Phillips, Craig and Dean’s new album, Fearless, delivers Spirit-driven, vertical tunes that will have worship fans singing many times over. With a fresh collection of songs and a new approach, Phillips, Craig and Dean proves they still have sonic strength to turn a few heads and ears. Fearless is a great album for enjoyment and reference for any contemporary worship leader.

Featured here is the song “Great Are You Lord” as a free lead sheet, chord chart and mp3. Click here to download. Be sure you check out the full-length album, Fearless. Don’t forget to e-mail info@greatworshipsongs.com with your thoughts on the tune.

Also, don’t forget to follow us… www.twitter.com/gwsongs.

New Featured & Free Song: “Forevermore”

Words and Music by Aaron Shust, Jason Ingram, Brett Rutledge and Justin McKay

Fresh from Aaron Shust’s new record, TAKE OVER, which releases August 4th (NEXT WEEK!), check out the new worship song “Forevermore.” Shust, known for the song “My Savior, My God,” debuted it last week at the Worship Leader Magazine’s National Worship Leader Conference to an overwhelming positive response. “Forevermore” is featured now at GreatWorshipSongs.com as a free download. This offer is only available for a week so make sure you take advantage of it today.

Click here to download “Forevermore.” Click here to visit AaronShust.com to pre-order Take Over.

Connecting with Aaron Shust: “Forevermore”

Aaron Shust stopped by the GreatWorshipSongs.com studio a few weeks ago and we captured on video some tips for playing a few of his songs. Join us for the teaching of “Forevermore” by clicking on the image below. Get ready to learn a great song.

By Mac Powell, Laura Story and Shawn Lewis

Happy Tuesday Everyone! Every Tuesday new albums are released for public consumption and today is no different. Well, it is a little different. After all, it marks the release of Glory Revealed 2, a rustic worship record led by Third Day’s Mac Powell and featuring top names in Christian music, such as Casting Crowns’ Mark Hall, Amy Grant, Brandon Heath, Natalie Grant and many more. The record features two GreatWorshipSongs.com writers Aaron Shust and Laura Story. Story’s contribution to the album also included co-writing “Praise the Lord,” captured as a duet between her and Natalie Grant, and featured now at GreatWorshipSongs.com as a lead sheet and chord chart.

Make sure you check out Glory Revealed 2 here and purchase a copy.

Our free featured song this week over at GreatWorshipSongs.com is “Beautiful King,” a new modern worship song by worship leader Jonathan Lee. We’d love to hear your thoughts on it, so leave them in the comments!

Psalm 27:4 (NIV)

One thing I ask of the Lord, this is what I seek: That I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and to seek him in his temple.

Longtime readers, you may remember this story-behind-the-song from a few months ago, but we wanted to post it again for those who missed it the first time. Enjoy reading the story behind how Carl Cartee wrote “The Lion And The Lamb,” and the accompanying teaching video. Thanks for reading!

THE LION AND THE LAMB – Carl Cartee

I am unashamed to say that I am a truly blessed man. My wife and my boys are crown jewels in a life crowded with the goodness of God. Aside from my family, one of the great blessings of my life is the people that surround me. I have a way of stumbling into the most amazing and generous people. My life is built on the shoulders of remarkable men and women who let me hang out with them. Writing this song reminds me of the blessing of community and friendship.

The day we wrote “Lion and The Lamb” started out incredibly average. A weekday with a typical writing session booked with Tony Wood and Ronnie Freeman. I had written with these guys before and looked forward to the time we would spend together.  Other than just showing up to work, I had no inspiring story or unusual experience from which to gather song material. We began with some casual pleasantries and opened up the laptops. As the session started, Ronnie said that he wanted to write an idea that explored the dual nature of Christ, exploring how He was one-hundred percent God and one-hundred percent man. At first, it seemed like that was a lot to fit into a corporate worship song, but the idea was compelling enough to get us talking about Jesus.

Now, understand that both of these men are really good writers…solid and reliable craftsmen, who know what it takes to write a good song and execute ideas. More importantly, both of these men are also serious followers of Jesus. I know that their lives are lived in service to Christ and to the glory of God. When an ordinary moment collides into extraordinary people, the day tends to start filling up with the beauty and glory of God. I am not sure how we got to the contrast of lions and lambs (I think Revelation 5), but once we landed there, we just started talking the song out, remarking about Jesus’ might in view of His humility, His universal kingdom and our friendship to Him and the agony and beauty of His cross carried for our sin. Pretty soon, a guitar groove materialized around a melody, a chorus started to emerge and I could sense myself move from songwriting session to worship service. Through conversation and imagination about the amazing identity of Christ, a song of praise began to rise. The thing I love most about the experience was that it came from the personal and tangible experience each of us had with the Savior. It was an overflow of God’s work inside each of us and now that work was being synthesized into something that had the potential to bless the world. I love the community of faith.  When we come together and start telling of the great and complex beauty of Christ, His glory makes us grow and produce fruit; eternal fruit. The better thing is that it happened in the middle of what could have been average.  When the choice was made to explore the greatness of Jesus, the atmosphere changed into something beautiful. We finished up the song and headed home, excited about what happened and hopeful that God would use it to bless others.

