THE GIFT OF PERSPECTIVE
Every once in a while I remember to stop and take stock.  It doesn’t happen all the time, but when it comes it fills my soul again in a brand new way.
Life has a way of filling up way too full and leaving us feeling overstretched and overwhelmed.  We can get a little lost as we try to navigate the ordinary and often mundane stuff of going to work, raising families, studying, keeping homes…. or whatever our particular strain of ordinary life looks like.  We can become tired.  Our dreams get smaller, our sense of adventure and fun diminishes, and our capacity to risk the ‘reach’ for things that are still beyond us becomes increasingly restricted.  We can all too easily forget who we were going to become when the world was our oyster and real life had yet to take it’s toll.
There is just one problem.  We weren’t made to live that way.
The reason that way of living leaves us feeling like we’ve ended up in a dead end street is because Jesus came to give us LIFE.  When Jesus talks about giving us life He means life in it’s crazy fullness, bubbling with hope, brimming with adventure and excitement.  He revealed what the Father was like when He was here.  We have a God who loves to laugh and dance, He loves to party and include people who find themselves on the outside of things.  He clearly shows us that this journey we are on goes from ‘glory to glory’!!!  We live in the context of eternity, something that we can’t quite get our heads around just now, and yet there is an innate part in each one of us resonant with it’s truth.  We were created with a deep ‘knowing’ that there is more; that the ‘good old days’ are always ahead of us, even when we reach the end of our days on this earth.  And the wild thing is that this generous, fun loving, outrageously happy, extravagantly abundant, kind, eternal God invites us to grow up to be just like Him!!!
So, what do we do when we recognize the traits of ‘dead end’ thinking creeping into our own hearts?  How do we plug our own weary souls into this type of life that Jesus came to bring us?
Perspective is a great place to start.
Perspective has an inbuilt habit of stopping and breathing deep; of noticing the treasure in the normal; of remembering that the ordinary of today is yesterday’s dream come true.  It helps us realize that many tomorrows from now, we’ll look back at the gift of today we are holding in our hands right now, and wish that we had noticed it more, that we had cherished the joy of our children, or our health, or our partners…. more.  And that in turn can’t help but bring us to a place of gratitude.  Gratitude is the most fertile soil we can plant our hearts in.  It changes everything.  Victims become heroes; scarred but victorious.  Those broken by life become walking miracles; living stories of redemption.  The bitter taste of failure becomes the fine wine of experience, and the battleground of loss becomes the very place where dreams restored and rescued are visible to all as they rise from the ashes.
There IS more.
Whether today is one where you feel a little lost in the ordinary, or you’ve noticed your heart get sidelined into the dead end thinking of disappointment, take a moment today to remember perspective.  Allow it to lead you to gratitude.  Drink deep in this moment.  Breathe in the goodness that you so easily could miss in the madness.  And don’t forget to dream.  You really were made for more.

I love the phrase ‘original design’ – it’s a concept that roots and releases, reminding us that we have a Father who crafted and formed us deep within our mother’s wombs, dreaming over us before we were born.  We were planned.  We were longed for.  We were made with destiny coursing through our veins, and given the authority to match.
Each one of us has the image of our Father imprinted on our DNA – we are meant to resemble Him, to carry His mannerisms, to say things the way He does.  I love that!  Whether by design or default, we carry culture.  We ‘infect’ the atmosphere around us wherever we find ourselves.  It’s because we’re just like our Father.
We have been given authority as ‘trusted rulers’ – those who take wisdom from heaven and set it to work in the world.  It looks like life… the type of life that Jesus came to give according to John 10:10, full, vibrant, fully alert, fully engaged life.  It’s because we’re just like our Father.
We spill into every life around us, every person we engage in conversation, every stranger we befriend, every encounter, deep or fleeting – we spill what the Father has poured into us.  It’s because we’re just like Him.
Grace, forgiveness, mercy, purity, joy, generosity, fun, laughter, purpose, light, life – as we spill it, we call it out.  As we mirror heaven, we release it in others.  As we lean into the design as it was originally, those around us, whether slowly or suddenly, realise it’s for them too…. even when they don’t know Jesus yet.  And the mystery…. the more we give away what we’ve been given, the more we find our own hearts filled.
This is the way the Father dreamed it up in the beginning.  This is the way He calls every heart back to home.  This is the way He sets the lonely in families, and ignites purpose in the core of who we are.  This is how He redeems and restores towns and cities, nations and continents.  This is original design.

