Disc One:
- Love the Lord
- Beautiful
- Come Thou Fount, Come Thou King
- Let the Church Rise
- Overflow
- I Am Free
- Count It All Joy
- Beautiful Mystery
- Revelation Song
- The Greatness of You
- You've Won My Affection
- Not Unto Us
Disc Two:
- Cover the Earth
- We Have Come to Praise
- Magnificent
- Jesus Is
- Chasing After You
- I Will Sing
- God Is Our Refuge
- Let Your Kingdom Come
- How Can I Not Sing
- Majesty
- Jesus Thank You
- The Song That I Sing
- May the Words of My Mouth
Being a mega-church has its perks. Not only do they have the megabucks to build their own state-of-the-art facilities, acquire prominent network placement, and produce a top-notch worship extravaganza. They also have enough human and monetary resources to boast a beefed-up worship music department—one that writes its own Sunday-morning staples, takes pride in its string and brass sections, and possesses a choir with more members than your average-sized congregation.
Many of the churches featured on Cover the Earth: 25 Powerful Songs from Churches Around the World fall into mega-church category—Lakewood Church, Bethany World Prayer Center, New Life Church—and they're all part of Integrity Music's ambitious Global Worship Now initiative. The online hub exists so that participating churches can pool their resources and local worship leaders may learn about the latest in cross-country and international praise music.
Inclusion on this album doesn't necessarily mean that all these homegrown tunes are congregational winners, though some of them certainly are. Gateway Church's "Come Thou Fount, Come Thou King" and "Revelation Song" are both terrific, while "Jesus Thank You" and "Love the Lord" (penned by Lincoln Brewster) from Bayside Community Church are both buoyant pieces of scripture set to music. And then there's New Life Church's "I Am Free," already a massive hit thanks to the newsboys and others.
The rest, however, is a hodgepodge of passable choruses that range from good to mediocre. Some are very catchy ("We Have Come to Praise"), but others simply fail to engage ("You've Won My Affection"). A few suffer from over-repetition ("Chasing After You," "The Greatness of You"), pageantry ("Not Unto Us"), or strange metrics ("How Can I Not Sing"). Still, it all makes for an uneven yet interesting sampler, one as varied as the different flavors and traditions that distinguish the body of Christ.