We’re excited to announce that you will be able to pre-order the “Tell the Story” CD and Devotional book beginning October 1, just a few days away! It’s an easy online process at www.familychurchworship.org. Note: Pre-orders are only for those who will pick up their product at a Family Church campus. If you need it shipped to you or to others, there will be easy options for that beginning November 1. Watch www.familychurchworship.org for updates. Why should you pre-order? Pre-orders are guaranteed to get the product they want in the amount they want. Pre-ordering gives you the best discounts available, calculated automatically at checkout. Easy pickup at the Family Church campus you designate. No shipping cost! No waiting in line to pay! Pre-orders made through the website during October will be processed and available for pickup Sunday morning, November 1, at your Family Church campus. Our website transactions are processed by Paypal, the most widely known and trusted Internet commerce companies in the world. Thanks so much for your support!
Help us promote!
The success of this album and book project depends to a *great* degree on our ability to successfully promote it. One of the ways we want to do that is via social media. We are recruiting a social media “street team”to help us get the word out and generate buzz about the album. Members of our social media street team will receive an email every Monday for about the next eight weeks or so. That email will contain four or five prewritten social media posts for that week, with easy links for you to post or share them on your facebook, twitter or instagram accounts. There will be a variety of text, video and image posts. You do not *have* to share all of them, and you can modify them if you like, but the goal is to make it fairly easy for you to post them to your social network. Can you help us? We’d like to get 100 influential people helping us in this way. To get on our social media team, send me a quick email at mwarnock@gofamilychurch.org. Thanks so much! Mark Warnock, Admin Pastor, Family Church Worship
Behind the Strings: Our Journey to Nashville by Tyler Williams
Back in February, at our first brainstorming meeting, we decided that we wanted this Christmas album to have a “classic, down-home vibe.” And even though all of our worship leaders come from different backgrounds and Christmas traditions, there were a few elements that stood out as having that classic Christmas sound. One of those elements was strings. Arranging I was VERY excited at the chance to be able to write string parts for this project! As the songs began to take shape, we would decide where we wanted the strings to come in, and what sort of phrases they should play. My job was to get those ideas on paper, and flesh them out for a full string section to play. So all summer long, while Christmas was far from everyone’s mind, I got into the Yule-tide spirit and started writing string parts. Getting started is always the hardest part whenever I write music. Seeing an empty page can get overwhelming, but once I get a few notes down, the song sort of finishes itself. One of the best things about working on our team is that we can all bounce ideas off of each other. Every now and then, I would show bits and pieces of what I’d written to our other worship leaders, allowing me to get direct feedback during the writing process. Finding the Ensemble The entire string arranging process was a leap of faith, because although the parts were written, we didn’t actually have the string players to play them. I searched online for professional recording ensembles that we could collaborate with to bring this music to life. Most of them cost an arm and a leg. One of them actually seemed reasonable…until I found out that they were actually located in Europe! I contacted a friend who has had extensive experience in arranging and recording, and he recommended a guy by the name of David Davidson. David is a professional violinist who lives in Nashville, and he records out of a small studio that he built in his backyard. His studio fits up to 10 players. David is the nicest guy, and you would never guess that him and his network of talented musicians have recorded over 30,000 songs. I was blown away when I discovered some of the artists he’s worked with: MercyMe, Michael W. Smith, Jason Mraz, Backstreet Boys, Amy Grant, and the list goes on! Recording Day So in early August, I was off to Nashville! With a folder full of sheet music and a hard drive in tow, I flew to the Music City. Funny story: during my layover in Atlanta, I realized that I actually left the music for “The First Noel” on the copier at church. So my first stop in Nashville was a FedEx Office where I was able to print out the missing music. Thank you, FedEx Office! Christian Ramos and Winner Olmann were able to join me for the recording session. We drove to David …
Things to watch for
Work is proceeding feverishly in the worship department as we prepare for the release of “Tell the Story”–the Christmas album and Devotional book. Release day is in 44 days! Right now here’s what’s happening: Spanish vocal tracks are being edited. The English tracks are finished; once the Spanish ones are done, the album will be sent out for mastering. Liner notes are being edited so they can be sent for graphic layout. The book is with the graphic designer (Monica!) who is laying it out. Our website, www.familychurchworship.org, is being set up to take pre-orders. Details of our social media campaign are being created. Watch for more information on how you can be involved… because we will need you to help us! Here are a few upcoming dates and things to watch for: Our pre-order system will go live on October 1st. In mid-October, we will be releasing the first of two music videos that will go along with the album. Also, keep an eye out for a free downloadable preview of the devotional book. Exciting things are afoot!