We are right at the start of building a place of our own for church. It is the most exciting and daunting project all at once. It’s the opportunity to facilitate so much more of what we’re called to do a community – and to create space in our place for those who haven’t yet made their journey towards Jesus.

It feels very grown up!

One of the things that excites me the most though as I look at the steps right in front us now is the opportunity to give again.

It’s the things that are the most important to us that cost us the most. And, in the most wonderful way, they are meant to – even our money!! Of course it never takes long to remember that everything we own has been given to us by God in the first place – in real life, it all belongs to Him!!

What I love is the chance to give back: to shout a loud ‘I love you God’, to offer a renewed ‘I’ll follow you wherever you go’, to treasure all over again the stuff of the kingdom over the stuff around our lives.

When we give, we remember that we are not our own. When we remember that we are not our own, we turn our attention fully again to the One who gave everything for us….and in that moment, everything that we cherish most is right in front of our eyes.

I think creative people spend a lot of time wondering about what could be – they love looking beyond past what is tangibly here already, and imagining how things could be in the future.

As worship leaders we do this all the time – whether it’s thinking through how to develop our bands, or raise up other worship leaders, or write better songs, or whatever it looks like in your context… the list is wonderfully inexhaustive!!

But, what about pulling the ‘not yet’ of the Kingdom into the present? Is there more of the future reality of the Kingdom of God that is for us now? If there is, how do we access it, or release it in the room?  Is this the authority that Jesus was talking about when He told us that we would do the same as Him and greater?

This is something I’ve been wrestling through for about two years – and I am still thinking it through, trying it out, questioning, wondering, dreaming, asking, and seeing more than I thought possible before.

It really is worth getting on our knees before the Lord with this – mostly because He told us to go and do the stuff, and to settle for anything less isn’t really to take Him up on what He’s expecting to see in the fruit of our lives – pretty challenging isn’t it? J  But also because if Jesus said to expect more, then He has more to give us – and if that’s true, then there are people out there who are ready to be healed right there in the middle of worship.  There are those struggling with demonic oppression, who are ready to be set free.  There are those poised to give their hearts to the Lord for the rest of their lives – and who’s to say what they might become – maybe even the most noted evangelists and ministers of our times and beyond!

When I start thinking in these terms some of the fear seems less significant.  I find myself more willing to take the risk.  Increasingly I’m getting around people who are thinking out the same way so that I can have my faith stirred and my mind challenged, and my heart set on fire all over again.

I love that we get to not only ‘jump’ with our actions – but we also get to ask questions well.  Loving God is all about giving our energy, our affection, and the best of our intellect.  Always engage with all of your heart and your mind.  That is what I’m trying to do with this – and I know I haven’t fully grasped it yet!!

I’d love to hear what you think…

The older I get the more comfortable I become with who I am, and the less stressed I get about who I’m not.  It’s not something I’ve always been very good at, but I’m loving the freedom of starting to grow in it.

For such a long time I spent far too much of my energy trying to compensate for the things I’m just plain bad at.  It sort of felt like my way of apologising to the world at large for my weaknesses – ‘I’m sorry I’m so bad at this, but at least I’m working really hard at fixing it’.

About three years ago now I read a life changing book – ‘Now discover your strengths’ by Markus Buckingham.  His basic premise is that you were uniquely made to bring your strengths to the table, and not allow the things you find difficult to take you hostage in the process.

