We’ve also gone to Idols on Tour for the last 5 years.

There’s a lot wrong with the show, IMO, but if you’re a musician or vocalist, there’s also a lot of great music and a lot you can learn from following the contestants (after Hollywood is over and you get to the real competition).  You see the difference between good and great, and learn what makes that difference.  You quickly realize that having the right song is more important than any other factor.  How many great singers have fizzled because of their failure to choose songs that  will blow the listener away?  Last year I felt that Danny Gokey had the best and coolest sounding voice of all the contestants, but he just kept picking lackluster music.  A few years back Taylor Hicks, with limited vocal talent, won the whole thing by picking just the right song for the last 4 or 5 weeks in a row.  He knew his strengths and weaknesses and picked songs that played into his strengths.

From watching Idol as well as other musical events, one thing that’s struck me in the last year is just how hard it is to be good.  It takes a convergence of talent, personal charisma, great songwriting, a great band and excellent technical support.  This happens so rarely that it’s like witnessing some kind of celestial event.  Maybe a spiritual event is a better way to put it.

This is the quest that The Blacksmith Project is on (for a different and higher purpose of course): helping artists take their skills to new levels, writing music that moves mind, body, heart and soul, striving for technical excellence to make the music sound great and asking that God would purify our motives, inhabit our art and move people in His direction.  Because of the extreme difficulty of bringing all of these aspects together, we have no choice but to give Him all the credit when it happens.  As scripture says, “what have we except what we’ve been given”.  And that’s our calling, to creatively arrange and manage all the gifts we’ve been given for His glory and whatever purpose He has in store for us.

That brings our recent “Concert for Hunger”  to mind.  It was a huge undertaking, especially musically.  We were doing 17 original songs!  All of us are used to playing in church worship teams where at the most we do 6 songs.  We worked very hard in preparation for it, but coming up to it we were not nearly prepared as I would have liked, and panic was starting to set in.  O’ me of little faith!  You would think that I would have remembered how many big Christmas and Easter services I’ve planned and been involved in that I was sure were going to train wreck.  Instead they became holy moments where God stepped in and brought something truly special.  That’s what He did again.  We were all blown away by how well everything came together musically and how responsive the audience was.  Afterward, the input I got from talking to people at the concert was incredible and humbling.  GOD DID IT!!!!!!  Whether directly or indirectly.

GOD DID IT!!!!!!  ”See, it is I who created the blacksmith, who fans the coals into flames and forges a weapon fit for it’s use.”  Isaiah 54:16

Although admission is free, if you are able, please come prepared to give to help feed the hungry.