presence, here and surrender here. I enjoyed the idea of being able to add depth to almost like a throwaway sentence. And instead, it did feel like such a lightness, and I don’ t think I’ ve laughed as much as we did that week. It was so, so fun and people were working so hard and we literally were averaging between 16 and 20 hours per day, but 16 was our shortest day. So, it was kind of crazy that everyone had such high spirits and was so the whole time, but it really was. And so yeah, it was fun.
[ WM ] Wonderful. Well, so you both come from opposite parts of the world. Belfast and Sydney are almost 11,000 miles apart and yet despite your different backgrounds, God has joined you two for this project and you’ ll be traversing a much-divided U. S. church. That’ s very interesting to me. And it’ s also a high calling to bring the church together to worship. Any thoughts on this?
[ Benjamin ] Wow! Well, one of the things that is interesting about Aodhán and my relationship is that his Dad is actually Irish. So, we have the kinship of the Irish thing and then I lived in Australia for 10 years. My wife’ s Aussie and Aodhán knew my wife long before I did. Both kids are Australian. So, we somehow came from other sides of the world and just became best friends, which I think is a miracle in and of itself.
[ Aodhán ] And we’ re for the same soccer team, Manchester United.
[ Benjamin ] That’ s true( laughs). Let’ s go. Big season ahead of us. And I’ ll tell this quickly, the way we actually met was basically a random guy knocked on my door. I had never met him before and he asked,“ Hey, do you have any pants?” And I was like,“ Yeah, sure. Come take these.” And that man was Aodhán.
[ Aodhán ] I needed to borrow some pants to go to work.
[ Benjamin ]( both laughing) Sorry, all I have to say, we’ ve been making music for a long time and obviously both worked in different expressions of Hillsong before this. As far as the current climate of the church and what you’ re saying, a divided church, I do think that’ s one of the beautiful things about worship is it unites. I can’ t really think of any great worship songs that are divisive really. Maybe some songs push in directions. Maybe they try to grow and shape your mindset and get you thinking a little bit outside the box. But ultimately God is a unifier. Ultimately, God is at least more than a presence, but a presence that brings us all together. And I love that you could be standing in church with a plethora of backgrounds, political positions, whatever it is. I mean, you think of how many denominations we have, theologies, even theology is vastly argued over.
I love that a song can just pull all those things together and the differences become irrelevant in the light of the majesty of God. So hopefully we’ ve achieved a part of that with this project. Hopefully it happens naturally. I think of a song like“ Holy Jesus”. It’ s just focusing on essentially the holiness and the divinity of Jesus. And it’ s like, well, how could you be worried about... I don’ t know. I’ m thinking of family lunches. My family’ s thankfully not too much like this, but I’ ve sat in a few family lunches where people start arguing with their uncle and it turns into this big discussion and everyone’ s ready to throw things at each other over the stupidest difference. I think if you’ re singing something like“ Holy Jesus”, how are you going to be focused on how your uncle’ s annoying you?
[ WM ] And that song,“ Holy Jesus”, that tore me up last night when I heard you play it. That song is going to really connect with the church, I really believe. Great song. Beautiful song.
And the song“ God Thing” grabbed my
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