Something catalytic happens in our hearts when we start to recognise that, whilst we can’t ignore the things we find hard, we were made to spend our lives bringing what we are good at, what we love doing most to the table.  Another reason why I love the church so much – because it’s the most brilliant reminder that we are not meant to be ‘all singing, all dancing’ individuals, we were made for community, to be the body as a group of people, each with different strengths.  It’s only when we give most of our time to the things that we thrive in, that we get to cover the things others aren’t so good at, and they in turn do the same for us.

What do you think is the role of contemporary worship songs in the Church today? Why are they so important to this generation?

Contemporary worship songs give voice to this generation of people, with the very specific life circumstances we face, aware of the world in which we specifically live – helping us remember that the God generations before us have served for thousands of years, is just as vibrantly alive and real now as He was then.

It makes sense of relationship – because He is still alive and vibrantly involved in our lives, it makes perfect sense that we would speak to Him and sing to Him with our own songs. The divine invitation into relationship with God longs for response – songs have always been about response (whether to God, or love, or pain, struggle, hardship, or to celebrate, to highlight the need for justice – whatever the song is about – it is born from response. That’s one of the things I love the most about writing new songs – it’s a fresh response to the ancient of days who so incredibly loves me…

It’s also an opportunity to reflect some of the creativity that is so integral to God’s character. I love that he is an utterly abundant God – thoroughly creative! We live right on the Atlantic ocean here – it is ruggedly and stunningly beautiful – so, every day, we get to catch a glimpse of God the great creator – and in that glimpse we get to see how richly abundant he is – how generous he is with the gifts he gives. Songs in that sense are a little like gifts – ones’ that he gives the gift of idea to us, and we get to offer the gift of crafted songs to him.

So, in a nutshell, I think the role of contemporary worship songs in the church today is to give voice to this generation (both globally and locally – expressing the real stuff of worship, of lives lived in submission in the real world we find ourselves in). I think they are a God given form of response – of responding to our vibrantly alive King in our own words, with melodies that touch our hearts as much as they touch his. And thirdly, I think they give us the opportunity to reflect a little of the majestic character of our Creator – calling us to be creative too.

How have the troubles in Northern Ireland influenced the Church in N.I., and what role has contemporary worship music played in healing the hearts there?

Because I grew up here (and so, have nothing to properly compare it with), I’m not sure how the troubles have affected the church – they certainly affected the people living here. I grew up knowing that bombs could go off at any time – but I had a deep sense that God would look after us – and so, it didn’t seem that strange that terrorism was so prevalent – obviously it didn’t seem good – but it was our normality, so we just got on with it.

Others had a terrible time – losing loved ones, or bearing the literal scars of being shot, or being caught in an explosion. For them, a lot of them had to come to terms with loving God, and yet being exposed to the effects of evil – it rocks security – it brings up deep questions – I think, it was and is a stark reminder that we live in a fallen world, but we worship a faithful God – that exposure to evil and effects doesn’t in any way reduce God to something or someone less faithful, or protecting, or trustworthy than He is.

And so, it’s in that context that worship music finds itself here. Personally, I think songs that are the most helpful in this, or any situation in the real world, are ones that are real with God. David did it powerfully in the Psalms – he just let it all out – but it was from a place of deep conviction that God was good, that He was faithful, that he was to be trusted – and so, without ever denying that, David would just let rip. He would tell God his disappointments, he would ask if God was listening, he would say what he really thought of his enemies, and what he would like God to do to them!!! He was honest – but notice, that all of his honesty always led him back to the place of surrender and of praise. He knew God. God knew him, and the motivation of his heart – and that’s what made his worship acceptable.

In this context, songs that help people heal are songs that recognize the pain, and that take that pain to cross again (the place where they are confronted and comforted by the suffering servant – the King of glory poured out for us). They are the songs that remind us that God sees, and that He has made provision. They are the songs that, whilst steeped in the reality of pain, are rooted in the good future that God has for those who love him.

