Big Updates

Since we successfully funded the Kickstarter (wahoooooo!!!!) we have been hard at work. We learned right off the bat that summers are busy and we have no time to waste in getting this recording going. We’ve decided to record June 17th-22nd and found a great studio called Fastback Studios. It is a large, fully stocked studio right in our North Seattle backyard, only minutes from where many of us live. We made a down payment this week.

Now there is a lot of work deciding which songs and what arrangements. We are getting very close to having that work done and will soon be rehearsing and preparing these songs for the studio. We would appreciate your prayers and good vibes as we do this work.

Also, one more bit of really exciting news!

Coastland Commons is thrilled to announce that we have been selected for a Grant from the Calvin Institute of Christian Worship for 2015-2016! This means that we can start to give shape and form to the vision that we have shared. If you’ve been following our work, here’s what this means:

-We’ll be able to commission art for the purpose of engaging worship. We really want to practice the idea that worship and art are always in conversation with each other.

-We will be able to host more events like our September 2014 event, where we shared creative work and engaged in conversation around what art and spiritual formation look like in local communities. It was in September that we released this Emmaus idea. We let it sit. Then we kept working the angles of it, listening, and writing. We are now practicing this idea in the season of Eastertide. That was the hope: release the idea into community and wait. Then, bring it into the context of worship, and see how it fits. With the grant, we can host more events like this one. Stay tuned.

-We’ll be able to partner with local churches to help people engage the arts for the purpose of worship renewal. More than anything else, we want to participate in the worship renewal of the local church.

So, we will be working with local congregations, bringing the creative process to bear so that real people can integrate their work into worship. We hope that you will continue along this journey with us as we try this out. Read our posts, follow our contributors, come to our events, engage the Scripture stories along with us. Create, create, create. Share, share, share. It has an element of fear and uncertainty to it; there’s no denying the fear that the creative process can evoke in us. But if it’s anything like Emmaus Road, we can only overcome the fear by meeting the stranger. And there’s no telling when or where that person might show up. So, we walk on - together.

Come with us!