Kim Gentes

When I Survey
(written by Darlene Zschech, Andy Mak & Thom Macken, based on Isaac Watts original hymn)
-Sung by Darlene Zschech & Thom Macken from Hope UC

There are few songs that cut straight to the heart of the message of Christ's crucifixion like "When I Survey The Wondrous Cross". Originally written by Isaac Watts, the song was penned for a communion service in 1707. The most popular rendition of music to be applied to Watts' lyrics came from Lowell Mason whose composition applied to the hymn became the what many people recognize as the "When I Survey" of the church.

What strikes me most about this song is that it conveys the power and truth of the scriptures with such terse language. We often want things boiled down to singular concepts that are easy to digest and focused in theme. While Watts certainly has focused on the cross with this hymn, he has expressed it in its wide diversity by showing how the cross applies to the breadth of creation and our human condition.

A friend of mine, who works with Darlene Zschech and other songwriters/artists sent me this message a few days ago:

Darlene wanted you to be able to bless whomever you wanted to with this wonderful song  "When I Survey" that she and Andy Mak (producer and engineer at her studio The Grove) created for Easter weekend at Hope Unlimited Church. Feel free to spread this around...

Thank you Darlene and Andy! 

Darlene Zschech, Andy Mak & Thom Macken have crafted a new chorus that adds a modern flourish to this great hymn of the last 4 centuries. The track is sung by Darlene Zschech and Thom Macken. Below you will find an MP3 and chord chart of this song.  I encourage you to download BOTH the mp3 and the chord chart and engage with this song.

Many thanks to Darlene Zschech, Andy Mak and Hope Unlimited Church (Australia) for giving us permission to post this.

Be sure to chime in and let us know what you thought (post comments below) and you are welcome to share this with friends on Facebook and twitter with your friends. 

Free Song Download "When I Survey" from Darlene Zschech, Andy Mak & Thom Macken / Sung by Darlene Zschech & Thom Macken

"When I Survey" Already in WorshipTeam.com

This song has been pre-loaded for all those who use Worshipteam.com for their worship planning. You can include it in your set planning this week! If you are a member, simply login and find it in the song database, or under "New Songs" tab. If you aren't a member, you can check out Worshipteam.com for free for a month (more info here).

Review by Kim Gentes 

[Free Song Download "God Is Here" from Darlene Zschech- see at the bottom of the review.]

 We all know the song "Shout to the Lord". We all know that Darlene Zschech was its author and that she was the well-known face and voice of Hillsong Australia worship leadership for two decades.  After hearing she would be putting out a new live worship album, I was interested to hear it. Later, I heard Israel Houghton would be producing and I knew it would be a stellar musical experience. Well, I finally listened to the album. WOW!

Houghton's production and Zschech's voice would be enough for a great musical experience, but that is just the beginning here! In addition to combing the talents of these two musical Grammy winners, this album contains great songwriting/co-writing efforts, great guest vocals and the entire project is wrapped up in Darlene's genuine gifting as a worship leader. I went through this album several times. At first, I was just listening for great songs. But you can't listen long to this project before you are pulled (or hurled may be a better metaphor) into all out praise, celebration and worship.

Right from the first track, Darlene jumps into her trademark declarative, yet worshipful posture as one who is heralding an entire congregation to lift Jesus high and to acknowledge that "God Is Here". I was expecting to have to dig into the album before hitting the deep groove and great choruses, but no way! "God Is Here" is infectious and courageous-- a kind of call-to-worship song that is destined to be one of the new songs the global church will sing. Unashamed and anthemic, this song isn't fluffy proclamation, but is a powerful reflection of the Lord's prayer put into emphatic song calling on the Holy Spirit to open the gates of heaven, bring His Kingdom and His glory. The bridge is a powerful compliment to the verse/chorus prayer and answer pairing- it humbly ascents the powerful truth echoed by every creature or human to encounter the unshielded presence of the Living God as they sing "Holy, we cry holy. Hallelujah God is here!". Really, folks, this is a truly great song. A wonderful co-write by Darlene, Israel and Phil Wickham. Check this one out! You won't be disappointed!

Track 2, "Best For Me", is a rocket ship that takes off from the launch pad that "God Is Here" ends with! Israel and Meleasa Houghton write this driving song of worship, surrender and testimony and it is has all the energy you'd expect from an upbeat song from Israel. Moving into "All That We Are", another Israel co-written song with more "oohs" and lots of pop, driving bass and infectious melodies. Like many songs on this album, there is a great pop-choral backdrop to these vocals, often singing "ooohs" but doing great BGVs on all the songs is a list of stellar voices - and they sound amazing on this album.

Track 4, "In Jesus' Name", is the fourth upbeat song in the upfront section of this project and it doesn't let up the great music and melodies. Another great song from Darlene and Israel. What is most powerful about this song, though, is Darlene's amazingly personal and poignant interjection at around 5:30 in this track. Vamping down temporarily into the song bridge, she starts speaking about letting the words and scripture sink in deep to the hearts of people, letting them become prayers. And she does just that, she encourages people to let the words be sung over them. It is an unnerving song to listen to at this point. Darlene does with this song something more than affect, but tugs at the eternal longing in all of us for the consummation of God's kingdom in fullness, in a way that is reminiscent of what CS Lewis spoke about in The Weight of Glory

"In speaking of this desire...I feel a certain shyness. I am almost committing an indecency. I am trying to rip open the inconsolable secret in each one of you—the secret which hurts so much that you take your revenge on it by calling it names like Nostalgia and Romanticism and Adolescence; the secret also which pierces with such sweetness that when, in very intimate conversation, the mention of it becomes imminent, we grow awkward and affect to laugh at ourselves; the secret we cannot hide and cannot tell, though we desire to do both."1

With this song, Darlene opens up the listener to this kind of surrender and opportunity to connect and understand the nearness of God and His desire for His people. As someone who has been touched by the pain of cancer in the lives of people I love, this song made me come to tears as I prayed for family and friends who are suffering from physical sickness and pain. I found this song to be a sound track for such prayer, asking for God's healing and calling on him for resolution of His kingdom to defeat such pain in our lives.

