YFN Collaboration CD (2002): A CFNI Student Worship Album

I dug out my old CD binder, picked one disc I hadn’t played in over a decade, and listened to nothing else for a week. By day four, I was quoting lyrics out loud for no reason at all. This is part one of Rediscovering Music, starting with a 2002 worship album made by Christ For The Nations Institute students for a summer camp I grew up on.

Blog Version

I recently found my old CD case and decided to go through it. This is part one of a video series called Rediscovering Music, where I listen to music I haven’t touched in probably a decade. Some of it goes back even further.

First up is YFN Collaboration, a CD I bought in 2002.

Where YFN Collaboration came from

YFN is a summer camp in Dallas, Texas, held at the Christ For The Nations Institute. I went every summer as a teenager. My church went there often, and later I took our students to the same camp. A lot of moments that shaped my life happened on that campground.

I bought this CD in 2002, and that’s me in the photo from around that time. It was either that year or the year after.

Don’t laugh.

My copy has no case, just the disc, so I’m missing a lot of information about who sang and who put it together. What I do know is that CFNI is a Bible college. Students in the worship track had to create a CD as one of their class projects, and this was the one they made for the summer camp.

The plan for this series is simple. I listen to old CDs all week, let them sink in, and tell you what it was like.

What a week with one CD felt like

The sound hit me first. It’s a live recording, and plenty of worship music today has that live feel too. This one is rawer. There’s still professional mixing, but when I listen, it feels like I’m right back in the IB, the sanctuary area at CFNI, worshiping with the bands. There’s a realness to this album that I miss in modern worship albums.

By day four, I’d been listening to nothing but this CD. I was using an MP3 player, so it wasn’t exactly analog, but it took me back to when you owned one CD and played it because it was all you had. Instead of a constant stream of random sound bites from TikTok and Spotify shuffle, I had one thing to focus on. The music became what was in my head.

The nostalgia was constant. It didn’t matter where I was. When a song came on, I was a teenager again at youth camp, back in the IB, hearing the band play songs I genuinely worshiped Jesus to.

I also thought about back home at church, after my youth pastor took us to camp, when we sang some of these songs in youth group and even in the sanctuary. Going back to that time has been good for me, emotionally and spiritually. It’s also been challenging.

Why music debates get so heated

I often have this discussion with people about music: old songs versus new songs, hymns versus new. I think it gets so heated because when we talk about music, we’re often talking about the music where people encountered Jesus. If you say you don’t like a song, they take it as an attack. They had a real-life experience with God listening to these songs. Your attack on those songs feels like you’re questioning their relationship with Christ.

That’s me with this album. Other songs from that era might be just as good, and so might songs from today. What matters to me is that I encountered Jesus listening to this album so many times in so many places.

Worship music and theology deserve a careful conversation, and we have to handle it in the right way. For my part, I found these songs theologically pretty much on point for what I believe. I really enjoyed worshiping to them while they played. I’ve been trying not to treat worship music as background noise, because I want my worship to be worshipful.

Something happened during the week that I didn’t expect. I’d be relaxing for a moment, and I’d catch myself saying the lyrics out loud, out of nowhere. They had become a kind of quiet whisper in my soul.

Maybe it’s something modern culture is missing. The earworms that stick to us are TikTok trends. But when we’re intentional about listening to a single album, especially one filled with inspiring and encouraging songs, it changes how we view things and respond to the world around us.

Standout songs, and a test with my students

Two songs stood out to me. “His Name” starts with a little guitar solo, and it feels like sitting in a room with a group of people and a small vocal. A lot is happening in it, but it feels like a campground, hanging out with friends, worshiping. “My Romance” is one I remember singing in youth group. It’s impactful and deep, and it’s about the intimacy between us and God.

The opening song has a jam to it. It’s fun and very much of its time, and it was special to me.

Every Wednesday at six o’clock, our students come together and pray before the youth gathering. I used this CD for the worship music during that prayer time. They had never heard it, and we haven’t sung these songs at my church in 20 years. They were bobbing their heads and really seemed to enjoy it. It seemed to have an impact.

For the second round of this series, I’m going to have a student listen to the songs on whatever CD I choose and give me their thoughts. We’ll have a clip of that for you.

At the end of the day, this was a great album. I found myself genuinely worshiping in my office and just chilling in my car, and I appreciated coming back to it.

If you’re a CFNI alum and you were part of this project, thank you for your hard work putting this album together. I really enjoyed it, and I’d love to hear from you in the comments. If you find this CD in the wild, pick it up. I can’t find it anywhere on the internet, and it’s a fun little album.

Check out next week’s episode for the next album from the binder.