(Photo :Keith and Kirstyn Getty "Live at the Gospel Coalition")

If music is likened to food, Keith and Kristyn's is filet mignon.  Over the years the Gettys have charter outside the cloister of the customary din of today's Christian music.  Instead of toggling under the subwoofer of derivative lyrics that owes more to secular love songs, their lyrics are richly textured with deep theologically truths without sounding archaic.  In many ways they are the new generation of songwriters following in the lofty footsteps of Isaac Watts, Fanny Crosby and Charles Wesley.  Thus, it is no surprise that they have teamed up with the Gospel Coalition for their latest release.  The Gospel Coalition is a fellowship of evangelical Christians coming together to affirm a Gospel-centered way of doing ministry that is grounded in the authority of Scriptural truth.  This record "Live at the Gospel Coalition" is the first ever live album by the couple that was recorded earlier this year at the Gospel Coalition's conference in Orlando, Florida.  The conference which features speakers such as John Piper (the founder of desiringgod.org), Tim Keller (senior pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church), D. A. Carson (Research Professor at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School) also finds them writing snippets of endorsement in the CD booklet.

"Live at the Gospel Coalition" is produced by Ed Cash (Kari Jobe, Chris Tomlin & TobyMac) and it features 13 of their previously-released songs along with a couple of traditional hymns and a new tune, "Lift High the Name of Jesus."  The Gettys are not bashful to call their compositions "hymns."  Indeed these songs are "hymns" in the traditional sense where the songs are structured along the stanzas and chorus format.  But more than this, these hymns harkened back to the days of Isaac Watts and Charles Wesley where a theological theme would be developed over the course of the song as the hymn unfolds.  Case in point is "By Faith."  Over the course of 4 verses, the Gettys worked their way right through the different epochs of Biblical times where God's people would wait by faith for the Messiah.  When they sing about how the Hebrew prophets waited despite the chains and death of the exiles impending, one can't help but feel the ridicule these men of God must had faced. 

With "Speak, O Lord" such thematic development takes another stellar form.  "Speak, O Lord" is a well-crafted prayer for God to take his word to change us in various different ways of holiness.  And for worship pastors "Speak O Lord" is an excellent song to be utilized after the sermon on a given Sunday.  With the Gospel Coalition's conference theme this year being "Missions," "Lift High the Name of Jesus" expresses God's desire of wanting the nations worship the name of Jesus.  Penned by Keith Getty and Ed Cash, "Lift High the Name of Jesus" starts off with the acoustic guitar strums of a country-pop song before giving way to a Celtic traditional dance so befitting of the couple's Irish roots.  And speaking of their Irish roots, the use of the flute, fiddle and Kristyn's "da-la-la" ad lib in "Oh How Good It Is" makes you want to dance in God's goodness.  And Kristyn actually topples her own studio rendition of last year's "Christ is Risen, He's Risen;" listening towards the end of the song of how she repeats the refrain again and again to a worshipful climax is nothing short of breathtaking.

The CD cover actually says that this is an album that contains both "modern and tradition hymns."  "All Hail the Power of Jesus' Name" and "Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God Almighty" represent the latter category.  Dr. D. A. Carson, one of the speakers at the conference, eloquently sums up the Getty's rendition of "Holy:"  "thousands of voices singing 'holy, holy, holy,' a capella, at the end of the conference, with scarcely a dry eye in the place: what an anticipation of the singing that will burst forth on the last day as ten thousand times ten thousand surround the throne of him who sits on the throne and of the lamb!"  To this we simply add, "Amen."