A round-up of CAM's recent media showcase

Movies

Being released on 22 October 2013 is King's Faith. This is the tale of a young man, who, attempting to leave his turbulent gang life behind him, finds that his past continues to threaten his new-found faith, family, and future.

Faith Like Potatoes, having been a hit movie not only locally, will undergo a bit of a re-launch - nothing massive, basically just a redesigned cover to give it a fresh and exciting look.

Other Christian movies that have been drawing attention and are worth a watch are Courageous, October Baby, Amazing Love, Home Run and Not Today.

Resources/Messages

Passion2013, comprised of seven messages by Louie Giglio, Beth Moore, Gary Haugen, Francis Chan, Judah Smith and John Piper, recorded at the conference in January this year, is now available on DVD.

CAM also broke some exciting news with the announcement of Passion returning to South Africa in 2014. Keep your eyes peeled to get your tickets asap.

All-time favourite, Joyce Meyer, has released 'Why am I in a bad mood?' to help you discover the source behind every negative emotion and bring you to a place where you realise that the answer is in you. I know you are thinking of "so-and-so who should definitely watch that", but it's perhaps a good idea to watch it yourself first.

And for the generation of tomorrow, Chad Daniel has his Youth Bytes series available for teenagers. This video series takes a Biblical topic and explains it in illustrative and inventive ways, creating metaphorical situations for deeper truths. Look out for Death to Suicide, Friendship and On Track.

Music

On the Christian music scene, the Dove Awards are quickly approaching, taking place on 15 October 2013. The Awards honour excellent achievements in Gospel music and this year's top nominees include Chris Tomlin, Lecrae, Matt Redman, Tamela Mann and Wayne Haun.

Delegates were introduced to the soul-soothing sounds from Matt Maher who released his album 'All the People said Amen' in April this year.

Maher was also invited to perform at World Youth Day in Rio de Janeiro earlier this year where he sang 'Lord I need You' on his knees during a Eucharistic Adoration ceremony, as millions of youths and the Pope prayed before the Blessed Sacrament. Such a beautiful, moving moment and song.

Providing an alternative to today's teenage pop music, is all-girl Christian pop music group, 1Girl Nation. I have to admit, I think it's cute. I'd rather have my little cousins listen to this than some of the other provocative 19-year-olds in the industry.

More new releases

New albums have been, and are soon to be released by quite a few artists.

Locally, Piet Smit has released 'Eerste Liefde' recently, and Chris Chameleon is releasing his new album 'HERLEEF Psalms en Gesange' in October.

'Eerste Liefde' is a solo production with 15 original, self-written songs recorded in the Netherlands. Smit has been in this industry for 23 years and with this album he decided that he wanted to return to his first love, Jesus Christ, and let go of all unnecessary spiritual baggage he had been carrying for years.

'HERLEEF Psalms en Gesange' is a compilation of twelve of Chameleon's favourite psalms and hymns - not necessarily with the traditional tunes you remember while growing up. One of the songs, 'Landpslam' is quite a special one carrying the voices of Laurika Rauch, Theuns Jordaan, Bobby van Jaarsveld, Loyiso Bala, Neville D, the Soweto Gospel Choir, and, of course Chris Chameleon.

A few other international new releases include 'Evening:Morning' from The Digital Age (a group that's comprised of four of the six members of the David Crowder Band); The City Harmonic's 'Heart'; Martin Smith's 'God's Great Dance Floor Step 2'; Steven Curtis Chapman's 'The Glorious Unfolding', NewLifeWorship's 'Strong God'; and Phil Wickham's 'The Ascension'.

There is also 'Sounds of Worship', a full twelve-track album including songs from Martin Smith, Worship Central, All Sons & Daughters, Rend Collective Experiment, among others.

For more, go to www.christianartmedia.co.za.