Teamwork and the Creative Process by Christian Ramos
We all have heard “two are better than one”. We are constantly reminded of it when we play sports, do a group project or even when we go to a wedding. Yet, for a long time I noticed that within the creative musical process this idea of “two are better than one” was strongly discouraged. Many artists thought of the creative process as a very personal journey of expressing “my feelings”, “my vision” to others. This in turn had transformed the process of song writing and arranging into a solo act. People in search of personal notoriety had hijacked creativity for vain personal gain. Now, I’m not going to sit here and tell you that people do not continue to use creativity for vain personal gain, but what I have noticed is that the creative world continues to see an increase in the number of artists collaborating and uniting to create new songs and arrangements. This new movement away from a “solo act” and more towards a group dynamic is starting to permeate many if not most songwriting circles within Christian music. When we began working on this Christmas Album: “Tell the Story”, we knew that this was not going to be a solo act. It was going to be a solid collaboration between all people in our team. Therefore, when we went on our writing retreat in February of 2015, we did not go into separate rooms with a list of ideas in order to come up with something. Rather, we went into a large room (FC Gardens Campus theater), turned down the lights (of course) and began to seek God’s face and his will for this album. At first, we all had many different types of ideas and individual thoughts. Yet as we began to talk more and more about what we wanted out of this project, we came to the realization that we just wanted to be anchored in Christ. We wanted to use our gifts in order to lift the name of Jesus and to see Him draw all men to himself. We realized that we could bring him more glory and honor by working together and allowing all the gifts He has given us to work in unison than by each one of us trying to do it on our own. It was then that the fun began. We started with the whole group arranging 2 songs on the first day. On the second day, we split into smaller writing teams of 2 or 3 in the morning and then switched the teams in the afternoon. This yielded amazing fruit. We were able to arrange the rest of the songs in the album by the second day. After every small group finished an arrangement, they would show it to the rest of the team. That was always the highlight; just to see the way that God had gifted these folks to work together and come up with something unique and special. We found ourselves cheering …
Welcome to Family Church Worship
Thank you for subscribing to Family Church Worship! We are the artists and pastors who lead worship at the Family Church network in Palm Beach County. We are excited about the upcoming release of our Christmas album“Tell the Story,” which is our very first studio project. Here’s what you can expect: each week, a member of our team will be blogging about the behind-the-scenes process that has led to this album. You’ll hear about the concept and writing process, the recording process, post production and more. See below for Dave Cornett’s reflections on our album creation process. Also: we will keep you up to date with the latest news about getting the album and devotional book into print. You’ll be the first to hear about pre-order opportunities and about an exciting launch event this fall. Have you seen the “Tell the Story” Promo video yet? Please help us spread the word! Share the album promo video by clicking the easy links below: Share it on Twitter Share it on Facebook Thanks for your support! It means the world to us. Blessings, Mark Warnock Admin Pastor, Family Church Worship P.S. Check out these behind the scenes images of our recording process.
Intangibles and the Creative Process by Dave Cornett
God experienced the praise of heaven’s creation, long before His plan for humanity unfolded. Harmonics of His worship flowed in some form even before He spoke into being the very vibrations and physics needed for audible sound. The three persons of God glorified one another and the heavenly hosts sang an eternally resounding, “Hallelujah.” If that doesn’t blow your mind a bit, then take another moment to try and process it. The hugeness of Almighty God is eternally, all consuming. Every facet of His being demands response and respect. Yet, He came as a poor, humble child, that all would know Him. As Family Church Worship has been working on our Christmas project this year, I’ve been reminded of God’s constant goodness and fullness, outlined by His humility. Those who have ever journeyed through a creative process understand the weight of the intangibles; those external forces that inevitably keep us focused and bring us back around to our starting point of inspiration. For us, those externals came in the usual forms of restraints of time, scheduling conflicts, editing delays, and a consortium of copyright considerations. But together, our team spent days and nights lovingly pouring ourselves out, as God refilled us with His presence, with the good company of each other doing what we love… music, for Him. We felt full in Christ, encouraged by the way He helped the necessary tensions to be managed, for His glory, and for His renown. One early fond memory I have from the recording of this project was sitting in my office with Winner Olmann and Tyler Sherrod and discussing, “O Come O Come Emmanuel.” I said, “The original version always felt so sad to me. Lets do something different here.” Then, Mark Warnock was classic after he heard that we had done it in a major key. Yes, we are all admittedly just a twinge nerdy, and proud of it. Another great memory was sitting in the Family Church Gardens conference room previewing each other’s demos. Winner was up, and we started playing the song he was solely responsible for, “Go Tell It.” Nobody had a single significant critique. We were all immediately blown away by his vision and ability to communicate both musically and production-wise what he was feeling. I think I can speak accurately for the others that we were all just completely floored. God is so God!! Go tell it! None of us could get that groove out of our head for the rest of the week. There are many other wonderful memories we’ve collected along the way through the recording of our choir, brass, various vocal ensembles, rhythm section musicians, and string capturing endeavors. My hope for you as the listener is that the great joy that God has put in each of us, translates and helps you to transcend the busy rush between each of the precious moments you have, no matter the season. Thank you for your support and commitment for our continued mission to go …