Flowers Fade Friday: A New Song

Last week, I had the honor of attending a David Crowder Band concert. If you haven’t heard the news yet, DCB is on its last ever tour. The band is breaking up and headed on to new things. While I could be sad about this as they are probably hands-down my favorite Christian group {probably because they don’t really fit the traditional Christian music mold…}, I am simply thankful that I got to attend the concert courtesy of my little bro who bought tickets for my mom and me for our birthdays this year. {Happy Birthday, Mopsy!!! It’s today…}

The concert was awesome. The music was great, but what I loved most about it was that it functioned as a little trip down memory lane for me. You see, the David Crowder Band has been together for eleven years and I have been a fan for ten of those years. I was first introduced to DCB waaaay back during my freshman year of college. One of my TCU friends took me down to Baylor for the weekend where we visited UBC, the church where David Crowder first started his career. I loved it. And I’ve been a fan ever since.

But not so much a fan in the sense that I look at the DCB webpage and go to every concert. I’ve only been to two concerts in my life. More a fan in the sense that I own almost every DCB CD {except the first two I think – and this is huge because I never buy music!} and the music on those CDs has comforted me, encouraged me and brought me joy during so many seasons over the past decade…

Make a Joyful Noise – This is probably the first DCB song that I love, loved. This song reminds me of the fresh beginnings of college and learning to love and worship God in new ways.

O Praise Him/No One Like You – O Praise Him reminds me of quiet, calm mornings on the river at the camp I worked at in college. I would wake up early to spend time with God before the kids woke up and the craziness of the day began and the work crew in the kitchen would blast this song as they prepared breakfast joyfully for hundreds of campers and staff. No One Like You reminds me of crazy worship sessions at night, jumping up and down with tons of middle and high school kids for the glory of God.

Come and Listen/Never Let Go – Quieter songs. Quieter time in my life. This song and many others on the Collision and Remedy albums comforted me in my unknown years. I left all my friends in Texas, moved home to Washington, was dating Micah, living my parent’s basement and life was strange for a while. However, I clung to God during this time and He was faithful. DCB songs remind me of the humble simplicity of this season.

How He Loves Us – God is good. This is the song I walked down the aisle to at my wedding. Sweet memories of joy and gladness.

So instead of being sad about DCB calling it quits, I choose to be thankful. Thankful for the music they made and the way it spoke to my soul. Thankful that a group of men were so faithful to the ministry God called them to for so many years. Thankful that they were willing to write “new songs” when so often those in the Christian music industry just make music that fits a certain churchy mold.

When I went to Mars Hill Church in Seattle, Pastor Mark one time discussed why we sang “weird songs” at our services. Mars Hill is very dedicated to new music and having different musicians write their own songs and lead worship services in creative ways. Pastor Mark explained that the Bible calls us to “Sing to him a new song; play skillfully on the strings, with loud shouts” {Psalm 33:3}. People gifted musically should be writing new songs of praise to the Lord. That doesn’t mean we can’t sing old songs too. We sang plenty of hymns at Mars Hill and DCB has covered many hymns as well. It just means that those called to lead worship should be faithful in using their musical creativity to write new songs to honor God.

I am thankful that David Crowder and his band has been writing new songs to worship God for the past eleven years, and while I’m sad to see my favorite band move onto new things, I am thankful for their faithfulness and I am eager to see the musicians who follow in DCB’s footsteps in writing and singing new songs to the Lord.

Gungor, anyone?!