First of all , I got to be part of a church plant in London , which was Hillsong London , and I was part of the church from the early days where we were maybe just eighty people . I got to be part of seeing the church grow to ten thousand in just only a few years , and saw hundreds find the Lord every Sunday . Looking back on it this was a real move of God that was happening in Britain at this time . People were flocking to the church , and we would have lines outside .
We would meet in different theatres throughout London and we would have to change theatres so often because more and more people would come . Sometimes there were hours of lines to get into church , and in the end of it we had to have six services on one Sunday . I remember there was one Sunday I had to lead worship at all six and I had no voice by the end of the day , but I remember just being full of excitement and fire . God was really doing something with us and to us , and I think we ’ re seeing the ripples of that still to this day .
[ WM ] Please tell us about the process of writing the “ 10,000 Reasons ”. It is an enduring and absolutely classic worship offering .
[ Jonas ] Thank you , Alex . I wrote “ 10,000 Reasons ” with my dear friend and fellow British worship leader Matt Redman , who I actually met in the early 2000 ’ s and we became really great friends . We didn ’ t actually write for many years , but we started writing together and “ 10,000 Reasons ” was a song that we weren ’ t even going to put on this album . We had no idea what this song was going to be . It was the last song we wrote for the album . We were trying for quite a while to write a song out of Psalm 100 , “ Bless the Lord oh my soul ”. We just never landed on anything . We had a songwriting day one afternoon and Matt was out to get the kids , and I was in a chapel outside Brighton . When he returned , I played him the chorus idea , and he literally said , “ Jonas . Wow ! This is the song we ’ ve been trying to write !” We finished it , the verses just poured out of us , but we really never knew if it was finished , because it has no prechorus nor a bridge .
[ WM ] I was singing this song in my head this morning and I thought , “ I bet the chorus of this song was written first .”
[ Jonas ] It was . It absolutely was ! It was something so pure and not songwriter-y in the way it happened . It was just an overflow . One of those songs that are not from us - it ’ s
Andrea Bocelli - Gloria the Gift of Life ( Commentary )