Review

"Overtaken" is a new collection of original worship songs from the Christ For The Nations Institute (CFNI) in Dallas, Texas. CFNI is a Bible training center that clearly puts a strong emphasis on worship. Every morning the students meet together for morning worship, and one Friday per month they meet for a "Night Of Worship." It was at one of these nights of worship that "Overtaken" was recorded. This CD brings together the talents of many young worship leaders, musicians, vocalist and songwriters (all of which are CFNI students, alumni or staff) all under the leadership of worship leader Klaus Kuehn.

I'll just come right out and say that I think that this is a great project. This CD has a little something for everyone. It has energetic praise songs with lots of voices. It has deep, passionate times of worship. It has spontaneous songs. It even has a beautiful instrumental song. I believe this variety can be contributed to the atmosphere created by the diverse group of people, from different countries and different walks of life that make up the student body of Christ for the Nations Institute. It is this diversity that makes "Overtaken" such a universally appealing CD.

"Overtaken" is truly a live worship experience where God is the star. From the first track, "The Lord Reigns", the excitement of people coming together to worship their God can be felt. And the celebration takes off from there. After several up-tempo songs, the praise gives way to a spontaneous worship song, "Rain." From there the worship becomes deep and sometimes intense, but always beautiful. It's hard to listen to the back half of this CD and not end up on your face in worship. The worship experience is completed with the free "Overtaken" DVD that is included with every CD. The DVD shows just how precious this night of worship was as hundreds of young people elected to spend their Friday night worshiping God with everything they had. The DVD also includes behind the scenes interviews and behind-the-song stories.

This CD is very reminiscent of the Hillsong recordings of the mid to late nineties in that it is full of energy, not over produced (but by no means raw or under produced) and chock full of great usable songs. Musically speaking, there isn't really a specific style that jumps out of this CD. It's just good modern "church music." I encourage you to check out the online audio clips to get a better idea of what I'm talking about. The wide appeal of this CD can also be heard in the themes of the songs which focus on the desire to know more of God and magnify Him on this earth, which is something every Christian can relate to.

As a worship leader, this CD has great value to me because I'm always looking for easy-to-learn and easy-to-teach worship music. In that regard, "Overtaken" has a lot of bang for the buck. But the true value of this CD goes beyond functionality. "Overtaken" gives us an opportunity to enter into God's presence wherever we are, and that is priceless.

Review by Jeremy Dunn