We’re continuing in the Good Song Sunday tradition this year, and you can look forward to a new video every first Sunday of the month. So even though we’re technically two days late this month, we’re excited to roll out February’s Good Song Sunday!

LOVE DON’T LEAVE ME ALONE

Clap your hands, raise up your voices
Beat your drums, get out your guitars
We love the Lord, He loved us first
So stomp on the floor and rattle the earth

Love don’t leave me alone (love don’t leave me alone)

He opened his mouth, out came the heavens
And the moon and the stars that go on forever
He opened his hand, out came the earth
Rain for the rivers and food from the dirt

Love don’t leave me alone (love don’t leave me alone)

Our road has been long, our minds full of worry
Our road has been long, our minds full of worry
Our road has been long, our minds full of worry
But he won’t forget no one who hopes in his mercy

Love don’t leave me alone (love don’t leave me alone)
from Reckless
Tim F Thornton (Bricklayer Music Publishing, ASCAP) and Aaron Strumpel (Thirsty Dirt Records, ASCAP)

Here are the vital stats communicated more clearly:

Lookout Mountain Community Church

When: Sat, Dec 4, 2010 5:30 PM
leading worship for ‘olah service

When: Sun, Dec 5, 2010 10:30 AM
leading worship

When: Fri, Dec 10, 2010 6:00 PM DINNER 7:00 PM CONCERT
christmas concert and dinner | Poster

“Celebrate together at our Christmas Concert & Dinner, featuring The Blackthorn Project and Debbie Milligan/Kerry Conner. Join us for dinner in the Fellowship Hall. Tickets are available in the LMCC Bookstore or call Diane Urbano at 720-746-4106. Cost: $5 Concert, $10 Dinner & Concert, and $25 Family Dinner & Concert (any number). Dinner begins at 6:00 p.m., and the concert at 7:00 p.m. Childcare provided for Nursery to 4-years old at 6:45 p.m.

We are also bringing both Ellie and Emma with us, and they are mostly excited to see some sea lions and the Golden Gate Bridge (we’ll be spending a day in Santa Cruz and San Fransisco). So, here’s to long daily naps and no unexpected teeth popping through in the middle of the night!

If you’d like to join us on Sunday morning, we’d love to look at your faces and give you hugs. We’ll be both teaching and leading worship that morning.

Lifetree
November 7
10:00 am
Madera Ranchos, CA

This one is me (Laurie) and our great friend Amanda Steed, who some of you might have met at Worship@8500 this year. Our husbands are out on the river with fly rods and their man spirits, and we are sitting at the kitchen table enjoying the morning. The song that the morning called for? Nothing Can Stop You, off of Enter the Worship Circle: Fourth Circle, written by our beautiful friends Karla Adolphe and Ben Pasley.

Nothing Can Stop You (Psalm 45)

Great are you Lord
I do not have words to explain
All you have done for me
Generations have come
In their wisdom they call you their God
Your love has no limits at all
so now I sing

Lord, You are perfect
In all of Your ways
Your not easily angered
You make no mistakes
No, nothing can stop You
Nothing can stand in Your way

You hear my cry
You will catch every tear from my eyes
And you watch over my life
And you’re building a city
Not made with the power of men
I know that I’m safe and sound
now i sing

Lord, You are perfect
In all of Your ways
Your not easily angered
You make no mistakes
No, nothing can stop You
Nothing can stand in Your way

Lord, You are perfect
In all of Your ways
Your not easily angered
You make no mistakes
No, nothing can stop You
Nothing can stand in Your way

This song was written by Karla Adolphe and Ben Pasley. You should buy every ounce of music you can from Karla; she is one of the most gifted songwriters out there.

One of the best things about Reckless is that it is not just our CD.

The vision (presented here in slick photo-rich PDF) was born in late 2009. A few days before Christmas, Tim dialed Aaron Strumpel from a Target parking lot in Dallas while Laurie was inside.

“Hey, do you want to make a worship album together?”

Aaron agreed to partner with us to make what is now Reckless, and since that moment many of our ministry partners and fans have also made this project their own by taking it personally and investing in it. They’ve given their prayers, time, talent, and dollars to share in it as a ministry endeavor.

The only thing standing in our way now is a mere $1600, which we need to finish the post-production and manufacturing of the physical CDs. We have committed to producing the CD debt-free.

That’s where preorders come in. There are two ways you can join the community that will link arms with us and get this puppy out in June. Fortunately there are some lovely rewards involved.

1. Preemptive Viral Strike.

This way is so easy we’re calling on every single person who likes our music to do it. You are now obligated.

