Every year, the Advent season sneaks up on me. I (ashamedly) always feel unprepared to participate in the rich opportunities Christmas brings, to be encouraged by God’s awesome humility and to give gifts to the people I love. Additionally, this particular Christmas season, it’s hard to believe that I am coming upon the one-year anniversary of leading The Sing Team. Last fall, I invited several of my close musician friends to start a band with with the primary purpose of worshiping in community, then leading our church in corporate worship as an overflow. After a couple months of getting to know each other better and meditating on the Psalms, we set out on our first task, leading a joyful and heartfelt Christmas Eve service.

"This Christmas album is more than The Sing Team thinking we have something clever to offer you. It’s sort of a musical memento for us to leave behind of this past year of God’s grace."

We had ample time to look ahead and craft some arrangements with a good amount of forethought. A year later, we are having a blast dusting off the arrangements, and they have, for the most part, stood the test of time. They sing the Christmas narrative, they sing of God’s glorious characteristics made known in Christ, and they are sung in our unique The Sing Team voice. So we have decided to record them to share with whomever might listen. Many things have changed in The Sing Team since that Christmas Eve service in 2009. A couple was married. A baby was born. We have lost jobs and changed careers, moved, repented of sin, and celebrated God’s redeeming grace. So for us, this Christmas album is more than The Sing Team thinking we have something clever to offer you. It’s sort of a musical memento for us to leave behind of this past year of God’s grace. Something for us to listen to and remember a season that God used the blessing of community to change our lives. [audio:http://www.marshillchurch.org/files/2010/12/07/20101207_oh-holy-night_by_the-sing-team_audio.mp3] "Oh, Holy Night!" The Sing Team We didn’t record the songs in a sweet studio with the endless amenities of modern digital recording technology; we jammed into the same living room we met nearly every Tuesday of 2010, threw up some microphones, and recorded to four-track cassette tape. Without the Auto-Tune™ vocals and drum triggers we’ve all come to expect, it’s a little less slick and polished, but it sounds like actual humans playing music in a room together. Imagine that! I hope that the recordings make it from our living rooms to yours this Christmas season. I hope that hearing these sonically plain songs with different arrangements will give you a fresh ear the lyrics and heart behind them: that the good and gracious God who has miraculously and humbly come to earth is completely worthy of all our worship!

The full Sing Team EP, Christmas! is available on iTunes.

Brian Eichelberger is The Sing Team band leader and a member of the Ballard campus. You can follow Brian and the band, respectively, on Twitter.