I think they are the songs that connect with so many across the face of the earth – because pain is simply something relative to our situations – we all face it, we all have to learn how to deal with it, and we all need to be brought back to Jesus again if we are to find healing, and if we are going to continue to grow in our relationship with him for as long as we are alive.

I don’t know about you – but I find that my life fills up at a rather alarming rate!! I have a terrible habit of believing that every new season I’m working towards will be lived at a little less breakneck speed than the current one – and then the reality of the new season comes, and it’s just as busy as before. SO – I’ve come to the conclusion that there is no ‘easier’ pace coming, and armed with that new awareness I’m learning to rest on the move.

This is something I’ve written on a few times before, but I’m convinced it’s worth repeating!! The truth is we are meant to live this life out ‘full’ and ‘filled’, but we have to get really intentional with our time and planning if we are going to make that happen. It doesn’t come naturally ☺.

Some of the ways we do this as a family are things like planning a great holiday once a year (sometimes twice if it’s an especially busy time!!). We love the sunshine – so we always try to go off somewhere warm. But even if you can’t do that, just plan a little get away time every year. If you put it in the diary far enough in advance then you can take even a couple of weeks and work in all the other stuff of life and jobs etc around it.

We also go out every Friday night with our girls for dinner. Our daughters are eight and five – and this is one of their highlights of the week!! They love the routine: that they can really look forward to it every week; and they love the ‘treat’ of it – it never gets tired for them!

Alan and I try to go out for a breakfast once a week just on our own when the kids are at school, (and we nearly always try and sneak another time in a week for a coffee on our own as well!) My husband is still my favourite person in the world to be with, and I treasure those times with him!! It’s so important to foster that closeness on purpose, and I would love to encourage you to do the same. It might look different for you, but it’s worth the effort of finding a way to make it work.

Even though these are just some of the ways we ‘plan revenge on the busy times’ as Bill Hybels so beautifully put it, we are constantly on the look out for other ways to connect as a family, as a couple, and our own with God too.

Life will always be busy, but there is such opportunity along the way to relish the relationships we hold the closest . Why not take a little time today to think how you would love the pace of your life to look in a year’s time, and then think about some changes you can make now, even they are only small, that will help move you towards that.

When you are actually standing in front of a group of people, the practical stuff of leading kicks in. And the first question I want us to consider is this:

‘Who is it we are leading in worship?’

The way we lead, the songs we are going to use, even the musicians we’ll need, all depend on who we are leading and the context we are leading them in.

If you are leading a small group of people in a home, you might only need three or four songs, you’ll probably only have one instrument (or maybe two), and the opportunity to use spontaneous song will either be really big (if the group loves to sing and improvise), or really limited (if the group doesn’t feel all that comfortable singing in front of each other).

Our role is to facilitate worship for others. We are there to serve!!!

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Next we need to ask…
· how much time do we have, (you can count 5 mins per song)
· what songs do the group know, try to include stuff that’s being used in church)
· is there a theme running through the teaching (this can really help people express what they are learning – it’s good for the leader and everyone in group)

Then we can start choosing a set and working through a rehearsal.

If we really are there to facilitate worship for everyone else in the room, we’ve got to make sure that 90% of the people there, know about 90% of the songs (or more).

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There’s nothing more discouraging than leading worship and everyone just looking at you! But sometimes as worship leaders we can mistake this for lack of interest in engaging with God. Actually, that’s not always the case…

I remember visiting a church in England one time. I was so excited about going, because I wasn’t leading worship, and the worship guys there are known the world over for being absolutely wonderful – I couldn’t wait to meet with God. But, when the worship started, I didn’t know any of the songs (and I was standing at the back – and in my short state, I couldn’t see any of the words on the screen to join in). I was SO gutted, I just couldn’t join in.

