Welcome to Vision's New Music blog for a new week. We have some very good songs that will be featuring on our network as of today which I'm positive you're going to really enjoy.

Dave Barnes: 'Mine To Love' from his Stories To Tell CD released on the Razor & Tie label, 2012.

Dave Barnes is a new artist to the Vision Radio Network, his new CD, ‘Stories To Tell’ is his 4th CD release, so he’s no newbie to the industry. The account of his conversion to Christ is unique to say the least.

Dave is very passionate about telling the stories behind the songs he writes because it’s the ‘stories behind the songs’ that played a vital role in his conversion. He was raised in a Christian home and was a regular attendee at church and was quite familiar with the Christian music scene. He heard the stories that motivated the writing of songs by Jars of Clay (‘Liquid’, ‘Love Song For A Saviour’ and ‘Worlds Apart’) and it was these stories that set him seeking Christ and what it would mean to have a personal relationship with Him.

It was several years later that he was listening to an album by a band called Raze, and at the end of the CD the lead singer gave his testimony. Dave pulled his car over to the side of the road and while sobbing uncontrollably, he came to faith in Christ. That was in November 1999.

His pastor suggested that he ‘fast’ from music for a time because it was somewhat of an idol to him, and instead of making music, write about the messages behind his favourite songs in Christian music. He established a blog, and four years later, he’s written over 300 devotionals based on the messages contained in Christian music.

Dave’s prayer is that his music and the messages contained in them would encourage those who listen, in their own walk with Christ and maybe even to help lead some to a saving faith in Christ.

This particular song – ‘Mine To Love’ – was written by Dave when his wife was about 20 weeks pregnant with their first child. During a conversation with his mother, he learned about a friend of hers who had just given birth to a baby with Downs Syndrome. They talked about how we all have great expectations when our children are born but even the best laid plans can come undone when the unexpected happens, but the unexpected doesn’t mean disaster, rather they’re just blessings in different clothing.

Through the conversation however, his mother made a statement about the babies that are born to us, she said, “This child is mine to love unconditionally.” That statement sums up exactly how Dave Barnes feels about being a father.

Charles Billingsley: 'Never Forsaken' from his Never Forsaken CD released in 2012.

When he was 22 years old, the day after his college graduation Charles Billingsley packed up his red two-door Ford Explorer, attached a little trailer behind it and headed to a church in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina to perform his first professional concert. Almost twenty years later, after 24 records, 17 years of marriage, two children, and 3,000 concerts, he has just releasing his 25th album. ‘Never Forsaken’; it’s a collection of songs that includes covers of “Bridge Over Troubled Water” and “Another Day in Paradise” as well as an autobiographical called “Baby I Blinked,” and an impassioned truth-telling song called “God So Loved the World”. ‘Never Forsaken’ is the title track.

It’s been 8 years since his last solo artist album, and he’s really excited about this CD.  “It’s a plea to the church to look beyond the four walls of our buildings and get out there and love the world. It’s just a reminder to us all–God actually loves them as much as he loves me.”

Charles with his wife Shae and their two boys, recently took a trip to Guatemala with an organisation called Causelife. During their visit they journeyed through numerous villages in dire need of fresh water which set him on a mission to help build wells across third world countries. It was that first trip that became the inspiration for his new CD, especially the title track.

“The song ‘Never Forsaken’ is for those people in the world who are hungry, lost, afraid, malnourished, thirsty, who cry out every day for something called hope...they won’t hear this album. This record is for the people who will hear it and do something about it.”

He challenges all of us when he says, “Give away today, whatever that means. Your love, time, money, talents, whatever it takes, let God use you.”

Daniel Doss Band: 'Stained Glass Windows' from his Beyond My Reach CD, released on Mission House Music 2010.

“My wife and I met when we were in college, we loved God and we wanted to do ministry together; we had all these plans. We got married, we wanted a house, we wanted to have children, we wanted to grow old together, have some grandchildren and go to heaven. That pretty much sums it up. Well we found out that we could not have children, and we struggled through that whole deal – watching other people have children, even people that didn’t want to have children have children and that was a tough season for us.

Slowly but surely God turned our hearts toward adoption and we started walking that road, and I wish you could just walk in somewhere, sign up and walk out with a child...unfortunately that is now how it works.

We felt a baby boy kick in a birth mother’s womb, down in Indianapolis we had a shower for a baby girl and got a bunch of girly baby things, we had countless phone conversations and road trips within that journey and we ended up getting a phone call about a boy in Georgia and we drove all the way to Georgia to pick up our baby boy from the hospital two days before Christmas. We came to a hotel where we had to keep him for a couple of weeks for legal reasons, and we had the best Christmas ever eating at the Waffle House because that was all that was open, with our newborn son.

A few days later we got a phone call and our best ever Christmas turned out to be the worst New Years Day ever and we had to return our son to the lawyers office in Atlanta to drop him off and drive home.

We mourned. We were devastated. We mourned for a couple of months there and finally opened up our hearts to adoption again and got a call about a baby boy who had been born 45 minutes from our house. We took off, we went and we met the birth mother who was sweet and kind, and then we met our baby boy...we met this little guy – Oliver Emmanuel Doss – was born February 21st 2010. It scares me to think that my dreams could have worked out, because they hadn’t I would never have met Manny, that’s what we call him.

I wouldn’t trade any of our journey, any of our experience, anything...for the dreams that God has created in our lives. He took something that seemed broken and made it into something more beautiful that we could have every imagined.” – Daniel Doss

Little ‘Manny’ is of African American parents who allowed him to live rather than aborting him. Praise God!

           Cause were making stained glass windows
           Every piece a different shade
           Broken and then put together like a big mistake
           But when the light shines through the colours form a tapestry
           A hundred different images of how you keep loving me

In this song Daniel is likening our lives to a stained glass window. It’s made up of lots of individual pieces of varying shapes and sizes and colours that have resulted from all the experiences we’ve been through. The majority of them painful experiences. But when God puts those pieces together and His life in us shines through, He produces a beautiful image that reflects His glory in and through us and it shows all the many ways that God proves His love and care for us.

Finally, we have a new song that will begin airing during the Youth Hour with Steve Monro on Saturday night between 9:45-10:45pm called 'Perfect Love' by Allan Scott Band from their Blameless & Free CD released in 2012 on the RadioActive Entertainment label.

I'll be back again next week with more new music info on the Vision Radio Network...take good care of you and yours.

Shalom
Mandy