One event served as the catalyst, when I was in Brazilia in brazil, I met a paster by the name of Moacir.

We hung out a bit, he took us out for meals, lent us a his car.. it was great to share stories to share a bit of life together..I asked Moacir what his name meant, he told me it as my fathers name.. “but what does it mean?”I pressed him”born from pain..” apparently when his father was a baby, he was badly burned, his mother took him to the hospital, a nearby pastor heard the screams and came and prayed for them to receive the Lord. That is when his mother gave him the name..

On the sunday morning we were invited to lead worship in The Vineyard church in Brazilia.

Everything that could go wrong went wrong, technical faults, human error etc.. But then the sweet presence of the Holy Spirit came down, We had entered a realm of the eternal.

At the end Morcire grabbed onto my arm, he was shaking and weeping. He looked me right in the eye and said, “I must have more.. I don’t have enough… more anointing,, for what is coming.. for the young people..”

I was really moved at the time, but for some reason that image of that broken hearted pastor has stayed with me..

When I got back to the Uk I was invited to a songwriters retreat. I was talking to my friend Dave about his music, Dave is has a passion to share the gospel with people who wouldn’t dream of stepping foot inside a church, he spends 4 nights a week playing in pubs. He told me about a witch he had met one night, a young girl with scares and cuts all over her arms…

The Image of Morcire filled my head. As I  started to talk about him and dave and I both started to weep.. we need more.. as the meeting went on My weeping became sobs and groans.. part of me was trying to hold back the emotion, I was embarrassed, painfully aware that others in the room were not exactly in the same place! The other part of me knew I just needed more.. I fell on my knees and sobbed and prayed.. All I could say was “Oh God..”

It was a profound experience like I was being purged of my disappointments, Almost like I was being delivered, and healed and broken all at the same time..

Every time I have come into a time of worship since, the same thing has happened.. I want God.. I crave his spirit…. I need to be set free from my sin… I need more for what is coming… for the young people…

On sunday at IGC church in Burnt Oak.. at the start of the service the women stood to pray together, the pastor said “mothers know what it is to push through, to give birth to something. to push through the pain, to not give up, to see it through into life” As the mothers prayed the presence of God was undeniably powerful.

God forbid that I profess with my lips  to know Jesus with my words, but deny his power with my actions.

I must push through, persevere, see it through, seek God! Connect with the Heart of Jesus.

I must weep Glory Tears of God, I must groan with the Spirit..and give birth to revival..

What about you?

Isaiah 40

Comfort for God’s People

1 Comfort, comfort my people,

says your God.

2 Speak tenderly to Jerusalem,

and proclaim to her

that her hard service has been completed,

that her sin has been paid for,

that she has received from the LORD’s hand

double for all her sins.

3 A voice of one calling:
“In the wilderness prepare
the way for the LORD[a];
make straight in the desert
a highway for our God.[b]
4 Every valley shall be raised up,
every mountain and hill made low;
the rough ground shall become level,
the rugged places a plain.
5 And the glory of the LORD will be revealed,
and all people will see it together.
For the mouth of the LORD has spoken.”

The line was “knowing that your grace is my reward”  they correctly pointed out that grace isn’t a reward for anything, it is the unmerited favour of God. In my head I wasn’t thinking I had to earn a reward or do something to get God’s grace, I was more thinking that I wasn’t following Jesus for reward, more that his Grace was available to me as I give my life to him and come to  him.  So I changed the line to “knowing that your Grace will be enough.”

And now the song is stronger, so I am thankful for the machine. I have, over the years, learned to take on advice and criticism about songs without having a melt down!

Any way it got me thinking about that whole area of writing worship songs for the church.

I was recently listening to the keith green song “lord you’re beautiful”. There is a line in there that goes,”when your eyes are on this child your grace abounds to me. it is such a tender and beautiful line in the song. I wonder if it would pass the theological filter test. Surely God’s eyes are on us always. God knows all things, sees all things, at all times.

But I think for many of us we may feel God’s eyes are on us at sometimes more than others, and connect with that sentiment and that song, we “feel” that God is closer sometimes. So is it wrong to sing. or is it poetry?

I once wrote a song called “wake up” I took the line from a psalm of David. David is calling out for God to wake up, to rise up and fight for him and israel he askes the question “are you sleeping” . The psalm resonated with me strongly as a prayer. The truth is the lord the everlasting lord doesn’t sleep nor slumber.. but there needs to be a place for us to express our frustrations, our longings for God to move. Life is complicated and sometimes we just don’t understand we need to ask God “why?” Where are you? Wake up!.

I felt that if it is good enough to be cemented into the fabric of scripture it is good enough to sing in our churches. others warned me of the consequences of writing a song like this;)It was never published;)

A good friend of mine wrote a song that we used to sing in the burn church. It was a raging rock song called “so near”. The chorus was simply “consume me”. it connected deeply with the raw rough and broken people who God had gathered together at the burn church. It was a guttural cry, encompassing passion and desperation.

