After a weekend spent listening to inspiring mixes (and spending more time than we should admit deliberating today), Echoing Green is happy to announce the winner of the Bold Songs Contest.  This was no easy task!! We received close to forty entries with at least eight songs each for over twenty hours of music.  Each entry was independently evaluated by two staff members in a process (loosely) inspired by our fellowship selection methodology.

The winning mix is:
Songs for the Pinched by Rev. Raikes

This entry was a truly inspired collection of music that, we feel, captures the spirit of boldness and creativity. Congratulations to Rev. Raikes on your new iPod!

But, this was never really a contest about “winning.”  In fact, Nancy TWS said it best in the comments following her own mix entry:

I’m guessing that the truly best song list would be a select compilation of the compilations, acknowledging the strength that comes when many good heads come together from different perspectives and backgrounds but with the same ultimate goal, even when the goal is something as simple as an inspiring play list.

Exactly!  There were many different takes on our theme, and the resulting collection of bold song mixes is simply fantastic.  According to 8tracks.com, these mixes have been listened to more than 8000 times in the past three weeks.  We’re planning to keep this page up indefinitely, and we'll keep the comments open as well. While we won't be giving away any more iPods, you can feel free to keep this great collection of bold songs growing.

Thanks to everyone who participated.  We had such a fun time putting this together, and we appreciate the amazing creativity in this community.