Given the meteoric rise of “Revelation Song”, the industry has been watching with some interest the development of her next project, PEOPLE & SONGS Opus 1: A Collective by Jennie Lee Riddle. In anticipation of Opus 1, Riddle has released the single, “O Come Divine Messiah (Everything Will Change)”, a song co-written with Robbie Seay. The single is a contemporary adaption of a 16th-century French carol “Venez, Divin Messie” by Abbot Simon-Joseph Pellegrin.

“Revelation Song” suggested Riddle can turn a lyrical phrase; “O Come Divine Messiah” confirms it. The lyrics point toward the season of Advent but also allude to a longing for Christ’s return. Though following a customary verse-chorus-bridge approach, the words reveal a gravity and depth generally associated with hymns.

The music is familiar without being formulaic. Instruments do not dominate but gently support and enhance the vocals. The gravel of Seay’s vocal work is balanced by the Riddle’s own delicate voice. It’s a great pairing that at once elicits yearning and warmth.

Riddle enlisted Michael Farren of Pocket Full of Rocks to produce. Though this project marks his debut in the role, it is evident that he has the chops to pull this off.  He imparts some nice Nashville touches with cello and pedal steel.

“O Come Divine Messiah” is a fresh work that reminds you that worship music can be accessible without resorting to cliché lyrics and derivative music. If this is any indication of the forthcoming Opus 1, something remarkable is on the horizon.

You can download the song, exclusively on iTunes, by using the widget below.

-Review by Joe Brookhouse
(review copy provided by artist)

Related posts:

1. Love Divine – CD Review
2. Glenn Packiam “The Kingdom Comes” – CD Review
3. Bethel Live “Be Lifted High” – CD Review & Free Download

Every entry will receive a brief, written critique of each song submitted.

CONTEST PRIZES
1st Place Prizes: over $4,150 value
-One song produced by Conrad Johnson (of Chris & Conrad) at Inertia Sound Studio in Lakeland, FL (travel/lodging/meals not included) ($2,500 value)
-One full day of songwriting and hanging out with Dave Fitzgerald in Lakeland, FL (travel/lodging/meals not included) ($1,000 value)
-$100 cash (USD)
-60 minute 1-on-1 skype (or phone) call with Sarah Reeves ($250 value)
-Complete demo, tracks and Superchart placement at LifeWayWorship.com, including a feature in their webmail and on LifeWayWorship.com/blog
-Song included (as Track #1) on The Songwriter’s Cafe Collective, Volume One – a free compilation album that will be available on our website & Noisetrade.com
-Song featured on the All About Worship Podcast & The Songwriter’s Cafe Podcast ($200 value)
-5 Minute interview on The Songwriter’s Cafe Podcast.  ($100 value)
-One month free membership on All About Worship Plus ($4.99 value)

2nd Place Prizes: over $925 value
-1 full day (8 hours of studio time) of recording at Inertia Sound Studio in Lakeland, FL (travel/lodging/meals not included) ($500 value)
-$75 cash (USD)
-60 minute 1-on-1 skype (or phone) call with Sarah Reeves ($250 value)
-Supercharts created and available at LifeWayWorship.com, plus a feature of your song at LifeWayWorship.com/blog
-Song included (as Track #2) on The Songwriter’s Cafe Collective, Volume One – a free compilation album that will be available on our website & Noisetrade.com 
-Song featured on The Songwriter’s Cafe Podcast ($100 value)
-One month free membership on All About Worship Plus ($4.99 value)

3rd Place Prizes: over $650 value
-$50 cash (USD)
-60 minute 1-on-1 skype (or phone) call with Sarah Reeves ($250 value)
-30 minute 1-on-1 skype (or phone) call with producer/singer/songwriter, Conrad Johnson ($250 value)
-Supercharts created and available at LifeWayWorship.com, plus a feature on your song at LifeWayWorship.com/blog
-Song included (as Track #3) on The Songwriter’s Cafe Collective, Volume One – a free compilation album that will be available on our website & Noisetrade.com
-Song featured on The Songwriter’s Cafe Podcast ($100 value)
-One month free membership on All About Worship Plus ($4.99 value)

4th – 12th Place Prizes
-Song included on The Songwriter’s Cafe Collective, Volume One – a free compilation album that will be available on our website & Noisetrade.com
-One month free membership on All About Worship Plus ($4.99 value)

JUDGES

Michael Farren
Chris McClarney
Sarah Reeves
Matthew Reed
Wisdom Moon
Erin Cameneti
Chris Olson
Mathew Reames

CRITERIA

Each entry will be judged on lyrics, music, creativity, and performance. There is no minimum number of instruments that must be included in the recording.

