CD Review – "You and You Alone" by Pat and Joel Sczebel

CD Review – Pat and Joel Sczebel

Canadian pastor and son, Pat and Joel Sczebel have released a really enjoyable CD in the Sovereign Grace Ministries Overflow series called, “You and You Alone.” It is well named as the songs of this father/son writing tandem are full of Christ and full of Godward thoughts.

My favorite song on the release is the first cut of “I Surrender All” (there is good reprise at the end of the CD also). Melodically, it is probably the simplest song on the album, but very singable and full of great lyrics.

A close second in the fave’s category is “The Greatest of All,” a robust reflection on the greatest transaction in human history – Christ for His bride. The chorus appears to be a re-work of the old song, “Redeemed How I Love to Proclaim It.”

There is a good musical mix on the recording, varied tempos and sounds with some numbers perhaps more prone for congregational singing than others. Although that may depend on how you sing at your church.

I think the Overflow series as a whole puts a little less into production, so you will hear the odd little imperfections of a live recording. It gives you a very nice live feel though.

Thanks to Sovereign Grace Ministries for yet again supplying us with robust theology to sing with all our hearts!

CD Review: In a Little While (by Mark and Stephen Altrogge)

I love the guys at Sovereign Grace Ministries. I love the way the do stuff – and especially the way they write songs.

Disclosure: Several years ago we took a family vacation in Indiana, Pennsylvania so that we could attend a worship service at Lord of Life Church. LOL (recently renamed, Sovereign Grace Church of Indiana, PA) is pastored by Mark Altrogge, and after singing this brother’s songs for many years I had a desire to “see him in action” at his home church. We had a great time of fellowship.

Back to the review: Mark and his eldest son, Stephen, were asked by SGM to put together a joint project – songs written and sung by father and son. You can read various interviews of the Altrogge’s at challies.com and at Bob Kauflin's Worship Matters.

When I first heard of the project, I was thrilled. I don’t think Mark has published a song yet that I have not profited from, and Stephen’s “What a Glorious Mystery You Are” is one of our church favorites. My disc finally arrived in the mail and the whole family has been enjoying it for the last month.

There is a fairly broad range of musical genre in the compilation, from driving guitars to a banjo. The songs centre on the cross and thematically you might be able to lump them all into the “encouragement” category (or, as the web advertising says, they “reflect the hope found where daily life meets biblical truth.”)

Like so many of Mark’s earlier songs, they combine pithy lyrics with very singable, yet not boringly predictable melody lines. I think that may be one of the real gifts to Mark that has traveled through the genetics to Stephen. I have always thought that good worship songs should have an almost “jingle-like predictability / learnability to them, without being mundane and boring. Congregations full of a wide range of singing abilities need that – and the Altrogge’s deliver on this album.

The signature song is a wonderful and interesting musical arrangement with lyrics that bring hope by considering heaven. “And we will see Your face with our own eyes / We will gaze with our own eyes / Full on Your glory, never have to look away / In a little while, a little while...” That thought, “never have to look away” has been one pondered and profited from in the Martin home.

Stephen opens the album with the rocking, At the Cross: “At the cross our debt is cancelled / Paid in full when Jesus died / At the cross our souls are ransomed / Purchased with the blood of Christ / At the cross our sin is conquered / Heaven’s gates are opened wide at the cross.”

I think my favorite song so far (this is so subjective, I know!) is Mark’s “All I Really Need.” This song is one of those really nice matches of lyric to music and its simple message such a fresh and needed reminder: “All I really need is Your grace / All I need to know is You are near me / All I need is You / All I really need is Your grace / All I need to know is You are for me / All I need is You...” What a great thought!

The overall musical quality of the CD is top notch, although I did find a couple of numbers sounding very similar to the Christmas CD “Savior: Celebrating the Mystery of God Become Man.” This might have been due to Sal Oliveri producing both projects or just the instruments used in recording? I don't think it takes away from the recording in the end.

One funny feature of this CD is its unique likeness at several points to a couple of songs off the “That Thing You Do” soundtrack. The first one to notice this was my 6 year old son! It took him a while to explain it to us, but the boy was right! Which is a very ironic twist in this story.

