Steve Fee and Catalyst Worship

I went to the Catalyst conference in Atlanta a couple of weeks ago and got the opportunity to hear some great up and coming worship leaders that I think will get even bigger in the next couple of years. The main people that lead worship at different points during the conference were Steve Fee, Kristian Stanfill and Aaron Keyes. The first two are both worship leaders at North Point Community Church in the Atlanta, GA area. Aaron Keyes leads worship at Grace Fellowship Church in Lawrenceville, GA. I had heard of Steve Fee and Kristian Stanfill because of their involvement in a few of the Passion worship CDs. Aaron Keyes I had never heard of before.

A few things impressed me about each of the worship leaders. Steve Fee was the one that we probably heard from the most and pretty much did all original songs. The biggest impression was that his songs were very victorious. Most all of the songs that he did were also very upbeat and positive. I think the reason why this impressed me the most is that I have been in continuing dialogue with a worship leader friend of mine concerning the content of our worship songs. Her view is that the large majority of our songs should praise God for the victory and freedom that he has given us in our lives. We should be proclaiming what Christ has done for us and the battle already won. She sees many modern worship songs as coming from a place of defeat and focusing on the old broken self instead of who we are now in Christ. The content of Steve Fee's songs reminded me of this discussion as all of his songs (as far as I can remember) would have been right up her alley. Personally, I really enjoyed his lyrics and especially the music. On the whole, he was very upbeat and also very creative in the movements of individual parts as well as the overall arrangements of his songs. One new song of his (while not the best example of what I'm describing) that really helped me to connect with God at the conference was "Glory To God" As far as I know the only place that you can hear it is on youtube from when someone taped him doing the song at Catalyst.



Aaron Keyes' worship sets also fit into this vein of discussion. The strong point of his worship leading for me was the way in which he engaged the crowd verbally in the midst of or in between songs. I kind of double took at a few of the things he said because he was often quoting one verse out of a larger chunk of scripture that had nothing to do with worship such as the book of Isaiah or something. I often wondered if the way he used his one verse was appropriate in the context of what the passage was trying to do. Overall though, i was highly impressed by his knowledge of scripture and "worship references" in the Bible. Most of all what I saw in his referencing these passages was his enormous desire to see people worship in authority and to engage God with all they are on a level so much deeper than just singing songs or a one time worship experience. He really did an amazing job of painting a picture in which one could see how the worship that we were creating together was a part of a larger picture of the kingdom and the ministry that we all do no a week in week out basis. Worship is the beginning of winning the battle for our world is one of the ways that he put it (probably not in those exact words).

Kristian Stanfill is just an amazing vocalist and extremely energetic!!!!!!! He also didn't feel like he had to do all of his own songs which i appreciate because I think it is a fine balance of doing your own material and also incorporating what God is doing in the larger world of worship. It's also a balance of doing songs that most people would know and doing new songs for them to learn and that provide new expressions of worship to God. I thought he struck both of these balances well.

Anyway I would encourage you all to check out some of their music on the links provided above as well as their main websites and pray that God would continue to raise up more and more great men and WOMEN of God who will lead God's people into a holistic view of worshiping Him. I especially pray that God would do that right here in Santa Cruz, at CLC, and in my very youth group!!!