De La Mennais Brothers: Making Jesus Christ better known and loved by young people

I’ve been watching and listening to this Switchfoot video today for the first time in a while: “We Are One Tonight” This is still one of my favourite videos of all time. Used to use it in Film Studies classes for teaching editing. It provided a good opportunity to bring an element of spiritual reflection into a secular subject.  I am struck today not just by the visual humour + skill, but also by the lyrics and how they speak to me during this strange time: "We built these cities to stand so tall We've lost our walls... We are one tonight And we're singing it out ... And the world is flawed But these scars will heal I don't want to fight about it now With the whole world upside-down Please slow down The stars are coming out..." Blessings to you all. 🙏

Recorded in honour of our De La Mennais Brothers in Spain, suffering the loss of 6 Brothers in the space of 10 days from their community in Bilbao. May God bless them and keep them. Canto esto para nuestros hermanos mennaisianos españoles. Lyrics: Heavenly Father, You always amaze me Let Your kingdom come in my world And in my life Give me the food I need To live through today And forgive me as I forgive The people that wrong me Lead me far from temptation Deliver me from the evil one I look out the window The birds are composing Not a note is out of tune Or out of place I walk to the meadow And stare at the flowers Better dressed than any girl On her wedding day So why should I worry? Why do I freak out? God knows what I need You know what I need Your love is, Your love is Your love is strong Your love is, Your love is Your love is strong Your love is, Your love is Your love is strong The Kingdom of the Heavens Is now advancing Invade my heart Invade this broken town The Kingd...

"Love alone is worth the fight", as Switchfoot say.

When I listen to so much music (mainly Christian songs… for myself and for use in school) and end up with 3 iTunes playlists of favourite songs of the year, containing about 110 songs in total, it’s hard to choose my favourites, but here I go.... Lyric Of The Year and Song Of the Year: “I Won’t Let You Go” - Switchfoot "When your fear is currency And you feel that urgency You want peace but there's war in your head Maybe that's where life is born When our façades are torn Pain gives birth to the promise ahead" See previous posts about Switchfoot. They take me from darkness to light... Bridge Section Of The Year + Pre-Chorus Of The Year: “Hypnotised” - Coldplay This band is my guilty pleasure. Their first album, “Parachutes”, won me over, and although they have at times frustrated me over the years, they’ve always been capable of songs that somehow defy cynicism and touch the heart in a way that very few “secular” bands manage to do to me nowadays. When such songs do t...

The Switchfoot gig in Manchester last night was a truly wonderful experience of joy, of communion, of uplifting songs and so much more… They are one of those rare acts that are more than just writers and performers of songs. They have the tremendous gift of being able to write songs that you can adopt as your own and apply to your own life in a way that makes it feel as if it was especially written just for you. Jon Foreman, lead singer and principal songwriter, shared that he was once asked about how he writes songs… no easy answer, but on the spot he came up with something that he’d never thought before but summed it up well - he starts from a place of darkness and strives to take the song into the light. I LOVE this idea. I can really feel it in their songs and I suppose it’s one of the reasons that I have listened to their 10 (+ rising) albums so often over the years. Their songs really do help to lift the darkness. Here are three songs that do just that for me - darkness to light....

On my way in to see one of my all-time fave bands, Switchfoot (for the 2nd time / last time over 10 yrs. ago). Their music is uplifting, even when melancholic, while their lyrics cover the full range of human experience from the dark night of the soul and the search for meaning in the midst of suffering, to the joy and peace that comes from finding the love of God in those around us, in our friends and family. This song sums up very well what they are about.  #switchfoot #jonforeman #timforeman

The article linked at the bottom of this post was written by the bass player of Switchfoot, Tim Foreman (The band are favourites of mine and there was a Switchfoot song on our Indonesia/Japan tour playlist, "Love Alone Is Worth the Fight”). The band are all mad keen surfers. The article recounts a dramatic experience that Tim had while surfing somewhere that Team Win! now know: Bali, Indonesia! The end of the article is as follows: "... life is meant to be lived. And that means taking risks. We come alive when we step beyond the comforts of what we know. And it’s all too easy to just say “no” to the things that scare us. But who knows what’s waiting for you, beyond the safety of your apartment or your mobile device. Like fire in your veins: rebellion, adventure, the unknown." Congrats to Andy (Rolo), James + Harry for being willing to take a giant step outside of their comfort zones and embrace our Far Eastern adventure with all the encounters and experiences that made...

