Bart Blair

Make Us Strong

The church where I serve (Grace Community) has been going through some growing pains over the last few years. God has blessed us richly in many areas, but we have sometimes had challenges in keeping up with the speed of church and the speed of life. The end result has been that we feel like we've been treading water for some time and are looking to God for a resurgence of the Holy Spirit's visible activity and leadership to move us into the next phase of our existence as a church community. 

As I have meditated and prayed over these things the last few days, I have written a song which I will teach to the church this upcoming weekend.  Here are the lyrics:

Make Us Strong

Make us strong. Bring Your church to the brink
Power from living water, we drink
Age to age for the victory we pray
Love has led us from dark into day

Make us strong, firm foundation of stone
We will follow to places unknown
Gathered here at the feet of the King
Hear our voices, together we sing

Hallelujah! Holy! Holy!
Hallelujah! Holy! Holy!

Pour out Your power and pour out Your grace
Let us swim in the presence of Christ in this place
Lift up our heads, now. And lift up our hearts
Bind us together and use all our parts
Make us strong in You, Lord
Make us strong
Make us strong in You, Lord
Make us strong

Make us strong as we speak of our faith
Make us sure of our words when we pray
Never doubting the truth that we know
Bearing fruit from the seeds that we sow

Make us strong, Holy Spirit of Fire
To honour You now is our only desire
Giving praises to Jesus, the King
Hear our voices, together we sing

Hallelujah! Holy! Holy!
Hallelujah! Holy! Holy!

Pour out Your power and pour out Your grace
Let us swim in the presence of Christ in this place
Lift up our heads, now. And lift up our hearts
Bid us together and use all our parts
Make us strong in You, Lord
Make us strong
Make us strong in You, Lord
Make us strong

Christmas Tunes

Did you know you can download some of my Christmas music on iTunes?
http://itunes.apple.com/us/album/hallelujah-glory/id5021645

You Are My Friend

You Are My Friend from Grace Church on Vimeo.

New Tunes Coming Soon!

It started in August 2008 and was finally completed this week!  My first full-length solo CD, With the Breath in My Lungs is ready to go! 

The CD is available online for $10.89 + shipping.

Visit my VIRB page for a preview of some of the tracks and a free mp3 download!

Songs That Rock The House (of God)

About three weeks ago we introduced a new worship song at Grace called Reign In Us, written and recorded by our fellow Canadian worship artists, Starfield.  Lyrically, the song ties in very well with the teaching series we've been doing; Church of the Perfect Storm.

At the conclusion of our worship time at church this morning, I concluded (along with my bandmates) that this song has, very quickly, become something special for our corporate worship at Grace.  We're going through a very interesting transition period as a church as we conclude ten years of ministry in Mississauga and begin looking forward to the possibility of having a full-time ministry centre out of which to be God's light in this community. (Currently, we rent a school for our weekend services.)

In my 6 1/2 years leading worship at Grace, there have been few songs that I can say have actually connected with the heart of the local church body, as a whole.  Certainly, some songs connect with some people for varying reasons.  I get e-mails once in a while from someone in the church who has found that a specific song that we have in our repertoire has helped (or is helping) them deal with certain issues in their lives.  But this song, Reign In Us, seems to becoming more than that.  It's a rally cry; an anthem for this current generation at Grace Community Church.

Click over to Starfield's MySpace page and check out the song.

All Request Worship Weekend

This past weekend at Grace we had an All Request Worship Weekend.  For a month leading up to June 1, the congregation voted for their favorite worship songs.

Here's a recap of the All Request Worship Weekend Top 10:

#10 - Beautiful One (Tim Hughes)
#9 - Happy Day (Tim Hughes)
#8 - I Could Sing of Your Love Forever (Martin Smith)
#7 - Hosanna (Paul Baloche)
#6 - Open the Eyes of My Heart (Paul Baloche)
#5 - You Never Let Go (Matt Redman)
#4 - Blessed Be Your Name (Matt Redman)
#3 - Here I Am to Worship (Tim Hughes)
#2 - Amazing Grace/My Chains Are Gone (Chris Tomlin)
#1 - How Great is Our God (Chris Tomlin)

I find it interesting that our church's favorite songs were all written by Brits and Texans!

Another Song For Your Review

My quest to write 30 songs in the 30 days of April is going to come up severely short.  Between the chaos of bidding on the new property for the church, a 3-day conference, and all that followed by a wicked sinus infection, I had a lengthy stretch without any writing.  I also gave up trying to record everything that I wrote.  That simply added to the time commitment.

Nonetheless, the last few days have produced a couple of new songs that I have written specifically for the series we're currently in at Grace.  Here's one we're introducing this upcoming Sunday called I'll Fly Away.

Follow this link to download all the songs I've written this month.

Songwriting Update

If you read my previous post (re: the potential new church building), you might note that the past few days have been crazy-busy.  The result of which has been that my songwriting has slowed a bit.  9 days into April, I have 5 songs done and 3 partials. 

I have recorded four of the five.  Regretfully, this StreamPad plug-in has been giving me fits.  And Typepad doesn't have any alternatives to this one.

If you want to download the mp3s, you can click on this link to see the list.

Songwriting Progress

Through 6 days of April, I have written 5 1/2 songs.  I can't say whether or not the songs have any merit, but that wasn't the goal.  This project is about quantity NOT quality (which goes against my nature).  Perhaps after 30 songs are written, I'll find 2 or 3 diamonds in the rough.

Anyway, I got the StreamPad Player working again (sort of).  It's still a little glitchy.  You can listen to the songs I've gotten recorded in the player here in the right column of the blog.  And, again, I welcome your feedback.

Remember, these are ROUGH demos.  Forgive the quality of the recording!

Songs #2 & #3

I have written songs 2 and 3.  I've recorded the second, but I'm having problems with the StreamPad Player that I was planning to use for posting, so I've temporarily removed it.

For now you can download the second song, 'Evermore' by clicking on this link.