In the Spring of 2004, I went out to a friend’s house on the Wando River for a couple days to pray, listen, study the Bible, and worship, hoping to get a clear grasp on the vision for the album and maybe get a new song or two. Very early that morning, my wife, Bethany, was up praying and in the Word on my behalf, and she put some notes in my Bible for me to read on my retreat. Included in her notes was a reference to Jeremiah 1:5, which this song is based on.

As I drove down the road to the river house, I began to have this spiritual sense of motion. I started thinking about the hurricanes that have swept through the Low Country of South Carolina. When I got to the house, I felt the Spirit leading me to go stand by the river and just look and listen. As I stood there, I thought of the systems that come together to make a river flow, pressure systems, tides, etc. I felt like the Lord was telling me that He had been putting these systems in place and He had released a river that is flowing through the nations and is unstoppable. If anything stands in its way, it will flow over it or around it, but it will not be stopped. I thought of the river from the temple in Ezekiel 47.

I went into the house, put all my books, papers, pen, and tape recorder on the table and opened up my wife’s note. It began by saying that she felt an inner excitement about this project and along with that was a “sense of water flowing, or something flowing without impediments.” I was amazed at how God was confirming this idea to both of us so specifically.

I turned to the passage in Jeremiah and after reading it, I just began singing it. It flowed out just like the river I am describing and just like it was recorded. I was weeping by the time it was over. It wasn’t until months later, literally the night before we had to send the mix out to get mastered, that the last few lines were added: Rise with me, as we cover the earth, like a mighty flood, flowing through the nations; O let go of lesser gods.

I must say that the last phrase, “lesser gods,” made me wonder if it was alright theologically. Would it make people think that I felt that Yahweh was one god among many others but some were lesser and some greater? I figured people would understand, but I am a stickler for Truth and I do not want to mislead anyone with a lyric. I knew I had heard the phrase before—not just the film title, Children of a Lesser God—but I couldn’t find it, and the Bible never uses that phrase. Finally, when I thought I should ask my Rector, Steve Wood, about it, I remembered he was the one who used the phrase. It was in the liner notes to our first worship CD, Up. He wrote, “for too long we have settled for a life of lesser gods … worshiping inferior and transitory things.” The church in the West must deal with this if it is going to be a part of this river at the end of the age.

It started in 1989 when supporting an American band called Tommy Walker Band - Tommy Walker was (and probably is) a great jazz and rock guitarist of the Larry Carlton school.  They had a song based on Psalm 63, which I hadn't really read - so I read it!

Anyway, the line "my soul thirsts for you, my body longs for you in a dry and weary land where there is no water" stuck in my head for a long time.  This is partly because I have had a tendency to find myself in spiritual and emotional "dry and weary lands" so it struck a chord.

I wrote the song at a time when, following having a record distributed around the world, our band lost its singer and (as far as I could see) all hope of that elusive "proper" record deal.  It was very much a moment of frustration, but it led me to realise that essentially all the things I wanted and relied on could easily fall away, and the only thing I could truly hold on to was God's goodness to me in the past and His promise to bless me and not to curse me, to give me a hope and a future. 

There have been so many times when I have felt like giving up on the whole God thing but every time those feelings come to me I only have to give a minutes consideration to the emptiness of all the alternatives, and go back to where God has brought me from, and all He has done for me.

Although no one person can claim authorship of this instrumental piece, the idea first came from Mannie. The rhythm section was having a hard time breaking into the right feel for the song that follows, You Are God, and Mannie suggested we just jam a bit to loosen up. Staying on one chord the whole time, we just let it go for a while and felt like there was something to it. We layered some falsetto vocals and then later added some percussion, piano, and violin parts. In fact, Alan Kilpatrick put down the percussion stuff the day before he left the country to head back to England with his family. Thanks Alan—and Jan!

Mannie messed with it some more later and it seemed like the perfect intro to Emily’s song, so we titled it The Dark and Cold of Night after the first line of her song. To us, this piece is like the pursuit of the Lover for the Beloved who is lost and frightened. It brings to mind the portion of the Song of Songs where the Beloved is too comfortable to get off her couch when the Lover is at the door. She finally makes the effort, but He is gone. Turning the table on the metaphor, she pursues Him in the night. Even though she is longing and looking for Him, He is surely still pursuing her.

Hopefully, you know what it is like for Him to find you and you to find your peace in His arms. He will never let you go.

