Belfast, Northern Ireland-based modern worship artist Bluetree, best-known for its song “God Of This City,” releases today its full-length studio album, Worship & Justice, globally from Integrity Music.
The album focuses on corporate worship songs that awaken the spirit of worship in action, fleshing out the ‘avodah’ (worship and work) perspective. With Worship & Justice, Bluetree is committed to pouring everything-their lives, their travels, their music-into building up the church for the glory of God.
After having written “God Of This City” spontaneously while ministering in Thailand’s red light district, Bluetree’s trajectory changed drastically in 2008, launching them on an adventure to share God’s love in some of the most dangerous places around the world. Since that time, they have been smuggled into Burma and protected by an unlikely militant ally, aided in a raid on child brothels in Cambodia and led worship for 15,000 refugees in Mae La, a refugee camp on the border of Burma and Thailand. Bluetree has never adhered to the ‘music for music’s sake’ proposition.
As much as it sounds revolutionary, Bluetree’s frontman Aaron Boyd says it really isn’t. “I think the church finally understands that our entire lives are an act of worship in the Kingdom of God. When we sing on Sunday mornings, that’s an expression, but when we go to work, when we go to school, when we are smuggled into a country to go and encourage the underground church, or minister to prostitutes-that is all an act of worship, individual to God. We carry it everywhere we go…. Understanding that when we love God and we love our neighbor, we understand that worship is justice.
“Coming from Belfast and playing in the local church, having the ability to travel, my eyes have been opened to how transient and fluid worship is,” Boyd continues. “There are massive sacrifices and massive rewards when we all buy in, and it genuinely never stops.”
Songs like “My Redeemer Lives,” “New Creation” and “It Is Finished” featured on Worship & Justice are passionate reminders of the permanence and power of God’s grace in our lives. And as God continues to open desperate doors, as with those in Cambodia’s child brothels recently shown in Bluetree’s “Shine” video, this band is determined to walk through.
“You can be among the most hideous pedophiles, in the middle of an active crime scene, but when you help people lift up truth over their lives, it is a complete joy and honor,” Aaron says. “It has little to do with us, and that’s the beauty of it.”
Taking its music and message to the masses, Bluetree launched its “Worship & Justice” tour in Oklahoma this past Sunday, and plays in El Paso, TX tomorrow followed by two events in New Mexico. For all the latest tour dates, go tohttp://www.bluetreeworship.com/touring/, and to see Boyd skydive into the Big Ticket Festival last month, go towww.bluetreeworship.com/2014/07/epicsummer-2014.
With all songs from Worship & Justice written or co-written by Boyd, the full track listing follows:
1. It Is Finished
2. My Redeemer Lives
3. Jesus, Healer
4. Each Day
5. Magnify
6. New Creation
7. God, You Are Good
8. Rest
9. My Rock
10. You Were, You Are
About Bluetree:
Bluetree, whose acclaimed album, God Of This City, became one the bestselling Christian recordings of 2009, was also nominated for a Dove Award for New Artist of the Year and received Worship Leader’s Readers’ Choice Awards for “Breakout Artist of the Year” and “Song of the Year” (“God Of This City”). In addition to Bluetree recordings, Boyd also released the book, God of This City: Greater Things Have Yet to Come (Regal, 2010). Bluetree further works to raise support for ministries such as Ratanak International, World Orphans and Christian Freedom International, and provides on-the-ground assistance, often traveling the globe for mission work in Cambodia, Thailand, Haiti and Burma (Myanmar).
For more information on Bluetree’s music and ministry, go to http://www.bluetreeworship.com.
