Even better is when Brandon Heath ends up touring with one of my favorite groups, Jars of Clay. Hopefully they’re going to be coming to a city near you!

10/08  Lancaster Bible College – Lancaster, PA
10/09  Great Lakes Christian College – Lansing, MI
10/10  Honeywell Center – Wabash, IN
10/12  Bethel College – Mishawaka, IN
10/14  Akron Baptist Temple – Akron, OH
10/15  The Underground – Cincinnati, OH
10/16  Westbrook Church – Hartland, WI
10/17  Elmhurst Christian Reformed Church – Elmhurst, IL
10/21  First Baptist Church Ocala – Ocala, FL
10/22  Victory Church – Lakeland, FL
10/23  Countryside Christian Center – Clearwater, FL
10/24  South Florida Community College Auditorium – Avon Park, FL
10/28  Stonegate Fellowship – Midland, TX
10/29  The Church at Quail Creek – Amarillo, TX
10/30  Emmanuel Baptist Church – Enid, OK
11/05  Grace Covenant Church – Austin, TX
11/06  Tulsa First Baptist Church – Tulsa, OK
11/11  Alma Performing Arts Center – Alma, AR
11/12  First Baptist Church Lafayette – Lafayette, LA
11/13  The Orchard Church – Tupelo, MS
11/14  Central Baptist Church -  Jonesboro, AR

As I thought about it, my first thought was to not choose one of the current favorites because how can a recent song be my all time favorite? That led me to thinking about songs I enjoyed when I was much younger and growing up. Nothing really stood out to me as an all time favorite still.

I then thought about the great hymns that were sung in church as I was growing up: Amazing Grace, How Grout Thou Art, He Lives, etc.

I then stopped at “It Is Well With My Soul”. I chose this one as my favorite because of the history of the song and the emotion that stirs up within me when I hear it. Yet, I also thought about the recent remake done by Jars of Clay on their Redemption Songs album and it solidified the song as my choice.

How about you?

What’s your ALL-TIME FAVORITE Christian song? Why is it your favorite? Are the lyrics what stands out to you or the melody of the music?

Let me know in the comments.

MIRRORS & SMOKE VALENTINE’S DAY FAN VIDEO

Roses are Red, violets are blue, the biggest Jars fan may have all their wildest dreams come true! In light of Valentine’s Day, Jars of Clay would like to get you in the mood for their upcoming Spring Tour. Simply help us out by doing any four items listed below, and enter to win a Valentine’s Day Package including a Compilation CD made by Jars of Clay, a video note personalized to you from the band and more! Three runners-up will also receive Valentine’s gifts from Jars of Clay.

• Post a review of “Good Monsters” on iTunes, E-music, Amazon etc.
• Write a ‘Roses are Red’ poem.
• Host your favorite Jars of Clay song on your Myspace page and don’t forget to send us the link!
• Create your own tour poster and put it up around your neighborhood promoting Jars of Clay. Email us either a picture of where you put it, or the poster you designed. Great places to post are: book stores, record stores, schools, coffee shops. Please remember: ASK FIRST before posting!
• Make a Valentine’s Day card for someone special (mom, dad, friend,
  boyfriend, girlfriend)
• Host Jars of Clay’s Valentine’s banner on your website/Myspace page/blog.

Copy & Paste this code:
<center><b>MIRRORS & SMOKE VALENTINE’S DAY FAN VIDEO</b><br /><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6sJ7ukvAUD4" target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)"><img /></a></center>

To ENTER:
Send us an email with pictures, poems or links for each task you tackled. Please send e-mail to: teamjars@nettwerk.com with the subject heading: ROSES ARE RED

Deadline for entries is: February 23rd, 2007 and the winners will be chosen AT RANDOM from eligible entries. We’ll post the winners in the news section of jarsofclay.com and myspace.com/jarsofclay on Wednesday, February 28th.

Good Luck!

