A few years ago I interviewed worship leader/singer-songwriter Allie Lapointe here at My Song In The Night. That was the beginning of a friendship and mutual appreciation between the Lapointes (Allie and her husband Nick) and Kristen and myself. We’ve since met, fellowshipped, and wrote together, and mostly kept up from afar (the Lapointes serve at Redeemer Church of Cedar Rapids, Iowa).
Now Nick and Allie have released a new EP called Hope: A Collection Of Worship Songs. Hope features six congregational meditations on the gospel. I love that they’ve patterned their order of songs on a basic Christian liturgy that leads us through the gospel story:
- Call To Worship
- Confession
- Longing for Restoration
- Celebration of the cross, grace
- Statement of faith in Christ alone
- Benediction
Nick and Allie have recorded and released music individually for years. This is the first time in their 14 years of marriage that they’ve joined forces to write and sing worship songs together for a recording. Kristen and I immediately noticed the mark that hymns have left on their songwriting craft, as we listened to the Call to Worship song “Crowd The Gates.” The four verses are written in Long Meter (like “In Christ Alone” and “When I Survey The Wond’rous Cross”).
The songs contain insightful, colorful phrases like
“We confess our sight is weak
In silhouettes and shadowlands”
from “Open Our Eyes (Revelation).” And they continuously draw connections to the gospel, such as the Ecclesiastes-in-light-of-the-New-Testament declaration in “Worthy Of Our Hope”:
“What we need is rescue
Nothing else will do
Everything we’re longing for
Leaves us just longing for you”
The Lapointes share songwriting credits on some of the songs with noted writers like Michael Farren and Jonathan Lee, among others.They’ve taken great care to craft a project that says something … more than that, a project that says true things about God, and praises Him for all He is and all He’s done. Check out Hope: A Collection Of Worship Songs here on iTunes.