NASHVILLE (Billboard) - One of the things that has made worship music such a phenomenon in the Christian genre in the past few years is that worship leaders come in a variety of musical shapes, styles and packages. Among the more unique worship music outfits is the David Crowder Band.

The six-member group developed a loyal following around its native Waco, Texas, before gaining a national audience with the 2002 Sixstepsrecords/Sparrow release "Can You Hear Us?"

David Crowder and his compadres followed with the critically acclaimed 2003 collection "Illuminate" and just released their most ambitious set, "A Collision," September 27. It debuts at No. 1 on the Billboard Top Christian Albums chart this week, and the band will headline a tour this fall with Shane & Shane and the Robbie Seay Band.

"It's always a surprise to me," Crowder says of the direction the new album took. "I never really know where the things are going until we get there."

That laid-back attitude befits an artist who has a guitar and a beard named after him. In 2003 Anderson Guitars named the Crowder Acoustic after the band's leader, and recently a Web site popped up, growyourcrowder.com, which pays tribute to Crowder's distinctive beard.

In concert, Crowder tells audiences that when mankind's depravity meets God's divinity, it is a beautiful collision. That became the inspiration for the band's new album.

The project is divided into four parts and contains 21 tracks, among them the first studio version of the road-tested favorite "Here Is Our King" and a cover of Loretta Lynn's "Everybody Wants to Go to Heaven." The band even tackles bluegrass for the first time with a rendition of the Hank Williams classic "I Saw the Light."

"We tried to get bluegrass under our fingers, and somehow I think it still comes out sounding very much us," says Crowder, who recorded part of the song with Marty Stuart at Johnny Cash's cabin in Nashville. (Stuart is an ex-son-in-law of Cash's, and the two remained close.) "Bluegrass is hard stuff to play. That was a brand new thing for us. We play a little more lethargically than bluegrass kind of dictates."

During the making of the record, the band mounted four webcams in Crowder's barn to let fans view the recording process 24 hours a day for four weeks. At one point, Crowder issued an open invitation for people to come out to the barn for a barbecue and to sing on the bluegrass number. He admits that his wife was concerned, but he assured her his mother would probably be the only one to show up. He was wrong.

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