2/09/07 Memphis, TN @ FedEx Forum
2/16/07 Gatlinburg, TN @ Gatlinburg Convention Center
2/19/07 Winnipeg, MB @ Burton Cummings Theater
2/21/07 Calgary, AB @ MacEwan Hall
2/22/07 Edmonton, AB @ W. Edmonton Christ Assembly
2/23/07 Kelowna, BC @ Grand Hotel
2/24/07 Surry, BC @ Chandos-Pattison Auditorium
3/01/07 Vancouver, WA @ Skyview Concert Hall
3/02/07 College Place, WA @ Walla Walla Community College
3/03/07 Missoula, MT @ SHEC Community Center
3/04/07 Great Falls, MT @ Mansfield Theatre
3/06/07 Salt Lake City, UT @ University of Utah
3/07/07 Greeley, CO @ Union Colony Civic Center
3/09/07 Duluth, MN @ venue TBA
3/10/07 Fargo, ND @ Playmakers
3/11/07 Sioux Falls, SD @ Washington Pavilion
3/23/07 Des Moines, IA @ Val Air Ballroom
3/24/07 Peoria, IL @ Peoria Civic Center
3/29/07 Kalamazoo, MI @ venue TBA
3/30/07 St. Catherine?s, ON @ Central Gospel Temple
3/31/07 Toronto, ON @ Toronto Airport Christian Fellowship
4/02/07 Ottawa, ON @ Dominion-Chalmers Church
4/03/07 Hamilton, ON @ Redeemer University
4/04/07 Cambridge, ON @ Forward Baptist Church
4/05/07 Washington, DC @ Lisner Auditorium
4/07/07 Atlanta, GA @ Six Flags Over Georgia
4/12/07 Cleveland, OH @ House of Blues
4/13/07 Philadelphia, PA @ Electric Factory
4/14/07 Boston, MA @ Avalon Ballroom
4/15/07 NYC, NY @ Irving Plaza

Lot’s of Canadian dates happening. Good stuff. If you’re in Canada and catch this concert, I’d love to hear how it goes for you and what you thought of the concert. Just e-mail me.

Our annual selections for Best Christian Albums in small part serves as a snapshot of the state of the industry, and what’s particularly interesting about this year’s list is how many of the finalists seem “outside the box.” Many of the artists have a foot in both Christian and mainstream markets without finding runaway success in either, and some of them are established artists who today continue to record and distribute music independently. It all reflects our commitment to exploring the full breadth of Christian music (released between December 2005 and November 2006), not because of their reach, but because of their potential to reach with artistic excellence.

Jars of Clay and Bebo Norman made the list, but I won’t tell you where. Also, I learned something very interesting in their list, Jonny Lang has released a Christian album. It seems he became a Christian about 5 years ago and is releasing some Christian music. If you don’t recognize the name, he was a blues singing phenom and an amazingly young age. He was featured in the movie Blues Brothers 2000.

Blues wunderkind Jonny Lang has taken his share of praise and critical lumps over the last ten years, and continues to receive it today. Yes, some Christians are seemingly only embracing his latest album because of his conversion five years ago; no, Turn Around is not completely grounded in blues like Lang’s earlier albums. Preconceptions and expectations aside, it remains a sizzling and eclectic effort, stretching beyond the blues to effectively dabble in soul, gospel, funk, and even some pop balladry. It’s also a powerful testimony for Lang, an album he needed to make to explain that the dramatic change in his life is possible for anyone. Plus, let’s face it—we’re all still amazed that a white kid from North Dakota in his mid-20s can sing and play like a timeworn veteran three times his age. Taking his music from the streets to the sanctuary, Lang’s album overflows with talent and hope.

Has anyone heard this album yet? I’d really like to hear what you have to say. This is the first I’ve heard of him being a Christian, I loved his music before.

