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Matt Brouwer
Biography
Matt Brouwer
In the spring of 96, two friends at Prairie Bible College in Alberta, Canada joined together to form a band that would inspire themselves and their fellow students to grow closer to God. The two friends were Matt Brouwer (singer/songwriter) and Tim Milner (piano). Thus, Monday Night Worship was born as a desire to put into practice all that was being learned in the classroom. The elements for an amazing phenomenon were being assembled. Being young and green, and having never lead worship before, Matt and Tim slowly navigated uncharted waters at Prairie. "There was a hunger in us for something like this (mnw) at the school, and though we had no idea what we were doing at first, people forgave our shortcomings; they were just glad someone was doing it," says Matt. In the winter of 1998, mnw recorded "twenty-four: seven", a live worship album that sought to convey the totality of the Christian experience; that worship is a twenty-four hour a day, seven day a week commitment, not just something that happens on a Sunday morning or a Monday night. The response to this recording was phenomenal. The weekly mnw services pushed upwards of 400+ students from the college. Within months thousands of "twenty-four: seven" discs were sold.It was the outside interest in the album that most surprised the band. The international student body took the disc home with them resulting in requests for the album from places as far away as New Zealand, Greece, Brazil, South Africa, Ireland, and Asia. mnw was now impacting people beyond the biblecollege campus, and God was gathering together a group of people who were catching a vision for service and ministry. After another year of growing and leading worship on campus, mnw released their second album, "Swimming", and hit the road for a tour that would last from April 1999 to May 2000. During thistime the Christian Music Industry became aware of the "Swimming" cd through the web site indieforce.com which had awarded it the honor of favorite independent album of the year. In September 2000, Matt signed a solo deal with Reunion Records with full support from the mnw band. Many of the original members plan to continue on as part of Matt's band on the road. With a new CD due in May of 2001, and a year of touring planed, it will be exciting to see God's hand in motion in Matt Brouwer and the community of friends (old and new), who have seen a vision worth giving their lives to. It's a continuing story of the light of Christ shining on those hungry for His presence, and that hunger deepening as more and more light breaks through. Stay tuned... |
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