Christ Church Conference
I'm in Nashville attending the Christ's Church Music Conference. I have wanted to go for years. We brought a four from our church and one from CCO.
The first thing we did was participate in a 700 voice mass choir rehearsal where we learned 4 songs that we sang tonight.
It has been a great conference. We have felt so welcomed. The workshops have been very well done. I took some arranging classes from Lari Goss and Daniel Smith....wonderful.
I went to Sue's songwriting class. She is such a great teacher with so many insights and ways of illustrating principles of songwriting. One of my favorite was comparing the center of interest in a painting with the focal point of a song. It always amazes me how many great lyrics she has memorized and can pull up as examples. She was also very kind to plug one of my songs to the class. By the way I found out it will be in the next Benson sampler going out.
It was good to hear Twila teach too. And so great to get to spend some time with Maurice Carter, one of my co-writers (with the most amazing voice ever). He sings in the choir there. He introduced me to Christopher Phillips, the music director...an incredible pianist and arranger. Looking forward to spending sometime with him next time I'm in town.
Last night the choir did the debut of their new musical coming out in Jan. There were songs in it written by Twila Labar, Sue Smith, Steve Marshall, Jeff Ferguson, and Maurice. It was so good...great songs, powerful arrangements, and what a performance! I sat by Sue, John, and the rest of the Brentwood/Benson gang...drinking it in, worshipping, soaking. The last (and title) song of the program "He Still Leads" is so powerful. Sue, Steve, and Maurice wrote it.
Maurice asked me to sing one of the songs we wrote in his songwriting class. That was fun. He is so God filled...I love to hear him talk about the Lord.
Man it is late!