It´s been a while....

It´s been a while since I or anyone else in the group ( now I chose the word group....) wrote something here. I just wanted to let you know that we are continuing the work with our new CD, "the Mission Field". We´re working really hard to finish the CD to this summer. This sunday we will meet for rehearsal again. If you want to help us in the progress you can keep us in your prayer.

Thank you and God bless

Statue of Liberty?

There are some things in this world that pretty much everyone of us human beings recognizes, no matter where we live or how rich or old we are. Things like CocaCola, the big yellow M, Britney Spears' music and maybe the statue of liberty...? I was looking through photos I took when I was in New York last June together with Praise unit, and found this photo I took of the Statue of Liberty.



It hit me, that there is another famous statue to which the name "statue of liberty" would be even more appropriate. It's the statue of Jesus looking over the city of Rio de Janeiro. Statue of liberty, freedom, love, mercy, joy, truth...



How many people out there in the world knows about the name Jesus? As many as are aware of what McDonalds is? It saddens me, but maybe a commercial company is more wellknown than our savior himself. How can that be and can we do something to change that?
That is our challange.

Gospelchoir or what...?

When Joakim and I stopped for a burger on our way home from the rehearsal in Stockholm this sunday we got to talk about what Praise Unit really is, I mean if you have to put a label on it. When people ask me what I do musicly (don't know if that's a real word), and I try to explain PU I really don't know what to call us. Cause gospelchoir feels kinda missleading in our case. Is it really a choir or is it a band or perhaps a group? And is it really gospelmusic? We do preach the gospel and the lyrics are mostly gospellyrics. The problem is that in Sweden gospel has become a style of music. I think that many people think of a quite traditional masschoir performing traditional gospelsongs when they hear the word gospel. Well, maybe it's not that important to put a label on Praise Unit but if anyone has a good suggestion let us know.....just for fun.

/ Jakob

Give my praise

Here's a line from one of the new Praise Unit songs:
"I don't wanna give my praise to anyhting not worth praising!"
After the rehearsal we had yesterday I feel very blessed and I want to praise God for giving me the possibility to make music with friends like these!
/Joakim

Food and coffee....

I just realized I had some more pics worth to publish. Particularly the one of Johannes, he looks good, right? With the hunger in his eyes. Some of us went to have pizza and of course we needed some coffee to make it the rest of the day.

Yesterdays rehearsal

Yesterday we met for a long day of rehearsal. We worked hard and the new material came alive with the whole group(almost) and the band. It was a lot of fun and it felt really good to get together again, it´s been a while since last time. Above you see some pics from yesterday.

Bless

The live DVD

Last spring Praise Unit was in Germany to make a live DVD. Though we had little time preparing, we put a lot effort in trying to make the best show possible. It was great fun! When we got to the studio to mix the concert, we noticed that something had happened to the recording. The tracks were not in sync with each other, and we experienced some unwanted distortion on some of the instruments. After days of blood, sweat and tears we finally got it all together, luckily!

Unless you already have the DVD - here's a clip from the concert in Germany



"What is this? This is the best three and a half minutes I ever heard on Youtube, but I have no idea who they are."

"These guys are the bomb! They came to my church in Brooklyn and totally raised the roof!"

"i saw them in hannover too... !!!!!! really really great :)i want to buy the dvd :)"

How to get busy people to be able to meet for rehearsal?

Yesterday we planned to have the first rehearsal with the whole group since we started working with the new songs. Since some of us live in Örebro and some in Stockholm it´s kinda hard to plan rehersals that everybody can join. Ad that most of us have alot of other stuff to do, like jobs, school, family and friends. In the end it´s very difficult to make it work. So....yesterday didn´t end up in the gospelparty we were hoping for. 4 out of 12 singers could make it so instead we cancelled rehearsals for the choir and the band had to make it on there own.



Well......I guess that´s the way it is sometimes. Next sunday instead. Now we have another week to really learn all the new songs.

Who deserves a blessing?

"Who deserves a blessing?". Right now this is the title of one of the songs I am working with for "The Mission Field". I know some people wake up every morning with a smile on their face and say "thank you for one more day", and I know some people wake up and say "I have nobody to thank for anything today". I don't know why it's like this, and to be honest I don't know if I can finish this song, "who deserves a blessing", because I am in the middle of a conversation with a 17-year old boy who is stuck in a situation where suicide seems to be the only way out. He does not know Jesus yet, and it seems like he wants to keep it that way. So how can I write a song about all the blessings in my life when I know what he is going through right now? I don't know, but I hope and pray that you will hear good news from me soon about this boy.
Posted by Joakim

Picture from rehearsal in Örebro

Here is a picture from a rehearsal in Örebro. At the same time there was a rehearsal in Stockholm, with the Praise Unit members living there. We kept contact over the phone during the evening, just to be sure that we were practicing on the same things.

On this picture you can see Joakim trying to find the right singback version, and me and Jakob trying to find the right key :)

Blessings,
Lina

Mission: New CD 2009

We're so excited about the new CD project that we've just entered! Our goal is to release a new CD in the near future, and right now we're busy writing new songs, rehearsing new songs, arranging new songs, recording new songs... can you feel the excitement?

Stay tuned for more info on the project. There will be pictures from the rehearsals, movie clips from the studio, and who knows, maybe we'll even make a competition where you can win drummer Andreas' drumsticks...

Peace
/Johannes