Truly Canadian worship

Hear From Heaven Live from Northview, 2004.

Hear From Heaven is a double disc of live worship music from Northview Community Church in Abbotsford, B.C. It features a number of worship leaders but is executive-produced by one, Johnny Markin, who also wrote or arranged many of the songs featured on the disc.

Juxtaposed with other current live worship, this disc stands well. It is music made for a congregation, for it covers a broad range of tastes and styles (rock, Celtic, Adult Contemporary and more), and therefore well-suited to diplomatically satisfy a large group’s desire to worship in a palatable medium. For my money, a favourite song is “Father, Our Father,” the second cut from disc one.

The liner notes explain that this project aimed to cross “the linguistic and cultural divide” in Canada, and this rings true when the prayer, “Heal Canada,” emits through my speakers. The greatest victory of this project is its inclusion of the French language, introduced on disc one and continued with an entirely francophone disc two. As a citizen of western Canada, I find our western isolationism, ignorance and intolerance of French language and culture to be worrying and disgusting. If this group at Northview made a concerted effort to “do a truly ‘Canadian’ worship project” by embracing both our national languages, that alone is reason enough to invest in Hear From Heaven and hope that more like-spirited music will follow.

Robbie Mitchell of Winnipeg loves music and Lower Canada.