(Songs must have decent sound quality in order to be considered for The Songwriter’s Cafe Collective. Top 12 songs will be included on the Collective as is.)

-You must submit each song as a mp3 file, bit rate of 192 kbps. You must include the lyrics and credits, without the chords. (Submissions that do not meet this requirement will be automatically disqualified.)

-Songs of any style are welcome.

ENTRY FEES
$35 for one song; $60 for two songs; $80 for three songs (3 songs max)

CLICK HERE to enter!

Related posts:

1. Announcing Our Songwriting Contest w/ Michael Farren, Darrell Evans, & Others As Judges
2. Songwriting Contest Winners Announced!

Worship with Michael Farren (Pocket Full of Rocks), Roy Fields (Run with Fire Ministries), Jaye Thomas (International House of Prayer), Dustin Smith and Steve and Kathy Gray of World Revival Church of Kansas City – seen live on Daystar TV!

RESPOND is a worship conference designed to empower worshipers in their response to God. Three days of intense teaching and training will challenge and equip you to ignite a response in your life, your church, your city and the nations.

Do not miss this conference! RESPOND! CLICK HERE for more details and to register.

Related posts:

1. The Songwriter’s Cafe Partners with Worthwhile Worship

Wisdom and Ben open up a Q&A time with the retreat artists: Michael Farren (of Pocket Full of Rocks), Brenton Brown, Dave Fitzgerald, and Sarah Reeves. We opened up the mic for attendees to ask them whatever questions they’d like. As you can tell from the recording, we had a blast!

QUICK LINKS

• Hosts: Wisdom Moon & Ben Abu Saada — check out their blogs

• Subscribe to the podcast via iTunes

• Subscribe to the podcast via RSS Feed

• WorshipDevotional.com

• The Songwriter’s Cafe

• All About Worship Retreat

• All About Worship Plus Membership

• Factor7 Agency

Connect with Us!

Facebook.com/allaboutworship

Twitter.com/allaboutworship

Comment Line: 913.735.4229

Related posts:

1. All About Worship Retreat Tweets
2. Live Streaming – Night of Worship w/ Brenton Brown, Pocket Full of Rocks, & More
3. Episode 64: Exclusive Interview w/ Michael & Alisa Farren

CONTEST PRIZES
1st Place Prizes: $2,650 Value
-One full day of recording session at BMG Studios (Warren, OH). Includes access to studio instruments, musicians (as needed), an engineer/producer, tracking, production, and mastering. (Travel & lodging not included.) ($2,000 value)
-$150 cash (USD)
-A 60 minute one-on-one song review session (of any of your songs) with Dave Fitzgerald via Skype. ($200 value)
-Song featured on the All About Worship Podcast and The Songwriter’s Cafe Podcast. ($300 value)
-5 Minute interview on The Songwriter’s Cafe Podcast.  ($50 value)

2nd Place Prizes: $637 Value
-$80 cash (USD)
-A 60 minute one-on-one song review session (of any of your songs) with Dave Fitzgerald via Skype. ($200 value)
-Song featured on the All About Worship Podcast and The Songwriter’s Cafe Podcast. ($300 value)
-God Songs by Paul Baloche (book - $20 value)
-Diamond On The 1 by Jonathan Riggs (handbook – $7 value)
-Free Song Submission to Worthwhile Worship ($30 value)

3rd Place Prizes: $407 Value
-$50 cash (USD)
-Song featured on the All About Worship Podcast and The Songwriter’s Cafe Podcast. ($300 value)
-God Songs by Paul Baloche (book – $20 value)
-Diamond On The 1 by Jonathan Riggs (handbook - $7 value)
-Free Song Submission to Worthwhile Worship ($30 value)

THE JUDGES
Michael Farren (of Pocket Full of Rocks)
Darrell Evans
Chris Kuti (of Chris & Conrad)
Dave Fitzgerald
Tom Brock (Worthwhile Worship)
Cindy Wilt Colville
Joe Cameneti (All About Worship)
Dustin Smith
Wisdom Moon (All About Worship)
Joe Brookhouse (All About Worship)
Barry Westman (All About Worship)

We guarantee that the top 5 entries will be personally reviewed and judged by: Michael Farren, Darrell Evans, Chris Kuti, Cindy Wilt Colville, and Dave Fitzgerald.

THE CRITERIA
Each entry will be judged based on the quality of the song and lyrics, not production. You are welcome to enter home quality songs just with vocals and one instrument OR a studio-quality recording with a full band. You must submit your song as a mp3 file (with lyrics). Songs of any style are welcome.

