Bluetree “Worship & Justice” Album Review

Prime Cuts: It is Finished, Jesus, Healer, New Creation

Some worship leaders fly in first class to a thousand seat auditorium mesmerized by the sound of a sea of thunderous applause and dazzled by the blinding lights of a whole block of house lights as they stand there on a smoke filled stage strumming their guitars.  Aaron Boyd, the founder and lead singer of Ireland's Bluetree, on the other hand, is found lying flat in the back of a fish truck as he is being smuggled across a dry river bed into Burma.  Risking his own life to be in Mae La, a refugee camp on the border of Burma and Thailand, Boyd finds himself playing in front of 15,000 refugees who never have had the chance to worship before.  Bluetree isn't your normal worship team.  They are not into playing in the biggest mega church; they are not into the hype and glamour of arena-styled worship.  Rather, their passionate mandate is to bring worship to the most impoverished parts of the world helping the disadvantaged and the poor find the God who truly loves them through Christ Jesus.

Such a missionary endeavor was birthed into the hearts of the team members when they were playing in a red light district in Bangkok, Thailand in 2005.  Witnessing firsthand how women and children were sexually and morally exploited, the Holy Spirit did a work of piercing into their hearts.  As a result, they wrote their signature song "God of This City."  The song later was brought to the attention of Chris Tomlin who recorded the song for the Passion Conference and also for his own album "Hello Love."  The song soon gain traction with countless churches and has become a congregational worship staple across the globe.  Partnering now with Integrity Music (Darlene Zschech, Paul Baloche & Beth Croft), they have released their first full length studio recorded worship album aptly summing the group's raison d'etre "Worship and Justice."

Given the band's passion for justice and given the fact that justice is a pertinent issue in Scripture, one would have expected to have at least a couple of songs on this record that speak directly into this issue.  Rather, what we have instead, albeit disappointingly, are 10 songs that you would more or less expect from a typical worship album.  This is not to suggest "Worship and Justice" is a paltry record by any means, it's just that the songs somehow belie the album's titular.  Nevertheless, lead single "Jesus, Healer," for instance, is a stand out.  Inspired by Aaron Boyd's daughter who is suffering from Cystic Fibrosis, "Jesus, Healer" is the wisest service a dad can ever perform for his daughter, and that is to bring her before the healing hands of Jesus himself.

One highlight of this record is that Aaron Boyd who wrote or co-wrote all the songs here always keep the Cross of Jesus at every song's cynosure.  "New Creation," for instance, doesn't just celebrate Christ's accomplished work on the Cross but gorgeously traces out how the Cross changes our lives thereafter. "It is Finished" likewise also encapsulates Christ's redeeming work perspicuously.  And it is so congregational accommodating that it lends itself to be a great song to open a worship service with.  While the ethereal worship ballad "Each Day" calls for our praises throughout the segments of our day recalling to mind Matt Redman's "10,000 Reasons."

As far as being a worship album is concerned, there's not much one can gripe over with "Worship and Justice."  But given Bluetree's involvement in the area of justice particularly with the oppressed, one wished he would for a better integraton of the two themes in the lyrics of the songs.      

 

 

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