Songs for A Revolution of Hope

Brian’s album of original music called Songs for a Revolution of Hope, Volume 1, is available to order or to download! You can check out the Songs for a Revolution of Hope website for more information on this project.

Brian Introduces the Songs and the Project

There is also a video of the music and lyrics of one of the songs off the album, entitled “I am an Atheist.”

Brian will be posting some of the songs here on this website soon. You’ll be able to listen to them and the comment on how the song impacted you or how you might be able to use it in your faith community.

Brian and Aaron Strumple recording songs for A Revolution of Hope
A note from Brian about Songs for a Revolution of Hope
I’ve always loved music. From my teenage years through college I played in bands and wrote songs. I recorded a few albums of original music in the late 70’s and early 80’s, back in the pre-digital days of tape and LP’s. After graduate school, I taught college-level English and then in 1982 my wife and I and a small group of good friends planted a new faith community where I served as a pastor until 2006. In the early days, I was often the worship leader one Sunday and the speaker the next, so music remained as an important part of my life and work. In the mid-90’s, I began writing books which led to invitations to travel around the world to talk about the subjects of my books. In 2006, I became a full-time writer, speaker, and networker.
Through all these changes, I kept writing songs as part of my own spiritual practice – songs of prayer, hope, doubt, struggle, celebration, and worship. My songs were usually unheard by anyone except myself and God, but occasionally I shared a few with my faith community for use in public worship.
Some years ago I wrote an article called “An Open Letter to Worship Songwriters.” It originally was published in Worship Leader Magazine, but its life continued online and it has been translated into a number of languages since then. In it, I expressed a number of frustrations that I felt regarding the music commonly used in our churches. In particular, I complained about the hyper-individualism and even spiritual narcissism in so much of our “worship music.” At times, as a friend of mine put it, we seem to be congratulating God for making us feel so good and meeting our personal wants and needs so nicely.
This avalanche of personalized songs contrasted rather starkly with the lack of songs relating to themes of justice in the world around us. I’ve been pleased to hear from many songwriters who agreed with the article and who took up the challenge to write songs to fill the various voids it addressed. This collection is my own contribution, prepared in hopes of helping communities of faith be formed as agents of God’s love and justice in our world.
It’s been a great pleasure to work with Tracy Howe (The Restoration Project), Aaron Strumpel, Nuc and April Vega and Posido Vega (Harp 46), Tim and Laurie Thornton (The Blackthorn Project), and Dave Winton on this project. Tracy has been our project leader: she’s an amazing producer, writer, artist, organizer, and performer – a joy for all of us to work with.
We hope these songs will inspire you to a wider range of concerns and emotions than you’ve perhaps associated in the past with spirituality and worship – anger and protest over injustice, remorse over our history, compassion for people who suffer, determination to be an agent of change, all over the background of awe and joy in the presence of the living God.
We hope that many faith communities will find this collection inspiring, useful, and singable in their gatherings – whether in a cathedral or chapel, around a campfire, or in a home. And we hope that whatever creativity we have received and expressed through this recording will inspire you to be creative in your setting, in your unique way.
We hope that each song will give you a lot to ponder and enjoy over many, many listenings, and we hope that singing them will help bring needed change in and through your life.
Plotting goodness – Brian McLaren