phil wing

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.

I Corinthians 11:1 says “Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ.”

To “make disciples” requires us to be growing deeper in our relationship with Jesus as well. If you’re a follower of Jesus, this should be a no-brainer. Everyday with Him is a chance for us to grow deeper in our knowledge, love, and obedience of Him. And, to be a disciple maker is to aid others in their knowledge, love, and obedience of Him as well.

So, as we walk with Jesus, growing closer to Him, we lead others down the same path we walked to closeness and depth (whatever level that may be). When you’ve found a path so great, the desire should always be to share it with others. To walk that path alone is selfish…and as stated in the previous post, selfish Christianity is no Christianity at all.

As disciples, we should aim to live Christ-like lives so much so that if someone were to follow us, they’d be following Jesus by proxy. And, like Jesus did with his first 12 disciples, we should be proactively looking for those to share the path with.

That’s another HUGE part of true discipleship.

ok, I love this song, Healer, anyways…but now, hearing the story behind it, it means so much more. Check it out…

Here are 2 of my favorite artists, William Fitzsimmons & Brooke Fraser, joining up together for 1 great song. They’re touring the US together this summer…unfortunately I can’t make it to any of the cities they’re playing in. boo.

I just loved the fact that they were singing together so I figured I’d share it…

Here’s a little more William…

Here’s a little more Brooke…

check out the new blog about our adoption…

Please mark your calendars for Friday, May 2nd - 7pm. We’ll be having a benefit concert for our upcoming adoption. It will feature my band, charis, and the debut performance of blackburn. It’ll be a night to hear some good music, how God has led Amber and I to adopt, and how you can possibly help. Please come!!!!!!!

WE’RE SO EXCITED!!!

more to come on this soon…but I just had to say that I am humbled, challenged, refreshed, broken, inspired… and about 50 other descriptive words… after this past weekend’s gatherings. If you can see 35 poor, needy, homeless people SHOUTING out their gratitude for God’s goodness and not be challenged, something is wrong. Seriously, I’m blown away.

…more to come…

YES… IT’S TRUE!!!

We are welcoming Shane Claiborne, author of the Irresistable Revolution, to speak at APEX - Mon, Feb 11 at 7:30. Shane is a radical follower of Jesus who believes we should turn off our TV’s, pick up our Bibles, and rethink the way we live. He has ministered among the homeless in the inner city of Philedelphia… among the lepers in Calcutta with Mother Theresa… and even in the suburbs of Chicago with Willow Creek Community Church. He is passionate about inviting churches across the US to live in a way that displays the love of Jesus…

This event is open to all of APEX and to the general public. Admission is free, however, an offering will be taken to benefit local community organizations. Shane will give a presentation followed by a time of prayer and Q&A.

Please come!!!

I was so excited to read this today…

Compassionart hosted an unprecedented gathering of award winning songwriters: Matt Redman, Paul Baloche, Tim Hughes, Graham Kendrick, Steven Curtis Chapman, Israel Houghton, Michael W. Smith, Darlene Zschech, Andy Park, and Martin Smith and Stu Garrard (Delirious?).

Together these songwriters account for at least 40 million albums sold, 76 No. 1 songs, nine GRAMMY Awards, 98 Dove Awards, two Stellar Awards, two American Music Awards, and 78 current CCLI Top 500 songs sung by millions in churches around the world.

(Littlehampton, England) January 14, 2008 – What began as a vision for Delirious? frontman Martin Smith and his wife Anna over a year ago has finally came to fruition this past week. Some of the world’s greatest songwriters were brought together for the Compassionart songwriter’s retreat in an effort to create ongoing global relief for the poorest of the poor. Setting out to write 10-12 songs, these songwriters far surpassed that goal completing 22 new songs during the retreat held last week at the House of Cantle in Perthshire, Scotland. The songs are to be given to the world not just to sing, but also to raise money for the relief of suffering around the planet. One hundred percent of the proceeds derived from the songs will go directly to charity.

“We’ve done it; we just need to record these songs now,” confirms Martin. “It’s been awesome. I’m proud, in awe, exhilarated and tired. Good days, great days.” In addition to the songwriters, the publishers, managers, copyright institutes and agents involved have all waived their rights and are donating their efforts on this project to Compassionart, a charity based in Littlehampton, England that is dedicated to seeing works of art generate income for the poorest of the poor. One half of the monies received over the songs’ lifetimes will go to the songwriters’ charity of choice, and the other 50% will go to a charitable project agreed upon by all the songwriters involved, which is still being discussed.

If you’ve been in Apex gatherings lately, you’ve probably heard me talk about my love/hate relationship with Christmas songs. I absolutely love Christmas…but more and more, as time goes on, the less it becomes about Christ and more about materialism, tradition, and self gratification . Obviously, that’s a shame…

There are lots of songs out there to honor such a day, but how many of them really point at Jesus as being the big deal? How many of them really lead you to praise? Or are most of them familiar sounds for a tradition we’ve become acustomed to? Don’t get me wrong. There are definitely some good Christmas songs out there. Songs like What Child is This, O Come O Come Emmanuel, O Come All Ye Faithful, Angels from the Realms of Glory, etc. No doubt, many people throughout history have written good Christmas songs.

But, if you look at the responses given at the very first Christmas, you find Mary and Zechariah bursting out into songs of praise! It wasn’t a song they’d sang at the temple for years and years. It wasn’t a song that other Jews would sing in each others front yards. And it definitely was not a song about a tree, a jolly fat man, or a hippopotamus (sp?).

It was a new, honest, grateful response for God’s goodness in sending His Son. They were blown away with how God had made a way and for some unknown reason, counted them a part of it! It was honest praise at it’s finest.

That’s what Christmas should be about. Honest praise, given to the One who made a way…a way out, a way in, and a way home. We are His people, celebrating the single most impacting person of all time, living like we mean it, and giving because that’s what He does. That’s Christmas.

The Apex band took on the job of writing some fresh responses to Christmas - there’s a “home recording” of a new Christmas song I wrote on myspace…it’s called “He Has Come to Us”…and there are 3 other new ones as well written by Olivia Tew, Matt Thornburg, and Chad Osborne. You can find them each on the sermon podcasts from December. I hope they help you praise Him this Christmas.

In staff meeting on Tuesday, we got into a great discussion about prayer. That discussion has led me to many questions that I’m processing through…so I figured I’d throw a few of them out to you and get your opinions.

* How would you define a “good” prayer time?
* Is there anything more powerful or impacting about praying with a group of committed believers over praying alone?
* If you are praying in a group setting, does how close you are to those you’re praying with factor in to how powerful or impacting that prayer time is?

Now I know that prayer is an all day, everyday thing and is meant to be the natural communication of our daily lives. I’m referring to more specific, set aside times of prayer.

Those are just a few of the many questions…and I’ve really been enjoying the “process of processing” since Tuesday’s staff meeting.

I’d really appreciate your feedback…so comment away.