Review Christianity Today’s full list of The Best Albums of 2006

If you haven’t signed up for the Hear It First newsletter yet, you really should. Free Christian music showing up regularly in your Inbox is a good thing. You can choose from WMA or M4A format depending on whether or not your a Windows or Mac type.

I’ve gotten behind in keeping up with all of my e-mail and had three from Hear It First that I hadn’t downloaded the songs yet. I opened each one and followed the provided link and was still able to grab some free music. In fact, I’ve started grabbing a copy in both WMA and M4A format so I can have one on my computer and one for my Ipod as well.

Here’s the FREE music I picked up just tonight:

• Krystal Meyers – “Collide”
• Skillet – “Comatose”
• Mat Kearney – “Chicago” (I love this artist!)
• Jars of Clay – “Good Monsters”

The band has a separate website where I found some historical information about the band so I can share some of their details with you here.

Jars of Clay began at Greenville College in Greenville, IL when four young lads met and discovered friendship through music. They were majors in “Contemporary Christian Music”, a somewhat recent department in the college. Charlie Lowell, Dan Haseltine and Matt Bronleewe had been there for the year of 1992 and played in various bands as well as producing their own studio projects. These bands included Chrysalis, Jazon, Yellow #7, Second Level, and many other school bands involving students from the CCM department as well as others. When Stephen Mason appeared on the scene in september of 1993, and had similar interests in music, the guys decided to write a song together, “just for fun”. Dan had met Stephen because he had a Toad the Wet Sprocket shirt on, a band which they both admired for their unique sound.

I never realized it before but I had a connection with Greenville College during that time through a California Bike Trip in January of ’93. A small group from our college met up with a small group from Greenville and spent the month of January bicycling down the coast of California. One of the friends I made on the trip was in charge of putting together the Agape Festival, where Jars of Clay later performed.

Jars of Clay has had a number of great albums over the years including:

• Jars of Clay (1995)
• Much Afraid (1997)
• If I Left the Zoo (1999)
• The Eleventh Hour (2002)
• Who We Are Instead (2003)
• Redemption Songs (2005)
• Good Monsters (2006)

Check out Jars of Clay official website or their MySpace page. Did you know they wrote a song for Coca-Cola too?

The group has also started a missions/ministry organization called Blood:Water Mission.

Blood:Water Mission

Blood:Water Mission exists to promote clean blood and clean water efforts in Africa, tangibly reducing the impact of the HIV/AIDS pandemic while addressing the underlying issues of poverty, injustice and oppression. Blood:Water Mission is building clean water wells, supporting medical facilities, and focusing on community and worldview transformation, both here in America and in Africa.

]]> http://missionnotes.com/artist-of-the-week-jars-of-clay/feed/ 0 http://missionnotes.com/free-music-good-monsters-by-jars-of-clay/ http://missionnotes.com/free-music-good-monsters-by-jars-of-clay/#comments Wed, 06 Sep 2006 01:32:09 +0000 Jason Bean http://www.christianmusicfan.com/2006/09/05/free-music-good-monsters-by-jars-of-clay/ The free download this week from HearItFirst.com is the title track from Jars of Clay’s new album “Good Monsters”. This is a great song, excellent score to be able to download it free.Be sure and stop by the HearItFirst website and just see for yourself how Good Monsters has taken over the place and made it their own.

Thank you HearItFirst!

]]> http://missionnotes.com/free-music-good-monsters-by-jars-of-clay/feed/ 0 http://missionnotes.com/dan-haseltine-of-jars-of-clay-interview/ http://missionnotes.com/dan-haseltine-of-jars-of-clay-interview/#comments Thu, 31 Aug 2006 04:09:43 +0000 Jason Bean http://www.christianmusicfan.com/2006/08/30/dan-haseltine-of-jars-of-clay-interview/ Dan Haseltine, lead singer of Jars of Clay, is interviewed on Christianity Today. It’s a really great interview and talks about how the band came to record their soon to be released album “Good Monsters” available next week.