About three months later, Ronnie and I had taught the song to the church where we lead worship (Fellowship Bible in Brentwood, TN) and people were singing it with great response. One Sunday, I was in the back of the church during a testimony time where people shared how God brought them through adversity. A woman came to the microphone and described how she’d had shoulder pain for months because she needed a surgery she could not afford. She described a recent experience in worship where she wanted to raise her hands, but her shoulder injury had kept her from being able to do that. Compelled by the song being sung, she decided to push through the pain and lift her hands in response to the work of Christ. She told everyone that “it was during that moment, during that ‘Lion and Lamb’ song” that God healed her shoulder! I was thrilled to think about how something that began so normally became such an incredible stage for the glory of God. It’s beautiful to think that when a few men committed to worship, raising their voices to the glory of God, it keeps repeating, echoing the goodness and power of Jesus.

-Carl Cartee

“This Is the Gift of God”

Words and Music by Carl Cartee and Jon Abel

Song Story by Carl Cartee

I really love the story behind “This Is the Gift of God” because was truly a five loaves and two fish kind of experience. Jon Abel, a fellow Great Worship Songs writer (and friend) and I had been writing all morning and not getting very far. Sometimes the best intentions to create a great song fall short, and that day we were fading quickly. We were having a good time, but just not coming up with anything worth putting on the page. In an attempt to revive the creative fire, we decided to go eat some fish tacos. After all, Jesus ate fish and we were trying to be faithful. After a good conversation about worship and the Bible, things started getting on track.

Once we came back from lunch, Jon started playing this progression and humming something totally different than what we had worked on earlier.

I loved it and started singing some ideas. The first two chapters of Ephesians have always been of particular importance to me because of their beautifully written truths about salvation. The “Gift of God” started coming into focus when we started singing about the great truths of grace, adoption and mercy from the first two chapters of Ephesians. As a kid who grew up thinking I had to convince Jesus to love me, it’s very easy to recall the moment that I was given the gift of grace. It never gets old to sing about the greatest free and unearned gift ever given. Jon and I went to the scriptures and crafted the lyrics from what we both knew was the cornerstone of Christianity: Salvation through faith, not of works, lest any person boast. In another hour we had finished our song and the power of God, once again, received what started as a meager offering and turned it into a huge blessing for worshippers everywhere.

Anyone else excited about the new Jars of Clay album?

Tell us what you think…

Is it important for us to support Christian artists, such as Switchfoot, Jars of Clay and RED, as they become more relevant in mainstream music? Should their focus be on evangelism or on producing positive entertainment?

This week, we’re featuring “Bless The Lord” by Laura Story. Get the mp3, lead sheet and chord chart for free at GreatWorshipSongs.com. We also have a video of Laura teaching how to play “Bless The Lord” on YouTube.

Laura was kind enough to share her heart behind the song in this song devotional.

BLESS THE LORD

“Bless the LORDLORD , O my soul,
And all that is within me, bless His holy name.
Bless the LORD, O my soul, and forget none of His benefits;
Who pardons all your iniquities, who heals all your diseases;
Who redeems your life from the pit, who crowns you
with lovingkindness and compassion;
Who satisfies your years with good things, so that your youth
is renewed like the eagle.”
- Psalm 103: 1-5 (NASB)

Do you ever have days when you don’t feel like worshipping? As someone who leads worship
for a living, I have to admit that sometimes I don’t feel like worshipping. Some days I am tired and my throat hurts; other days, I am feeling down or distracted by other things. Sometimes life just seems too hard. Though I am ashamed to admit these thoughts and feelings, I know that they are more common than we would like to admit. How do we come before the Lord of lords in all His splendor and majesty when our hearts feel so apathetic?

It is in times like these that I look to the Psalms, one of my favorites of God’s gifts to us. The Psalms provide an entire arsenal of prayers and petitions that we can use when we find ourselves in a spiritual drought. Take David for example; certainly his life was no picnic. Between his bouts with sexual sins, murder and seasons of even running for his life, there must have been times when he felt reluctant to worship God. But still we see him faithfully proclaiming the greatness of our Lord. For David knew that the very quality of his worship was not based on his own volition but on the object of his worship – the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Though our affections for God may wax and wane, His character is unchanging! We even see David speaking to his own soul, demanding of it, “Bless the Lord!”. He reminds himself even in the harshest of circumstances how good God is, recounting blessings that the Lord has bestowed upon him.

I think God knows that worshipping Him can be a discipline at times. And like any other
relationship in our lives, our relationship with the Lord takes work. But on those days that are hardest to praise His name, that’s when I find worship to be the sweetest. Though I may enter feeling tired or disconnected, I find joy and peace in the presence of God and the Holy Spirit sustains that worship, renewing my mind and restoring my heart. All I have to do is show up. God is not only the author of worship, but His radiance inspires us and enables us to bring Him the adoration due His name.

So, next time you are tired and feel as though you have nothing to give to God in worship, know that you are right. There is nothing we can bring before Him that He hasn’t first given to us. And on those hard days, we must confess that we don’t want to worship Him, but we want to want to worship Him. Over time, He will cultivate that desire in our hearts and souls to say, with the great psalmist,

“I will bless the Lord at all times.” (Ps. 34)