DAVID CROWDER BAND'S ILLUMINATE
Song by song

Genesis 1

1:3 And God said, "Let there be light," and there was light.
1:4 God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness.
1:5 God called the light "day," and the darkness he called "night."

1:14 And God said, "Let there be lights in the expanse of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark seasons and days and years,
1:15 and let them be lights in the expanse of the sky to give light on the earth." And it was so.
1:16 God made two great lights-the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night. He also made the stars.
1:17 God set them in the expanse of the sky to give light on the earth,
1:18 to govern the day and the night, and to separate light from darkness. And God saw that it was good.

This is a recording about light. There are four basic forces at work as identified within the field of study known as physics - Strong force, weak force, gravity, and E & M or electricity and magnetism. The study of Light (or more generally, electromagnetic radiation) falls into the E & M category. Now when you talk to a physicist most will tell you that we have E & M figured inside and out. We use the principles that we see at work there to try and understand the other forces at work. So you might say we use the study of light to illuminate everything else. Light is an integral part of our lives. Without it plants would not grow and we could not survive. It is light that allows us to see. The sense of sight is usually the most heavily relied upon of all our senses. The objects, which we see can be placed into one of two categories: luminous objects and illuminated objects. Luminous objects are objects, which generate their own light. Illuminated objects are objects, which are capable of reflecting light to our eyes. The sun is an example of a luminous object, while the moon is an illuminated object. We are incapable of generating our own light but there is illumination...

Sparks Fly - Job wrote in verse 26 of chapter 30..."Yet when I hoped for good, evil came; when I looked for light, then came darkness." We know without a doubt that light exists. It just proves elusive at times. Sometimes the glow draws us with its luminescence then disappears, as soon it seems, as we get close. Then we again faintly feel the warmth and know it was never really gone...

Revolutionary Love - We as communities of faith band together to experience God in a corporate way each week. This is a song about the reasons this is such a wonderfully necessary thing. It is this desperate situation we find ourselves in, lost in darkness, devoid of light, that brings us. It is the glimpse of something other than/better than. It is this light breaking through to bring just enough illumination for the next step, that brings us. It is this love that makes no sense and counters the current culture we breathe in and out each day. The scriptures speak of this light breaking into our condition in the ninth verse of the first chapter of the book of John with these words of the hope of such a revolution - "The true light that gives light to every man was coming into the world." These revelatory words make me want to shine...

O Praise Him (All This For a King) - So how do you respond to redemption? How do you respond to the rescue from darkness to light? How do we join such a chorus as one that has been resounding for ages and will continue eternally around a throne upon which sits a king who is Light and causes all those who are in his presence to shine? This song tries to peek into heaven and join in. When John was permitted a brief glance he writes... "The city does not need the sun or the moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and the Lamb is its lamp...there will be no more night. They will not need the light of a lamp or the light of the sun, for the Lord God will give them light."...

Skies Interlude - ..."One that composed your beauties."..."Such sweet thunder."..."Lord I shall reply amazedly."..."I'm beginning to see the light."...

Open Skies - In scripture the psalmist in chapter 150 declares that God himself has built a monument to his faithfulness. It is His very people. In our banding together, to experience the presence of God in community, we speak of his great love. This coming together is a monument to His greatness. All created things under the rule of God speak of the creator, every living, breathing thing in heaven and on earth. We can experience something that transcends our individual experience of the presence of God. You can look into the face of creation and see that there is not a time that the creator has been absent. There has never been anything hidden or excluded from his gaze. Wherever we have been he has been there and He has pulled us thru...

Intoxicating - It doesn't make sense really at all. This light that makes the breath short and quick to just think about it. To try and stare at it hurts the eyes, certainly causes you to squint and the head to spin. Paul makes an interesting comparison when he writes "Do not get drunk with wine...Instead be filled with the Spirit" in Ephesians 5:18. To take in the Spirit of God is overwhelming. Have you ever walked outside on a sunny afternoon after sitting in a dimly lit room? I think when we move from darkness to light; we cannot help but be left a little disoriented. How wonderful! "If we are out of our mind, it is for the sake of God...it is the love of Christ that compels us..." 2 Corinthians 5:13. We just can't help it...

