The story of writing a Christmas worship song, back in 1996--

This last week I was waiting for my wife to come out from the local Target store. She was picking up some diapers for our baby, and getting a couple small things for Christmas preparations. There I was looping around the huge parking lot, with no place to park, and the feel that everyone wanted me out of there way (poor me). Anyhow, around and around I went, until finally I realized, "hey, why am I just being driven along by this crowd, only going in circles. They are just rushing around with no real understanding of the peace of Christ, and yet they are trying to get all this stuff done in an attempt to bring some sense of completion and possible peace to their lives."

Here I was, the token Christian in the crowd, who has a relationship with the author of life. He is the Prince of Peace! What was I doing? I was grumbling. Further, I was becoming impatient with my wife (who was taking the regular 4x amount of time she mentioned she would be spending in the store). So much for letting the peace of Christ rule in my heart. As I started to listen, I could hear a tune ring through my head. It was about Jesus being brought to the forefront of Christmas, and about remembering to worship Him in the season, not just toss the whole Christmas season out because of its worldly expressions displayed by unbelievers. The more I worshiped, the more I found the tune becoming a real song. I grabbed a pen and the back of my ATM receipt.

By the time she had came back out, this song was born. That evening, after talking with my brother about how business and work should support a life of Christ centered living (in all forms of ministry), I sat down and completed the lyrics. Over the next day, I refined it and completed some of the musical parts. Although, I already had my worship preparations done for the week (it was done on Tuesday, and this was Friday), I realized that if I was going to use this song in worship, I would have to introduce it in two days after it was born. I worked hard on it Saturday. By Saturday evening I typed it into my computer worship software. I printed off the overhead master and chord sheet.

Sunday morning, I plopped the chord sheet in front of the band (and these are some of the best friends I have-truly great people). It was simple enough that they found their way through it and the vocal lines were easy enough we actually learned it pretty quick. An hour later, we worshiped, and the whole congregation heard it for the first time. They seemed to really get into it and responded to the worship aspect of this Christmas song. It is written in the SVF (standard Vineyard form) for songs - to God, intimate, love songs. So, while it is a Christmas song, it had definite "handles" for our people to get a hold of it. And folks semed to really worship God - bottom line, that's it.

The song was used successfully for a few years in local Vineyard services. Eventually, I went  to a local producer and took the time to rewrite it with changes suggested by Gerald Fercho who produced a professional recording of the  song for me at his studio.  You can get more information on the song and the Christmas resources that eventually became available from it at :  http://www.kimgentes.com/