If anyone had seen me, they would have totally assumed that I wasn’t all that interested in worshipping – but they wouldn’t have been further from the truth if that’s what they thought.

That experience taught me a really valuable lesson.

Accessibility is a massive part of people being able to enter in.

What that means in practical terms is -

· Don’t use too many new songs

· don’t do too much spontaneous song in a set

…because not everyone knows what to do. Most people will love just 30 seconds or a minute of ‘off the cuff’ worship expression to God that isn’t ‘in the script’, but after that, those who don’t LOVE to sing, or those who don’t have the words of their own anymore, won’t be able to join in, and we’ll be off on this little trip without the group with us – we’ll have stopped being facilitators – we’ll have stopped doing our jobs. Just keep an eye on how the group is doing, and wrap the spontaneous part up before people start to disengage.

We walk a fine line between passion and restraint in this whole area…

…if we go too far down the passion side, we don’t bring everyone with us. If we go too far down the line of restraint, we leave the Holy Spirit at the door – and as worship leaders, neither of those things are something we want to do.

Sometimes we’ll get this right, and sometimes we’ll get it wrong…we just have to commit to the tension.

Just one other thing on the practical side of using spontaneaty in worship – practise it. I know that sounds the opposite of what you should do, but you need to know what you are doing so that you don’t get lost – this is even more true if you are playing with someone else!

If I’m playing with a band, or even one other person, and I want to do some spontaneous singing, I make sure that we all know a certain chord progression that we’ll come to after the verses or at the end of the song. Then no one needs to panic if I start to sing at that point, because we’ve agreed it before hand… it all adds to the safety element.

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When we are choosing songs – we need to think about theme and feel.

As a busy mum of two young children, I have a new appreciation of what life is like on a Thursday evening (or any night for that matter), for the average person coming to a group in our church.

Contrary to popular belief, they haven’t been cooked a beautiful dinner, and been soothingly eased through the evening with classical music in the background! There’s probably been screaming children, dirty nappies, potato and beans splattered on the kitchen walls, bath time brawls between siblings, time going far faster than normal, headaches brewing, sleepy kids refusing to go to bed… and then we get out the door, just make it to group on time, and worship leader gets up and starts the set with three totally intimate songs, and we’ve not had any time to catch our breath and refocus.

Give people the opportunity to refocus and create space for them to meet with God.

Most people actually need a ‘call to worship’ of some description (whether that be lyrically, or just musically), in other words, they need some time to think about who God is again, and generally, a faster song really helps to do this.

When I’m leading, I try to think of the journey of worship that we are going to embark on together. It’s not always the same, but I really try to start off with something that refocuses us, I love to spend some time declaring who God is, and celebrating what He has done for us (like ‘Come now is the time’, or ‘Over all the earth’).

Then after a couple of songs, we might do a song that expresses our need for God – maybe something that has petition at its core (like ‘Hungry’, or ‘I lift my eyes up’, or ‘Fall on me’ – there are LOTS of songs to choose from).

Then I love it when a set ends up in intimacy – we are a people chosen and marked by God’s love, and we are in love with Him – it’s wonderful to come to that place again every time we worship together (there are millions of songs like this!!!).

Theme wise, it can be really helpful for the leader of the group, if we tie in what is being talked about, with what is being sung. Sometimes this happens anyway, even when we don’t plan it – but there is nothing wrong with sitting down and working stuff like that out together.

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Working out a ‘flow’ in worship…

· Think about transition

One of the things that keeps interest, and also helps with the sense of safety that we talked about before, is the transition between songs that we use. Not every song needs to join seamlessly with the next one, but it’s wonderful when that happens a bit throughout a set.

I nearly always do this a bit too much, because I like it so much…but you really can have spaces of silence too.

· When you do pause in between songs, try to make sure that the gaps aren’t too big

otherwise people will start to wonder if the set is over, and if they are standing with their arms raised, they might start to feel a little self conscious that they are the only one in the room who hasn’t realised that it’s over – it can be hard for that person to re-engage.

