There’s heaps to update you on since the last edition of the ShareSong.org Newsletter, including:

§  Featured artists JAM, Jahn Petter Braavig & James Furgeson

§  Updated featured songs (so hard to narrow them down to just a few)

§  We’ve cracked the 4000 song barrier (now 4091 praise and worship songs in the database)

§  New email 4Praise.com/ShareSong.org discussion list

§  Artist profiles on the site 

JAM (Jesus and Me) is the creation of husband and wife team, Tim and Michelle Gray. The idea for Jam came about when Michelle observed her own children being enthralled and educated by popular Australian kids’ TV shows, and as a primary music teacher with two young sons was in an ideal position to write her own songs for kids with a Christian message.    JAM has become a popular live act and were recently awarded Best Children's Gospel Song in the 2006 Australian Gospel Music Awards for the song 'He's Good' and was a finalist for another song, 'He'll Love Me', both off the JAM CD & DVD.   Michelle has also written praise and worship songs especially for children to sing.  She aims to write lyrics that are easy for kids to understand without watering down the concept of worshipping God.  

Graduating from a degree in practical theology, James Furgeson set out to make his mark on the world for God.  Ten years later, James’ passion has not diminished nor his desire for reaching the lost.  James believes there is a need for biblical teaching on worship and for small and large churches to see the power of God through praise and worship.  And you'll love his music.  Every song is a punchy, rocky winner!   

Jahn Petter Braavig (or J.P. to his friends) is from Norway, and is brother of Thor who holds the #3 spot for all time most voted for song on ShareSong.org.  No wonder his song are so catchy.   As well as writing and performing his own songs, Jahn sings and travels around Europe with the Voice of Joy Choir.  And by the way, Thor also has another new track on ShareSong.org that we’re featuring this month. 

Featured Songs  

Below are the latest featured songs. Click here to hear all the featured songs (streaming playlist), on the song name to view what others have said about the song and on the artist's name to view details about the artist. 

We’ve cracked 4000 songs!

Christian songwriters continue to come to ShareSong.org to upload their songs (see chart below).  We now have 4104 songs from 592 artists.  What a resource!  What a blessing to share with the 5000 or so visitors that come to either ShareSong.org or 4Praise.com each day!

ShareSong.org/4Priase.com Discussion List

We invited the 26,000 people who have submitted their details to ShareSong.org or 4Praise.com websites to join a Google Groups discussions list.  We hope that this list will help to facilitate a community of worship leaders, song writers and musicians that use the two sites, sharing problems, solutions, ideas, inspiration and news. 

You can check out the hundreds of messages that have already been posted by the 572 members who have already jointed at http://groups.google.com/group/4praise.  Why not join and be part of this very exciting group and then submit your profile, link to your website and be part of the ongoing discussion.

When you subscribe, you can choose to get email for every message or "digest" (one summary email per day) or you can choose "no email" and then just use the website to view and post messages.  When you join, feel free to post a message announcing who you are and where you are from.

Artist Profiles & Song Details

If you’ve been to the site lately you will have noticed that when you view the songs by a particular artist (by clicking on their name in the database) you can also view their image and a profile blurb. 

We hope that this information will help strengthen the link between the writers and users.  Artists can also update their material by logging in at http://www.sharesong.org/writers_update.htm

You can now also click on the song name and view all the comments that have been made about the song. 

Russ has also been busy updating the look and feel of the 4Praise.com website.  I encourage you to go check it out. 

Blessings...  until next time. 

Marty Kendall

ShareSong.org Coordinator