Be Lifted High

Hey kids,

If you haven’t already, you might want to check out this new worship CD from Bethel:

It’s really, really good. Probably even my favourite ever worship album already – I bought the CD and everything! There are lots of current Vinelife faves on there like You Are Good and Furious, and plenty of other hits like Deep Cries Out, Hope’s Anthem and I Will Exalt (Your Presence) to name but a few!

I also loved the DVD that comes with it. Basically it’s just the guys involved talking about worship – what it means, what it looks like, how it breaks the plans of the enemy etc. Just all really encouraging and inspiring stuff.

You can pick up the CD/DVD from Kingsway for £12.99 (click here) or download the mp3s from Amazon or iTunes.

I would heartily recommend it!

JOY

Remember how incredible the worship was at the IHOP conference a few weeks back? Well, here’s a treat for you. This came out today…

If nothing else, you should definitely download Joyful, Joyful and Shekinah. They’re both incredible (especially Shekinah).

So, yeah, there you go. iTunes is probably the easiest way to get hold of it.

Exciting Times

Back on the blog machine!

The past few weeks have been, well, intense…. and brilliantly so!

God has been moving powerfully – healing people’s bodies, souls, and spirits. There seems to be a growing hunger for him; a desire to know him more and an increasing passion to pray with everything we’ve got. And as God reveals himself more and more to us, his presence and his joy, and then we won’t be able to help ourselves in chasing after Him and everything he has for our church and our city! These are exciting times.

Hopefully lots of you guys managed to get along to the IHOP conference last week. It was so much fun. We’ve linked here loads in the past, but in case you haven’t seen it before you can get loads of free music downloads from various IHOP artists over on the Forerunner Music website. Go check them out.

Here’s a little vid for your enjoyment too…

I would encourage you, too, if God’s been doing stuff in your life recently to make sure you take some time to chat it through with your Lifegroup leader (or someone similar). There is a thief who loves to steal and destroy, and despises any breakthrough and growth you have, so it’s always good to be getting lots of support and encouragement. And remember that a victory is a victory. What God has done, nothing and no one can reverse or separate you from… so stand your ground!

onething’09 LIVE

Looking for some new worship music? You could do a lot worse than the live album from last year’s onething conference.

onething is a ministry of IHOP and every year attracts over 20,000 people to its signature conference. Their worship is incredible – it just inspires you to go deeper into God and enjoy his presence. Worship leaders featured on the album include Misty Edwards, Cory Asbury and Laura Hackett. You can stream it first if you want to see if you like it (click the picture above). Otherwise iTunes (or equivalent) will be your best bet for getting your hands on it. Enjoy!

My Passion

What better way to kick off a new season for the student blog than with some slightly outdated news.

It’s good news, though. So in case you haven’t heard already, you can (and probably should) download a juicy new track from Jesus Culture completely free (in exchange for your email address).

It’s called ‘My Passion’ and you can get it right here. Enjoy!

While we’re on a Jesus Culture trip, you should probably go check out jesusculture.com.

Jesus Culture is a movement from Bethel that tours the world doing conferences and releasing materials designed to fulfill their mandate of  equipping “a new breed of emerging revivalists”.Their website has loads of stuff to poke around in, particularly the media section.

If you’ve ever been to our church you’ll be already familiar with them as we sing a number of songs from their various live albums: We Cry Out, Your Love Never Fails, and Consumed.

Last plug. I heard Banning Liebscher, the guy who leads Jesus Culture, speak at Bethel a couple of weeks back. He was really inspiring and I’ve bought his book – unsurprisingly entitled ‘Jesus Culture’ – which I’m sure is going to be great. I’ll let you know when I’ve read it, but you can always beat me to it.

It’s your heart that He wants.

Hosea 6:6:

“I want you to show love, not offer sacrifices.
I want you to know me more than I want burnt offerings.“

Israel got pretty good at letting God down, and the ‘best’ way they did it was by reducing their interaction with him to a kind of religious exchange whereby they would perform certain rituals in order to feel better about the sinful lives they were leading. The scary thing is, we could probably look at ourselves today and bring the same accusation. How often do we settle for ticking the church box simply as a means for making up for an area where we’ve let God down?

