KURL Billings, MT // Pilgrim Radio Network Carson City, NV (with translators to California, Nevada and Wyoming) // WECC St. Marys, GA
WWWA Augusta, ME // WFST Caribou, ME // WLIH Wellsboro, ME //
If you’re in any of these areas, please let these stations know how much you appreciate them supporting this single by calling in or emailing them. Thank you!
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE (an excerpt from the official Press Release):
Award winning singer/songwriter John Mandeville has just struck a partnership to have his I.P.O. Records debut “We Belong To Heaven” released in conjunction with Thompkins Media Group. Mandeville is of course no stranger to the charts, topping the adult contemporary, Christian and gospel categories numerous times after penning tracks for the likes of Avalon, 4HIM, Point of Grace, Tammy Trent and a slew of other superstars. His partner at Thompkins Media Group (T.C. Thompkins) has a legendary resume as well, logging in top executive positions at Stax Records, Capitol Records, ABC Records and CBS/Epic Records (where he served Regional Director, National Director and Vice President of Promotions, developing the esteemed likes of Sade, Luther Van dross and Michael Jackson across his blockbusters “Off the Wall” and “Thriller”, the latter of which is the largest selling CD in history topping 40 million units).
Not only does the pairing provide a creative renaissance for both industry heavy-hitters, but also a personal rebirth. In a strictly artistic sense, “We Belong To Heaven” is an ambitious inspirational pop undertaking, that’s just as likely to resonate with fans of Sting as Steven Curtis Chapman or Chris Tomlin, characterized by stirring instrumentation and an even more empowering lyrical undercurrent. And Mandeville certainly means every word of his life changing story that began with an attainment of industry accolades and notoriety, followed by a major label record deal opportunity at the tip of the 2000s that eventually fizzled with corporate restructuring and sent the artist’s life into a tailspin of addiction and marital problems.
“This project really wrote itself as a result of what I was living through, it was meant to be a monument of change for my family, sort of like David wrote the Psalms,” he recalls of those initial sessions. “This was the turning point, the line in the sand, to see all the drama come to a close”. It was my chance to find my heart and return to a place of hope, while also returning to the heart of who I am as an artist.”
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The full press release is available here, across the web, and on the I.P.O. Records website.
We Belong To Heaven is quickly gaining industry support. Read some notable quotes here.
The first single from John Mandeville’s We Belong To Heaven CD on I.P.O. Records is picking up adds on stations all across the country. If you are near one of these stations (or know someone who might be…), please give the stations a shout to say thanks for spinning the Glorify single. We’d really appreciate it and they probably would, too!
KDKR Dallas, TX // WHCB Johnson City, TN // WOLC Salisbury, MD // KCFB St. Cloud, MN
WRAF Toccoa Falls, GA // KHCS Palms Springs, CA // WLJN Traverse City, MI
KCMI Scottsbluff, NE // WAFT Valdosta, GA // KJLT North Platte, NE
WCSE Uncasville, CT // WRVL Lynchburg, VA // WJYO Ft. Meyers, FL // KDOV in Medford, OR
Street date for the CD is May 26th, through Sony RED.
Official Press Release from I.P.O. and T.M.G. will be announced next week.
CD release party is planned for May 26th, and you may be able to attend online.
Keep looking up and thanks to everyone for supporting our music and mission.
It’s been several months since I have posted anything on this blog, due to a series of life-altering events that have turned my heart inside out and forced me to look again at what this life is really all about. Our path has included a move to a new community, new roles there as a worship pastor, integrating into a new culture, and the emotional warhead that occurred in the unexpected passing of my wife’s Father. It’s been a year of simply trying to catch our breath. A number of amazing opportunities for us and our music have also emerged, in the process of these challenges, including an amazing trip to Gold Coast, Australia which resulted in the formation of new friendships down under and here in the States. We’re also looking forward to the commercial release of We Belong To Heaven, on our own I.P.O. Records label, through a series of clearly Divine events. (more on all of that in a later post!)
There are times to speak, and there are times to contemplate. I’ve been doing a lot more of the latter since my last post here. I don’t want to fill this blog with more information. People are already overloaded with that. I’ve always hoped to communicate something of value, rather than fill up more Google pages with what I did last weekend at the store. Nothing wrong with that, just not my purpose here.
But I am back on the radar, and there are so many great things happening right now that I will be posting about here on the LifestyleOfWorship Blog in the days ahead. Thanks to everyone who has supported us through the storms of the last several months, for your prayers and kindness as we have navigated through the fog of loss and change. God has already begun to give us beauty for ashes. My next posts will update all of you on what that looks like.
If you are in that place of wondering “Where could God possibly be in all of this?” as you look across the landscape of your life, I want to tell you that I have been encouraged by this: that Jesus was said to be a man of sorrows, a best friend of grief. Not an acquaintance - a best friend. There is a side to the life of Jesus and His suffering that much of the agenda-driven American culture flies right past. Jesus is the one who said that in this world we would have trouble (John 16:33). Of all the words that existed at that time, He chose trouble. I have found comfort and strength in knowing that God made a decision to experience loss, to know sorrow, to become well acquainted with grief because He knew that was what I would be facing in this fallen place. Jesus didn’t have to do any of that, but He did.
So Jesus endured the unthinkable, by choice, so that we could endure the unthinkable - by choice. Byt choosing to change my perspective on events that I am unable to understand. Where is God in all of this? He’s in the suffering, He’s found with the forgotten, He’s weeping with the broken, He’s intimately familiar with the condition of Man - and I’ve been finding myself in the arms of a God who actually understands my frailty, rather than a strict judge or a God far-removed who can’t be bothered. And as I have cried out at times, “God, why have you forsaken me?”, I have realized that I am not alone in it. Not here on Earth, and not in the Heavens. I realize that Jesus experienced the same question. And for me He answered it, too. There are other people all over this planet going through far worse than I am, or ever will. Jesus experienced it all as we do, and I have grown to love Him even more on my recent path, as I’ve been able to hear His reply to my pain ringing in the simple words “I know.”