It’s a place I’ve been time and time again. Lost.

I wrote this song when I was in high school. Generally high school was not a fun time for me. I found myself (forgive the cliché) drowning: a small invisible hydra in a lake of huge fish. Maybe it wasn’t as bad as I thought, but it’s hard trying to be noticed when you’re surrounded by bigger and better things. So I was drowning. I remember sitting in my ninth grade English class and I think that’s where the process started. I didn’t write the lyrics to this particular song, but I started to write simple poetry. I found that when I wrote things down I could get them out and they didn’t have to be for anybody, but at least the paper would listen. Eventually I started writing in notebooks or on scraps of paper that I’d keep in my pocket. That was the beginning. I wrote this song in one such notebook. Nothing spectacular, just a small yellow legal pad. The first part that came was, surprisingly, the first two lines: In the dark and cold of night, in the shadows do I hide. That pretty much describes where I saw myself: a place where no one else in their right mind would want to be. I didn’t know how to leave. I needed someone to tell me that everything was going to be ok (haven’t we all needed that at some point or another?). That’s what God did. He told me that He had everything under control. The paper listens, the pen talks back. He can use anything to speak to his people. Talk about preaching to the choir, I wrote the words to what would become a song and as I read through it I thought ‘man, this could be really encouraging to somebody.’ Well, it didn’t take too long for me to figure out that I was that somebody.

He made it a personal message to me, and a personal message to everyone else. I lost my dad when I was eleven years old. That’s something that I’ve missed out on-having the love of my Daddy. Near the end of the song ‘I’ (me, you and everyone else who can relate to the song) end up in my FATHER’S arms. Safe. Sound. Surrounded by His warmth, love and peace. Who could ask for more?  I guess He really does know what He’s doing.

Even though I find myself right back at the beginning time and time again He reminds me that He’s got everything under control. Good thing huh?

There is a saying that into each life a little rain must fall. I wrote this song after having been through a pretty stormy time. There were so many worries and fears that I had become overwhelmed. Even my quiet times were filled with worried, fearful prayers. Before I knew it, my focus was on my circumstances rather than on the Lord. It's funny how we can sometimes get so far away without realizing that we've drifted. This song is my cry out to Him to bring me back to that place of belonging and rest in His presence. The Lord is always faithful and no matter what our circumstances, no matter where we've gone wrong, He is ready to run and embrace us upon our return.

Back around 1991, my wife and I were praying over a dear friend of ours. While we were praying, I felt prompted by the Spirit to sing over this person, and the words and melody to the chorus of this song came out. The presence of the Lord was strong, and as much as it may have been for this friend, it certainly spoke to where I was at the time.

As the years went by, I felt like there was a song in it and thought of how to write it. This was a bit of a conflict for me, because at the time, I felt like if something came from the Holy Spirit in such a way, then the rest of the song should come that way, too, and not from the work of the mind. I came to realize that it’s all about collaboration. What an amazing thing that God in His holiness chooses to work in and through … and with us!

All I knew about this song was that it would have to be dealing with giving up everything, and be willing to die, for Jesus, and I was not sure I could really write a song about this and put my name on it unless it was true. I am grateful for the teaching of Gary Best, a Vineyard Pastor in Canada, that sometimes the purpose of worship is to tell on us. We sing plenty of things in worship that are simply not true of us, but we need to sing them that we might be reminded of who and where we are. So I am still trying to inch towards this concept, but die to self we must. It is so clear in the Bible, yet talked about so little anymore. At our core we are corrupted and broken. We cannot live out of this reality. Jesus alone gives us the life we need.

The first image I had for this idea was the thief on the cross next to Jesus. It can be so hard for us to let go of what we have, but I knew that absolutely nothing I have in this world can compare with the love of Jesus Christ … with Jesus Himself. I knew I needed that (Him) more than anything else. I also had some pretty big dreams of my own that I had to let go of. The irony in the second verse for me is that after entering into a relationship with Jesus, the thief had no opportunity to “live, giving all that I am and all I have to see Kingdom come.” He would enter the Kingdom without doing anything to earn it.

One of my deepest prayers is that God would take hold of, own, my whole heart and fill it with His love. Let every heart prepare Him room.

Whisper Unto Me was written towards the end of last year (2003). I was at the end of my final year at University in London and about to start my examinations. During that time I had a huge thirst to write worship songs which came as a welcomed break from studying. I was praying a lot also for God to give me more desire and more inspiration.