I've often wondered how it must feel to be a successful Christian recording and touring artist whilst having to deal with the worldly aspects of that life such as marketing, profit margins, contracts, image, media communications, etc... It must be a really delicate balancing act to not let success go to your head when it comes, to keep the focus on the Lord and yet do your best to get your material out there because you believe that God wants you to touch people's hearts and souls through your songs and performances/recordings. I know that one of my all-time favourite bands, Switchfoot, constantly struggle with this tension. Just listen to their last 3 or 4 albums for numerous examples. Jon Foreman's - and the other band members' - lyrics seem to be a way of working through for themselves the tensions inherent in their career/ministry, calling on themselves to keep the focus on what is right and true, above all on love... love of God, love of their fellow human beings...

It's been a while, but I'm catching up tonight on a few odd jobs, including sharing some videos, articles, etc... that I've wanted to put on here over the last month or two, starting with this spine-tingling live rendition of a track from Switchfoot's latest album. There are times when I most definitely need to hear these words...

The albums of Switchfoot have never been far from my cd player/iTunes playlists since I discovered them back in the early 2000s. Though their songs (written for the most part by lead singer Jon Foreman) are uplifting and often upbeat musically, lyrically they fequently deal with the battle between darkness and light within each of us, e.g. “Ammunition”, “The Shadow Proves The Sunshine”, “Thrive”, “The Blues” and as shown here in “Dare You To Move”: "Welcome to the fallout, Welcome to resistance, The tension is here, The tension is here, Between who you are and who you could be, Between how it is and how it should be, I dare you to move Dare you to move Dare you to lift yourself up off the floor…" Their new album (their 10th), is now available for pre-order , and to mark this Jon Foreman has written the following which I think not only sums up what this band are about, but also sums up where so many people are at in their lives, including me, dealing with the day to da...

It's summer and I'm feeling philosophical... I'm in a train crossing through France, watching (on my fruit-flavoured tablet gadget) the lovely "Before Sunrise" with Julie Delpy and Ethan Hawke (dir. Richard Linklater - "Boyhood") whose characters first meet on a train crossing through Central Europe... Hawke's character comes out with a statement that summarises so well how I feel much of the time:  "I always think that I'm still this 13 year old boy [i would say 17, myself] who doesn't really know how to be an adult, pretending to live my life, taking notes for when I'll really have to do it... kinda like I'm in a dress rehearsal for a Junior High play..." ... Except that the dress rehearsal IS the play, and it's for one night only!!  Thoughts like this make me think back on my life and on all that has happened in the years since I was 17 and that simultaneously terrifying and reassuring moment of reali...

One of my all-time favourite album closers, "Where I Belong" from Switchfoot's last album, "Vice Verses" (their new one "Fading West" is out in a few days). This is a wonderfully uplifting song and it's all done on 2 chords (except a short bridge towards the end). Love it to bits, and the final verses never fails to make me well up Chorus: "Until I die I'll sing these songs On the shores of Babylon Still looking for a home In a world where I belong Where the weak are finally strong Where the righteous right the wrongs Still looking for a home In a world where I belong." Final verse: "On the final day I die I want to hold my head up high I want to tell you that I tried To live it like a song And when I reach the other side I want to look you in the eye And know that I've arrived In a world where I belong."

(The Return of Switchfoot TV [EPISODE 41]) This is a recent podcast from one of my favourite bands, Switchfoot, one of the top US rock bands, who happen to also be Christians. I'm posting this because the first 90 secs. or so give a blast of the opening track from their wonderful 2009 album "Hello Hurricane": "Needle + Haystack Life". They are a great fun-lovin' bunch of guys and I have always really enjoyed their podcasts. They seem to have a real blast together. But the writing and recording of "Hello Hurricane", which took 2 years saw the band go through a complete reassessment of who they are and why they do what they do. It was a hard, soul-searching experience for them. They were no longer signed to a major label and had complete creative control for the first time on an album: a blessing and a curse, as it turned out. But the end product is, I feel, their most personal, heartfelt record, perhaps their most overtly spiritual, the lyri...