Soooooooooo, there’s an update on the long period of silence around here on the LifestyleOfWorship Blog which, I am grateful to say, seems to be coming to an end.
OK, take a deep breath before you react to that title and please consider my explanation.Read this post and hear me out before you light me up. =)
Recently, it struck me that I could not find any place in the “red text” of Scripture in which Jesus asked someone to give Him their heart as an end in itself.The tires were humming as I was driving late one night through the rain - and the thought crossed my mind.Hm…. Could it be true?And if it were true, what kind of implications would that have on my faith?
As I thought about it more, I began to become concerned about this common terminology of “giving your heart” to Jesus.Basically because it seems to be creating confusion for people who only give their hearts, while hanging on to the rest of their lives as they have always been.I think a lot of people, including me, have at times misunderstood the whole point of coming to Jesus at all, and have gone through some serious issues with God and the Church as a result of this one point.
It’s not just about forgiveness, while that is an essential part of a relationship with God.It’s not just about the ways in which our lives have promise of improving as we walk with Him, or the blessings that He can add to our lives.In the words of Jesus, I find it’s more about covenant, about diving into the deep end in abandon and never looking back - whatever the cost. I think that’s what Jesus said following Him would require.
As these thoughts began to form in my mind, I thought about how Jesus called the disciples.He didn’t just ask them to say a prayer with Him, give them a Bible study outline to follow, and release them back to the lives they were living before that encounter with Him.He told them: “Follow Me.” And in many cases, that required leaving everything they had known before behind to follow.He forced them to make a decision, to lay everything on the line for Him. Is this still the message the Church of today has in the forefront?
If I had only given my heart to my wife when we got married, then we would have had immediate issues when my entire body, soul, mind and spirit didn’t come along with it!These last fifteen years or so would have been even more complicated… We made a covenant to bring all that we were to the relationship, not just our feelings.For better or for worse, in sickness and in health, until death separates us. It’s obvious the madness that would have created if I had only given my heart to her and not my life.
I sincerely believe that this point of confusion is derailing thousands of people from their Faith in God, because bringing your heart is only a small part of the picture.But it is often the first impression people respond to at an altar call, or salvation prayer.Love the Lord your God, with all your heart, might, mind, body, spirit…(Deuteronomy 6:5, and again in Mark 12:30). It sounds like God is really hoping we’ll bring our whole life to Him, and not just our hearts in a brief prayer.
I realize that in response to an altar call/response time, often people are given Bibles and info to help them get started in their life of Faith, and I am not being critical of any of those efforts.Not at all.I’m just wondering if we would have better fruit in the long run if it was clear that coming to Jesus is a matter of bringing Him all that we are - the good, the bad, the beautiful - and living for Him from then on. More than our hearts need redemption and change.God is pursuing generations, one person at a time.
I believe that Jesus fulfilled covenant on our behalf, so that we could walk in the benefits of it with Him.The exchange of all that we are for all that He is.This is the nature of covenant: all that belongs to each becomes the asset or liability of both.This is the point of salvation, and why covenant matters.It’s more than God being kind and gracious to forgive us.It’s about God taking our place through covenant, and doing for us what we could never have done for ourselves.Like the wedding ring on my finger, the nails in the hands of Jesus remind me that Jesus was and is “all in”, no matter what it would cost.
I wonder if the post-modern Church would have more “fruit that remains” if it communicated a message of covenant rather than convenience.If the point of it all wasn’t so much about us, as it was about God.If there were fewer books about what we gain from knowing Jesus, as there were on what it means to take up our cross and die every day, as Jesus said following Him would be.If worship wasn’t so much about the songs we like, getting the lighting just right, and the music being too loud or too soft on Sundays.I think that something has been lost in the translation as we attempt to reach a culture on terms of preference, rather than His presence.
So, I guess what I am trying to communicate is that I wonder if Jesus really just wants our hearts, as much as that is a common phrase.We bring Him our hearts, as part of bringing our entire being in surrender to the Kingdom of God.From that day forward, living our lives in worship to Him, and in a way that allows His nature to become more and more a part of us.In a culture where self-realization is paramount, marriage is no longer about covenant but convenience, and where all types of traditional values are being reduced to relativism, it’s easy for the compass to get knocked off true North. Even in the Church.
I know it sounds old-fashioned, even quasi-religious, but I am finding it more and more difficult to embrace a convenience Gospel defined by what I get out of the deal.Nothing about the life Jesus lived was convenient, without a cost, or defined by what was in it for Him.Jesus gave us His heart, but that was part of Him giving everything He was for us.His heart was just part of the commitment to love us back into eternity with Him, whether we liked it or not. Why would we think that He would want anything less from us in return?
This is what a Lifestyle Of Worship is all about. More than giving God our hearts, we give Him our lives.
“Take your everyday, ordinary life — your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life — and place it before God as an offering” (Romans 12:1 MSG)
The winner of a free this month is: Chrissy Nixon!
(Winners are notified directly via email and provided a private link where they can download the CD)
Congratulations to Chrissy, and thank you to everyone who entered the download contest by subscribing to the Lifestyle Of Worship Blog over this last month. Our apologies for an entire month with no posts to the blog, but we are preparing for a move and it’s been a semi-demanding month around here. We’ll be posting more info on the upcoming move, and some other incredible developments over these next few weeks…
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