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Worship Leading

So Audrey you released your debut album ‘The House You’re Building’ in 2010 which was well received – can you share with me the journey from that album to this new album ’Heart’?

Well as you said I released the ‘House You Are Building’ in 2010 and I promptly went on the road for what felt like 2 years but it was probably just for a year. Then I found myself getting that phone call from the label saying “hey it is about time you start getting ready to record your next record”. Which is really good news because I’m like “oh they want me to do another record”. So I had four or five months to really write and choose those songs. For me it became about focusing in on what I really wanted to say to the world through the music and the lyrics. I asked myself “what have I been experiencing in the last eighteen months that is worth writing music about and putting out there for people to hear”. To me it became pretty obvious that I had been learning so much about love and what love requires of you. I decided that would be what I would base the record around. The songs circle around the love of God, love of man, and human love. I love the songs. I think that out of that hectic experience was born something I hope is really beautiful. It was such a great experience writing it.

What do you want listeners to take away with this concept of love?

Well I think two things. Number one is that I realised being a Christian, exploring faith and the heart and what I believe about God has led me to realise that being human is something worth exploring. Because God came through us and became a human person in Jesus it is like being human is my greatest gift. It is something God was prepared to become and so I need to learn what it means to be fully human. I think in that I am going to learn how to give God glory in my life. That is one thing and the other thing is love. I’ve started using this phrase ‘Love is free. You can’t buy it. You can’t earn it. But once you accept love it requires everything you have’. That is sort of a paradox and a mystery about love both human and especially with the love of God that I am learning to explore as well. So I feel like those two things are very present on this album.

So when you are developing these songs are your quiet times with God where you start to hear the heartbeat for the album?

Actually, no. I think for me my times like that have become quieter and quieter and quieter in the sensethat I don’t tend to become immediately inspired during those times to write. Sometimes I don’t hear anything. But I’ve started seeking more and more in my prayer time when I am just still in the presence of God and have that be my focus and goal. I think that is the most heavenly place on earth.

What has happened for me with song writing is not only that but my perspective of the Christian person has informed my world view in such a way that it is in the practical parts of my life that I finding material I am also finding much inspiration in the everyday and writing about those things from the perspective of what my worldview is. So I tend to have more of those ideas on the airplane when I’m travelling or when I am in the middle of honest confrontations. I think to myself “do I need to say this?” because my heart is saying “I’m finding something out about myself and I need to refresh it”.

You have collaborated with a number of well known Christian artists – Matt Maher, Ben Glover, Mia Fieldes – how does this sort of collaboration take place – do they come to you or do you seek their input?

With the second record the people I co-wrote with are people I already have a very close relationship with. Whereas for the first record, I was meeting all those people for the first time with the exception of Matt Maher who I had already been friends with for awhile. I developed those relationships for 2 -3 years at the start of my career. Now I have discovered a writing team that works for me. I call them up and say “Hey, can we please write. I need some songs”. I’ve written songs on my own but I also write with these friends.

And how does itwork when someone is based in Australia?

Well with Mia – she has been bouncing back and forth between Australia and Nashville for the last three years. Now days she actually lives here so it is not too difficult. I do write long distance with friends sometimes over email sending ideas back and forth.

Your first radio single has been the beautiful song Sparrow which is a rearrangement of the classic hymn ‘Eye is On the Sparrow’ - What was your inspiration to choose this hymn and then put your interpretation on it?

Well I heard it as a kid in the movie ‘Sister Act Two’ with Whoopi Goldberg and the dancing nuns. It was gorgeous and I just really liked it. Then I got older and realised ‘man these lyrics are great’. Their are lyrics in the song that say ‘Why should my heart feel lonely, and long for heaven and home’ which are very simple statements. They are simpler than I usually like to write. I like to be a little more morose and sober. I thought ‘Oh man I need to believe these things.I am going to write these songs because I need to believe this stuff’. So I did. A friend of mine, Kyle and myself just reapproached it. I really didn’t do much rewriting in lyricalterms, I kind of shuffled the lyrics around a bit and wrote a melody. I wrote it in a way that fits my voice.

How would you describe your style or genre of music?

I’ve been describing it lately as the 1970’s meeting 2010 and having a love child. I am very much influenced by the 1970’s and the singer songwriters of that era like James Taylor, PaulSimon and Carol King but I also love the pop music of now. I feel like now I am definitely influenced by that style of songwriting but honestly I am seeing it become a hybrid of the 70’s and today. It is kind of fun. I love that kind of blend.

So Audrey when will you head out to Australia? Is there a chance of you and Matt Maher doing a tour?

Oh I want to! Oh man, after today’s interviews and having that question repeatedly asked I am seriously going to talk to my manager Kat to find a time to make that happen. I would absolutely love to come out. My husband has been and absolutely loved it and would love to go back. Hopefully we can make that happen in the next year or two.

Check out Audrey's Music

Pastor Input

Pastor Tim Ferris shares his thoughts on where he believes worship is moving….

I believe we are at the beginnings of a significant shift in the body of Christ, and in particular to the expression of corporate worship. Ten years ago, churches that had strong contemporary worship were considered on the leading edge. Now, it's mainstream. To keep on the pioneering edge of what I believe God is doing, we can no longer rest on the contemporary music that has been the worship "staple diet" for many. I love contemporary worship and all that it has brought to the church, but I believe God wants to position His church for a shift in our expression and experience of Him, taking what is already good to a much deeper level.

There are a number of key shifts that I believe are coming to corporate worship. I will outline just one here, and leave others for future articles.

The first, and probably most crucial shift, is that we will learn to worship from a place of fullness, understanding what we already have in Christ, rather than from a place of lack and seeking. Let me illustrate...

