Hi Tim, thanks for taking the time to chat with the Women In Worship Network! It’s great to get input into this site from some guys as well as girls!
Lots of us WIWN girls and ladies sing your song “Here I Am To Worship” in our churches. Tell us how you wrote it…
I wrote Here I Am to Worship over 10 years ago, whilst at university studying history. I had been reflecting upon the passage in Philippians 2 where it talks about imitating Christ’s humility; the amazing way the son of God surrendered himself, walked upon the earth, was obedient to death, even death on a cross. It really struck me, the sacrifice and the beauty of Jesus laying down his life for us. I picked up my guitar and began to sing and the verses of Light of the World flowed out.
I had a chorus which at the time felt very weak, which then led into the bridge, “I’ll never know how much it cost…” For months I tried to finish the song but failed miserably. After a while I gave up, frustrated. There was probably a six month gap before I revisited the song. I was so keen to try and finish it – the verses and bridge felt like they really worked. In the end it was listening to a tape of old ideas I had that a melody jumped out. It suddenly felt like this melody could become the chorus for the verses to Light of the World.
After playing around with the different sections it eventually locked together. Lyrically, the words for the chorus came pretty quickly, it just needed to be a heartfelt response to Jesus’ amazing love. It is an interesting story because initially, after writing the song, I didn’t think it was particularly special. In fact, I didn’t use it for quite a few months.
It was only when I played it after a service and my pastor, a guy called Mike Pilavachi, heard it that he began to force me to use the song. No one has been more surprised than myself at seeing how God has used this worship song.
You work full-time with an organisation called Worship Central, a ministry in London. Tell us about that….
Worship Central is a movement that is passionate about training and equipping worship leaders and musicians. We have a vision statement that we want to be a people who encounter God, who equip the worshiper and empower the local church. Our heart is to provide resources, teaching and material that enables people to learn more about who God is and we want to see worship leaders and musicians being practically equipped to grow in their gift and their call.
The purpose of this is to see the local church being raised up and empowered. There is a number of things we are working on. We have a website (worshipcentral.org) which has blogs, guest articles, videos, podcasts, new songs each month, a forum. It has been very exciting to see thousands of worship leaders from all over the world using this. We also have training events all over the world where, again, people can gather to learn from some amazing theologians like NT Wright, Dr Graham Tomlin and they can hear input from teachers like Nicky Gumbel, Mike Pilavachi or Francis Chan. It has also been very exciting to see these events model and encourage the church to invest in worship.
We are currently developing a Worship Central book and course. I guess a bit like Alpha has been in terms of encouraging evangelism. We would love to see every local church taking the musical expression of worship seriously and gathering their teams together to study, to pray and to figure out what they could do to serve their churches in worship. We are really excited about this material so watch this space! I guess my role is to head up the team with people like Al Gordon, Ben Cantelon and Nicky Fletcher.
You’ve been leading worship for many years…. How do you approach putting together a Set List?
For me, pulling together a set list involves a few things. Firstly, I find it helpful to ask the questions such as, “Is there a theme that needs to be developed?” If you are leading on a Sunday such as Pentecost or Easter that obviously has an impact on the songs you are going to choose.
Also, you might be doing a sermon series at church. This can have an impact on the song choice. I find developing a few songs around a particular theme really helps to give the worship a focus rather than just singing five random songs thrown together, which can be a bit aimless. People need to really dig in to the character and nature of God and having a few songs to unpack perhaps his sovereignty or his grace, his might, can help a congregation lock in to worship.
I find it helpful to remember that worship is about revelation and response. We respond to the revelation of who God is. Unless we are singing songs that feed people, inspire people’s minds and hearts to think about who God is, then the response in worship will always be limited. In terms of how planned or spontaneous I am, there is an element of both. The better planned I can be, the more freedom there is, often, to be spontaneous.
Sometimes I think as worship leaders we can be lazy in terms of thought and creativity in preparing a set list. We can disguise it behind being spontaneous. Actually, I have found when I really give my mind’s attention to developing a list and a flow of songs, it is actually in those moments you can suddenly jump on a new idea or a spontaneous moment in response to what the congregation is doing.
In terms of the flow, often it works well to start with a couple of big songs, set the tone, an element of praise. In praise we remind ourselves of who God is, what he has done – it sets the tone and can lead us into a deeper place of intimacy. However, I don’t believe there is a right way to do it every single Sunday. Sometimes it can be amazing to start with a slow song, something more reflective.
Again, people turn off very quickly if songs become predictable and sets become obvious. It comes down to being led by the Holy Spirit: what is he doing? How is he leading? How is he revealing Jesus in our midst? And then being obedient to follow. There is so much that you could say but hopefully there are a few thoughts.
