"It's a long labour of love," says Larry Kunkel after working on his new album, Lost & Found, for the past two decades.
20 years ago Kunkel released his first album called Good News, which is a collection of folk, country, and bluegrass songs that share the good news of Jesus Christ.
"Good News took 10 years to prepare. I have been working on this [new] album for the past 20 years."
Lost & Found is set to be released within the next month. Two singles have already hit the airwaves, including the most recent one, 'I'm Not Afraid'.
"I believe this album can encourage the church, the believers. I believe it's very evangelical to get it out there and let people know about the grace that is found in Jesus Christ," he says.
Kunkel shares that he hopes listeners will play through the album in order, as it was meant to be listened to.
"This album was very thoughtfully and prayerfully prepared, one song to the next."
The album starts off with an old hymn that Kunkel recreated the music and melody for, called 'I Love to Tell the Story'.
He also has songs about God's love, one in the first person of Jesus calling people to believe in Him as the only way to the Father, and another about first entering heaven from the point of view of a child.
Kunkel's believes his latest song, 'I'm Not Afraid', is quite timely given the pandemic and guidelines in place.
"It's based on Matthew 6, where Christ says don't worry, tomorrow has enough worries of its own."
Kunkel continues to lead praise and worship at Christian Fellowship Chapel where he and his wife have been attending for over 30 years.
Recording an album takes a lot of work, and Kunkel has kept his day job of being an auto mechanic for the past 36 years while he and his wife also raised four sons.
"Playing on the road is a tough life to raise a family so I opted to not do as much of that."
While he started writing this record and finalized the title track back in 2002, three years ago, Kunkel and his team went back into the studio to start finishing the project up.
"I view this world as the lost and found. There are those that have come to Christ, have accepted Him as their Saviour. There are lots of people still lost."
Over the years, Kunkel has played his songs at Union Gospel Mission (UGM) to share the message of Jesus through song.
"To be able to play music is still my passion. We're talking about a release concert that is likely to be streamed," he says.
The date and time for the release of the new album and live-stream concert are yet to be scheduled.
Fri, Apr 19, 5:00 PM
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