FREE MUSIC!

Annie and I did some recording a few mornings this week. The recordings are not professional quality, but I think they sound decent for being done on an ipad by two people who don't know much about recording. The tracks are simple, A Capella, Spanish, hymns. Some people dread singing hymns, and I don't blame them because I have been in many services where hymns were song and I felt like I was at a funeral. I think the first time I really liked hymns was when I was in chapel at Bible college and my sister-in-law was on the piano. I don't know if fingers are supposed to dance, but hers certainly did. There is just something special about a joyful song leader and stirring piano playing. I have grown to love hymns.

Ephesians 5:18-20
"...be filled with the Spirit; Speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord; Giving thanks always for all things unto God and the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ;"

In my opinion, one of many reasons that hymns can be dreadful is because many churches only sing 10-20 of them and just rotate them through services. The monotony of ritual breeds contempt. I experienced this while working in a church: we would sing about 5-10 songs (three per service) and rotate them. Oh man, I hated it. Most hymnals have hundreds of songs, ours has like 650, so why stick to less than a dozen?!

Psalm 33:3
"Sing unto him a new song; play skilfully with a loud noise."

A "new song" doesn't have to mean it was composed yesterday. Hundreds of hymns are "new" to me because I've never known them. When I was given the privilege to start a church I decided that we would work hard to have an expansive and growing repertoire. One of the ways I have worked at accomplishing that is that for our Sunday night service we are singing through the whole hymnal. We started at number one and usually sing 2-4 per service. We are somewhere near #170! I learned this little trick at one of our supporting churches, Mountain Avenue Baptist Church of Banning, CA. What a blessing it has been learning all of these hymns, and in Spanish too! Another thing that I thought we would do is try to do a simple recording of hymns that are lesser known in Spanish churches to give away for free. That is what led me to this post! We have 9 songs that we did this week that we would like to give away to anyone and everyone who would like them. I wanted it to be more, like 10-12, but time only allowed for 9 for now. Hopefully we can do many more in the future.

If you would like to hear them you can sample them here: http://www.purevolume.com/LaFamiliaSheridan I don't recommend the rest of the music on this website, but it was a cool way to upload our music for free. If you like what you hear and you'd like me to send you the rest of the songs let me know and I'll get them to you! They are free so please feel free to give them away as much as you'd like.