My friends at the Church Collective blog reviewed the new John Mark McMillan record “Borderland” so I don’t have to.

I’ve been a fan of John Mark’s music since “the Medicine”. I hadn’t heard the song How He Loves before that record so I don’t have the hang ups that a lot of people have with it. Since then John Mark released one of my favorite records of the last 5 years: Economy, and now he’s back with Borderland.

The way I view John Mark’s music, he’s a worshiper who makes non-worship music. The majority of his music will not work for congressional church worship, but 100% of his music can help the church. The way I see it, there’s about 1 or 2 songs per record that could be used in a worship setting, with maybe a few others that you could grab for outreach or “special music.” How do the other songs help your church? John Mark and collaborators like James Duke are tone guides for me. Even if the song won’t work for your church, their arrangement, tone, and sonic landscape can be applied to a congregational worship service.

As a worship leader I do John Mark’s songs “How He Loves” and “Murdered Son”. I think steal tone ideas from him and James Duke fairly often as a guitarist, and off the new record, I think Future/Past is the best church song he’s put out since How He Loves.

Check out Scott’s review over at the Church Collective HERE