Chapel Springs Releases Unique Christmas Album

By Christine Rodrigo 

Chapel Springs Assembly of God in Bristow is taking a different approach to celebrating Christmas this year: telling the story not just of Jesus Christ’s birth, but of God’s plan to redeem mankind through Jesus’ death and resurrection.

That story – from Genesis to Revelation – is told on a new CD, Matchless King, written and produced by the church’s Worship Pastor, Josh Wesley, and several key members of the church’s worship team. Matchless King features five songs including several that were written specifically for this project, and new arrangements of other classic Christmas songs.

“We wanted to think outside the box” in designing tools to invite the community to worship at Chapel Springs, said Bristow resident and Chapel Springs worship leader Aaron West, who has been a member of the worship team for about 15 years. Pastor Josh suggested creating a Christmas CD, and as the team worked through the details it realized that a CD would be a great invitational tool and would be ideal as the focus for the church’s Christmas celebration this year, West said.

“The idea was to deliver the gospel through the CD, and give the narrative from creation to the death of Christ, which is unusual for a Christmas CD,” said West, who has some experience in music production, but earned his first producing credit on this project.

The CD will be distributed throughout the community for free, and also can be downloaded for free at chapelsprings.org

Music from the recording will be featured at several upcoming Chapel Springs Christmas concerts. The first concert will take place on Sunday, December 13 at 6 p.m. at Chapel Spring’s Stafford campus, which meets at Shirley Heim Middle School. At the church’s Bristow campus, the music will be featured at all three Christmas Eve services at 4 p.m., 5:30 p.m. and 7 p.m.

Kaleb Weaver and Michaelah Faith also played a vital role on the project – helping to write and arrange songs. Faith, Weaver and Wesley also are featured as soloists on the CD.

Soloist Stacy Riddle, of Vint Hill Farms, Va., is featured on one song, and said she was excited to be part of the production.

“It was great. It just felt like home,” Riddle said of being back in a recording studio.

Riddle, who plays piano for Chapel Springs’ worship team and has been singing since about age 10, previously worked at a recording studio in Alabama and recorded with Integrity Music, singing backup vocals on CDs and doing some commercials.

“Matchless King is about taking the church outside the four walls. We have a lot of gifted and talented people in the church, but if we contain that talent within the building, we’re not fulfilling what God wants us to do with what he has given us,” Riddle said.