THE DEADLINE
Wednesday, June 1, 2011 at Midnight

THE ENTRY FEE
$30 for one song; $60 for two songs; $80 for 3 songs (3 songs max)

For all the details or to enter, go to our official Songwriting Contest page.

Related posts:

1. Episode 64: Exclusive Interview w/ Michael & Alisa Farren
2. Darrell Evans Live Acoustic – CD Review

Also, Wisdom goes one-on-one with Michael & Alisa Farren of Pocket Full of Rocks. They talk about country music, songwriting, what it means to be a worship leader, and the upcoming All About Worship Retreat. Michael and Alisa also share a significant update about the band publicly for the first time!

Don’t forget to register for the All About Worship Retreat and hang out for a few days with Michael and Alisa.

Also, on this show we:

-share some of the comments on our recent post on What Worship Looks Like in 10 Years

-talk about our sponsor, WorshipPlanning.com, and their top-notch customer service. Use promo code “podcast” when you sign up and receive a 45 day free-trial.

-discuss our upcoming worship retreat taking place May 19-21. Plus Members of our site receive $50 off registration. We’ve also added a time during the retreat for a Song Feedback Panel.

-talk about our ever-growing All About Worship Leadership Team…we have 12 individuals helping make AAW happen every day!

QUICK LINKS

• Hosts: Wisdom Moon & Ben Abu Saada — check out their blogs

• Pocket Full of Rocks

• Pocket Full of Rocks’ Latest Album on iTunes

• Michael Farren on Twitter and Facebook

• WorshipDevotional.com

• The Songwriter’s Cafe

• WorshipPlanning.com

• All About Worship Retreat

• All About Worship Plus Membership

• Factor7 Agency

Connect with Us!

Facebook.com/allaboutworship

Twitter.com/allaboutworship

Comment Line: 913.735.4229

[wpaudio url="http://allaboutworship.podbean.com/mf/web/b9vza2/064AAWPocketFullofRocks.mp3"]

Video version of the interview:

Related posts:

1. Episode 61: Interview with Brian Doerksen

I’ve been leading worship for over 12 years now. Before I was an “official” worship leader, I started out as the transparency guy (back in the day) when I was in 7th grade. Then, I learned drums from my youth pastor and learned guitar from the choir director. Then, I was involved on my youth group’s worship team as a bass player. And, eventually became the lead guy as a freshman in college. In my 12 years of leading worship, I’ve experienced first-hand what it’s like to be a volunteer worship leader as well as a full-time worship pastor.

When I first started leading worship as a young college student, I had the oddest experience. After leading worship at the Sunday morning service I would go home and feel VERY down and depressed. I couldn’t figure out why. I would come home from an amazing worship service where I really felt the presence of God while leading, but spend the afternoon feeling so discouraged and depressed.

As I continued to grow and mature as a worship leader, I began to realize what was happening. I realized that I was putting my identity in being the “worship leader”. My identity was so wrapped up in my role of leading worship and leading the youth worship team that it sort of became an addiction.

Leading worship became the highlight of my week. Yes, I loved the Lord! I was passionately in love with Jesus! However, I let the experience and “high” of leading worship become an idol in my life. I was essentially addicted to worship leading.

When I was in the congregation while someone else was leading worship, I found myself judging their worship leading and comparing myself to them. I was either jealous because they were better than me or full of pride because I was better than them.

During my recent conversation with my friend, Michael Farren, I was reminded of how I wrestled with finding my identity in the title and role of worship leader. The fact that I was a child of God (who was crazy in love with me) was not enough. I had to get my fix of leading worship.

In my current season of ministry I am ministering and training up worship leaders more than actually leading worship myself. I could probably count on one hand the number of times I led worship in the past 2 years. It feels a little weird sometimes, but I’ve grown to be content in being led in worship by others.

I no longer rely on the title of “worship leader” to define me. I don’t find my identity in it. I no longer treat it as a spiritual high or addiction. I no longer somehow feel more spiritual because I’m leading worship…

Yes, from time to time those thoughts try to occupy my mind, but I’ve learned not to allow any title or role that God may bring for a season define who I am. I am content just being me…even with no title people may envy…and no important role in the spotlight.

Worship leaders, beware of the addiction of worship leading. Don’t let worship leading define who you are. Worship leading is something you do; it’s not what defines you.

article written by Wisdom Moon

Related posts:

1. Ministering to the Lord – Thoughts From Paul Baloche’s Workshop