Michael Card's breakthrough came when Amy Grant recorded hisEl Shaddai, garnering him the 1983 Dove Award for Songwriter of the Year. Two decades later, he has a well-deserved reputation as the theologian of contemporary Christian music. Card researches themes as though he were writing a book instead of an album, and sometimes a book arises as a result. Last year's Scribbling In The Sand was both an album and a book on creativity in the Christian life.

Now he releases A Fragile Stone, his look at Peter's life. As Card explains on his website,

Simon's new title, 'rock,' was not meant to signify strength, but rather something with which to build. Peter would be the first stone to be laid of the holy house which Jesus had come to build, [and] of which [Jesus] is the foundation.

A Fragile Stone takes you into Peter's mind with several first-person songs, such as I Left Everything to Follow You:

To stay safe or to follow / you ask me to choose / But how could I fail when I've got nothing left to lose? / Without your call I couldn't make it / It'd be impossible to do / To leave everything and follow you

Guests on A Fragile Stone include banjo virtuoso B�la Fleck, vocalist Darwin Hobbs, and cellist John Catchings (who has played for everyone from Lynyrd Skynyrd, Garth Brooks and Faith Hill to Caedmon's Call and LaRue). If you like mellow bluegrass-flavored music and thoughtful lyrics, A Fragile Stone will be a perfect fit for your music collection; apparently a book will follow soon as well.

Visit: Michael Card.