The NewDay event is a highlight of the Christian calendar for young people particularly in the New Frontiers stream of churches. The aim is to enrich and empower young people aged 12 – 19 in their personal walk with Jesus. For some this will be a first step and for others a richer deeper understanding of their faith and how it affects their lives. As with many of these types of events big concert style worship is a medium that encourages these young people.
Looking at the track listing on this album there are a couple of tracks that stand out as not really being very ‘youth-oriented’. One in particular is ‘In Christ Alone’. This is a more recent hymn from Keith Getty and Stuart Townend and is favoured by those who like the more traditional church music. Zac Guy who provides the lead vocals on this track picks a standard pace for the words, but the music in the background is at a much less traditional pace with a constant bass beat keeping time!
Reading the description of the album from the release information, it describes the album as “capturing the passion, energy and sound” of the event. Sometimes the upbeat music can be mistaken for passion but despite the way that ‘In Christ Alone’ is delivered there is passion, not just noise behind it. As if to cement that passion, there is a great change from the perceived speed of the previous song into ‘Holy Spirit’ which focuses on the vocal from Becki Cox, accompanied on the keyboard.
A lot of the newer songs on this album probably have started to circulate in the New Frontiers churches and there are some that impact more than others. I like the lyrics when reading them from the insert, but personally I haven’t picked up the songs to hum them from the multiple listens that I have had of this album. This doesn’t mean that they are bad songs of course, possibly they just don’t have the hook to carry them through from the ear to the brain to embed them significantly.
As a listening experience I enjoyed this album. I love the energy behind some of the early songs and this version of “In Christ Alone” and I love the simple, stripped back response at the end of the album, which many church-goers may well be familiar with as a reprise of “He Is Lord”. There is a great flow and a real feeling of “live” worship to many of the tracks, with noises and congregational worship. Yet despite this I have heard better new songs, and the tracks that really stood out were other peoples songs covered by this collection of worship leaders!
If you were there, this is a must-buy, but for the rest of us it’s probably just another collection of live tracks in our collection, some of which we already have from other events and on other albums.
Click link to purchase Newday 2015 Live Worship.
Review by One Man In The Middle
