builds and builds to a climax.
You can check out the demo on my myspace page.
Posted by Kirk Ward at 12:58 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
May 7, 2008
YXL East this Summer!
I will be the worship leader at YXL East this summer at Covenant College. I was a conferee at this when I was in high school (back then it was called PYA). It's nice to come full circle. I actually led worship for the west camp a few years ago, so it won't be my first time. Danny Mitchell will be the camp director, so I am psyched.
Posted by Kirk Ward at 12:20 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
May 2, 2008
Some music from the Congo
This is a song that my friend, Leon, shared with me. Maybe we will learn it for church. It's been a while since we learned a new Congolese song.
Posted by Kirk Ward at 4:09 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack