Days 3 and 4 - Story Writing

#1 · November 12, 2023, 9:47 pm

Quote from Chris Mallonee on November 12, 2023, 9:47 pm
Spent more time yesterday and today writing the story of Redeemer Music. Hope to finish up this evening the story portion and then will work on finding pictures and visual elements if we ever want to release through our website. Here's an updated version:

The Story of Redeemer Music

Redeemer Music is a ministry of Redeemer Church of Round Rock in Round Rock, TX. The church was founded in 2012 with a desire to be a church planting church in the northern suburbs of Austin. Redeemer Music seeks to serve the overall mission of the church by: leading meaningful corporate worship through singing each week, training and raising up new leaders to serve within the church and outgoing church plants, and writing songs by our church for our church.

The thread of God’s faithfulness can be clearly seen through the story of Redeemer Music from the early days until now.

Ministry Philosophy of Music for the Church

There have been a few guiding philosophies that have shaped Redeemer Music since the church was started.

The Sunday Gathering is formative.

We believe that we are formed and shaped by the things we are around. Discipline can actually shape our heart’s affections, not the other way around. Repeated patterns of worship shape us over time. As James K A Smith says in his book You Are What You Love, “The orientation of the heart happens from the bottom up, through the formation of our habits of desire”.

2. The Sunday Gathering is experiential.

Each week our hope for our Sunday Gatherings is that the presence of God is felt in tangible ways as we experience the grace and mercy of God to His church. We also remember that our faith stands upon historic Christian traditions that guide our doctrines, the songs we sing, and liturgies used in our meetings. As that relates to the songs we sing, we choose songs that are theologically sound, compelling to sing, and songs we believe The Holy Spirit is asking us to sing in that particular season of the church.

3. Singing in gathered worship is a spiritual discipline.

As mentioned above, the orientation of the heart happens through the formation of our habits of desire.Let’s face it, if you haven’t spent much time in church, standing and singing songs together seems really strange. It’s not something we normally do in our culture outside of church settings. However, the more we gather and regularly engage in singing with God’s people, we start to experience just how powerful it is to sing out the truth of Scripture together.

If you’ve spent any time at Redeemer, you’ve probably heard us say that singing together on Sundays is both horizontal and vertical. We sing to God and sing over one another. That’s why we don’t dim the lights while we sing, we don’t put curtains over our windows in the gathering space, etc. We want to be able see one another and hear one another as we sing on Sundays. It has been a grace that this idea has so easily latched on within our church body. Week after week you can hear our church singing out together.

4. People over production

Our goal with the music we write and sing is to be faithful to Scripture, grow in our giftings and abilities to tell God’s story through song. We want to accomplish that with those God has called to be a part of our church body. Our goal is that our bands each Sunday would be made up of committed partners at Redeemer who are regularly doing life together. There are times we have to use guest musicians, but that is the exception not the rule. It’s not a budgetary constraint as much as a philosophy of ministry to not hire professional musicians to fill out the band week after week. Incredibly, God has always blessed Redeemer with talented musicians and singers for our Sunday gatherings and to record original music for the church.

5. A people of creativity in a culture of consumption

It’s been in our DNA as a worship ministry from the early days to devote time and resources to fostering creativity within our team. We believe that God sharing his attribute of creativity with us is an incredible gift, and one we should steward well. Using creativity through the arts can shine the light of the gospel into broken and hard places, and pursuing creativity within our church body is another reminder that we are part of the church not to be served, but to serve.

Specifically to music, we’ve been writing and recording songs for Redeemer since 2014. In January of 2024, Redeemer Music will release its 26th original song. That’s pretty incredible to think about for a small, suburban church. All of the songs have been tracked by members of our worship team. A favorite project of mine was the Anchored album in 2016 which had seven different vocalists and seventeen different instrumentalists from our team perform on the album

6. Being open-handed with the people God sends to our ministry

The worship ministry at a church planting church is going to regularly have members of the team coming and going to new churches God is birthing. That can be beautiful, and it can also be really hard. Over the first twelve years of our church, Redeemer has sent out five church plants, and collaborates with many churches in the Redeemer Network we helped found that currently has 28 member churches.

The original worship team had members move on to be leaders at Soma Austin (Redeemer Round Rock Church plant), Redeemer Wichita Falls (Redeemer Network Church), The Well Abilene (Redeemer Network Church). Since then members of our team have gone on to be worship leaders at Redeemer Hutto (Redeemer Church Plant) and we have regularly sent out leaders to serve churches all over our area.

The original Pastor of Worship and Arts, Tyler Daniel, served as the first Worship Leader coordinator of the Redeemer Network and now leads a ministry called Flourish Creative that resources churches with music, songwriting training, and worship leader coaching.

The current Elder over Worship and Arts, Chris Mallonee, serves as the current Worship Leader coordinator within the Redeemer Network and on the board of Flourish Creative. David Duque currently serves as full-time worship staff member overseeing Worship and Media for Redeemer.

I (Chris) am grateful to so many who have served our worship team over the years in such a meaningful way, and I want to list their names to honor them (I know there are some I’m forgetting). For each name I could write so many stories of how they have blessed me and blessed the worship ministry of the church.

Tyler Daniel, Ryan Roberts, Tom Snyder, Justin Hickey, Marc Hernandez, Colin Nowiak, Ryan Kirk, Juliet Kirk, Josh Reynolds, Jason Matel, Austin Bertola, April Lambert, Brandon Padier, Tim Strifler, Courtney Strifler, Whitney Krusee, Ashley Cobb, Jason Cobb, Michael Guillot, Erika Guillot, Joshua Friesenhahn, Kaitie Sucher, Leanna Johnson, Jonathan Hunt, Ron Nord, Christopher Hair, Taylor Kellogg, Sam Orr, Reagan Tippett, Elizabeth Torkelson, David Duque, Hunter Garrison, Wendy Danek, Kat Dokko, Rachel McCartney.

The Mobile Church Years (2012 - 2017)

Redeemer started meeting in homes in 2012 and then rented meeting spaces at a Lutheran church, a city building in downtown Round Rock, and the theater of a middle school for the first five years. There are some beautiful things in the early life of a church that you don’t get to experience as you grow. When Redeemer released its first six-song album, the entire church could fit in one home to have a CD release party.

As alluded to above, we were able to fill out an entire band pretty regularly, even in the early days of Redeemer. The first “band” was Tyler Daniel, Ryan Roberts, Tom Snyder, and Justin Hickey. Chris Mallonee joined that group shortly after the church started.

For the first five years of being a mobile church, there was setup and tear down every week. If we wanted to have a rehearsal, we would have to find a time and place separate from where we met on Sundays. Sometimes this would be at the church office, sometimes it would be in someone’s garage, sometimes just arriving extra early to wherever we met on Sundays.

Three things stand out to me about this period of Redeemer Music.

A commitment to developing singers, musicians, and raising up leaders to be sent out.

If someone wanted to join our worship team, they would meet with Tyler Daniel or Chris Mallonee to figure out their role on the team and where they fit best. There was an intentional focus on developing musicians, and discipleship within the team that was really beautiful.

2. Recording original music

Redeemer Music released a six-song EP and 11-song album during this season of the church.

The first EP, Faithful and True, was released in 2014. This was our first big push to write songs for our church.

https://open.spotify.com/album/1CwHS2lEeFhHGIYgcosRNe

I can’t listen to that album without thinking of the stories of our team and our church in those early days. Though everyone involved in that record would say we have grown as songwriters over the last 10 years, I still believe the songs are really good and are what Redeemer needed during those days as a church. The two songs sang most often in our gatherings from record were “Risen & Reigning” and “He’s Coming Soon”.

Spent more time yesterday and today writing the story of Redeemer Music. Hope to finish up this evening the story portion and then will work on finding pictures and visual elements if we ever want to release through our website. Here's an updated version:

The Story of Redeemer Music

Redeemer Music is a ministry of Redeemer Church of Round Rock in Round Rock, TX. The church was founded in 2012 with a desire to be a church planting church in the northern suburbs of Austin. Redeemer Music seeks to serve the overall mission of the church by: leading meaningful corporate worship through singing each week, training and raising up new leaders to serve within the church and outgoing church plants, and writing songs by our church for our church.

The thread of God’s faithfulness can be clearly seen through the story of Redeemer Music from the early days until now.

Ministry Philosophy of Music for the Church

There have been a few guiding philosophies that have shaped Redeemer Music since the church was started.

The Sunday Gathering is formative.

We believe that we are formed and shaped by the things we are around. Discipline can actually shape our heart’s affections, not the other way around. Repeated patterns of worship shape us over time. As James K A Smith says in his book You Are What You Love, “The orientation of the heart happens from the bottom up, through the formation of our habits of desire”.

2. The Sunday Gathering is experiential.

Each week our hope for our Sunday Gatherings is that the presence of God is felt in tangible ways as we experience the grace and mercy of God to His church. We also remember that our faith stands upon historic Christian traditions that guide our doctrines, the songs we sing, and liturgies used in our meetings. As that relates to the songs we sing, we choose songs that are theologically sound, compelling to sing, and songs we believe The Holy Spirit is asking us to sing in that particular season of the church.

3. Singing in gathered worship is a spiritual discipline.

As mentioned above, the orientation of the heart happens through the formation of our habits of desire.Let’s face it, if you haven’t spent much time in church, standing and singing songs together seems really strange. It’s not something we normally do in our culture outside of church settings. However, the more we gather and regularly engage in singing with God’s people, we start to experience just how powerful it is to sing out the truth of Scripture together.

If you’ve spent any time at Redeemer, you’ve probably heard us say that singing together on Sundays is both horizontal and vertical. We sing to God and sing over one another. That’s why we don’t dim the lights while we sing, we don’t put curtains over our windows in the gathering space, etc. We want to be able see one another and hear one another as we sing on Sundays. It has been a grace that this idea has so easily latched on within our church body. Week after week you can hear our church singing out together.

4. People over production

Our goal with the music we write and sing is to be faithful to Scripture, grow in our giftings and abilities to tell God’s story through song. We want to accomplish that with those God has called to be a part of our church body. Our goal is that our bands each Sunday would be made up of committed partners at Redeemer who are regularly doing life together. There are times we have to use guest musicians, but that is the exception not the rule. It’s not a budgetary constraint as much as a philosophy of ministry to not hire professional musicians to fill out the band week after week. Incredibly, God has always blessed Redeemer with talented musicians and singers for our Sunday gatherings and to record original music for the church.

5. A people of creativity in a culture of consumption

It’s been in our DNA as a worship ministry from the early days to devote time and resources to fostering creativity within our team. We believe that God sharing his attribute of creativity with us is an incredible gift, and one we should steward well. Using creativity through the arts can shine the light of the gospel into broken and hard places, and pursuing creativity within our church body is another reminder that we are part of the church not to be served, but to serve.

Specifically to music, we’ve been writing and recording songs for Redeemer since 2014. In January of 2024, Redeemer Music will release its 26th original song. That’s pretty incredible to think about for a small, suburban church. All of the songs have been tracked by members of our worship team. A favorite project of mine was the Anchored album in 2016 which had seven different vocalists and seventeen different instrumentalists from our team perform on the album

6. Being open-handed with the people God sends to our ministry

The worship ministry at a church planting church is going to regularly have members of the team coming and going to new churches God is birthing. That can be beautiful, and it can also be really hard. Over the first twelve years of our church, Redeemer has sent out five church plants, and collaborates with many churches in the Redeemer Network we helped found that currently has 28 member churches.

