Wonderfully Made: Choosing Life

David RayFamily, Kids, Ministry, Music, Musings, Preschool, Worship4 Comments

I watched this video for the first time with tears streaming down my cheeks in the lobby of an Orlando hotel. We have been so blessed over the years to have our songs travel all over the nation and even occasionally around the world. (I’m not exactly sure how it happens, I just know that my ASCAP statement includes royalties from Norway.) … Read More

Worship Leader Magazine: Best of the Best

David RayMusic, News, Randomness, WorshipLeave a Comment

We are incredibly honored to be selected this year as an Editor’s Pick for Worship Leader Magazine’s annual Best of the Best issue in the category of Worship for Kids. Each year, Worship Leader’s November/December issue includes a Best of the Best resource guide with their favorite resources in a variety of categories. A big thank you to our friends at … Read More

Don’t Let Non-Believers Write Your Worship Songs

David RayMusic, Musings, WorshipLeave a Comment

This morning I read a thought-provoking blog by Daniel Darling called “Don’t Let Non-Christians Write Your Liturgy.” The core message of the article is that we should be careful how far we go in attempting to make our worship services attractive and accessible to non-believers. There are certainly important steps we can take in this area, for instance: Making everyone feel welcome … Read More

Worship Leaders, You Have One Job

David RayMinistry, Music, WorshipLeave a Comment

  You had one job. In the world of internet memes, this might be the one that makes me laugh out loud the most. Hilarious pictures of job-related fails have spawned websites and multiple Twitter accounts. The common thread in each snapshot is a seemingly simple job that was botched in a way that should have been obvious. Woe to … Read More

DOORPOST SONG of the WEEK: STRONG and COURAGEOUS

David RayMusic2 Comments

Courage is not the absence of fear. Courage is making the right decision in spite of fear. Fear can be a powerful, debilitating enemy. For some of us it can be all-consuming. None of us can escape it entirely. It rises unbidden, unexpected, ready to paralyze us with indecision. But experiencing fear does not mean that we have to be fearful. In Joshua 1, the … Read More

DOORPOST SONG of the WEEK: FINISH the RACE

David RayMusicLeave a Comment

Perseverance. I don’t think there’s any character trait that I need more as a parent than perseverance. When you finally fold that last load of laundry and put it away only to find the hamper is full again, when you keep giving your kids the same instructions over and over, when you think that if you have to go to one more … Read More

ARE CHILDREN INVOLVED IN YOUR WORSHIP MINISTRY?

David RayKids, Multigenerational, Music, Musings, Preschool, WorshipLeave a Comment

I grew up in church on a steady diet of children’s musicals. My favorite was Fat, Fat Jehoshaphat! I recall singing a solo as one of the priests in the aforementioned musical which, while it displayed a callous insensitivity to the morbidly obese despite the complete lack of textual evidence that poor Jehoshaphat was actually fat, also contained some killer … Read More

AND THE GOVERNMENT SHALL BE UPON HIS SHOULDERS

David RayAdvent, Christmas, Music, Musings, WorshipLeave a Comment

Recently Jess and I released a brand new Christmas single, Unto Us (Isaiah 9), with a text based entirely on one of the most familiar Christmas passages in scripture. You can watch the video below and download it on iTunes here: http://apple.co/1jbWccj. The song also references one of our favorite pieces of music, Handel’s Messiah. With our involvement in various … Read More