Audio

Christmas Concert Material that Begins with Passover

By admin ⋅ December 3, 2007 ⋅  Print This Post ⋅ Post a comment

If you’re a worship leader looking for a complete Christmas program, but are want something besides the standard Word Publishing choir show, consider this Christmas concert. Andrew Petersen’s Christmas CD, Behold the Lamb of God: The True Tall Tale of the Coming of Christ, tells the Christmas story beginning with Moses and the Passover and carrying through with echoes of Jesus’ ministry as an adult. It only enriches Christmas to recount the birth of Jesus this way because it connects it to everything that happened before and what will come after. This is important to remember in evangelism because more and more people grow up with no knowledge of the Bible.

The Songs

The songs have a folk feel to them (Petersen is chummy with Caedmon’s Call if that gives you any indication to the sound) with a couple of instrumentals included that can get a bit intricate, but generally the songs are doable by a competent band with maybe a bit of adaption.

The folk music vibe works well with spinning a story of such mythic proportions. The first song is an invitation to “gather round, ye children” to “listen to the old, old story.” This version of the Christmas story begins with Passover and moves to the Israelite slavery in Egypt. Then the story picks up with “Matthew’s Begats” which is a fun novelty song that includes all the people in Matthew’s genealogy of Jesus.

So far the songs are solid and will be powerful in the context of Christmas. They set up the thousands of years of waiting expectantly for the Messiah so when Jill Phillips finally sings of the “Labor of Love,” one of the stronger songs on the album, you know it’s not just Mary in labor. The entire nation of Israel has been going through birthing pains for their Savior.

The title track featuring Fernando Ortega looks ahead to tell of “the pow’r of Death undone.” This drifts seamlessly into tribal sounding reprise of all the melodic themes from the previous songs. Again, it shows the anticipation of generations yearning for His advent has come to fruition.

Purchase Behold the Lamb Tracks and Other Resources

Some of the music will be challenging for your worship band; one song jumps from 4/4 to a 7/8 meter. If it’s beyond your instrumentalists, you can buy backing tracks as well as other resources directly from the Andrew Petersen, including songbooks, strings score, and bulk pricing on the CD. The PowerPoint graphics are so detailed, unless you have very large screen or a screen that’s real close to the audience, you may just want to skip it (or print the graphics into the program). You can also find a DVD of a performance that includes Phil Keaggy, Derek Webb, and Sandra McCracken. (Speaking of McCracken, I wish there were more songs written for female voices).

Narration?

There aren’t any dramatic readings or scenes written in, but it wouldn’t be hard to find appropriate Scripture passages if you wanted to break up the concert feel, especially when Petersen does the work for you in the liner notes. Behold the Lamb of God would work well on its own and it also provides a solid foundation for a more elaborate production.

Tags: cantada, christmas, music, musical, worship ideas