Browse Artists
Hall, Charlie
Charlie Hall became one of the country's best known worship leaders with the release of the Passion '99 Better is One Day CD. That CD, which features Hall, is arguably the single most influential to the rise of modern worship music. Those unfamiliar with him outside that context will find his sixsteps/Sparrow debut simmering rock with lyrics that invite the listener to connect with God.
The Dallas Morning News has already called him "an American, plugged-in Matt Redman" and his new record, Porch and Altar, "a darkly beautiful album [that's] a relief from the chirpiness that often characterizes praise music."
For Hall, worship is more than part of a music industry trend or something you do at church but a foundational part of his life as a Christian.
Says Charlie, "I got saved when I was 17, in the middle of my senior year. Someone gave me a Vineyard album擁t was a Kevin Prosch /Brian Doerkson CD. I was a brand new Christian, and it was music to go to sleep to. They were short, simple songs to sing to God, and it just hit me. I started to experience them in my heart and life and my prayers."
A few years later while traveling as part of the duo Nathan and Charlie (with Watermark's Nathan Nockels), he would sing praise choruses in their shows along with their own songs and "see people's hearts break open," he recalls.
"When you're a little kid熔r a big kid遥ou kind of go where you're affirmed. And when I was doing corporate worship, it was like God was saying "good job' by coming and touching people," he says. "I still have some songwriting in me, but I feel like some of my primary gifting is as a corporate worship leader."
Aside from participating in Louie Giglio's Passion and OneDay conferences, Hall serves at a church in Oklahoma City, having worked in youth ministry for ten years. He's now involved in leading worship and developing other worship leaders. "It's church where burned out charismatic people and burned out traditionalists come together. My main mentor is there and all my peers who keep me grounded, who aren't impressed with me. I like to be there because if you just go, go , go all the time, you start to see yourself like everyone sees you on stage. This keeps me evened out."
Of Porch and Altar, he says, "90% of the songs we use as corporate worship at my church, but it would probably hard for someone outside our church to grab. For the most part it's wordier-harder to grapple with as far as a corporate song." He sees the album mainly as "songs to pray to, songs to cry out to God to."
The great success of the Passion recordings brought offers of record deals, but none Hall was comfortable in accepting, in part because of a wariness of the Christian music industry. He began talking with Giglio, who was then beginning to realize the vision for a label.
"I feel like I've found a safe place in sixsteps because I trust Louie," Hall says. "Hopefully, I can be in this world and have some cover and not become someone I'm not."
He says his family helps keep him grounded. "I want my wife to look at pictures and albums and be able to say "that's true, that's my husband'溶ot "that's not who you are.' I am comfortable being a dad and a husband and a local worship leader and a songwriter. I'm unsure of who I am and where I fit in this whole world. But I'm learning," he says.
Giglio describes his signees at sixsteps, which include other Passion leaders Chris Tomlin and David Crowder, as artist/worshippers, a label that emphasizes both the creative aspect of their work and the focus of the creativity.
"What is a worshipper? It's more than just a song singer," says Hall. "For me, it's being a good husband, being a good dad. It's taking my trash out, being on time, paying my bills. It honors people, and it means you're being faithful in little things. If I'm being faithful in little things, God's looking at me going "he can take care of big things.'"
"A good worship leader struggles to be about God only, and as he or she is leading worship they try to connect people to God at a heart level溶ot to them or to their song or to their personality. You have some people out there who are doing that, and you have some who are connecting people to them," Hall observes.
He says it's difficult to keep proper perspective, a burden shared between the leader and the audience. "Your flesh wants to be loved and seen, and your spirit has to somehow rise about that and say "no悠 want God to be seen'," he says.
Hall has seen God using worship to "recapture young people's hearts You're experiencing theology, you're experiencing the truths of God as you say them to God, and it's capturing people's hearts and affections. We all have to have the discipline to leave the worship time and walk in it.
"It's a struggle. We're in this world, but there's this awesome spiritual world that we're trying to break into. It's available to us here, and I think that's part of a tension that God creates on purpose. He gives us these glimpses so we go for it," he says.
Hall says that the album comes from a place of spiritual longing. "I'm just starving for God. And I feel so inadequate. I'm trying to learn how to experience the emotions that God gave me葉he full gamut of them. If I'm in anguish, I want that to lead me to God. If I'm joyful, I want that to celebrate God." In Porch and Altar, he's created an album that captures his longing to pursue God and to encourage listeners to live lives of worship.
