Today, September 7, is my birthday so I took the night off from recapping OWN’s Greenleaf, but I will be back in formation next week (and last night’s episode was Campbell Soup Good…mm, mm, GOOD too)! But I still have some Greenleaf news!
RCA Inspiration and Lionsgate, a global content leader, announced Greenleaf Soundtrack: Volume 2 will be released on Friday, September 8, 2017 with pre-order sales available right now!
The soundtrack features music from Season 2 of the acclaimed OWN: Oprah Winfrey Network original series, Greenleaf, which stars Keith David, Lynn Whitfield and MerleDandridge.
Greenleaf Soundtrack: Volume 2 features both emerging and iconic artists performing original songs such as “Won’t He Do It” (Koryn Hawthorne), “Shine The Light” (cast member Deborah Joy Winans) and “Rise Up” (Roshon Fegan) and previously released music including, “1, 2, 3 Victory” (Kirk Franklin), “Heaven” (Mary Mary) and “Better Days” (Le’Andria Johnson). The soundtrack also includes a remix to “The Root,” the show’s title theme, performed by the legendary Mavis Staples.
The full list of tracks is as follows:
Kayce Grogan-Wallace – “The Judgement”
Jekalyn Carr – “Hold Me Close” (She was featured on last night’s episode. Remember that scene with Charity and Jabari? That was a kiss last night, right?)
Kirk Franklin – “123 Victory”
Roshon Fegan – “Well Done”
Deborah Joy Winans and Sean Dominic – “Been Saved”
Mary Mary – “Heaven”
Deborah Joy Winans – “Shine The Light”
Roshon Fegan – “Rise Up”
Koryn Hawthorne (feat. Roshon Fegan) – “Won’t He Do It” (Did y’all see that Gospel Chris Brown singing that last night? smh…)
Joshua Nelson and Asia’h Epperson – “How I Got Over”
Le’Andria Johnson – “Better Days”
Mavis Staples – “The Root – Main Title (Remix)”
GreenleafSoundtrack: Volume 2 is currently available for pre-order via all major digital retailers:
When the pressure of life seems to boil over – and it does for everyone – Pastor and GRAMMY-winning musician Smokie Norful has one piece of advice: take the lid off. This concept was inspired by watching his grandmother make her signature dish of sweet rice. When the heat got too high, the pot began hissing and boiling over, like it was about to explode and create panic. His grandmother would remind him the only way to avoid an eruption is to remove the lid. Like that pot of rice, the only way to avoid an emotional overload is to take our own lids off — that is, to stop being trapped inside ourselves and instead look to God and his grace to show us the strategy that makes us all he intends us to be, and serve him in the way he has called us to.
This is the premise behind Norful’s new book Take the Lid Off: Trust God, Release the Pressure, and Find the Life He Wants for You (Thomas Nelson), which is available as of TODAY. In Take the Lid Off, Norful — who is the founder and pastor of Victory Cathedral Worship Center, a congregation of 5,000 members with three campuses in the Chicagoland area — outlines four steps to take to relieving the pressure and drawing closer to God in the process:
1. Look Inward, experiencing the cleansing of forgiveness and the power of God.
2. Look Outward, seeking for others to experience the joy of living for God and have the best God has to offer.
3. Look Upward and marvel at God’s love and strength to accomplish his purposes.
4. Move Onward, devising a strategy to accomplish all God has put in our hearts to do.
Norful — through detailed explanations and relatable examples — guides readers in understanding that, when you focus on these four steps, the pressure of life goes down, you gain peace and perception, and things work out much better in the end. By working to “take the lid off,” readers can become the people they were created to be.
Interesting Biographical Highlights From Take the Lid Off :
*Norful is a PK (preacher’s kid).
*Prior to his music career, he worked as junior high school teacher in Pine Bluff, Arkansas where his father was the president of the local school board.
*Although Norful was a successful gospel artist, he was miserable at one point and had even stopped going to church.
*Fellow gospel artist Donnie McClurkin was instrumental in convincing Norful to become a pastor.
*Some people who supported Norful in his music career weren’t as supportive when he became a pastor.
*Norful’s GRAMMY Awards are displayed behind his sons’ trophies for karate, T-ball and soccer.