How Great - The mystery of all mysteries...we can shine. You see the wonder is that we, being incapable of emitting light, find ourselves all aglow with the luminous light of Christ. 2 Corinthians 4:6 "For God, who said, 'Let light shine out of darkness,' made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ." How great is that? What love; that the same God that spoke light into existence allowed us to see in the face of Christ the brilliance of God. While we were in the dark, light burst in. And what else could we do but give up what we were clinging to and take the light in, to feel the warmth and start shining.

"How great Your love for us. How great our love for You. That grace could cover us. How great"...

No One Like You - This is the first song we have written together as a band. I usually do most of the writing but on this one everyone was involved in the process and it is truly the most fun I've had writing music. I think you'll want to turn up the volume on this one. There has, and never will, be anyone like our God. He is the constant to which nothing else can compare.

Reprise - There is no one like Jesus.

All Creatures #2 - St. Francis of Assisi wrote this song quite a long time ago (circa 1225). How amazing to reach back and to be able to join our voice with his and so many others whose mouths and hearts have lifted these words to the heavens...

Only You - You know in romantic comedies when the lead and their love interest are in the scene where they are at a dinner party with tons of other guests and conversation is going on all around them, some of which they are even involved in, for they are the leading couple, but then there is that moment. You know, the moment where the couple's eyes lock. They communicate without any words spoken. Things no one else is aware of. They are still present with everyone else but they have checked out for a bit. This individual, romantic experience is had and no one else has any clue. There is something similar that happens in the corporate worship experience that is truly amazing and transcending. I mean we know that our convening with God is not confined to any specific moment of any specific day, so what makes, say, a Sunday morning any more special than a Tuesday in the middle of traffic on our drive home? Is God less present on Tuesday? No. Yet there is something so different and other than when we are in a room full of people that have gathered in the name of Christ. But the thing that really sends my head spinning is that we can be in the middle of this corporate experience and feel like we have the sole attention of God. In the middle of a crowd it's just the two of us in this beautiful exchange. And these other individual's voices who believe, no less than I, to have his total attention start to blend with mine. It doesn't lessen my individual experience it only deepens and heightens the romance somehow. All of these individual voices blending to one...

Deliver Me - I first heard this song on a cassette tape given me by a member of my church. (Yes a cassette tape. It is made of plastic casing and contains tape with information magnetically attached to it.) The voice I heard was a female's named Sarah Brightman. She was married to Andrew Lloyd Webber who I'm told once said in an interview on NPR that he wrote Phantom of the Opera to showcase her talent. She was the lead. I believe that good is found in many places you would not suspect and evil is found in many places you would not suspect. Our role as Christians is to embrace what is good and try to bring redemption where it is needed. This song is a reclamation moment. These words and music express such a vulnerable desperation and hope. There has never been anything hidden or excluded from his gaze. Wherever we have been he has been there and He will pull us thru...

Coming Toward - The German theologian Jurgen Moltmann talks about eschatology in the dynamic terms of our understanding of history not just as us heading toward an eschatological moment but also God coming toward us. He paints vivid images of this in both The Coming of God and his Theology of Hope...

Heaven Came Down - We tried to put this song together musically in a way that if you were to draw a picture of it, it would look like the crescendo sign. Yet we wanted to carry the idea of God coming toward in a way that was steady but not necessarily linear, so, the arrangement of the song never goes from one section to the next in the same way. In our dynamic relationship with God A + B very rarely equals C. His light is indeed breaking through but in ways that we can never predict or settle into or get our heads around. The glow is growing ever more brilliant. The dawn is coming. Freedom from darkness is a possibility and you can feel it coming...

Glorious Day - "What a glorious day. What a wonderful day, today. Glorious day."

Stars - All of the thematic content of Illuminate is contained in this one song. This tells the story of what we want to say with this record - we who were in darkness were found by the light. Though the darkness seems to be all encompassing, light is coming. Light is here. We can be light and bring the message of rescue and redemption...

Light (or more generally, electromagnetic radiation) is not confined to the visible part of the spectrum: In descending order of energy, the electromagnetic spectrum consists of: Gamma Rays, X-rays, Ultraviolet Violet (beginning of visible spectrum), Indigo, Blue, Green, Yellow, Orange, Red, (end of visible spectrum), Infrared, Far Infrared, Microwave, and Radiowave. Although it dominates this list, the visible spectrum only covers a range of wavelengths from about 400nm (violet) to 700nm (red) in a spectrum that stretches from vanishingly short wavelengths (the very high energy gamma rays) to wavelengths of kilometers or more (radiowaves).