Now if you look up the word consume in the dictionary you get references about eating, using up, to completely destroy. the theological guy who looked over the song felt the lyric should be changed as God didn’t want to destroy us.

Interestingly when the line was changed to Take my life, it was fine..(this could also mean kill) Since then the phrase “consume me” has popped up in some great songs that are regularly sung in churches all over the world.

Another friend of mine quoted David’s poetic “I will awaken the dawn” line, and was told “only God can awaken to dawn not us” I had to laugh at that one.

I think what I am driving at is that there has to be room for honesty, poetry and description. These are the lyrics that unlock the heart of the singer. We get to express our human frailty, and are brought face to face with the God who became one of us.

Jesus cried out on the cross, “my God my God why have you forsaken me.” the worlds of a song written years beforehand by a struggling man who felt abandoned by God. Little did he know that he would be prophesying the greatest moment in human history. Amazing to that God himself identified with a human song in his darkest hour!

Our songwriting, to be truly prophetic, must be a heart cry. It must be born out of the reality of life. the struggles, the defeats and failures.

I guess in conclusion. Submitting our stuff to people who have read more and studied more than us is a Good thing to do. But lets not strip ourselves of the gift and mystery that is songwriting where our heart cry and creativity is dumbed down in the name of good theology.

I was recently invited to play guitar and sing at an event in sheffield called Face to Face. The contact came through myspace so I trucked up the motor way on my own not knowing exactly what I would find.

Culturally the whole thing was a bit alien to me. No rehearsal, just plug in and play, I only knew one of the songs in a 4 and a half hour set. Plus I was the only white boy in the building, it was a full on Pentecostal explosive gospel meeting.

I felt completely underdressed,  like I was sticking out like sore thumb, or perhaps I was the white sheep, what ever you like to call it . I texted home to Veronica wondering what I was doing there, and why I had made the drive up the M1!

It came to the end of the meeting and I was invited to sing a song. lets just say I felt slightly intimidated, it seemed like every one in the room had been blessed with the voice of either Witney  H or Al Green!

At different times in the night different people would pop up and blast out some incredible gospel singing. I was thinking “how do I follow that?” despite (or maybe because of) my insecurities “Blessed Rain” went down a storm! The presence of God was tangible as we cried out as one for God to change and heal our land! What was I worried about? God’s people want to worship, God’s kids long to be near their Dad! We are family,The Black,The White,The  Scruffy ,The Neat

Our hunger is the same.

We recently had new neighbours move in next door to us, A family from Saudi Arabia, Muslims, A guy about my age,  his wife and a little baby boy. His wife wears a full burka(head covering) with only her eyes showing. It was a strange feeling for us, it’s  all very well believing in tolerance and understanding in theory. Stupid thoughts crossed our minds and lips when we spoke about them. I assured Veronica that we were safe, even if they were terrorists they were unlikely to be attacking our block of flats!

I broke the silence one day and we talked about the broken lift and the vandalism in our apartment block. We talked bout how we had come to be here and where we were from(no one expects me to be English here in Luton)!

Any way one day we were sitting in out apartment and we heard the sound of Bon Jovi pumping on the stereo next door, not only that, but someone was dancing around and singing “living on a prayer”!

Hmmm perhaps We are not so different after all;)

In these times of suspicion and fear, those of us who are Eternally minded have an opportunity to lead by example. We are called to live fear free, to overcome the prejudice of our cultures and become peacemakers.

“ Blessed are the peacemakers,
for they will be called children of God.” Jesus Quote from the book of Matthew 5 vs 9

“But the wisdom that comes from heaven is first of all pure; then peace-loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere. Peacemakers who sow in peace reap a harvest of righteousness.” James 3 vs 17

thanks for reading

In my early days of grappeling with faith and what it means to follow jesus, I was swept along to some meetings in chorley wood. The meetings were powerful and exiting.. there were about 300 people usually, there was a sense of expectation in the air, a feeling that at any moment God could do something..and usually God did, with me,,

Something you should know about me is; when I found God I really had nothing, I was at rock bottom, So discovering that the king of the universe knew me,  loved me and had a plan for my life was a big deal!

As a result I was always the guy at the front worshiping, the guy getting prayed for, laughing or crying, sometimes screaming.. I’m sure people wondered what the heck was going on with me; But it was in some of those meetings that God began to set me free from addictions, to release me from grief and guilt I had suppressed for years, God healed my heart, and I began to receive love right in the center of my being, Spirit to spirit.  It was also really amazing for me to visit the soul survivor festivals in the summer, There is just something so powerful about gathering with like minded people, to feel that you are part of a larger movement, to sing and dance before God.

So forward 15 years and I was thrilled when Mike Pilavachi  invited me to be part of the worship team for the summer festivals.

20 days of worshiping, gathering, praying, teaching, and dreaming.. It was amazing to see God moving on a new generation. Over 1500 kids making comitements to follow Jesus , many physical healings, God speaking to people about social justice and the kingdom of God.