We have taken many of our lyrical cues from the Psalms. Of course this is a good thing. What we can forget, though, is that we now live in the fulfillment of all that the Psalms hoped for. The Psalms longed for God to come and be with us, and were written out of a sense of desperation and yearning. I believe what God wants us to recognize is He has now come and placed Himself inside of us! We don't worship from a place that is distant from God, hungering for Him to be closer, as they did in the Psalms. He is already as close as He can be - inside of us!

As a further example, we often sing songs asking God for rain. Again, this is good. Scripture says to "pray for rain in the day of latter rain" (Zech 10:1). Again, I believe God wants us to realize that we are in the days of the latter rain. In other words, it's already raining! We’re praying for more rain in the context of already being deluged, not from a place of drought.

Fundamentally, this is a shift from an Old Covenant worship paradigm to a New Covenant paradigm. As we make this shift, we will learn to worship like a bride rather than a widow; like a son rather than an orphan; like a prince rather than a pauper; and like one who is seated in heavenly places rather than one bound by earth. That’s an exciting shift!

http://www.dayspring.com.au

Tim ministers at DaySpring Church in Sydney NSW, where for the past 7 years he has been an associate and executive pastor. He has more than 15 years experience in pastoral ministry. He has a strong heart to develop leaders that usher in the Kingdom of God into every sphere of society, and to see all people set free to live fruitful and effective Kingdom lives.

Song Writing

Ben Cantelon shares his journey of how God's teaching evolves into lyrics and lessons for him.

It wasn’t much of a thing at the time. I’d just come downstairs a little earlier than usual one morning and found myself awed by the view. There was nothing all that different about what I saw - just the light. It was brighter and bolder and it seemed to make everything stand out in a way I’d never really experienced before.

The view was impressive and beautiful, but I didn’t think it was life changing. So I took some photos and got on with my day. It was only later, sitting on the tube, that I began to feel the impact of what I’d seen. I’d stared at that garden view hundreds of times before, but it took a unique sunrise to see it as I had done that morning. Soon I was thinking about how much God’s light can alter our own perspective on life, how a situation that we have considered to be set or unmoveable can be altered in an instant when we let God in. That’s when the lyrics came:

The world comes alive, you have opened my eyes, everything I see is in colour.

No more black and white because I’ve see the light, everything I see is in colour.

What does it mean to be a follower of Jesus? Doesn’t it mean in some way that we allow our eyes to be opened? Doesn’t it mean that we are ready to see the world differently, to let our vision to be directed by God’s Spirit? Doesn’t it mean seeing it in colour - being open to the full range of possibilities, opportunities, needs and challenges that God has created us for?

These are strange times we’re living in. What with all this talk of double-dip recessions, freaky weather patterns and overseas revolutions it can be tempting to retreat to what is safe and what is known. In other words, we can think we’ll feel a little more secure if we see things in black and white, good and bad, right and wrong. But seeing the world in black and white isn’t what we’re called to. And it’s hard work. Just take a look at Jonah; he put the people of Nineveh firmly in a box and refused to believe that God would see things differently.

Jonah spends time in away from the sun’s full glare; from the chaos of the storm to belly of the whale and the shade of his home-made shelter. It ties in with the other passages in the Bible where writers associate darkness with being further away from God than is really good for us. Living with eyes closed to God, with hearts shut off to His love and mercy simply isn’t living at all - as Jonah makes clear...

Having been rescued from certain death both on the water and in it, you might have thought that Jonah would be a little more enthusiastic when he finally arrived at Nineveh to deliver God’s message. But there was no poetic persuasion, there were no impassioned pleas, just a single line:

‘On the first day, Jonah started into the city. He proclaimed: “Forty more days and Nineveh will be overturned.” (Jonah 3:4)’

Hardly the most persuasive plea, is it? And would he do this? What was his problem? The answer can be found here:

‘But to Jonah this seemed very wrong, and he became angry. He prayed to the Lord, “Isn’t this what I said, Lord, when I was still at home? That is what I tried to forestall by fleeing to Tarshish. I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity. Now, Lord, take away my life, for it is better for me to die than to live.”

But the Lord replied, “Is it right for you to be angry?”[Jonah 4:1-4]

Racial hatred, arrogance, ignorance, call it what you like, Jonah could not stand the thought of God showing mercy to those he feared. Jonah had the world all mapped out in black and white, but God saw in colour.

Each of us shares this same present moment. And it is full of grace, offering fulness and life and colour. It doesn’t matter whether we’re in the middle of our first ever God-encounter, or slowly wiping away yet another set of tears after what seems like a lifetime of struggling...God’s mercies are new every day, including this one.

I guess that was what I was thinking when I wrote the first verse for the song:

See the morning light awake, new beginnings, it’s a beautiful day. All around new mercies wait, every moment is a movement of grace

In times like these - especially at times like these - when so much around us seems to be struggling and some are trying to tell us that there is no hope, we have to hold on to the hope we have that in Christ. We have to remember that in Him we are made whole, we see life with fresh perspective and we experience fulness of life.

We have to remember to look at things in colour. God’s colour.

Ben Cantelon is releasing his new album 'Everything in Colour' in May 2012.

Aaron Keyes	Audrey Assad	Ben Cantelon	Brenton Brown
C3	Charlie Hall	Chris McClarney	Chris Tomlin
Christy Nockels	Citipointe Live	Claire Hamilton	David Crowder
David Willersdorf	Graham Kendrick	Jeremy Camp	Keith and Kristyn Getty
Kristian Stanfill	Leeland	Matt Maher	Matt Redman
Miriam Webster	Passion	Rend Collective Experiment	Stuart Townend
Tim Hughes

Worship Leading

Pastor Input

Song Writing

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