impacting this community in a major way.
[WM] Chris, what and who were some of your
earliest worship influences? Do you reference
them to younger, aspiring worship leaders?
[Chris] Some of my influences, you mentioned
Delirious in our visit earlier, they were such a
massive influence on my life. I just emailed
Martin’s wife the other day. Martin’s 50th
birthday is coming up and she was asking for
some friends to put some videos together just
to share the impact that he’s had, so I’ve been
thinking about it. I don’t know if there is anyone
that’s impacted me more through music alone.
But we did an album with him, and just had the
privilege of become a friend of Martin, and he’s
just been such an encourager and a champion
for me. So, Martin has a special place in my
life and he is putting out some special music
right now outside of Delirious. Other than that,
we were talking about the Vineyard movement,
all of those albums, the Café albums, the live
albums. I was thinking of Brian Doerksen the
other day, and the impact of him alone. I played
drums for him once when he came to Bethel.
Matt Redman, Tim Hughes, the people who
have gone before us and are still the masters
of not only excellence of their craft, but they
carry such a heart for worship and now also
have such a heart to father this new generation
coming up. So that’s just to name a few.
I certainly do reference them to younger worship
leaders. We did a tour with Martin Smith
called Outcry with several different bands,
Elevation, and Hillsong, and Martin joined us,
Jesus Culture, on stage and led our set with
us and it was really just incredible to have the
opportunity. Maybe the younger generation or
certain people hadn’t heard him went, “Oh, ‘I
Can Sing Your Love Forever’, that’s the guy!”
Yeah, we reference them a lot, they were way
ahead of their time musically and lyrically, and
were just a really big inspiration.
[WM] I was watching my favorite British
television series last night, Foyle’s War. The
show is an incredible historical account covering
June 2020