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A few months ago I shared on this blog that Sovereign Grace Music was working on a gospel album with Joe Pace, Jr., and the Shiloh Church Choir. I’m happy to report that we’re releasing that album Friday, July 26. We’ve been working on getting charts ready for the release, but we might not hit the street date. As soon as they’re ready, we’ll be making lead sheets, guitar charts, piano scores, choir scores, and backing tracks available. When we started working on this project, I knew it was going to be a different kind of album. But I didn’t know how God was going to work in my heart. Here are three ways working on this album has affected me. My musical comfort zone has gotten bigger. I majored in classical piano but have dabbled in jazz and gospel throughout my life. I love music theory and have a fairly good ear. But sitting across from Jarvis James (pianist on the album), and having him spell out chords for me was a wonderfully stretching experience. As a result of our interactions, I’ve started listening to more gospel music and am starting to hear and appreciate musical techniques, harmonies, and melodies that I missed in the past. For instance, when Joe Pace first sent me their arrangement for the Sovereign Grace song, “He is Our God,” I emailed him my thoughts. “I don’t think that’s going to work. Too complicated.” Joe wisely waited to respond. And of course, eventually I saw the brilliance of the arrangement. It wasn’t as complicated as I first thought. That’s because “complicated” is a relative term. And as someone who has gotten used to the minimalistic harmonies of many modern worship songs, it’s been refreshing to get more familiar with a different way of accompanying congregational song. I understand how Christ transcends culture better. The more time I got to spend with the musicians and members of Shiloh Church, two things became clearer. First, in most cases, our upbringings were really different. Different foods, different music, different relational