Closer To The Start //
I have the privilege of calling many amazing people “friend”.
Dex Alexander is one of them.
From back at Cal Baptist University and the days of Riverside, Cali.
It is cool to see what God is doing in his life and the life of Fellowship Church because of his amazing creativity.
I have had a sneak peak into Closer To The Start and let me tell you that we will be doing many of these songs at Buckhead Church.
Dex and the team have hit it out of the park.
I showed this to my team a few weeks back and we are impatiently trying hard to rip it off.
Here is a masterpiece in creativity birthed out of Closer To The Start. New Creation
New Creation from FC Post on Vimeo.
Bravo Dex and Fellowship Church.Bravo.
Los
RAIN IT DOWN
wow! very creative… very cool!
Flippin sweet!
That rocks. Thanks for that Carlos.
crazy cool. wish I could have women rub paint all over me while I sing.
Very cool. Very creative. Very outside the box. I’m interested to know the “purpose” of the event. In my opinion (and i’m nobody), it would be very distracting to have something like that in a worship environment. The crowd shots in the video showed watchers/consumers not worshipers. So, was it meant to be a “watch this artistic expression” or was it meant to be a corporate worship environment?
yeah, i thought the crowd didn’t look all the moved…not trying to rain on your parade though!
That was so creative! Love it.
Yea. The last thing I look for is crowd response on a short cut video.
We don’t know the setup at all.
I am sure it was the first time they heard the song and it was a special.
We’ve got to not make everything participatory.
Good thoughts.
I can give a little context of the element. This song was right before the message, and the entire set was about who we are an what we identify with as forgiven followers of Christ. So, before all this, we did some participatory kinda’ stuff where, collectively, we sang about God’s love for us.
Right before this song, I put on a shirt with words describing sins and situations that have people bound painted on it. “Racist, addict, lustful, prideful, envy, etc.” We then did another song off the album called ‘Humble Plea’ where we cried out for God to ‘take all that’s in me and let it be Yours for Your glory…” The painters came out, cut off the shirt with the sins on it. We did a video element, as a transition, asking people to sit and consider the passage from 2 Cor. 5 “Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come.” Then we did this tune.
Out of context, it’s just a guy getting painted on. Bizarre. But in context, it helped us show that God is making us all brand new every day, taking us from junk and making us masterpieces.
And it was just a chance to get painted on.
Thanks, los!!!
That was bold. I liked it.
me
like-e
Love the video and Dex’s comments. My sister lives in the Dallas area and attends Fellowship, so I’ve asked for her comments from an audience perspective. I’ll pass along what I hear (or maybe she’ll post herself).
That is probably one of the best songs I have heard in a long time, let alone a worship song.
Listening to the free mp3 and after watching this, it is very good…
It makes a lot more sense now that Dex posted his comments.
“Out of context, it’s just a guy getting painted on. Bizarre. But in context, it helped us show that God is making us all brand new every day, taking us from junk and making us masterpieces.”
My first thought was that it was really creative, but strange. I kept waiting for a black light to flip on an reveal some image or something… but after reading the backstory, it’s VERY powerful.
I agree Isaac. Now that we heard the story MUCHOOOOOOO Better. INCREDIBILE!
Pretty crazy cool! I love creative expressions of worship that blur the lines between art and music. Reminds me of that music video for Eh Hee by Dave Matthews (except not as creepy).
hey los… did dex use to be in a band All Together Separate?? his voice is very familiar… that is an unbelievable song! thanks bro
After reading Dex’s backstory i dig it. It’s cool and innovative. Wouldn’t work in EVERY church, but is certainly effective in certain churches.
In jr.high and high school (8-10 years ago) I was head over heels for Dex and All Together Separate. Ha.
I remember one time, at Sandals, when it was still small enough to break into groups, I was like 16 and Dex happened to be in my group. I totally freaked out like you would over a celebrity. Ha.
“It will be worth it all” is still played often on my ipod.
shut up. that’s amazing.
Word.
word
dood… you know dex?! how cool is that?.. i’ve been an alltogetherseparate fan for years!!
..and you’re right… creative genius!! i hope we not only rip that off, but that you can get the dexter here to do it!!
yeah! Fellowship Church are masters of production. Mind blowing timing and organization to pull it off… i’m intently staring in the background at all the other elements going on… wish there were some wide shots.
i love to see beautiful expressions of art in the church. thanks fellowship!
I’m a member at FC and this video doesn’t begin to do the moment justice! It was a perfect segway into the sermon and was incredibly powerful. The new CD rocks and everyone should get there hands on a copy. Most Christian music is lame but not this album!
I’m glad Dex was able to explain the context for everyone but my question is why there was doubt about the context in the first place. Simply because the crowd was sitting it was assumed that the worship was not participatory but rather a performance? There are more ways to participate in a worship experience than just standing and singing.
I just purchased this album (Closer to the Start) and I LOVE it. One disappointment – I purchased the MP3 download version and it is low-bitrate 128kbps MP3 files – not the 256kbps that Amazon MP3 uses. 128kbps really is too low – doesn’t sound good at all on a decent system. I’ve emailed them though, so hopefully they’ll make better-quality versions available.
Anyways, it’s a GREAT album. Big props to the team at Fellowship. Excellent work.
Update:
Less than 3 hours after contacting them via CreativePastors.com, I received an email stating that they had uploaded higher bitrate files. I have downloaded them and could not be more thrilled.
THIS is how you do customer service. BRAVO!!
Thanks for the link! I am going to be posting some more pics and videos of our weekend services, like the one in this post that I put on Vimeo.
Barton- I will post a video of just video content from this element in the next day or so. http://www.pacehartfield.com
Come hang out with us in the DFW some time!
pace- worship pastor, fc