One night I woke up from a dream with the melody of Whisper Unto Me in my head. It was only the verse, but I grabbed my guitar (which was always next to my bed) and recorded the melody onto my dictaphone. The next morning when I woke up, I immediately listened to the recording and wrote the words to the verse on a piece of paper. The chorus came very naturally, and within half an hour the song was finished. It hasn't changed much since.

I wanted to write a song that I could sing that simply said all I could possibly say to the Lord in one go. I just wanted something simple that was honest and that I could sing whether I was praising or struggling. Whisper Unto Me is a call to draw nearer to God for intimacy, followed by the desire to see nothing but Him … "to lose myself in You is all I want to do". From there the aim of the chorus is to declare to God there is nothing more than Him, followed by the bridge which is the simplest way I know to say "I love You" - just to say it.

When I returned to Charleston this year, I played Dwight (co-producer) a few of my songs, and he really liked this one. I never intended the song to be listened to by others; it was really my song for the Lord. However, he wanted it on The Face of the Deep. If other people are blessed by it, and it draws people closer to God, what an amazing privilege that would be. It is incredible to think that God uses even the lesser of us to get His work done!

The song 'Consuming Fire' was really a song that was birthed out of our church at Soul Survivor Watford. A lot of the talks had been on our need to go deeper with God, so that we might go further. There was a real desire to see God moving more powerfully amongst us. We were desperate to see the lost saved, people being healed, and our lives changed. In effect we wanted to see God being glorified.

I remember one particular Sunday morning when the assistant pastor's wife was speaking. As she spoke she kept repeating this phrase that stuck in my head - 'there must be more.' It got me thinking. So often there is the danger of complacency. Sometimes in our lives we get so busy and so preoccupied with life around us, that we don't make space and time for God. We go through the motions of Church and quiet times, but that wholehearted pursuit isn't there. We don't ask for more and therefore we don't see it. We need the heart and attitude of Moses. In Exodus we see Moses before the Lord crying out for His presence. "If Your presence does not go with us, do not send us up from here. How will anyone know that You are pleased with me unless You go with us? What else will distinguish me and Your people from all the other people on the face of the earth?" (Exodus 33:15-16) Moses was desperate. He knew that without God's presence he could make no difference. He wasn't going to move or leave until God blessed him and revealed more of His glory.

Are we desperate for more of God? Are we searching to find more of Him? As we see more of who God is, we'll fall deeper in love with him. As we scratch the surface, we'll discover that there is even more to discover.

From WorshipTogether.com

The words of this song were written by William Cowper who lived in England and wrote these words sometime in the latter half of the 18th century. This man, given to frequent bouts of deep depression, wrote some of the most beautifully profound song lyrics that we have in our hymnals. Having an increasingly melancholy temperament through life, he attempted suicide more than once, had several attacks of madness and was admitted to an asylum; nonetheless, he was a genius known to possess a gentle sense of humor. He seems to have been a shy man who lived a good bit of his life in fear and was often consumed with the awareness of his sin.

Perhaps with this in mind, our rendition of this poem might not seem so odd! I have not read a commentary on this particular poem, but I would find it hard to believe that Cowper was not thinking in part of Job chapter 28, when Job is asking where one finds wisdom. He begins by painting a picture in verses 1-6 of men mining for gold and silver. I have always loved this imagery. It is a powerful picture of our lives and the work of the Holy Spirit. Some of the sounds and loops that Mannie created for this piece are based on this passage.

I came up with the music when my family and I were living in Oxford, England in the Fall of 1997. I came upon a tiny Oxford Hymnal (which is always in my guitar case anymore) in a used bookshop there and I found this song in it. The original melody didn’t do anything for me, but the words sure did. I came upon the guitar parts and melody shortly afterwards and drove my wife batty by playing it over and over and over! I played it just as much in the studio trying to get the chorus parts right.

This is in some ways my favorite piece on the album because the words and Mannie’s production are so incredible. It is both so earthy and so otherworldly, so ominous and so encouraging. Woven into this piece are several genres and the instruments from many different nations, and yet they fit together like they came from a single heart. I guess they did.

I recommend you spend some time soaking up the lyrics and Job 28. Be encouraged. No matter how bleak your situation might seem, God promises you a hope and a future. I needed these words desperately when I found them in 1997 because I had just lost my dearly loved father to cancer, a job I loved, and a good friend. In the end, however, I came to realize that God cannot be judged by feeble sense; for though the bud may have a bitter taste, sweet will be the flower.

