Worship Musician Magazine September 2020 | Page 26

We wrote this song at a KXC worship leaders’
weekend away in October last year. At the time,
we were not only seeing that God was bringing
a whole new wave of freedom in our worship,
but also that He was moving wider afield than
that too. There’s been a lot of songs about
revival and anticipation coming out recently by
different churches across the world, which I see
as a sign that God is up to something!
Before writing this song, I was challenged by
a Bill Johnson quote, “Songwriters, sing what
you want to see the church look like in five, ten,
or fifteen years-time.” So, I thought I’d love to
write a song as a prayer for what we believe we
could see God do in our community at KXC in
the next five, ten, fifteen years. And this song
is that song. We’ve seen at KXC that this song
encourages our church to dare to dream again,
and to choose hope that we might see God
move in ways we never thought possible in our
community in the coming years. We obviously
feel it could be useful for other churches to
help them dream of what God could do in their
communities and in their worship times in the
coming years.
[WM] What is your greatest hope for this EP
and the songs on it?
Kingdom Dreamers
[Tom] Honestly, I’ve already achieved my
greatest hopes for this project. And that is first,
I’ve seen the songs be really useful for our times
of worship in our community at KXC and second,
I absolutely loved being creative and writing and
recording these songs and doing this EP project.
So, if God has any other plans for the songs,
then he has to breathe on them. I can’t make
that happen. But I’m also trying to be a good
steward of this project and honouring the big
team of people who were involved, by helping
do what I can to get the word out. We want
these songs to be useful for the church. We’ve
seen some of KXC’s previous songs go further
afield, and that’s been encouraging, but when
I let that become a goal for me personally, I’m
just not well grounded enough to let that be a
litmus test of how God is using me. If I write a
song of worship, and I love it and connect with
God through it, but absolutely no one else does,
then that has to be enough. It has to be worth
the time, it has to be worth the investment.
[WM] Should worship leaders see their giftings
as a high calling?
[Tom] Yes, it is a high calling! In 2 Chronicles,
Jehoshaphat sends in the worshippers first
into battle. As a worship team, we lead our
congregations into God’s presence in worship
- a fairly important role then. The greatest
commandment is to love the Lord your God
with all your heart, etc, essentially to love and
worship God first and foremost. It’s an amazing
honor and privilege to be able to lead people
into worship and we should never forget that.
I like what John Wimber of the Vineyard said,
that “a result of our worshipping and blessing
God is being blessed by him. We don’t worship
God in order to get blessed, but we are blessed
as we worship him. We lift him up and exalt
him, and as a result are drawn into his presence
where he speaks to us”. So, I’d say that’s a
pretty high calling!
[WM] What guitars, both acoustic and electric,
are your guitars of choice? I've seen photos
of you playing a Tele and a Rickenbacker, on
electric.
[Tom] My electric guitar is a 1970’s Autumn
Glo Rickenbacker 360, which I love! I also use a
U.S.A. Fender Tele which is amazing for worship
context. My acoustic is a Taylor Limited Edition
410-CE which I really love too! I used to have
a Fender Rhodes Mark II, but I had to sadly let
that one go. It was a tough day!
[WM] Tom, thank you so very much for our
time and for sharing your heart with us.
[Tom] I have loved being a part of it and thank
you so much for having me here today!
@tomeccleshall
26 September 2020
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