Released 25 years ago this month on a major Christian music label after an independent release the year before, this is the first major album from worship leader and now Christian pop/country artist Chris Tomlin. Surprising to me, I thought I knew this album, but I only bought it on CD a few years ago and have really only given it a listen once or twice before today, though I somehow had copies of songs like "The Wonderful Cross" and "This Is Our God" on my computer from somewhere and must be more familiar with the Michael W. Smith performance of "Forever". I do love the 7-minute rock/worship version of the hymn-plus-a-new-chorus of "The Wonderful Cross" featuring Matt Redman. And I'm familiar with live versions of many of the other songs from Passion live albums from the previous years. I was surprised to find in this most recent listen a song with country twang, "Captured", and a cover of the delirious? classic "The Happy Song" among the songs I've only recently heard. It's pretty country like the original though with some great rock drums, and fits well on this Texan worship leader's album. In this era, Tomlin was definitely a new artist trying to write new songs for churches to use for praise and worship, and I like his early work like this debut much more than his more recent work.

Release Year: 2000/2001
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