Visit Official Website.
The Dallas Morning News has already called him "an American, plugged-in Matt Redman" and his new record, Porch and Altar, "a darkly beautiful album [that's] a relief from the chirpiness that often characterizes praise music."
For Hall, worship is more than part of a music industry trend or something you do at church but a foundational part of his life as a Christian.
Says Charlie, "I got saved when I was 17, in the middle of my senior year. Someone gave me a Vineyard album擁t was a Kevin Prosch /Brian Doerkson CD. I was a brand new Christian, and it was music to go to sleep to. They were short, simple songs to sing to God, and it just hit me. I started to experience them in my heart and life and my prayers."
A few years later while traveling as part of the duo Nathan and Charlie (with Watermark's Nathan Nockels), he would sing praise choruses in their shows along with their own songs and "see people's hearts break open," he recalls.
"When you're a little kid熔r a big kid遥ou kind of go where you're affirmed. And when I was doing corporate worship, it was like God was saying "good job' by coming and touching people," he says. "I still have some songwriting in me, but I feel like some of my primary gifting is as a corporate worship leader."
Aside from participating in Louie Giglio's Passion and OneDay conferences, Hall serves at a church in Oklahoma City, having worked in youth ministry for ten years. He's now involved in leading worship and developing other worship leaders. "It's church where burned out charismatic people and burned out traditionalists come together. My main mentor is there and all my peers who keep me grounded, who aren't impressed with me. I like to be there because if you just go, go , go all the time, you start to see yourself like everyone sees you on stage. This keeps me evened out."
Of Porch and Altar, he says, "90% of the songs we use as corporate worship at my church, but it would probably hard for someone outside our church to grab. For the most part it's wordier-harder to grapple with as far as a corporate song." He sees the album mainly as "songs to pray to, songs to cry out to God to."
The great success of the Passion recordings brought offers of record deals, but none Hall was comfortable in accepting, in part because of a wariness of the Christian music industry. He began talking with Giglio, who was then beginning to realize the vision for a label.
"I feel like I've found a safe place in sixsteps because I trust Louie," Hall says. "Hopefully, I can be in this world and have some cover and not become someone I'm not."
He says his family helps keep him grounded. "I want my wife to look at pictures and albums and be able to say "that's true, that's my husband'溶ot "that's not who you are.' I am comfortable being a dad and a husband and a local worship leader and a songwriter. I'm unsure of who I am and where I fit in this whole world. But I'm learning," he says.
Giglio describes his signees at sixsteps, which include other Passion leaders Chris Tomlin and David Crowder, as artist/worshippers, a label that emphasizes both the creative aspect of their work and the focus of the creativity.
"What is a worshipper? It's more than just a song singer," says Hall. "For me, it's being a good husband, being a good dad. It's taking my trash out, being on time, paying my bills. It honors people, and it means you're being faithful in little things. If I'm being faithful in little things, God's looking at me going "he can take care of big things.'"
"A good worship leader struggles to be about God only, and as he or she is leading worship they try to connect people to God at a heart level溶ot to them or to their song or to their personality. You have some people out there who are doing that, and you have some who are connecting people to them," Hall observes.
He says it's difficult to keep proper perspective, a burden shared between the leader and the audience. "Your flesh wants to be loved and seen, and your spirit has to somehow rise about that and say "no悠 want God to be seen'," he says.
Hall has seen God using worship to "recapture young people's hearts You're experiencing theology, you're experiencing the truths of God as you say them to God, and it's capturing people's hearts and affections. We all have to have the discipline to leave the worship time and walk in it.
"It's a struggle. We're in this world, but there's this awesome spiritual world that we're trying to break into. It's available to us here, and I think that's part of a tension that God creates on purpose. He gives us these glimpses so we go for it," he says.
Hall says that the album comes from a place of spiritual longing. "I'm just starving for God. And I feel so inadequate. I'm trying to learn how to experience the emotions that God gave me葉he full gamut of them. If I'm in anguish, I want that to lead me to God. If I'm joyful, I want that to celebrate God." In Porch and Altar, he's created an album that captures his longing to pursue God and to encourage listeners to live lives of worship.
Visit Official Website.
Albums
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Joel's Window
Thoughts of You
Porch and Altar
On The Road To Beautiful
Flying Into Daybreak
