what ive been listening to

I have been listening to The Riverside Worship Project alot lately. I found them through noisetrade. Oh noisetrade, my friend. And this band, a new favorite. Below is their bio from their website.

It has been our experience that by stepping out the front door, we face the possibility of the greatest joy and the deepest pain. We can deny neither the beauty nor the brokenness that we have seen and felt in our world. And yet, in both, we have encountered the living and working God. We have felt redemption and accepted grace, and it is this truth which informs our response to the aforementioned experiences. The Riverside Worship Project is that response.

The “we” mentioned above refers to Brian Alpizar, Ryan Campagna, Steven Hale, Jason Hermansdorfer, Thomas Harbin and Andrew McQuaig. We write songs and sing them with a community of fellow college students at First Baptist Church of Opelika in Opelika, Alabama. Our songs reflect the conversations, struggles, and experiences that we have shared with that community. In this way, The Riverside Worship Project is made up of more than just those holding instruments.

Worship is not a skill bestowed upon a special few, but the natural response of those who have encountered Christ. While The Riverside Worship Project is an experiment in engaging life and God through music, we believe that our whole lives should be consumed by the pursuit of worship. It is our hope that God would use our songs and the corporate worship experience to inspire the church to be his healing and redemptive element in the world.

We pray that when we gather and sing we are teaching the world something about hope. That we are showing the world what it is to be redeemed. We pray that our lives would do the same. By living in response to what he has done, we are singing a song to him and before the world.

There is hope…so sing.