The original worship team had members move on to be leaders at Soma Austin (Redeemer Round Rock Church plant), Redeemer Wichita Falls (Redeemer Network Church), The Well Abilene (Redeemer Network Church). Since then members of our team have gone on to be worship leaders at Redeemer Hutto (Redeemer Church Plant) and we have regularly sent out leaders to serve churches all over our area.

The original Pastor of Worship and Arts, Tyler Daniel, served as the first Worship Leader coordinator of the Redeemer Network and now leads a ministry called Flourish Creative that resources churches with music, songwriting training, and worship leader coaching.

The current Elder over Worship and Arts, Chris Mallonee, serves as the current Worship Leader coordinator within the Redeemer Network and on the board of Flourish Creative. David Duque currently serves as full-time worship staff member overseeing Worship and Media for Redeemer.

I (Chris) am grateful to so many who have served our worship team over the years in such a meaningful way, and I want to list their names to honor them (I know there are some I’m forgetting). For each name I could write so many stories of how they have blessed me and blessed the worship ministry of the church.

Tyler Daniel, Ryan Roberts, Tom Snyder, Justin Hickey, Marc Hernandez, Colin Nowiak, Ryan Kirk, Juliet Kirk, Josh Reynolds, Jason Matel, Austin Bertola, April Lambert, Brandon Padier, Tim Strifler, Courtney Strifler, Whitney Krusee, Ashley Cobb, Jason Cobb, Michael Guillot, Erika Guillot, Joshua Friesenhahn, Kaitie Sucher, Leanna Johnson, Jonathan Hunt, Ron Nord, Christopher Hair, Taylor Kellogg, Sam Orr, Reagan Tippett, Elizabeth Torkelson, David Duque, Hunter Garrison, Wendy Danek, Kat Dokko, Rachel McCartney.

The Mobile Church Years (2012 - 2017)

Redeemer started meeting in homes in 2012 and then rented meeting spaces at a Lutheran church, a city building in downtown Round Rock, and the theater of a middle school for the first five years. There are some beautiful things in the early life of a church that you don’t get to experience as you grow. When Redeemer released its first six-song album, the entire church could fit in one home to have a CD release party.

As alluded to above, we were able to fill out an entire band pretty regularly, even in the early days of Redeemer. The first “band” was Tyler Daniel, Ryan Roberts, Tom Snyder, and Justin Hickey. Chris Mallonee joined that group shortly after the church started.

For the first five years of being a mobile church, there was setup and tear down every week. If we wanted to have a rehearsal, we would have to find a time and place separate from where we met on Sundays. Sometimes this would be at the church office, sometimes it would be in someone’s garage, sometimes just arriving extra early to wherever we met on Sundays.

Three things stand out to me about this period of Redeemer Music.

A commitment to developing singers, musicians, and raising up leaders to be sent out.

If someone wanted to join our worship team, they would meet with Tyler Daniel or Chris Mallonee to figure out their role on the team and where they fit best. There was an intentional focus on developing musicians, and discipleship within the team that was really beautiful.

2. Recording original music

Redeemer Music released a six-song EP and 11-song album during this season of the church.

The first EP, Faithful and True, was released in 2014. This was our first big push to write songs for our church.

https://open.spotify.com/album/1CwHS2lEeFhHGIYgcosRNe

I can’t listen to that album without thinking of the stories of our team and our church in those early days. Though everyone involved in that record would say we have grown as songwriters over the last 10 years, I still believe the songs are really good and are what Redeemer needed during those days as a church. The two songs sang most often in our gatherings from record were “Risen & Reigning” and “He’s Coming Soon”.

kherd and Elizabeth Torkelson have reacted to this post.

#2 · November 13, 2023, 3:04 am

Really cool, Chris! Thanks for writing this out to give some history. I’m so thankful for the liturgy and intentionality of worship in our Sunday gatherings, which comes from the fundamentals and how it was created and shaped from the beginning of Redeemer. Praise the Lord!