Commented Fernando, “Isn’t that weird, a Mexican Anglican? When Ruby, my daughter, was born, we were attending an Anglican church here in Albuquerque, and nobody in the church knew about what I did for a living. That was part of what drew us to the church: nobody there that was into contemporary Christian music, so we could go and just be part of the church. Then slowly people found out that I was a musician; I got asked to play a couple times. They finally asked if I would consider becoming the worship leader there. It was perfect, because I was trying to get off the road, because my daughter had just been born, and I didn’t want to be gone from her, I didn’t want to miss anything. It was like God opened this door. We’ve been part of this Anglican church for a year and a half now. Anglicans who are listening take it for granted – but we’ve never, as American evangelicals, ordered our worship or our devotional experience according to the narrative of Christ’s life: Advent, Christmas, Epiphany, Easter, Lent, Holy Week. Every week has a theme, so I’m finding hymns, and having to write hymns, that are specific to those themes every week. That’s just not part of evangelicalism, it’s a very general sense of worship. You know how modern worship is: ‘Lord, I love you, I bless you, I thank you for your grace’. But you don’t have songs that are specific to holy days, like the Transfiguration or something like that – you don’t go find contemporary praise songs that are about that. So I’ve ended up having to write those songs, or find old, traditional songs. It’s really influenced my writing.”
I have always enjoyed his music. A hidden gem.
edh