*When Norful became a pastor, he gave up 80 percent of his income for several years.
Check out the Take the Lid Off trailer below:
To underscore the message of Take the Lid Off Norful is partnering with his long-time label home, Motown Gospel, to release a digital-only album titled Nothing Is Impossible. The 12-track project, available Sept. 9, 2017, features some of Norful’s most beloved songs of encouragement and inspiration, including “Still Say Thank You,” “No One Else” and “Run Til I Finish.”
About the Author:
SMOKIE NORFUL is founder and senior pastor of Victory Cathedral Worship Center, a congregation on three campuses in Bolingbrook and Chicago, Illinois. A multiple Grammy-winning artist who has sold more than three million albums worldwide, he has also received Stellar awards; Dove awards; an NAACP Image Award nomination; a Soul Train Award nomination; two nominations for the BET Award for gospel music; two RIAA certified Gold-selling compact discs; and countless other accolades. A graduate of the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff and Trinity International University in Deerfield, Illinois, Norful also served on the board of regents for Trinity International University. He lives with his wife and family in the Chicago area.
Learn more about Norful at SmokieNorful.com, and connect with him
As I watched the daily coverage of Hurricane Harvey over the past seven days, I’ve marveled over the fact that the course of one’s life can change as easily as a watercourse flows. Can you imagine that one day you’re immersed in the regular monotony of life and the next day all that you know is immersed under rainwater that refuses to recede. I’ve been praying for those affected by Hurricane Harvey as they go about recovering from the ravages of this natural disaster.
Even as Hurricane Harvey developed day by day, stories of how those in its path responded developed day by day alongside it. One of those stories you’ve probably heard of by now is how Senior Pastor Joel Osteen of Lakewood Church in Houston, Texas responded. Osteen was dragged on Twitter last week when he allegedly tweeted out inspirational messages regarding Hurricane Harvey but did not open the doors of his 17,000-seat megachurch to Hurricane Harvey evacuees until he was shamed into doing so. It has been a point of contention whether the church had also been affected by the hurricane and thereby not accessible or whether that was not the case at all. A flurry of news coverage was created by this “Twitter storm” which resulted in Osteen granting various news outlets interviews to explain “what had happened was” and for damage control.
Do I believe that Pastor Osteen responded with too little too late and was shamed into opening the doors of this church? Hmmm…I’ve had to think about my own humble and small church where I’ve attended since I was six years old in forming my opinion. If Hurricane Harvey would have hit Atlanta, would my church be prepared to open its doors to evacuees? I don’t know that we would have immediately because a typical church isn’t prepared to assist in that way. When we’ve had snow storms for example in the A, church shuts down and everyone is encouraged to remain in their homes until the roads are clear and conditions are safe to gather together again. So I think it’s unfair to rush to judgment when most organizations aren’t prepared to service people in natural disasters.
That being said, if the natural disaster, storm, etc. continues, a place of ministry should develop a means to minister to its congregants and the wider community if they have resources available. A small church often does not the resources available to minister to people in the time of a natural disaster or otherwise that a large church like that of Lakewood Church, for example, has its disposal. It’s likely that as Hurricane Harvey continued, the staff at Lakewood headed by Osteen would have implemented a plan to minister to its congregants and the community even without the Twitter storm. I’m sure that many churches throughout Houston have been considering their course of action as well.
And that brings me to another point. Pastor Osteen is not the only pastor in Houston and you would think that based on the news coverage. Is he the only pastor that who did not allegedly immediately implement a plan to open the doors of the church to evacuees? Probably not. But since he is well known, he was an obvious target of scrutiny. And I’m pretty sure the people who were already not fond of his ministry which has been referred to as “prosperity gospel” were some of the loudest people criticizing him. And on the other hand, those who were proponents of his ministry before Hurricane Harvey have probably not been persuaded to not support him based on his Hurricane Harvey response.
Finally, for all of those who have worked themselves into a lather regarding Pastor Joel Osteen, my question to them is: What are you doing to minister to those affected by Hurricane Harvey? If the answer is not much or nothing, maybe all of that energy would be better directed inward or upward. I don’t know why God allows storms, literal and otherwise, in the lives of people but there are always lessons to be learned. Maybe one of the lessons from this storm is that we need each other more than we thought we did…
