phil wing

Here’s a new song called “You’ve Stayed (All Along)”.

Click here to see the lyrics…

This is a small article I wrote for Apex’s website and I thought I’d share it here on my personal blog as well.

To be honest, we (I) kinda have a love/hate relationship with a lot of Christmas songs. When people think about Christmas, one of the first things that comes to mind is music. There are a ton of songs about Christmas! Songs about winter, reindeer, jolly fat men, drummer-boys, teeth, mangers, relationships, and even a hippopotamus. Those are all fine and dandy, but it seems that not many of them really give a high honor to Jesus. Not many of them are “worshipful” songs. Many of them are just familiar tunes with an emotional tie to those of us who grew up singing them. But, to sing songs about Christmas should be some of the most worshipful songs we ever sing! Considering that it’s Jesus’ birthday that we’re celebrating here…ya know…the one who changed the world forever, beat sin and death, passed that victory on to us, etc…. it would seem that our songs for this season should reflect that a little more.

Because of that, we, the band at Apex, prayed and asked God what He wanted us to do. We believe His response was to give us a challenge to write songs for our congregation that were truthful, Christ-glorifying, and singable. So, we did. We’re not saying they’re the best songs ever, they’re just the songs that God gave us for our church family. We’re just excited that He’s choosing to use them! Our hope is that God will continue to poor out new songs in us, for the Christmas season and any season that our Apex family goes through.

Hear me on this, we have NOT written off all traditional Christmas songs. We have found some of the traditional Christmas tunes to be GREAT songs of worship that seem to be quite timeless. We hold on to those kinds of songs tightly!

Our hope is to always respect and learn from where we’ve been, and influence the future. That applies to church music as much as it does to overall church history.

To those who always think older hymns are deeper than modern songs, I give you…

God of Earth and Outer Space
from the Baptist Hymnal of 1970:

God of earth and outer space, God of love and God of grace,
Bless the astronauts who fly as they soar beyond the sky;
God who flung the stars in space, God who set the sun ablaze,
Fling the spacecraft through the air, let man know Your presence there.

God of atmosphere and air, God of life and planets bare,
Use man’s courage and his skill as he seeks Your holy will;
God of depth and God of height, God of darkness, God of light,
As man walks in outerspace, teach him how to walk in grace.

God of man’s exploring mind, God of wisdom, God of time,
Launch us from complacency to a world in need of Thee;
God of power, God of might, God of rockets firing bright,
Hearts ignite and thrust within, love for Christ to share with men.

God of earth and outerspace, God who guides the human race,
Guide the lives of seeking youth in their search for heavenly truth;
God who reigns below, above, God of universal love,
Love that gave Nativity, love that gave us Calvary.

[disclaimer: I love hymns. I am not a hymn-hater. I just hate the argument that “hymns are deep and modern songs are shallow”. That opinion is unfortunately all too common, completely discrediting the work of God in today’s writers.]

On Monday, April 20th, eat at the Chick-fil-A in Centerville and 20% of your purchase will go to support our adoption!

You’ll need a coupon at the time of purchase for the funds to be designated - get your coupon here: Chick-fil-a coupon (2 coupons on each sheet - print off as many as you’d like)

This coupon is good for purchases all day long.

I’ll be there playing from 5-8pm so come on out and enjoy some live music with your dinner.

For more detailed info on the event, go here.

There’s a VERY kind review of the new cd over at The Orb. Check it out.

My new CD is officially for sale now - you can get it at philwing.com.

100% of the proceeds from this CD will go toward helping bring our child home from Ethiopia. For more info on our adoption, read here.

If you’d like to preview some of the songs, check out the music player below.

click “SHARE” to grab this music player and post it on any of your sites.

So, I get asked about this a lot so I figured I’d just post it.

top 10 favorite bands:

10. Delirious
9. Leeland
8. Foo Fighters
7. Mute Math
6. Hillsong United
5. Future of Forestry
4. David Crowder Band
3. Switchfoot
2. Jimmy Eat World
1. Coldplay

top 10 solo artists

10. Tim Hughes
9. Mat Kearney
8. Joseph Arthur
7. Ben Harper
6. Sufjan Stevens
5. Jason Morant
4. Brooke Fraser
3. William Fitzsimmons
2. Jon Foreman
1. Phil Wickham

What about you? What are some of your favorites?

if you’d like to get a little glimpse of the upcoming acoustic ep, go check out my myspace for the first track called “You Say”. the song is still a rough mix, and still unmastered, but I’m happy to finally be able to share a little piece of what we’ve been workin’ so hard on.

so what are you still doing here??? go listen!!!

a few weeks back I posted about the song “healer”…well, I am unbelievably heart-broken about this news.

I trust in God’s control and His ability to truly “heal” any person or situation…whether it be cancer or sin.

For some reason, I’ve gotten a lot of new music in the last couple weeks…I don’t normally get much music unless it’s for Apex, but lately that hasn’t been the case. Here are some noteworthy finds…

Coldplay - Viva la Vida - this is definitely not their best album, but it’s still pretty dang good! I was surprised to find that not 1 song on this album has the “coldplay drum beat” that they’ve become famous for. I’m ok with that. This CD seemed a little more “produced” than normal Coldplay - adding in a lot of orchestra pieces, synths, loops, etc. I realize that may be good for some, and I still dig it, but I’m just the guy who still loves their “Parachutes” album more than any of the others…and it’s 8 yrs. old. Coldplay is my favorite band, so I actually love all their albums, and Viva la Vida is definitely a good one…not their best…but definitely good. Thanks to Jon for buying it for me!

Foo Fighters - The Colour and Shape (10th Anniversary edition) - I’ve always been a fan of Foo Fighters since I heard their first single back in the 90’s…but I’ve never owned a full CD until now. My wife got me this one for my b-day and it’s GREAT! It originally released in 1997, but they remastered it and added 6 unheard studio tracks to it for the 2007 release. I will definitely say that this album was WAY ahead of it’s time! I think this record contains 2 of the top 20 rock songs from the 90’s which are “Everlong” and “My Hero”. Honorable mentions would be “Monkeywrench” and “Walking After You”. I love this album!

Brooke Fraser - Albertine - ok, it’s no secret that Brooke Fraser has one of the most beautiful female voices that has ever existed, but I was skeptical of her solo music. I was familiar with her because of her work with Hillsong United (which I love!), but I’d heard 1 or 2 of her singles and thought she was just another acoustic/pop/chick-music type. I was WRONG! First of all, she’s a great musician, playing both guitar and piano very well. She’s also a great songwriter. Her music has hooks, but they’re full of artistry. There aren’t many female solo artists that keep my attention, but she is definitely one. She was a PLATINUM selling artist in New Zealand and has just now been signed to major label here in the US. You should go buy her music (it’s only 5.99 on iTunes) and try to catch a concert - I promise you won’t be disappoinited.

Phil Wickham - singalong - you can get this album for FREE on philwickham.com. I’ve been listening to it all day here in my office and I am very pleased, especially for a free album. Phil Wickham has been near the top of my music list for about a year now and this album reminds me why. The first time I saw him, it was just him playing his songs with all the passion he could shout out…and it was incredible! This whole album is just him, his acoustic, and a crowd…and it’s great! Like Brooke Fraser, Phil Wickhams voice is one of the best I’ve heard and his voice defintely carries this CD so well! It’s just a great time of praise that was captured (well) on a recording. I know I’ll be listening to this a lot when needing personal times of praise and focus.

so, there you have it - plenty of good ear-candy to tickle your fancy for a while…or at least my fancy.