One night in extended spontaneous worship, the Holy Spirit dropped the phrase “Nothing is impossible” onto us and we sang it over and over. We sang it in intercession and warfare for all kinds of situations and needs, and we sang it just to proclaim it to His glory. It lasted a long time. Over time, I felt compelled to see if a whole song was there and came up with the first two couplets and the melody quite quickly while on a personal retreat at a friend’s house on the Isle of Palms. It took a lot more time and anxiety for the other couplets to come. It just seemed impossible!

I finally asked many friends and songwriters to help me finish it, but no one seemed to have the key. Finally, it all came together. All of the vignettes are from biblical examples where something seemed impossible but God made a way.* I would hope that as people sing this song, they will be encouraged in knowing that if God did it for His people back then, He can do it today. I hope further that you would use it as a means of warfare. Singing this truth into the hard realities of your life and the needs of the world, and on behalf of the lost, will not only lift you up but I believe will have an effect in the spiritual realm to shake the kingdom of darkness and advance the Kingdom of God.

We decided to dedicate this song to our dear sister in Christ, Sarah Lyles Long. You may have seen this young girl’s picture in the full page ad run by Wal-Mart in newspapers across the country. Her letter to nominate her teacher for National Teacher of the Year won this honor for her teacher, and the two of them were pictured in the ad with the caption beneath it, “Nothing is impossible.” Sarah Lyles has been paralyzed and confined to a wheel chair for several years due to a complication after surgery on a brain tumor. We would love for you to join with us in praying for her recovery.

* To be fair, although Gideon saw a major victory in battle when it seemed impossible, the point in this couplet is really addressing the issue behind the whole book of the Judges in the Old Testament, which was Israel’s inability to stop worshiping foreign gods in Canaan. Before Gideon went to battle against the Midianites, he tore down his father’s altar to Baal and the Asherah pole beside it and built instead an altar to the Lord on top of the stronghold. His battle strategy, as given to him by the Lord, began with lesser gods, even those that rule over sexual immorality. After Gideon died, no one continued this battle; in fact, we are told Israel returned to these gods. These battles have yet to be won … but nothing is impossible.

This is another song that began several years ago. I had just read an article by John Wimber in a Vineyard publication in which he described a vision he had of a beautiful lake of water on a mountain. It looked so refreshing and wonderful, but it was contained. Then he saw the water from this reservoir pouring out, down into the valley below, bringing life and refreshment. He compared this to the blessings God has given the church and how the church should not hold these blessings to her self but so often does. He closed with the following quote from John Wesley: Do all the good you can, by all the means you can, in all the ways you can, in all the places you can, at all the times you can, to all the people you can, as long as ever you can.

This article really stirred my heart. Shortly after reading it, I was in my car, in line for a Virginia car inspection, and a certain song on the radio caught my attention. The feel of it sent me into an improvisation, and I starting singing some of the words to this song. I started scratching the words out and could see it was headed into these concepts in Wimber’s vision. It did not take too long to finish the song.

The second verse is very much about the vision of this CD, too, but it should be said that its first line, “The Lily of the Midnight Sky is calling,” comes directly from the title of a song by Canadian singer/songwriter extraordinaire Bruce Cockburn, off of his World of Wonders album. I love that imagery, which I take to represent Jesus Christ. In this song, using it as a picture of Christ, like the moon, calling forth His church like a rising tide on the beachfront of the world, His purpose is to pour out His healing on a hurting world. The sense is that the end of the age is coming soon in keeping with the urgency of Wesley’s Rule. Embedded in this verse is the idea that though God will use all of us for this, He is raising up a new generation, the faceless and righteous one Paul Cain prophesied about, in the phrase “the water in this healing wave is breaking.” The reference is to the breaking of the water on the shore but also that which precedes a birth … of this new generation …and of the new Jerusalem. I felt God told me during this time around 1995 that the head of this new generation was crowning as a baby’s before birth. God bless all you parents and youth workers out there who are helping to raise this generation up.

