And for myself , I was the only Christian in my school , in my school class . I was the only Christian on my soccer team . Then you have like a couple other mates in the same age that probably go to that same local church . It is said that Stockholm is the most secular city in the world . I think the Swedish mentality is like we know it all and we want to figure everything out . And it ’ s hard to believe that we cannot , that we , I mean , it ’ s hard for us to believe that something that cannot fit into our head can exist . So , I think that ’ s the reality we live in , which means worship also . To lead in worship , and to sing worship music is a bold thing .
It ’ s a bold thing to stand up and point people to Jesus . And there ’ s a lot of people that have a lot of opinions on that . And I think most of the people when they come into the room , their hearts get changed . You know , like , because it ’ s , I think the presence of God . It cannot be avoided if you ’ re in the room and the presence of God is there . It ’ s hard to run away from it and flee from it . And that ’ s what we ’ ve seen the last 16 years here in Stockholm . We started the church here 16 years ago , Andreas and Lena , who leads our church , they started it here , myself and my wife . And it was maybe six or seven more people . We started it around the dinner table . So like a small group of people with a large , massive dream in our hearts to build a church . And that was so big that people could not ignore it . And there was no such thing in Stockholm . So , we started . We started small , but God breathed on it and it exploded . And now we do church at seven different locations all over Sweden and in Stockholm , a couple of thousand people every Sunday are gathered to worship and celebrate Jesus and come to church . This is history making here in Sweden . So , yeah , we ’ re really , really grateful for that .
[ WM ] Wonderful ! Oh boy . That ’ s good . Well , and you ’ ve been about this , you said for 16 years leading worship around the country and in multiple venues . This seems a little bit unorthodox , almost like the role of an evangelist traveling . Can you tell us about this ?
[ Eric ] I think we would love to be in the same venue , but the problem is that this is the most secular city in the world , and what happens sooner or later when we get into a big theater or a big venue after a couple of months , like this venue is more recognized as the church or rather than like the theater . And then normally what happens is , like at the theater or the concert hall , they kick us out because they don ’ t wanna be noticed as a church . And then we need to find like a new , new venue and then another venue . So that ’ s been our story in Stockholm for 16 years . We ’ ve been in 40 or 50 rooms , I think .
[ WM ] Wow . Just wow ! Well , let ’ s get into some of the individual songs from the new project