Joy To The World, the first Christmas collection from celebrated worship leader Lincoln Brewster, is one of the most anticipated holiday releases in the Christian genre this year.

It includes "Little Drummer Boy," the project's debut radio single, featuring a guest appearance by KJ-52; "Shout For Joy," penned by Brewster, Paul Baloche and Jason Ingram; and "Our God," the worship favorite written by Matt Redman, Chris Tomlin, Jesse Reeves and Jonas Myrin, which Brewster incorporated into Christmas services held last year at his home church in Sacramento. 

 

In addition, Joy To The World includes new arrangements of such classic carols as "Hark! The Herald Angels Sing," "Do You Hear What I Hear?" and "O Holy Night (Another Hallelujah)," among other selections.

 

"Sometimes Christmas music can slip by as festive, and what we're singing about can be marginalized, so with Joy To The World, I wanted to try-as often as possible-to make the music sound like what the lyrics were saying," said Brewster. "We set out to do arrangements that hadn't been done before, a record with a modern edge, capturing a new take. Being a worship pastor, it's challenging to keep things fresh, but I think we got there. I'm really happy with the style and sound of each of these songs."

 

NRT's Bill Lurwick had a chance to chat with Lincoln about his Christmas release and his family's own holiday traditions.

 

 

Yes. Bayside Church.

 

 

We did.

 

 

It actually works pretty well. I think they enjoy it. It's certainly a great opportunity for me to test things. I never tell them what we're doing. If we're writing a song, I never announce, "This is my new song," because I figure they'll be generous so I'd rather them be honest.

 

We just try things and then we hear if it's good or not.

 

 

I did try to put some blues guitar influence, but all of the other tracks, we tried to do something that hadn't been done on those particular songs before. I'm glad you brought up "Joy to the World." That was the one that started, "Let's really rearrange these and make them something new and different." We were having some trouble getting something we really liked.

 

I went, "Give me a second," and I read the lyrics for the song. I was really impacted by the lyrics because I felt like the lyrics were way more passionate and intense and kind of gnarly than what most music treatments for that song give them credit for.

 

I went, "What if we made music that sounded more like what the lyric is saying?" That's what we tried to do with all of the songs. Just do something that was more consistent with what the lyric was saying.

 

 

Actually my A&R guy, Tico, used to work at Gotee. In fact the VP of A&R used to work at Goatee. We got to that section of the song and the guy who coproduced the album with me, Colby Wedgeworth, we were going, "This is dying for somebody to rap on it."

 

We kicked some ideas around and I was talking to Tico and Tico goes, "What do you think of KJ?" I was like, "I love KJ. He's great. Do you think he'd even consider it?" He was like, "I don't know. Let me call him and find out."

 

He called me back. "He said he'd love to do it." We sent him the track and didn't give him any guidance, any direction or anything. Just let him go for it and that's exactly what he came up with so we were really stoked.

 

 

It's an instrumental track and it's kind of a three-part piece. Is this something that just came about in the making of Joy to the World by Lincoln Brewster? Is this something that's been stewing in the percolator for a number of years and you're thinking, "I'd really like to do this someday"?

 

It's been stewing for a while. If we go back several years, one of our worship leaders several years ago said, "Maybe we should consider doing some Tran-Siberian Orchestra stuff for Christmas. Change things up a little bit. We did that and we learned Christmas in Sarajevo. We learned Wizards of Winter and some other songs.

 

Did that for a couple of years and then we actually took and made a mash up of their stuff and really combined a few songs. It got to the point where I was going, "So really it's a conceptual thing. It's Christmas melodies done to instrumental music." 

 

I had some ideas of where it could go. I thought, "Why not just come up with one from the ground up and still use those melodies, but use different melodies and add to it?" The one that people obviously usually equate with TSO is "Carol of the Bells" and that's definitely one that works well in that setting.

 

I worked in some "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen" and "O Holy Night" and "We Three Kings" and a bunch of different things. It was really fun putting it together and try to come up with something that's new and different in a little bit different approach.

 

 

That's a great question. I heard Andy Stanley, the pastor at North Point, said, "In life and in ministry there are problems to be solved and then there are tensions to be managed." I don't think we ever solved the problem of equating work and ministry. That is a constant battle, but I think it's managing that tension in a healthy way is the key for me.

 

There's going to be days where I'm going to feel tired and it's going to feel like work on occasion, but hopefully I can pull myself back out of that. It's not a place that I stay. I really enjoy hanging with my kids and my wife. We try to have a lot of fun and claim those moments, even if it's cuddling on the couch and watching a movie. 

 

We'll watch some of our Christmas favorites. We always do the Charlie Brown Christmas special. I think you sometimes have to steal those moments back. Then probably the last thing would be I think every good thing that we end up doing where we're feeling refreshed and ready to go and at our best is usually driven from some form of gratitude. I try to stay really thankful. When I start to feel exhausted or overwhelmed or whatever, I just start going, "Lord, thank you. Thanks for all your goodness." That certainly helps turn that ship around quick.

 

 

We've got a couple of things. We do a lot of services down at Bayside. This year we're doing 16 services. On Christmas Eve we'll end up doing five.

 

My wife and my kids come down and we all hang out and have a great time with everybody in the green room. Kids love it. We always open a gift on Christmas Eve, at least one. At lot of families do that and have a great time.

 

We come and have Christmas morning at our house and then we usually drive down to Modesto, California, where Laura's family is and spend a few days with them. It's a blast.  We have a great time.

 

My wife is an amazing cook. She always makes Russian teacakes, snicker doodles and pumpkin rolls. Those are the three strictly limited time treats that we get here at the Brewster household from Thanksgiving to Christmas and then it's over.

 

 

Thanks. I appreciate it.