new to you friday–OOAFITYSK

In the comments to my original post, Arron confirmed that Andrew is a Christian church boy, which is nice to know since I have moved from casual fan to worshiper of Mr. Peterson in the time since I first posted this and it seems less sacrilegious if he’s at least rooted in my own denomination.

His latest album, Counting Stars, released this week and it is one of his best—which is saying something. His songs wrestle with faith and hope and the story of God’s redemption. They are insightful but always singable. And they still make me jealous that Arron gets to be Andrew’s friend.


Go buy it now. Go on.

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Usually, an installment of "One Of My Friends I Think You Should Know" sticks with its name and introduces you to someone whose work---whether it's preaching, writing, leading worship, or whatever---achieves excellence. These people also happen to be a lot of fun---have you ever noticed how often the two go together?

But today we break from tradition to introduce Andrew Peterson, One of Arron's Friends I Think You Should Know. I first became aware of Andrew after his appearance at Tokens, and since then his CD "The Far Country" has been on frequent rotation in my car and on my iPod.

I like all ten songs from the album, but a few stand out: "Mountains on the Ocean Floor" reminds listeners that God is always moving, always transforming---even when we can't see it. The title track captures our longing for God in the midst of a land that's not our home, and the beautiful lyric of "More" proclaims, "There is more/More than all this pain/More than all the falling down/And the getting up again/There is more/More than we can see/From our tiny vantage point/In this vast eternity/There is more."

Apparently, in addition to a huge talent for transforming spiritual insights into singable poetry, Andrew also has some kind of connection to our churches, because the CD's liner notes thank a First Christian Church in Florida and........... Arron Chambers! Who was already a friend of mine you should know, but has now been elevated to OOMFIWBSF (one of my friends I will be shamelessly flattering) so I can score some good concert tickets sometime or maybe even be Andrew Peterson's friend myself. I bet he's fun.