This past weekend, members of Willow Creek's worship team announced their new album, entitled "Hope Is Not Lost." It's comprised of three songs, all collaboratively written by their culturally-diverse worship team. The songs were written out of Willow Creek's challenging season, as, in the last seven months, their founder and senior pastor, Bill Hybels, stepped down due to misconduct allegations, and, later, the teaching pastor, executive pastor and the Elder Board stepped down because of how the allegations were being handled. To rephrase from earlier, these songs were not written from comfortable hindsight, but rather in the trenches, where many faithful servants of Willow still remain. The healing for which they sing has yet to arrive.
The songs are brutally honest in their lyrics, and the worship team emphasized that they belong to the entire congregation, as the songs were recorded in the services, not in a recording studio. The title song "Hope Is Not Lost," in my opinion, has the most powerful lyrics, while "Again and Again" emphasizes trust. "All Of My Help" has very strong black Gospel musical elements, especially in the ending.
The album is very inexpensive (less than $3) and is available on Amazon, iTunes and Spotify. If you are a group are going through a difficult time, perhaps feeling abandoned, betrayed, and/or helpless, you may want to consider singing through these songs.