A Song Writing Machine

As the Director of Worship Development for Sovereign Grace Ministries, one of the things I do is oversee the production and direction of the CD’s we produce. That means I talk to CJ Mahaney, who leads Sovereign Grace, and plan the themes we want to build our projects around. Our last project was a father-son offering, In a Little While , featuring the songs and voices of Mark and Stephen Altrogge. I posted on it not too long ago.

Our next project, Lord willing, is going to be congregational worship songs around the theme of trusting God in the midst of suffering and trials, coming out next April. One of my hopes is to provide songs for the church that enable us to look to and trust in our sovereign, wise, all-powerful, and good Father in the midst of pain, uncertainties, and suffering.

We invite Sovereign Grace songwriters to a retreat once a year to work on songs for upcoming albums. We then send the best of those to about thirty people to evaluate for us. From those we choose what will go on the CD.

Since Mark had just finished a project I figured he wouldn’t have too many for this project. But I let him know that we still needed a few more songs and to send what he had. In the meantime, I’m hoping to add a couple of my own to the mix. Then, on September 11 I received an e-mail from Mark saying he’d be sending a few songs for consideration. From September 11-14, Mark sent a total of nine songs for consideration. And no, these weren’t songs that he wrote four years ago that he wanted to recommend. All of them were written in the past three months. It’s time like these I wonder if Mark is an alien.

Here’s our most recent e-mail exchange.

Mark (in the e-mail with the 9th song): Another song for your consideration.

Bo Lotinsky (who works with me): STOP!! You’re depressing Bob and I have to cope with the results.

Bob: I’m going off to a hole somewhere. Mark, are you still a pastor?

Mark: Yeah, but I’ve been so effective, that all our folks are now completely sanctified. Got nothin’ else to do but watch TV and play guitar.

I thank God for Mark Altrogge, Sovereign Grace’s song writing machine. Now I just need to figure out where to put all those songs.

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One Response to A Song Writing Machine

  1. Paul Martin September 18, 2007 at 4:33 PM #

    “Now I just need to figure out where to put all those songs.”

    MORE ALBUMS!!! MORE AND MORE AND MORE!!

    Sorry. I got a little carried away there.

    Ahem… I think you should make more albums.

  2. emschumacher September 19, 2007 at 1:08 PM #

    Wow! Praise the Lord for his stewardship with his gift.

    Bob, I think that is a wonderful theme for the next album. I believe that the church will be greatly helped by it.

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