· Be mindful of time constraints.

There is more to a meeting than the singing part – and even though, we love it, it’s not even the most important thing that happens – what we do is only part of the whole.

You can lead just as incredible a time of worship in 20 mins, as you can in an hour…you don’t have to run over – in fact it’s a beautifully respectful thing to do to stay within the time bracket available to you… (sometimes this will be more flexible in a group setting, but chat it over with your group leader first).

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Moving on to one of my favourites…

One of the main aspects of creating a safe place in worship that happens long before we get into the meeting we are leading in – is REHEARSAL.

Whether we are leading alone, or with a band, we need to rehearse. As the leader, we need to know that we know both what we are doing, and exactly what the other person (or people) are going to be doing too! If we don’t, we run the risk of it all falling apart – and that risk will be ‘felt’ by the people there…they in turn, won’t feel safe to go for it.

‘One of the things I’m striving for as a worship leader is to have ‘intimacy’ and ‘excellence’ as my goal posts.’

I want it to be the very best at every level it can be – a sweet offering to the Lord in terms of the heart brought to it, AND the very best that I can bring musically too. I think that honours Him.

We can’t have musical excellence without putting the work in

Allow yourself to be critiqued. This is an awesome way to learn – we can be too close to what’s going on to really hear what is happening – we need the help of our leaders to become better leaders ourselves.

Work hard on relationships. If you are in a group where everyone is still breathing, there will always be relational dynamics at work – always be working things through with each other (just like a family does), it makes a massive difference to the worship we offer – if we really believe it’s about the heart, then we’ve got to keep our hearts right!

Finally, enjoy!!! This has to be one of the most wonderfully fun things in the world to do outside actually going to heaven and joining in with the worship there! It’s our chief end to glorify God and enjoy Him forever – so lets!

Wow, Kathryn, I didn’t realize that you had a family background of touring each summer doing musical evangelism with your family. How many years did you do that? Until what age did you perform with the ‘Way to Life’ team?

It is a little mad isn’t it ☺ The funny thing is, I thought it was totally normal for everyone to go around the country telling people that Jesus loved them – I’m so completely grateful for that legacy! It was really my Mum and Dad who were involved in this, and as kids, we got along for the ride (so I didn’t do any perfoming). I think I was two when we started doing it – and eight when we stopped.

I read about your dry season before meeting and being mentored by Brian Doerksen. What happened during that process that freed you up to go on to write “Child of God” and “Hungry”?

I went through a three year dry patch when I was about 20. I had written songs since I was nine, and to be truthful, a lot of how I understood who I was, was wrapped up in that ability – I had no idea that was the case though, until I couldn’t do it anymore!

I’m so grateful now that the Lord brought me through this, because it taught me SO much I would have otherwise missed.

When something you have always been able to do is suddenly gone – you go through some changes. At first, I struggled with a sense of tremendous loss – this was how I had always expressed myself to God. I also was left having to wrestle through some pretty tough questions – ‘why did this happen’, ‘was there something I could have done to stop it’, ‘who am I without this gift’?

It was not how I expected things to go – I’d had so many prophetic words given to me that I was going to write worship songs that would go all over the world – now I was sitting unable to write a single note. But in His mercy, this is what the Lord showed me…

…I realized that it’s relationship with God that is the ‘gift’ – everything else simply points to that. I learned that pursuing ‘something to do’, was nowhere near as satisfying as pursuing a King who gave everything to love me. I found out, that no matter what I could, or couldn’t do – I belonged to Jesus, and that was enough for both of us! That He was happy with me just knowing I was His, and then ‘doing stuff’ for Him because of that – rather than ‘doing stuff’ so that I could know I belonged.