With the fifth track, the album takes an steep and intentional decrescendo from tempo and volume only, not from excellence. "Your Presence is Heaven To Me" is one of my favorite songs on this project. After the first four songs, you are ready for something "down", and this song is just as endearing, in its own way, as the others that have come before. Like many of the other tracks, Israel's voice takes temporary lead on a phrase and stanza here and there, making this seem much less of a "solo" project than the title of the album might imply. This song is another Israel Houghton songwriting effort along with Micah Massey. The music and lyrics are perfectly matched, as they sing plaintiff surrender in the verse into anthemic thanks in the chorus :

Nothing in this world can satisfy
'Cause Jesus You're the cup that won't run dry
Oh Jesus You're the cup that won't run dry

Oh Jesus Your presence is heaven to me
Oh Jesus Your presence is heaven to me

"Victor's Crown" is the next track and becomes the biggest anthem on this album. Starting softly, it builds into gigantic declaration of sound and lyrics that ascends to pray in mid song that anything that comes against Christ will be brought down in light of seeing Christ receive his victor's crown. This song adds a huge drum part, a gorgeous strings section and emphatic bridge declaring "You will overcome" to Christ. Very good!

After listening through half the album, you might be tempted to believe that the good songs are all done. You'd be wrong! This project contains an unbelievably well arranged, played and integrated set of songs that are comprised of an older Hillsong repertoire song (Magnificent, track 8), a rearranged hymn (My Jesus, I Love Thee, track 9), an excellent modern chorus (Your Name/P.Baloche, track 10), a deep worship song (I Am Yours/MW Smith, track 11) and a great closing song (Jesus At The Center/Houghton, track 12). If you have the special CD/DVD limited version of this it also includes versions of "Shout to the Lord" and "Agnus Dei"!

I would have to write pages more to completely explain this album. Instead, I can just give this recommendation. Go now. Get it. Really. I thought I had already heard some great albums this year, but this one is simply on another level in both musical production and a complete worship experience. This album easily gets my nod as "Editor's Choice Album" and is currently my top candidate for this years best album. I can't imagine anything beating it out, but it is still early in the year. But don't take my word for it- go listen to the audio samples online.

For churches using WorshipTeam.com, all of the songs, chord charts, lyrics and audio from this album are already available and pre-loaded for you in the WorshipTeam.com system song database. If you are not part of WorshipTeam.com and want to listen to audio samples or purchase the album directly yourself, see the Amazon link below.

 
Additionally, our friends at Integrity Music have also granted us permission to give you access to the audio and chord chart for the song "God Is Here" as a free download for a limited time directly here, so you will find it below.

Go check out this album folks. I am not kidding. It's ballistic.

Worshiping God!

Kim Gentes

Free Song Download "God Is Here" from the latest Darlene Zschech album "Revealing Jesus"

1. Lewis, C. S. (2009-06-03). Weight of Glory (Collected Letters of C.S. Lewi) (Kindle Locations 298-302). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition. 

There is no other single local church that has had a more profound impact on the song repetoire of the Christian church in the last 20 years than Hillsong Church in Australia. With a series of phenomenally gifted leaders, a catalog of amazingly popular songs, and a staff of skilled musicians, producers and vocalists, Hillsong Church has become nearly synonymous with praise and worship music across the English speaking world.  The landmark, breakout album from Hillsong was the 1996 release of "Shout To The Lord". While Hillsong had become moderately popular through a series of its own releases, "Shout To The Lord" was a unique release made under Integrity Music's Hosanna label. Produced under their label, marketed and distributed via the Integrity system throughout the US and other global territories,  "Shout To The Lord" became the foundational pivot from which its legendary title track rose to one of the top songs in the world wide church, staying in the top 10 of CCLI rankings for many years.

The album itself contained other songs which would also go on to be worldwide favorites, including: I Believe the Promise, Jesus, Lover of My Soul and The Power of Your Love. The phenomenal success of this album was no one-hit-wonder. For 15 years (and counting) Hillsong Church and its music leaders have produced multiple albums per year, many of which have had some of the highest sales rankings in the genre. The Hillsong song catalog has produced 12 of the current top 100 songs in the Christian church, a phenomenal feat. 

One of the primary writers of its early songs was Geoff Bullock (writer of The Power Of Your Love). Bullock was followed by Darlene Zschech who wrote the title track Shout to the Lord and several other songs. More than any other musician /vocalist, Zschech's gifted vocal stylings and leadership charisma made the "Shout To The Lord" album and many of its later successor projects a standard of musical and songwriting excellence. The original "Shout To The Lord" album was released in 1996, but was released again in 1998 with a new cover, as its popularity retained it in print for several years.

While other leaders have come to the Hillsong stable and met the challenge of writing stellar songs with top notch recordings (such as Reuben Morgan and Joel Houston, both of whom have songs in the CCLI top 100), those and other Hillsong writers did so only due to the huge opportunity given to them by the success of "Shout to the Lord" and astounding leadership of Darlene Zschech.

If you are not familiar with this album or its songs, you should learn.  This is truly a historic album on which the Hillsong legacy was largely built.

Product Link: Hosanna! Music: Shout To The Lord

Review by Kim Gentes