Recently I sat down with Kirby , Nate , Ryan , and Blake from Housefires , a worship collective that is making a huge impact in church music . Here , they articulate the basis of their house church worship practices and songwriting philosophy .
[ Alex ] What a pleasure it is to sit down with you today for a visit .
[ All ] It ’ s great to be here !
[ WM ] Your new project , How To Start a Housefire , has such a great and intriguing title . Tell us about it . I ’ ll ask you about some of the individual songs in a bit .
[ Kirby ] This is Kirby . I want to ping this to Nate because Nate originated this title . Nate is through and through a house church guy and a house church living room worship guy . I mean , you talk to Him you feel like you ’ re on the front porch of his heart , if his heart is a cabin in the woods or in the countryside by a beach or something . Am I right , Nate , or am I right ?
[ Nate ] That ’ s amazing . Yes .
[ Kirby ] Nate came up with this title . So , Nate , I think you should talk about it .
[ Nate ] Yeah . I think the heart of the album is just really based out of a question we get most when we travel , when we ’ ve been all around the world to do ministry music . We ’ ll do a lot of Q & As . But the number one question we get is , how do we start something like this where we are ? People are just so connected to the idea . Gosh , it feels attainable , it feels relatable . We ’ ve intentionally made our music from the video to the audio , to the aesthetic of the rooms we ’ ve recorded in . We want it to feel invitational and experiential , and I think that ’ s why so many people have grabbed on to our music and connected with it . So , all that to say yeah , the number one question we get when we ’ ve been around the world is , how do we start something like this where we are ?
[ WM ] Okay , wait one second . So , you mean how do we start things in our homes , or how do we start big gatherings and capture live worship ?
[ Nate ] I think it ’ s kind of both . But most of the time when I ’ ve gotten the question , people kind of want to know the essence of this . It could be 600 people in a room like a lot of our church recordings were , but it feels homey , it feels inviting . It feels like there could be 600 voices , but everyone ’ s welcome and you ’ re all connected in this way with God and with one another . And so yeah , that for this record is just to revisit the genesis of how Housefires started and to capture songs that kind of felt like we were back in our living room when we did the first record back in 2014 . How to Start a Housefire , I mean , down to each song ; just songs that feel like very core to what house church gatherings look like , which that ’ s where