Wonderfully, that’s the very thing that sparked the writing off again! By the time those three years rolled around, I honestly didn’t think I would write songs again – but I didn’t mind any more – I loved Jesus with all my heart – and I knew at the very deepest part of me who I was, that I was His child! SO, it was an amazing surprise to sit down one day and start to write – and the first song to make it’s tentative way to the surface was ‘Child of God’, followed just a couple of weeks later by ‘Hungry’. Both of them took several months to finish – but the raw material was all there – the writing was back, but both the songs and I were different!

I know when you started pastoring you ran into the same thing many churches do: you were reaching many people already saved, while not really getting to the lost. But that changed in your ministry, marvelously. Did music play a role in that change? How do you see your gift as a musician empowering your ministry and being used to reach those who don’t know Christ?

I honestly don’t think that music had a specific role in things changing – I think it was totally a God initiated thing – but we certainly took a more keen interest in how we were presenting things on a Sunday morning after we started asking people to invite their friends more deliberately.

It’s amazing how differently you look at everything you do at church, when all of a sudden your friend from work shows up – or a college friend – or someone from your school. In a way, you see things for the first time again!!

From that perspective – we started to ‘raise our game’ – we didn’t want people to feel let down by our musicianship, when they had taken the plunge to bring their friends along.

As we made the transition, the two things we decided that we would hold as our goal in worship were intimacy with God – that had always been our focus; and excellence in music – we wanted nothing to be a distraction as people encountered God for themselves.

This continues to be the aim as we use music in church – I love the way it both honors the Lord, and leaves room for people to meet Him.

(Just to let you have a sneaky peek at what’s been going on over the last almost 4 years in our church – just the same as every church everywhere, we’d been praying for people to come to know Jesus in and through our church – the problem was, we didn’t have any non-Christians coming. We really felt like the Lord told us to ‘go after the lost’, and the He would take care of the church. And so, we went headlong into that, realizing that it would change the shape of our church forever. We started to look at Sunday mornings as the place people could connect with Jesus for maybe the first time – and we decided to make it as easy as possible for them to find Him (without us getting in the way – in other words, we decided to make everything as accessible as we could – losing ‘Christian talk’ that make others feel like outsiders – using Sunday as an opportunity to meet new people rather than just catch up with our own friends – making the teaching super practical – working on the music – everything designed with our guests in mind). Since that time, we’ve seen more than 400 people come to faith for the first time – that blows my mind!!! I just have to tell you one more thing – we live in a quiet little corner of Northern Ireland – if God can do that here, with people are ordinary as us – he can most certainly do it where you live too!!!)

I know you have a heart to empower and equip other worship leaders. What is the most necessary gift for a worship leader to possess? What is the focus of your training process for leaders?

This might sound a little obvious, but I think that the most necessary gift for a worship leader to possess is a passion for Jesus. There is nothing more important than this – without it, we might be great musicians, but we’ll have missed being ‘lead worshippers’.

A very close, but definite second is our musical ability. If our aim is to pour out our love for God in music, and help others to do the same, then we have to be as good as we can at our instruments – otherwise, it really doesn’t help others to connect, in fact, it really gets in the way.

Those are my two ‘biggies’.

The focus of the training process with other leaders has always revolved around these two elements too – can I see their delight in Jesus? – and can I help them work on their musical ability?

The way I love to do this the most is have people I’m training play with me in my band. This is the way Brian Doerksen taught us all those years ago now. I learnt SO much just from watching him, and then getting to co-lead with him. I also learned from the very beginning, that part of being a worship leader, is learning how to give what you’ve been taught away to others.

It’s wonderful to be able to pass all of that on to someone else, knowing that they will then go and do the same!

It seemed to me that the cross is the central theme on I Belong. Do you find it difficult to find fresh expressions of wonder for the Lord’s amazing sacrifice? How do you keep finding new avenues of expression?