The day after our great visit with the Altrogge’s in the stately-named Indiana, Pennsylvania, we left for home. Well, home for the Toronto-bound means a trip through, Erie, PA... birthplace of “The Wonders” – that iconic, fictional band of the cult classic, “That Thing You Do.” Weird!

Anyway, this is a project I highly commend to you. The songs on this disc are great to sing at your church, with your family, in the car or anywhere else. And like everything that comes from SGM, they will exalt Jesus Christ our Saviour. What could be better than that!? Buy it and be blessed!

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You can download free audio song samples, free sheet music and free lyrics from here.

Buy individual tracks here.

Book Review: “When Sinners Say ‘I Do:’ Discovering the Power of the Gospel for Marriage” by Dave Harvey

Review: “When Sinners Say ‘I Do:’ Discovering the Power of the Gospel for Marriage”
by Dave Harvey
Shepherd Press, 2007
You can buy this book here.


One entire shelf in my office is full of marriage books. Books on manhood, womanhood, roles, sex, love and other issues that married couples face. Now your Freudian side might be asking why that is so. “Does he have a bad marriage?” “Is he a husband set adrift in the sea of great expectations?” Well, it probably boils down to the fact that I am just a guy who, like you if you are married, wants to have a good marriage.

Last week I met with the couples of our local church and referred to those “little foxes” that Solomon describes burrowing into the vineyard of his loving marriage. Pressing the illustration, I suggested that too many of us spend time shooting at those foxes with a pellet gun, when we should be erecting giant walls to keep them out in the first place. To think of it from another angle, what our marriages need is to be laid out on the beach and have a cleansing tide come in. We need the Truth of God’s Word to wash over us in a big way, with each successive wave bringing new hope and life.

This is precisely what Dave Harvey has done in this excellent book. Rather than get caught up in a lot of useless “chicken soup moralisms” or bogged down in tedious particulars, Harvey has written 10 chapters of encouragement. Each chapter is like another wave on the beach, some with greater intensity than others, but all of them washing away the dirt of this world that so often weasels its way into our thinking and living.

The book begins with how we think about God and marriage. That is so essential, and in brief, but penetrating chapters, Harvey details a Christ-exalting, Spirit-empowered, God-glorifying vision of marriage. He then proceeds to consider how our sin wrecks this image... and he wields the scalpel quite effectively! The author makes it quite clear that it is really a “sinner” who says, “I do.”

Yet, he is just as skillful at pointing us to the grace that is found in Christ Jesus alone. And this is where the book sings. Harvey’s mission is not to make you feel bad, it is to increase your delight in Jesus. In my own reading I have to respond: “Mission Accomplished!”

But I think the greatest strength in the book is in describing how grace should work itself out in our unions. I say “greatest strength” but I might just as easily have written, “greatest conviction.” One thing I love about Sovereign Grace Ministries is there commitment to real sanctification – especially through servanthood. This book models much of the “how” that is to happen in a marriage. Not by giving “10 steps for this” and “5 ways for that,” but by painting in broad strokes some of the fundamental requirements of a married sinner – and in such a manner that the way forward is quite obvious to any who dare take it.


This is a book that could be read on your own, as a couple, or in a small group. It does not include discussion questions, but you will not need them! There is so much in each chapter to prompt a lot of talking.

One small area I would alter is in Harvey’s exposition of the parable of the unrighteous steward from Matthew 18. He makes the comment that the second slave in the story (the one owed the first slave 100 denarii) was only in debt about one day’s wages. However, I think most commentators would agree that is far too low an estimation – one denarius was a typical labourer’s daily wage. Why I bring this up at all is only because, if that is the case, then the first slave really was owed something of some substance – about the equivalent to 1/3 your annual salary. To me, this only makes Harvey’s point better, as it intimates that even if the sin against us by our spouse is really quite severe (the 1/3 salary variety – the kind of sins that really hurt!), it is still only 1/600,000th of the debt we owed God! Those who grasp how much they have been forgiven in Christ are able to forgive the worst sins committed against them in marriage.

Without any hesitation I gladly commend this book to you. My hope is that we will see much more from Harvey’s pen in the years to come. The Lord has blessed me with this work!