Spread the word. We hope you’ll recommend the album to many of your friends anyway, so we’re asking you to do a preemptive strike:

Use word of mouth, Facebook, Twitter, etc, to say something personal about what TBP’s music is worth. Post a link to music.theblackthornproject.com. Click that link and then click “share” for an easy way to embed a snippet of “Mud Song” into your blog, Facbeook page, etc. Ask your friends to preorder along with you. Preorder one for a friend or family member! Your personal recommendation is priceless.

Nice job. Now, there are two levels of preorder.

2-A. Casual Level: Pre-order the CD now for a $15 donation and get a free download of a rough-mixed “Mud Song” (listen to a snippet here).

OR, if you want to put a larger (tax-deductable) amount toward the completion of the album,

2-Q. Stellar Level: Pre-order the CD now for a donation of $25 or more and receive the free download of the rough-mix of “Mud Song” as well as a hipster Reckless button and our personal thanks on an autographed poster of the original, yet-to-be-revealed, album art. Shwanky.

No matter which option you choose, you will undoubtedly be the first to receive your copy of Reckless upon it’s release. Yes, we’re that close to being able to hold our new CD, Reckless, in our hands (hopefully be by the end of June). When that happens we will immediately tell our hands to stopping hogging it and get to work shipping it straight to your ears.

Follow any of the links above or click here to pre-order your copy of Reckless today!

PS, thank you!

Anyway, here’s a new video for your viewing enjoyment. I’m off to record some lead vocals at Aaron’s house.

Making this video made me want to play this song more often. It’s an old one, but I love it. Enjoy!

Also, mark your calendars for Worship@8500, June 25-27, in Divide Colorado. Bring your instruments, your hacky-sacks, your tents and sleeping bags and join me (Laurie), Tim, Aaron, and many more of our Worship Circle friends for an entire weekend of worship jams, encouraging talks, and Colorado mountain hang time.

Don’t be bashful–tell us what you think. You can even share it on facebook and twitter if you want.

By the way, if you’re interested in lyrics, you can find them on peartreemommy.com –’member, this is part of Good Song Sunday.

Warning: This video was orginally made for peartreemommy.com, so I wasn’t afraid to show off my chaos a little bit more than I usually would. So…bear that in mind.

PS I post a video every Sunday on peartreemommy.com –it’s Good Song Sunday!

Our great friend Aaron Strumpel (writer of the songs Twenty-Three, Centuries, and co-writer with us on Trouble Won’t Go, Too Proud, and Sweep Me Away) agreed to co-produce the project with us, and we love the flavor that he brings to our work. Aaron challenges us in the best ways to stretch the boundaries of our music, to really push ourselves creatively, and to fully understand our vision for the album. And we do know this for sure: this is an album of songs of worship.

We’ve tried not to put many limits on ourselves and on the work–and the work has been so fun as a result. Tim has been living out quite a few of his secret dreams, in fact. The latin percussionist, the Bruce Springsteen, and the crazy goat-hoof shaker guy all thrive within him.  And with this project, they finally have their outlet!

And I get to pursue some secret dreams of my own.  No, I haven’t gotten a Shakira moment yet, but yesterday I put a string section on Whisper Your Love that involved “Sugar-Plum Fairy” strings. High, flitty, and super fun to play. That’s almost as good, right? I also get to continue my foray into the wonderful and frustrating world of the cello. Most of the time, if I keep it simple, the cello does what I tell it to.  Yesterday, however, it almost got itself thrown off the back deck because of its disobedience.

We’re recording in Aaron’s house here in Woodland Park–here’s the view heading up–

and we’re thinking about splitting the studio to be in our house, too, so that we can continue recording when the babies are in bed. It’s a completely different thing than our last album; we’re working around our kids, we’re recording in a home studio, and we’re having so much fun experimenting, drinking coffee, making pancakes, and then experimenting some more.

I’m not sure when the new CD will be available for you to hear and enjoy. I know we’re keeping our fingers crossed that we’ll be done tracking our vocals and instruments by the end of this month, but with our chaotic family life, we just have to hold everything loosely. Rest assured, though, you’ll have it before Christmas for sure!

There are lots of ways you can keep up with our recording process. The best way is to be a fan of us on Facebook. It is so easy to upload pictures and one-liner status updates, so we do that often.

You can also follow us on Twitter, which also has some one-liner updates.

I am also updating my new blog for mommies with reflections about how this process fits in with my life as a mom of two small kids. Those posts that are less about motherhood and more about the process will also be posted here, I think.

So there you have it! We’ll try to be updating often, but until the next one, we’ll see you on Facebook or Twitter!