This is a good question ☺. I think one of our main jobs as worship writers is to ‘re-express’ the truth that God has so wonderfully ‘brought to life inside us’. In a sense, worship writing is limited in it’s subject matter – we tend to come back to the same themes (just as all the hundreds and thousands of writers before us have). The things is, that there is a personal relationship going on that is totally unique in each writer. We all catch a glimpse of God, but we all see Him slightly differently. We all have a grasp of the incredible truth of who He is, but we all articulate that in our own way. That’s where the ‘fresh voice’ comes from. Without relationship with God, there’s no fire in our bellies that we just have to express – without that connection with Him, there’s nothing to say. It’s out of the overflow of hearts that are so full of Him, that new songs are born, telling of ancient truth. I love that!

I love the way you mix delicacy and power, especially in tracks like “Love Rescue Me” and “How Could I Ever Say Thank You.” It’s a unique approach. What do you most enjoy about writing worship, Kathryn?

Thank you. I’ve not really thought about that before ☺. Basically, I think it boils down to the fact I just love to sing out what’s going on inside me! I also love writing songs that others can then use as their own expression of worship – as a writer, nothing gives me more pleasure than that!

In 2000, I had the opportunity to teach a seminar at a conference in Nashville on ‘Why we worship’. As I studied ‘who’ God was again, I started to think about how incredible it was that He had initiated relationship with us! Imagine, the God of the entire universe, more ancient and eternal than we can ever know, more powerful and indescribable than any of us can tell – knew me. Not only that, but He deliberately sent His only Son to die on my behalf. That’s almost impossible to get your head around.

Then I started to look at different words for the worship in the Bible. One of those words is the greek ‘proskuneo’ which means – coming close to kiss the feet of a conquering king.

In ancient times, when a king came and conquered another territory or town, he would force those who had been taken captive, to kiss his feet in an act of submission to him as their new king. ‘Proskuneo’ was not a word ever used in the context of love. Conquering Kings were associated with power and domination – that is, until Jesus came along.

Never before had a conquering King epitomised servanthood – never before had such a King been willing to lay down his own life to rescue his enemies – but that’s what Jesus did for us, and it’s that truth that makes the image of kissing his feet in surrender such a beautiful picture of worship.

‘At the foot of the Cross’ started with that image of ‘coming to kiss the feet of mercy’. It blew me away what Jesus had done for me, and I longed to show my heart felt allegiance to Him.

A couple of weeks after this idea started to form – I was in South Africa with my husband Alan. Brenton Brown and I had been leading worship in Johannesburg, and as the meeting went on, I started to get the idea for the chorus – ‘I trade these ashes in for beauty, and wear forgiveness like a crown, coming to kiss the feet of mercy, I lay every burden down, at the foot of the cross’. (It took a little while to settle on those lyrics, but the main idea and melody happened right there.)

Over the course of the next two years, I struggled trying to finish the song. I wrote completely different verses for it… but they stank! So, I gave up on the song and tried to write the same idea, but in a different song altogether.

The ‘plan B’ song had ‘at the foot of the cross, where grace and suffering meet’, in the verses and then a totally different chorus! It stank too.

Eventually, ages later, when I had given up on the whole idea (as you often do when you are trying to write!), I had the crazy idea of taking the verses from one song, and using the chorus I had written in South Africa and putting them together. It worked!
You know, a cool thing happened shortly after we finished recording ‘Satisfy’ – Alan and I went back to South Africa, and while we were in Jo’burg, we went back to the church I had written that chorus in (because we had visited so many places on our first trip, I had no idea which church it was). We walked back into the church, and I remembered it. As I was thinking how great it was that I now knew where it was that ‘At the foot of the Cross’ had started, the pastor announced that they were starting a new project to the poor called ‘Ashes to beauty’ and they planned to use my song as the theme song! Neither of us had realised that this was the very place that it all began three years before!

I love the details that God arranges – even little things that feel of no consequence at the time – it reminds me that everything we do for God matters, and that He can take anything offered to Him, even ashes, and turn it into something beautiful that He can use.