Since I was 14 music has played a key role in my life. I never really made it into the musician world due to lack of rhythm and/or coordination, but I have always loved how music can make or break a movie, set an atmosphere, make rush hour traffic almost tolerable, and even set the mood for a church service. This can be done through instrumental pieces alone, or by compelling lyrics to drive home the message the pastor delivered. One of the things that I love about being a member of The Village Church is their commitment to not only have excellent musicians, but deep theology in the lyrics of the songs they choose when leading us in worship. Which is why I am elated about the release of their new worship album, God Of Victory.
J.S. Whale said that “We find the beating heart of Christian experience not in the church’s creed, but in it’s music.” This couldn’t be more accurate, and is why I’m so thankful that the entire God Of Victory album preaches the gospel with every song. Each song is full of rich theology as the band sings about how great God is, how in need of Him we are, and how Christ is our only hope.
Michael Bleecker, the worship pastor for the Flower Mound campus, tells us about the vision behind God Of Victory in this promo video.
One of my favorite songs, “Made Us Alive”, just shouts Ephesians 2:1-10 as it confesses that it was God who made us alive in Christ, and it’s to Him who we sing. This song also stands on 2 Corinthians 5:21, the great exchange as Luther called it, that Christ, who knew no sin became sin so that we might become the righteousness of God!
Most of us are familiar with Pastor Matt’s cancer story, because he and his family believed that they needed to face this publicly, so that God would be glorified however it turned out. Even though I wasn’t attending The Village when this began, and had only heard Matt Chandler preach once, this hit me hard because I knew that he was one of the more prominent pastors in the area, and one of the most prolific speakers and teachers I’d ever heard. What about those closest to him though? How hard did it hit them? What went through their minds and hearts when this happened? “My Hope Is Christ” is a song the worship team wrote to remind and encourage the church of Christ’s power and to declare that our hope, even in those difficult days, is Christ and Christ alone.
These songs weren’t all just written in a vacuum, there were real life experiences, in some cases painful experiences, that brought these songs into being, through deep commitment to Scripture and the leading of the Holy Spirit.
You can buy God Of Victory on iTunes, and you can read the story behind each of these songs at the God Of Victory web page.
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