You can be artistic and still serve the church at the same time . Delirious ? started that seed of thought in my mind . I ' m so thankful for Delirious ? and so much more that came out of the U . K . during those times . You know , from Vineyard Records UK , Matt Redman , Tim Hughes , and the Hungry record . I remember when I first heard that , you know , “ This is the Air I Breathe ” and “ Hungry ” and all those . That whole record is a real special moment in my worshiping life .
I loved .
That was my idea of what , if you wanted to write worship music , it had to be . And then , fast forward to when I was leading worship in junior high . I was a 12 or 13-year old kid just getting going . I remember hearing a song by a band that I had never heard of before called Delirious ?. And I remember thinking this music is so cool , but when you key into the lyrics , I thought , “ I could sing this at my church . My Dad would sing this in the church . “ I Could Sing of Your Love Forever ”. “ Did You Feel the Mountains Tremble ”? and a song called “ Deeper ”. And so that really blew my mind ! You could make whatever music you want and still serve the church with some new songs to pray as a community .
I remember another U . K . thread . I was in the U . K . doing this little festival with friends and I was with the Calvary Chapel family . The Calvary Chapel community had planted a new church out there and they wanted to do a festival out in this big field . And so I was out there and I was supposed to go on stage with my band at the time , which wasn ' t my music . I was kind of going down the roads , wanting to do more , you know , stand up , but the stage got rained out right before we were gonna get on stage . And so the whole festival crowded into the tea tent , which is where , you know , maybe it was meant to have 300 people there and then ended up being like 1,500 or 2,000 people . They ’ re cramming underneath this tent in the dark at night , rain ' s pouring down . They finally got a microphone and a guitar line set up for someone to start some music . And they said , “ Phil , just get up there and start singing ”. So , I got up there and I just started singing some worship songs and it was pandemonium . No one even knew I had taken stage , you know , and then all of a sudden the generator goes out and I heard this boom from the generator . All the lights went out and the sound went out . And then the venue got quiet in this tent . And so I went to the front of the stage and I started singing the old song , “ I Love You Lord ”, and that moment just grabbed everybody ' s attention . And I remember hearing this wave of just acapella voices singing in the dark with the rain coming down , but no power . And I ' ve just never been so overwhelmed by the presence of God . It was just like God was opening up my spirit and my heart , to be aware that His