Review

As a worship leader it is hard not to like anything that Paul Baloche serves up. His newest offering is, "Offering Of Worship" on the Hosanna Music label. This project was recorded live at Regent University Theatre with an all-star cast of musicians which includes Carl Albrecht on drums, Don Harris on bass, Michael Hodge on electric guitars, Chris Springer on keys and B3 and Paul's wife Rita on backing vocals as well as singing lead on one of the songs she wrote. You can hear the veteran production that Paul brings to this project. Everything is clean and crisp and not so over produced that a good worship leader can't do most of the tunes on the CD for a weekend service.

"Offering of Worship" has some really good songs that are very doable for a weekend service. My favorite on the CD is "Offering". I think that this song is destined to become another classic much like "Open The Eyes Of My Heart" has become. This song, like all the really good ones, is very simple and yet describes what our attitude of worship to the Lord should be, in some very unique ways. The melody marries with the lyric beautifully and gives us a song that is really wonderful. Another gem is the very familiar hymn, "Fairest Lord Jesus". Since it is a very sparse acoustic arrangement at the beginning of the track, you can hear the entire "congregation" singing along with the band. It is a very powerful and moving moment in the recording. The other song of note is "All The Earth Will Sing Your Praises". With Easter coming just around the corner (at least if you are a worship leader looking for good songs for Easter Sunday), this song is an excellent find. It is cleverly written and has a great hook that your congregation will be singing well past Easter if you introduce it then.

Two other very good songs on this project, "Arms Open Wide" and "You Prepare A Table" are both penned by Paul's wife Rita. It should come as no shock that Rita is not only a talented singer but a talented songwriter as well, since she has been featured on most of Paul's past works. These two songs in particular would work well as special music inserted over the offering or in the middle of a Sunday morning teaching, provided they would support the subject matter of the day

Yet another great feature to this CD are the free charts and video instruction that Paul provides in the "Enhanced" portion of the CD. You will have to have a computer with a CD-ROM drive to take advantage of this feature. All you have to do is put the CD into your computer and it should autorun. You will find 4 charts and 4 video clips showing you how to play some of the songs on this CD. The really cool thing is that Paul shows you not only how to play the songs but explains to you techniques of fingering for guitar and rhythm techniques that can be used on other songs that you already play.

Unfortunately, there are a few weaker songs on this CD as well. With the glut of new worship music that is available it must be a daunting task to try and find new and unique ways to express God's infinite greatness. A few of the tracks on this CD I feel lapse into some predictability and frankly are a bit uninspiring. It is probably due to the fact that Paul has given us so much really good music that when a couple of them miss the mark, they just kind of stick out. If you are like me and you buy lots of CD's to try and find good songs that will work in your congregation, you will definitely find some really great songs on this CD and it is definitely worth investing in.

Review by Bryan Bloom