Fellowship Creative “Running to Follow” Album Review

Prime Cuts:  Futureback, Glory in the Highest, Desperate for You

There is strength in numbers.  While many worship albums are the musical avenues for worship pastors to unleashed their own sonic creations, this is not so for Fellowship Creative.  Rather, "Running to Follow" is the collective work of the entire church where songs were composed not with a single pen but from voice memos and emails emerging out of the members' struggles and faith experiences.  Thus, what you'll find on this worship record are breathing testimonies of red-blooded human beings who have had tasted the power of God's grace.  Fellowship Creative is the worship and arts wing of Fellowship Church.  With the church's humble beginnings of only a 150 people, the church under the leadership of author and pastor Ed Young, Jr., has grown to be one of the largest churches in the US averaging a weekend attendance of 20,000 spanning across 11 campuses. 

While the church's senior pastor Ed Young, Jr. may so media savvy that he could cook up a 24-hour bed-in with his wife in preparation for his sermon series and his book "Sexperiment," "Running to Follow" is less focused on tactics but more on its God-centered lyrics.  As its worship leader Derric Bonnot explains, this is an album made to resource the church.  It's an album that worship leaders across churches can be confident in incorporating into their Sunday worship set lists.  Album opener and lead single "Glory in the Highest," for instance, is a prime choice to start off a service with.  No worship service can begin on a better note than praising our God for raising His Son from the dead on this bristling worship burner. 

Reflective of the church's diversity both in age and ethnicity is "Futureback."  As the title suggests, this is a conglomeration of two epochs of music.  With traces of Motown disco harkening back to the 70s work of Stevie Wonder embedding into the hip hop cum rap hype, "Futureback" is a stellar work of creative art at its worshipful best.  Of note also is the title cut "Running to Follow."  With a set of marching electric drum sound cheering us on, here the team challenges us to follow our Lord with perseverance and tenacity on the race of life spoken of by the writer of Hebrews.  Nevertheless, not all the songs hit the high spot.  Though by no means shoddy, "The One I Need," "Always Been You" and "Never Be Without It" are an exciting as their titles. 

Producer C .J. Eiriksson who has helmed albums by U2 and Matchbox Twenty exemplifies his mettle to handle not only the uptempos, but also with the ballads. "Desperate for You," written after one of the leaders has lost his father, is raw, heartfelt and brims with so much palatability that you can tell that this is not a song constructed at the spur of the moment.  The same can be said of "God of Rescue" which envelopes the pain of a mother from the church who did suffer a miscarriage.  In short, these are more than just songs penned so that the church will have something to sing on Sundays.  Rather, these are hybrids of stories birthed out of real life struggles.  And these songs are also about taking such pains and leaving them at the foot of our Crucified Savior.

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