Artists Who Inspire Us

This post is dedicated to the artists who inspire us. Most of these will work their way into our "Sunday Set List" though some are either beyond our abilities or not really conducive to our gatherings and all of these artists have a strong spiritual element to their songs.


Gungor - Fronted by longtime songwriter, singer (not exactly in the mold of the singer/songwriter), guitarist, husband and band leader Michael Gungor; this band is one of our main models for what it means to be artists in this genre of music. In 2010 they were nominated for a grammy and though they were competing against two other groups on our list, including some friends of friends, we thought they should have gone home with the award. Their theology and their music are both intelligent and accessible which is a rare feat but they pull it off well. Their 2009 release Beautiful things changed the way we approach worship and music and we can't wait for their new record this fall. No other artist is more strongly represented in our repertoire than these guys.


Future of Forestry - Honestly, the fact that this band is from San Diego has nothing to do with why they are on this list. I (Juan) was turned on to them by fellow choir nerd/worship leader Jonathan Vevia and literally had one of those goose bump inducing experiences when I saw this video.

You can look for this to make it into our repertoire when the time is right.


Switchfoot - Again, we're honestly not playing hometown favorites here. Though this group puts forward what at one time was called "alternative" and now is essentially mainstream rock it is incredibly thoughtful and catchy and can speak to anyone, wherever they are on their faith journey. What more could you ask for in music? We have two cuts off of the last album in our song list and will likely add some new and some of their older stuff as time goes on.


David Crowder Band - Ok, I know our list is looking like a who's who of "contemporary christian" music but really, these guys deserve some respect. Their latest record,"Church Music" turns every expectation on it's head and although these guys are essentially alternative rockers it draws inspiration from pop/dance music. Genius and almost impossible to recreate on stage. That being said, you can expect to see some of this very soon....

Sadly their last two records will be released this Fall and then they will be disbanding though you can expect great things out of each of the members of this band.

Ok, this is where we get a little off of the beaten path.


Welcome Wagon - Highly influenced by Sufjan Stephens. Actually, it's almost like a side project of Sufjan as he acts as the produce and plays on their recordings. You'll find extensive use of real instruments, and lots of them and they aren't using autotune so it sounds even more real and natural along with what we like to call "gang vocals" meaning a bunch of people singing.


New York Hymn Project - An assortment of musicians that came together to record some of America's oldest hymns in what is both contemporary and almost timeless style. If you are a fan of the Civil Wars, Fleet Foxes or even Bon Iver you will probably find this very moving. What's more is that this record is available for free and any tips go to "Plywood People" a non-profit organization dedicated to helping homeless people.

Andy Gullahorn - If you like Glen Phillips or the singer/songwriter genre then you will love this guy.


Trevor Morgan - Another amazing singer/songwriter

We'd love to hear about the artists that inspire you, please comment below.

What's the point of Worship

What's the Point of Worship

A great article from Relevant Magazine about worship. The article quote two of our favorite worship leaders Lisa and Michael Gungor as well as the hugely successful Joel Houston of Hillsong Fame.

Set-list: Matsuri of Faith and Praise

Here is the set-list from our portion of the Matsuri of Faith and Praise in Torrance

You Won't Let Go - Israel Houghton/Gungor
Save Me From Myself - Carpark North
You Love is a Song - Switchfoot (Foreman)
Earth is Yours - Gungor
Beautiful Things - Gungor
*Say So - Gungor/Houghton

Skipped this one since we were running behind schedule.

Thank you Torrance and Faith UMC!

"Official" picture

How can a band picture be "official" with so many people missing from the photo?
For that matter, how can any picture be official with any band members missing?
Good questions, and I have one more: What is the official band anyway?

In Search of Grace is a fluid group, we change line-up and instrumentation to meet the needs of whatever event we are playing for and who is available. To accomplish this we essentially have two people at every position and may even have more down the road. This process is designed so that people don't get burned out once the band starts playing for weekly services and to have options if certain people are unavailable.

At this point I would say that there is sort of a core group that has been to the majority of events and rehearsals but even the those who have only participated once or twice or have expressed interest but haven't been able to join us yet are all equally part of the group. When we have enough people who are reliable and firmly rooted in the band we will likely split off and start multiple bands that would continue this vision.

We needed a picture that helped people understand what our band was about and now we have that, it's even possible that the next band picture would not include ANY of the people currently in the photo, and that's awesome.

Peace
Juan

Band pictures

Last week, as we were preparing for the Easter service we took a little time to take some pictures as promo for the band. Of course with our current rotational format it wouldn't make sense to have everyone there but even of the line-up for Easter morning we were still missing Michiko and April. Marelene saved us from having a male dominated picture session. We had fun but didn't come up with anything that we were all that happy with so we'll keep trying.



This one is my favorite. We were trying to go with a theme of having everyone's head line up with mine but we had to be creative to make that happen. What you can't easily see is that the ground slopes away gradually and the way we worked with this (and the reason this is my favorite) was by putting Marlene on a chair to be roughly the same height as everyone else.

 In this photo Jason was behind the lense and trying to find an angle that was kind of cool. This is not a pose or planned but genuinely something Jason just took for a reference, I like it a lot and would pick this if it actually had more of the band members in it.

Easter Sunday Set List

Happy Easter everyone! Here is our set list for the preview we did on April 24th at 11 am

You Won't Let Go - Israel Houghton and Michael Gungor
Say, Say - Kristian Stanfill, Chris Tomlin,
Oh, Happiness - David Crowder Band
Beautiful Things - Gungor
Always - Jonathan Foreman (Switchfoot)
Earth is Yours - Gungor
Say So - Israel Houghton and Michael Gungor

Matsuri of Faith

We're headed to Torrance, CA for the "Matsuri of Faith"
What's a Matsuri of Faith? Glad you asked. Matsuri is a Japanese word meaning "festival" and Faith is the name of the church in Torrance that is hosting the festival. The portion that we will be participating in is actually a festival of several different worship teams. I'm not sure what line up we will bring but because of the distance involved we probably will not bring all of our tricks, none the less it will be an awesome experience!