As a team the spirit of God moved us in a really powerful ways, personally In the first week I found my self weeping all the time, It was something about looking out across the kids gathered and sensing that there was so much brokeness . It seems that kids go through so much at such a young age these days.. there is something heart breaking about seeing kids in there early teens crying there hearts out before God.

Thinking back 15 years ago there were maybe 2000 of us at soul survivor, many of us who experienced God there went out into the world, Some to become teachers, some into ministry, some set up charities, others entered government, others wrote songs that touched the world, books have been written, some moved to the inner cities some went to war torn places. All of us broken healers, thankful insurgents against the powers of evil, defiant, jars of clay with treasure on the inside.

So now over 30,000 kids attended the soul survivor festivals

Who will these kids become? I remember where I came from and I pray that this new generation will go beyond us, that they to will find healing and wholeness, that they will be free of fear, that they will live out the life of Jesus in this world, .

I have hope..

Ezekiel 11:19-20

19 I will give them an undivided heart and put a new spirit in them; I will remove from them their heart of stone and give them a heart of flesh. 20 Then they will follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws. They will be my people, and I will be their God.

Love to you all

marc

Back in 98 I was working as a schools worker in St Albans England. God had moved in my heart that I should go into high schools and share my faith with whoever would listen. I was also traveling with the band, leading worship, running 2 youth groups, and hanging out in pubs annoying people by trying to convert them.. 

It got to christmas time and I was completely burned out and  tired . I felt like I had nothing left to give. It  seemed that despite all my efforts to share the gospel nothing was really changing. I had really taken to heart prophetic voices that had blown through our town,through our nation,  people were talking up revival, saying that we were some sort of special and unique strategic town in God’s larger plan for global salvation. revival was going to start with us.

Maybe that was true, maybe not,  but any way, I had taken it upon myself to make that happen! It was in that context that one night I sat down with my 3/4 size nylon string guitar and sung to God “I’m giving you my heart and all that is within I lay it all down” I really was at the end of myself and felt so disappointed,  discouraged and more than that I felt damaged (A true artist!!!) I wasn’t sure If God had let me down or If I had let him down..

The second part of the story came as a real shock to me. Whist hanging out at Youth With a Mission in Harpenden, I was talking to a guy called Tre, he mentioned that he and his band were planning a trip to Hawaii, my friend Jono was the bass player for the band, he was unavailable for the trip.. for a joke I said ” hey I will play bass for you in Hawaii! How hard can it be it only has 4 strings” 

We all laughed and I mentioned that there was a young bass player called Mark Sampson from my church who was going to be out there any way, maybe they could use him. 

Later that day I got a call from Tre inviting me round to his flat. He said ” Hey man I have been thinking and I want you to pray about coming to Hawaii and playing guitar with us, I don’t have the money but here is a check for the first £150 for the ticket, I believe in you and if God wants you to go he will provide” 

I was a little stunned, and very exited. and less than a month later I was on a plane to Hawaii, my first time out of europe. 

A group of about 400 young people met together every day for a week in a large and dusty marquee at the University Of the Nations in Kona Hawaii. We worshiped, we prayed, we studied the bible and the early church, We layed down our lives , at times rocked our hearts out to jesus. We wrestled with  issues, we tried to surrender the things that we held on to, not just our obvious sins but also our free time, our money, our dreams, we imagined ourselves giving up our rights to the Lord..  together  we began to dream about what might happen if we truly took up our crosses and followed the example of jesus who said “not my will but yours”.

So, one morning… feeling both blessed and challenged I sat on a the porch where I had been sleeping and began to write the rest of the song.

I surrender all to you all to you.. 

The song grew wings and flew! Far beyond anything that I could have imagined. we recorded it first on the 100 hours album, then on the St Albans vineyard album, followed by a Vineyard UK release, followed by a release in the USA followed by translations into portuguese, spanish,korean, german etc etc.. Far Out!

12 years have passed since I wrote that song.. At lot has changed in my life, I am now a husband, I am now a Father, I am older, I have a few more battle scares, I have been to the end of myself a few more times, I have been broken a few more times. 

Through it all a lot has changed inside me. I doubt God’s love for me less , I strive for his attention a little less. I cry more, I laugh more, I sleep less;) I am more free. I trust more, I love more.

A lot is still the same.. deep inside me there is a longing that wont let me go, something unsatisfied, an ache, The broken heart of God still gnaws away at my insides, ruining me for the ordinary, I know that there is more. 

I still sing the song, maybe now with more trust in my heart, knowing that jesus was able to surrender his life even unto death because he trusted in the character of his Father, even when the circumstances seemed scream the opposite as he sweated blood in the garden of Gethsemane, somehow he was able to trust, somehow he was able to surrender himself..

So 12 years on and here is “Surrender” the album, one old one and a load of new ones. It seemed appropriate to start my blogging career with the story of the song that I am most known for. 

Over the years it has been amazing to hear from some people about moments/stories they have had with the song..I am honoured and privileged to have a part of my story connect with yours even through you reading this! Would love to hear your comments and share your thoughts bellow.  

God bless you