Jesus died for our sins and did so for a purpose: relationship with God. He doesn’t just want us to avoid eternal damnation; he wants to be with us. Jesus payed the ultimate price, and it was for a lot more than for us to just rock up to church each week and ease our consciences with automated religion. He wants us to repent because he wants our hearts (not our lip service).

And God promises that if we do turn back to him and do seek him earnestly, we will find him.

Hosea 6:2-3:

“In just a short time he will restore us,
so that we may live in his presence.
Oh, that we might know the Lord!
Let us press on to know him.
He will respond to us as surely as the arrival of dawn
or the coming rain in early spring.“

Free worship music!

Well the easter holidays are nearly upon us and you’ll have to wait a full 24 days for some more reach goodness. So why not fill that time with some free music courtesy of the IHOPs?…

CLICK ME!*

And if you like this kind of stuff you might want to check out the Forerunner Music Podcast.

*The eagle-eyed among you will be aware that this link has been posted a couple of times, but the free tracks get updated every month – a gift that keeps on giving!

Let Me See Your Eyes

If you’ve a spare penny or two, you could do a lot worse than sending them in the direction of…

Cory Asbury – Let Me See Your Eyes

I got this album a few weeks ago and just haven’t stopped listening to it. I think it might be my favourite “worship” album ever. It’s funny because part of me thinks it really shouldn’t be. A good 3 or 4 of the tracks have a strong RnB/Hip-Hop influence, which usually spells disaster for many Christian-crossover hopefuls, but for whatever reason it just works. Cory’s voice is astounding and every track is enjoyable to listen to. They’re really good songs! But ultimately I think it’s just such anointed worship that you can’t help but love it – it draws you into deeper intimacy with Jesus. Get involved, you won’t regret it!

The ‘hits’: Jesus, Let Me See Your Eyes and My Beloved (see vids below)

My favourite track: Always Faithful (Prophetic Song)

Free Sample!: You can download Psalm 18 for free right here

Where can I buy it? You can get it from the IHOP bookstore, but the easiest thing to do is just download it. I got it for a fiver off Amazon and it will be on iTunes as well.

Website of the Week – IHOP

Apologies for the lack of action recently, hopefully you’ve had more chance to browse round the other bits of the site instead.

So, WotW is back, and with a bang! This week’s incumbent is…

IHOP.org – The International House of Prayer in Kansas City

In case you’re unfamilair with IHOP it is a ministry committed to night and day continuous prayer and worship. They have their main house of prayer in Kansas City, but have a presence all over the world. Their passion to know God’s heart is really encouraging.

It’s definitely worth checking the website out – it might reinvigorate how you think about the importance of prayer and fasting and how they relate to the day-to-day Christian life. The great things is that they don’t box things off into prayer or worship or teaching or whatever – everything is prayer and everything is worship, they flow out of each other.  They’ve got loads of cool resources on there too – especially in the Forerunner music section – so make sure to have a look through them to see if there’s anything that interests you. Go get involved!

If you’ve found a website that you think should feature on here drop us a line and we’ll make it happen!

Back in Business!

Hi all,

Sorry it’s been so long since the last post, forgot to mention I was going on holiday. I hope you’ve all had an interesting few weeks – i’d love to hear about them. Especially you guys who went to Momentum – any good testimonies?!

Daniel Bashta

Have you got his EP, My Worship In Motion, yet? If not, why not? It’s a high quality worship album and is available for free over at danielbashta.com. There’s other bits and bobs on the website too, such as chord charts for the songs, so it’s worth having a poke around. I genuinely think his stuff is very anointed and it really encourages me to worship – it sounds good too! So what are you waiting for?!

Podcasts

Don’t forget about the Vinelife podcasts that are available in the sidebar -> You’ll be able to keep up with all the Sunday morning teaching from VCM. It’s been a great summer that has seen the conclusion of our Ezra series as well as a series on Romans 8 called Expanding your mind. Enjoy!