An interesting PS to this song is that several years later, I found myself singing this song for a few people in the home of Rev. Sandy Millar, then the Vicar of Holy Trinity Brompton, London. A few months later, in the Fall of 1997, John Wimber died. The Sunday of that week I was back at HTB and Sandy Millar devoted his sermon to the work and legacy of John Wimber in the UK. In this sermon he mentioned how he had given a quote by John Wesley to Wimber, who put it in his Bible and referred to it often. It began, “Do all the good you can …”

One of the most amazing and touching things about the making of this CD was the way in which God brought to us all the people who speak in different languages in the last song. One of those people was Robert Bahadur. Robert is from Pakistan where Urdu is the official literary language. The song he sings in Urdu in this call to prayer is about Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane pleading with his disciples to stay awake with him and pray.

The song is simple enough, but the story behind it is really amazing. The song that follows this one is Arise Shine, taken from Isaiah 60. Months ago, I had a vision for this song to begin with a man singing like an Islamic muezzin in a minaret. These men are highly skilled and call faithful Muslims to prayer five times a day with their powerful voices. I wanted to find a man who could sing like this in a different language but who was a Christian and would sing the praises of Jesus Christ. How many people like this do you think there are out there? How many of them would you expect to be living in Charleston, SC?

I sent an email to a producer/worship leader I know in London asking him if he knew of anyone in the London area who could do this, knowing there are many Muslims and Hindus in London and this man has many connections. The answer? Nobody.

The fact that Robert was living right here in the Charleston area was one thing. The fact that he could sing as well as he does is another. When this lovely Spirit filled brother in Christ walked into the studio the last week of the project and said the song that the Lord put on his heart to sing was this one about calling the church to stay awake …it was hard to hold back the tears.

Several years ago, Dave Johnson and I were both serving as Youth Pastors together at a church in Virginia. One day he came into my office with his guitar and The Book of Common Prayer and said he had this really cool thing going on with The Third Song of Isaiah as found in the Daily Morning Prayer: Rite Two. I listened while he played it for me, and I could see he was indeed onto something. We spent the next three hours paraphrasing the words into a song and bringing the melody from a verse structure into the chorus. We liked it, and so did the young people we played it for. In fact, their parents liked it, too.

These words, first delivered almost 3,000 years ago, are still awaiting their fulfillment at the end of the age even though they were also certainly pointing to the birth of Christ in some respects. I believe we have been seeing some of the signs of its fulfillment in different movements around the world in our day.

I have been known to say, “We need another flood, but God won’t give us one.” Our world is so corrupt. Too often, the church is not much better than the world. It is all sometimes overwhelming. We deserve another flood, but God promised He would not destroy the earth and humankind with water again. God is, however, releasing another flood in the earth and it is covering the earth like the waters cover the sea with the knowledge and the glory of our God.

Shortly before the final phase of the recording process, I went back out to my friend’s house by the Wando River for the day. My main goal was to listen and finish some songs. I did finish Nothing Is Impossible there—thank You, Lord—and while I was looking for the final words to what I thought was the entirety of Around this Throne, I began playing another chord progression and the next thing I knew, I was singing what is now the first half of the song. It is quite simple really and did not take too long to finish it.

The idea for this came to me as a word that the Spirit gave me on my way to a conference in Recife, Brasil at The Church of the Holy Spirit. I was asked to speak at one of the worship sessions on the issue of diversity in the church. On the flight there, I was looking out the window, and I kept seeing all these little pieces of rainbows in the clouds. I could not figure it out. They were everywhere. Whatever they were, I sensed God was speaking to me and I began to write about rainbows, God’s promise and covenant, the nations and their ethnocentric tendencies, and the Flood.

One thought that really stood out for me was that in Revelation 4:2-3, we read about a rainbow around the throne of the Almighty. We also see throughout Revelation that the nations all gather around the throne and the nations of the earth bring their splendor into the new city to His throne. What an awesome thing. Could it be that the rainbow John saw around the throne was the prophetic promise of the multitudes that would come before Him and worship the Lamb? Every single person will be there. The people we’ve loved and hated, snubbed and learned from, sinned with and sinned against, the ones we wanted to be like and the ones we never noticed. Everyone you ever meet will stand there with you on that day. Will they stay there with you?

This song has ended up being one of the most meaningful and powerful things I’ve ever been a part of, thanks to the Lord and all the people He brought in to say their prayers and blessings in 14 other languages. I was frequently moved to tears as they were recording their parts or telling their stories, and it was hard to stop sobbing as Mannie was finishing up the mix on all those voices. What an unforgettable and indescribable blessing and privilege it has been. It pales in comparison though with how we will all feel when we are together at the Throne of the King toward which everything is moving and around which everything will bow down.