What I'm listening to: The Rising.

This was a delightful surprise on Christmas morning:

Me: "Oh it's Charlie Hall! Cool, how did you know to get me this?"
Mom: "It was on your list."
Me: "Oh, yeah, right..."

I love forgetting that you asked for something, it's like you never even asked.

Charlie Hall is probably better known for his contribution to the Passion Worship Project along with other worship leaders like Chris Tomlin, Matt Redman, David Crowder Band, and a lot of other heavyweights of the worship music scene. Odd thought, that.

Passion was founded in the mid-90s by Louis Giglio as a campus-based conference dedicated to igniting a passion for Christ in students. It's characterized by motivational speakers and really awesome worship. I never went to a Passion conference but, if you attended a youth group between 1998 and 2004 and your worship team featured an electric guitar, you and I both owe a big thank you to Passion for giving you something cool to sing:

I Could Sing of Your Love Forever
The Center (or Centre if you're singing over there with Matt Redman)
Enough
Here I am to Worship
How Great is Our God
Holy is the Lord
Our Love is Loud

You can thank Charlie Hall for awesome songs like:

Give Us Clean Hands
Breathe
Majesty
Marvelous Light
Mystery

You can also thank Charlie along with David Crowder for making 12 inch goatees cool.

For all that cred, I've never really listened to Charlie Hall. I realized a few months back that many of the lyrics that really moved me were actually written by Charlie Hall, so I put The Rising on a wish list months ago and kind of forgot about it until I opened my stocking on Christmas.

So I've been getting to know Charlie Hall, all on his own, this week. You can check out his album on Amazon or iTunes.

At this point, I'm really enjoying the song, Constant:

"Just like the sunshine, you have been our light

Leading us into beautiful places.

We've walked through fire but you made us brighter

Leading us into beautiful places."