I wrote We Speak Life out of an intense time time of personal intercession.  The Story goes...I saw on TV an ad about some children that were orphaned and sold into slavery in different parts of the world.  It is a picture I have seen many times before but this time something rose up within me in song and I sang, "We Break the bonds of Slavery now!" and then I sang some other things.  But a spirit of intecession came over me for the next hour or so.  I saw children covered in darkness and fatherless children that did not choose that.  I heard the phrase "We speak life," so I sang that.  The Lord told me to speak light into darkness, love to the fatherless, and Life to those who had none, and that my words had authority on them just as His do.  After praying and singing this for about 20 minutes I was physically tired from what seemed to be warfare.  Immediately the Lord took me into a place of initmacy and safety where I started singing, "Glory, glory, glory to the holy, holy, holy one You are worthy, worthy, worthy of my praise."  I stayed in this amazing place of worship for about 5 minutes and then it was like the Lord sent me back out to battle and this cycle continued for about an hour or so. 

At a later occasion I added the verse from Isaiah 60.  The Orphan spirit must die speaks to division in the church, It speaks to a sprit of competition or favoritsm, or entitlement.  It can also speak to the spirit that keeps a sinner from experiencing the grace and mercy of the Lord.

This was one of the easiest songs that I have ever written.  It was an amazing experience, I heard the phrase fly right into your arms and then that whole verse just came.  After that I think I had the rest of the song written 45 minutes later.  The chorus speaks that God is moving us closer to His heart.  This was a prophetic song that I sang over leadership at a leadership meetingmany months prior.  I just heard the Lord say that He was moving us closer to his heart. 

The first verse speaks of Intimacy, its a prayer for worshippers to learn to be intimate with Jesus, out of that intimacy comes a reaching out, as Jesus is sending us out, Evangelism.  This is what the second verse is about.  Then we move into the Prophetic, which is described by coming in close to the Father and hearing what He is saying, and then saying it on earth.  After the Prophetic the last verse speaks of the Apostolic.  This speaks of maturing in your faith, moving on into the Things God has for you and most importantly raising up the next generation of children.  Sometimes God moves us, whether it be spiritually, physically, geographically or whatever, and in those transitions its usually painfull but the Truth is that God is moving us for two reasons that are spoken of in this song.  First that we cannot stay where we have been forever or there won't be room for others to come and stand where we have stood.  And second, that He is moving us closer to His heart.

     The song Paint Your name came from a prophetic word that Bob Jones gave at the first Mountain of Worship Conference in 2005.  He said that the Lord was going to start painting his name across cities.  He said that Pastors of churches and heads of ministries would start to meet together to pray and for fellowship and that the Holy Spirit would begin to move in the city because of the church coming together in that city.  This stood out to me because this is exactly what is happening in Charleston with our fellowship.  The Lord instructed me to write a song called Paint Your name as an intercessors song.  The lines "We know you're looking for a people where you can pour your glory" is a general theme that has marked my life ever since youth group at ALC.  Our religion is barren but when the people of God come togehter in love then we can take our cities and our people will run after Jesus, because they will see His love in us.

     One moring I had a vision of a parched land that was surrounded by mountains.  It was obvious that the land used to be covered with water because the land was cracked.  There were however puddles of water scattered here and there.  The Lord told me that this was his church.  It is intended to be a mighty ocean of love but because of division and our unwillingness to yield to the Holy Sprirt we were scattered and dry.  The water represents the anointing, the puddles represent individual churches.  He showed me that He was going to bring a rain, the water level would then get higher and the puddles would get larger and the puddles would eventually come together and form the ocean of His love that we were intended to be. 

This song first came to after an intense time of praise, we started singing Lion of the Tribe of Judah open up the scroll...and the presence of God filled the room.  I knew there was something in this tune and phrase for the church today but I didn't know what it was at that time.  This was further confirmed when everytime I would sing this over the people an intense spirit of intercession came over the congregation.  The lyrics here come from Revelation 5, where the elders in heaven are asking "who is worthy to open up the scroll?" and the answer is ONLY Jesus, the Lion of the Tribe of Judah.  Most people think of this verse as saying when the scroll is opened then Jesus is coming back to rapture us out of here.  I do agree with this but the Lord started to show me there was more to this.  He showed me the scroll as my destiny in him and everything that he has for me.  As long as the scoll is closed I am not walking in the promise.  But Jesus already died for me to bring me into the promise so my eyes just need to be opened up to see that Jesus has opened the scroll. 

Also he told me that in order to continually walk in His promise I have to go up to the upper room and leave the empty tomb behind.  The Upper Room is representative of the movements of the Holy Spirit.  When I try to walk in the promise without the upper room I will always fall back down the stairs into the tomb of religion. 

So many people don't need the upper room anymore, they say it happened once and now we've got it.  I believe we need to live there and we need to honor the movements of the Holy Spirit, its the only way to walk in the spirit, and to live in the spirit, and to live in the spirit is to live in the promise...

Well I am so excited to finally have this CD finished, The Lord gave me this project to work on about 2 1/2 years ago and now it has really started.  I just want to give a big shout out to all the musicians who brought their whole hearts to the recording and gave of their time and energy.  Much blessing on you guys.

I just want to say that I love the new CD, not boasting in myself but the Holy Spirit just brought everything together and I am so pleased with the way it sounds and most of all what it does to me and others when they listen to it.  I have already had so many testimonies about how this has ministered to people in just the last week.  Its such a blessing to hear what the Lord is doing through this CD and see that the anointing can be powerfully present on something like this recording.  Really the anointing in on the worship that comes from the hearts of the people involved with this and the incredible power of the gospel.  All the lyrics come from the Truth, the word of God, and that carries the anointing.  One thing that I must say I am so pleased with is the fact that EVERY song sounds exactly the way I heard it in the spirit the first time I wrote them, when God gave them to me.  That alone means success to me.  My heart is to hear the songs that are being sung in heaven and sing them on earth.  Anyway I love you guys, buy the CD be blessed and may the Holy Spirit take you to places you have never been before...