Artist: Elevation Worship
Song: “The Church” Remix
Notes: Wow! People’s creativity astounds me when it comes to remixing music! Not only was this an already awesome song, but they made it even more awesome to listen to. I’m really pumped on this! Hope ya’ll dig it as well!
Kudos to my good friend Jonathan over at ChurchIdeasBlog.com for showcasing this song!
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Elevation Worship – “The Church” Remix
The Ministry Theme by Awaken Design Company
Awaken Design Company just released a brand new WordPress Template that we’re super excited about. We feel this template design will serve ministries of all kinds extremely well! Please head over to Awaken Design Company today to check it out. You can purchase it directly from our site as well.
John Mayer and Keith Urban – “Til Summer Comes Around”
Artist: John Mayer and Keith Urban
Song: “Til Summer Comes Around”
Notes: As a huge fan of John Mayer and a fan of this song by Keith Urban (sorry country music fans, I just can’t get into much of your music) I LOVED this live performance on CMT’s crossroads. Enjoy getting swept away in the beautiful harmonies 
The Glorious Unseen – “Close To Your Heart”
Artist: The Glorious Unseen
Song: “Close To Your Heart”
Notes: This is one of those songs that hits all of the major points for me: Ambient, Chilled out, Worship, Great Lyrics, check – check – check! I love The Glorious Unseen and anything they put out as a band. This song actually stayed on repeat at my desk and in my car for like 3 days. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do!
Ascend The Hill – “The Love Of God”
Artist: Ascend The Hill
Song: “The Love Of God”
Notes: Good morning everyone! I hope you all have an amazing start to your week and I hope today’s song uplifts you!
Partial Lyrics:
“Could we with ink the ocean fill, And were the skies of parchment made, Were every stalk on earth a quill, And every man a scribe by trade; To write the love of God above Would drain the ocean dry; Nor could the scroll contain the whole, Though stretched from sky to sky.
As humans we will never be able to muster up enough elements in the earth to explain or demonstrate God’s love for us. He loves us past every drop of the ocean, past the far corners of the galaxy and past all of our circumstances – good and bad. Find peace throughout your work-week, school-week or whatever the week throws at you in God’s love.
Essentials: A killer website and great graphic/promotional design!
Hello everyone! I hope you all are having a great weekend so far and enjoying the things that mean most to you!
I wanted to go ahead and piggy-back off of our last post about Atmosphere and Experience with some things that are just as important for bands, ministries, churches, non-profits and companies. These essentials are a great website, and graphic/promotional design!
As some of you already know, Awaken Ambience is a branch from our parent company where we operate as a Faith Based Web & Design Studio. We build the best online website experiences ever for a vast genre of clients including: Companies, non-profits, faith based endeavors, bands, churches and a lot more. Not only do we craft the best websites, but we also design enticing promotional products and graphic designs!
NOW, WHY IS THIS IMPORTANT FOR YOU? LET US TELL YOU….
Your website and design are the face of who you are! Almost 100% of the time someone is going to see your website, logo, event promotion or something along these lines before they hear anything from you directly.
EXAMPLE: CHURCHES
So, let’s use a church as an example for how you could benefit: A potential church visitor googles “awesome church in Charlotte, NC” and finds your site….this is your opportunity to draw them in, better make it good! In all reality, you will NOT draw someone in with an outdated/hard to navigate/over-complicated website – it’s just not gonna happen, sorry. You need a custom tailored solution that operates just as fluid as your church does….let’s break it down a bit more in terms of a website:
You need a homepage that is just as inviting as your churches physical greeters – a “Welcome Center” of sorts for the web that directs the person around to exactly where they need to go. You wouldn’t want a greeter in your church to point a visitor to the bathroom when they want to go to the sanctuary would you, and you wouldn’t want them to be directed to slopped together or half finished sanctuary – right? So often church websites function like this, and it’s pretty embarrassing for the website owner in my opinion. On the flipside when the “online visitor” gets to the portion they need/want to be in your “Online Church” they need to find exactly what they need and it should be concise and to the point, while laid out in a beautiful way. Don’t slack in your online church, just as you shouldn’t in your physical location – because the more time goes on the more important a great website becomes.
EXAMPLE: BANDS
As I know well, a bands lifeblood is merch sales while on tour. You NEED great designs, there’s no way around it! It’s elementary, great designs sell better than poor designs. What about a bands website? Why not take your concert experience and put it online?! Sell merch online, have videos of recent things your bands doing, music to listen to, a vision statement/about us section. The options are endless, you just have to tap in there to reach the full success of what you’re doing.
The list could drag on for days of how important and vital websites and designs are. But we want you to enjoy your weekend and not be a hermit on our blog all day 
However, We do strongly urge everyone who takes their endeavors seriously to get in touch with us to maximize your websites and designs potential! We’d loved to discuss an option option that fits you best! We have created thousands of perfect solutions since our founding in 2007 and we’d love to add you to our happy list of clients FRIENDS!
View us online: www.awakendesigncompany.com
Brandon Heath – “Give Me Your Eyes”
Artist: Brandon Heath
Song: “Give Me Your Eyes”
Notes: This song has totally shook me the past day or so. It makes me really think, what if we had God’s eyes towards the people that surround us for one second, one minute, hour or day. What if we got off our high-horses and stopped thinking we were better or too busy for everyone else, what if we simply slowed down to take a glance around us at everyone else’s needs? What would we do differently, would we reach out to help the people who need it, would we settle down and talk to that person who has no one, would we look past artificial personas and recognize the needs that are hiding underneath? I hope this song challenges you to try to look at the people around you with God’s eyes and take action where you can.
This Will Destroy You – “Villa Del Refugio”
Artist: This Will Destroy You
Song: “Villa Del Refugio”
Notes: No one does instrumentals quite as awesome or big as This Will Destroy You. And Villa Del Refugio is no exception! This song is so peaceful and chilled out, almost reminds me of an epic movie soundtrack in parts as well. Enjoy!
Related: This Will Destroy You – “Three Legged Workhorse”
Atmosphere and Experience are everything!
As a full time designer and creative director, a member of our churches creative team and an all around lover of good set/stage design I have realized that Atmosphere and Experience are EVERYTHING when it comes to engaging audience/congregation members to the fullest!
* Images took from our friends at Church Stage Design Ideas
During our creative team meetings these 2 points are typically brought up and I fully agree: “We have 5 senses for a reason, we should try to engage all of them.” & “You can either take your wife to McDonalds or a nice candle lit restaurant, both are food – but the setting makes the experience.”….this is so true. I believe we respond differently and on a deeper level when the set design, lights and atmosphere are catered to include more of our senses.
I would highly recommend churches, worship bands and anyone who creates a live experience to look into engaging your audience/congregation on this level.
CHECK OUT THE FOLLOWING RESOURCES FOR INSPIRATION & HELP:
- Church Stage Design Ideas (dot) com: Don’t know where to start in designing the look of your live setting? No worries, our friends at CSDI are where it’s at for all things set design inspiration and they keep their site chocked full of awesomeness!
- Awaken Design Company: I’m excited to announce that we are going to start offering creative consulting and visual direction for set design in the near future! In addition we have always offered any kind of design that could be integrated into a church setting. Get in touch with us and we’d be excited to discuss the options!