The specific quote that really hits home is:

The gospel never calls us to live our lives privately, but the idea of individualism and isolation has worked itself into our idea of what a good Christian life looks like—that it’s full of quiet times where it’s just us and God. But for me, when I get into that scenario, the only voice I’m really hearing is my own. And when I’m trying to wrestle with some truth of the gospel or some new element God is trying to teach me, it’s just me using my own knowledge base rather than living that out in community with other people. So it never really works. The kind of maturity that I hope for, the kinds of things I want to have freedom from, they never come, because it’s just me working it out by myself.

They also cover some of the specifics of the “honesty” issue that my previous post about cursing artists very lightly touched upon briefly.

After seeing the band in concert at the Indiana State Fair a few weeks ago, I’m very excited about picking up their new album and enjoying their music all over again.

]]> http://missionnotes.com/dan-haseltine-of-jars-of-clay-interview/feed/ 0 http://missionnotes.com/in-state-fair-jars-of-clay-third-day-michael-w-smith/ http://missionnotes.com/in-state-fair-jars-of-clay-third-day-michael-w-smith/#comments Sat, 12 Aug 2006 05:27:32 +0000 Jason Bean http://www.christianmusicfan.com/2006/08/11/in-state-fair-jars-of-clay-third-day-michael-w-smith/

The big Christian music concert was at the Indiana State Fair last night and I was there, along with five other friends (maybe more but I didn’t see them or know they were there). We had a huge let down when we arrived:

1. There’s a line that came out of nowhere at 6:45pm to get into the grandstands. It was after 7:00pm before we got into the venue.
2. With the rain Indy experienced earlier in the day, they decided not to setup seats on the track area immediately in front of the stage, and that’s where are tickets were. They gave us the option of STANDING IN muddy, stinky sand or we could exchange our tickets for grandstand seats.

My wife and friends weren’t interested in standing in the sand for three hours, so we all decided to exchange our tickets. I should have kept mine, I could have grabbed some much better photos (flickr set here).

After getting into the concert late, we missed the majority of Jars of Clay’s set, but what they did perform was great. The music mixed seemed a little off though, it was hard to hear the lyrics, which is very important to me at a concert. One thing Dan Haseltine did that was a little irritating was that he kept holding the mic out towards the audience for them to sing. You’ve seen it happen, you know what I’m talking about. That’s cool, but he did it WAY too much. I didn’t come to the concert to hear the audience. Jars of Clay rocked out with Flood, Love Song for a Saviour, and their remixes of Nothing But the Blood and It Is Well from Redemption Songs. I was pumped to hear “It Is Well”, but they did it completely different than the Beatles-esque version on the album. As stated by David Lindquist from the IndyStar (who wrote a great article on the event), it was very much “That Thing You Do” beat to it. Great! My favorite song of the Jars of Clay set was the one they teased us from their new album, called “All My Tears”. The new album is called “Good Monsters” and will release on September 5th, 2006.
Next up was Third Day. I went to see them last year (or was it two years ago) for their Livewire Tour. Mac Powell and Third Day totally rocks out a concert, and never sacrifices sharing the Word and the Gospel with the audience. Mac Powell’s voice was right on target as usual. I honestly think Third Day was my favorite group of the three. Read about their experience at the fair on their blog.
Michael W. Smith brought much more of the spirit of worship to the concert. It was a nice change of pace actually, but somewhat of a letdown at the same time. I was happy that he didn’t sing “Friends” though. That may have incited a riot right there in the stands. Michael shared a couple of songs from his new album, “Stand” coming out in September. He introduced one song by saying 1% of church should happen with the four walls, 99% should happen outside the church the other 6 days a week. Here’s a similar quote from his website:

Being involved so much in my church has given me insight into what the church is really about. We need to think of what happens on Sunday as only 10% of what it means to be the church. The rest of the week should be 90% of what it means to be the church, the real body of Christ.

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