As one of the most respected worship leaders and songwriters, Matt Redman’s songs have impacted congregations across the globe. If you’re not familiar with the name, chances are, you’re familiar with his songs. Having written songs such as “The Heart of Worship,” “Better Is One Day,” “Let Everything That Has Breath,” and “Blessed Be Your Name,” Redman’s lyrics continue to challenge and inspire worshippers and worship leaders alike. He has also written and edited multiple books on Christian worship, including The Unquenchable Worshipper and Facedown. JAMA was able to sit down and chat with him during the New Awakening 2006 Conference in D.C. Read for yourself the conversation that took place. We think you’ll be just as encouraged as we were.

Tell us a little bit about yourself.
Matt Redman: I am a father and a husband. I have a wife named Beth and three kids. I live near Brighton in England. It’s right down the south coast. We helped plant a church which is called The Point. And that’s been lovely, you know, doing a new thing and trying to reach out to the local area and I feel really blessed. I get to be so involved in that and then come and travel and see what God’s doing around the world. It’s a real privilege to do both local and global things. I can’t think of anything else interesting about me. I can’t read music.

You can’t read music?
MR: No, no. I picked up the guitar just so I could play some worship songs at home and so I never was musically trained. I still don’t know what a lot of the chords are called. I surround myself with people who know what they’re doing and then I ask them what chords are there.

When was the first time you picked up a guitar?
MR: I think I played for about a year when I was 10, gave it up, and when I was 13 I had a real heart for this worship stuff so I said to my mum, “Can you get me some new strings for that guitar, I think I’d like to learn it again.” So that’s how it happened for me. I had a youth leader who really encouraged me; he tried to stretch me and get me to lead in worship. It was fun. But that was years ago.

Have you always wanted to be a worship leader?
MR: Well, it’s funny. When I was about 15 or 16, I was really into drama at school. I got to do a lead role in a couple of plays and then I got to produce a production there. Out of that I asked my teacher if we could do a higher degree study [of drama] and so we set it all up. All that happened and everything was going really well, and I was really into this drama thing but I was also a worship leader. I went on a youth retreat one weekend and it’s a funny thing, I felt like God was telling me to choose between drama and worship leading. It sounds a little strange but I really felt like I needed to just concentrate on one thing. It’s hard to be an actor and a worship leader. Those are very different things. Worship leading is about being real and honest. You don’t want to be acting when you’re worship leading. There is nothing wrong with acting but it just takes a real special person to do both. I felt like I wasn’t going to be able to do both and God was telling me to choose. So I chose worship leading. I thought that this is what I want to do with my life and it was really painful because I had to go back to school and I was the “drama guy.” I had produced dramas. I had started this new course. I had to go back and say, “Sorry, but I don’t want to do the course anymore.” My teacher said to me, “Well, you need to find someone else to take your place because there are only five of you in there. The course can’t happen if you can’t find someone.” So my friends were angry with me. They were asking, “What are you going to do this God stuff for? We’re not going to be able to do what we want to study.” So I was praying, “God, please help me find someone else who wants to do this course.” In the end I found someone and so my friends did the course but even that was painful. I was watching them do all the things I wanted to do. It was kind of hard killing it. But I really felt at the time that’s what God told me. He told me to lay one of them down. And I’m so glad I did because I felt it was from that moment I could see the fruit of my decision.

How so?
MR: My youth leader started asking me to lead worship and I had the opportunity to travel around with youth leaders all over the country at age 16. Then at age 19 I was working full-time for a church and I think sometimes obedience leads to blessing and fruitfulness. I felt like God had told me what to do and so I went with it and I felt like the fruit of that was I started to see things starting to happen. I’m not saying anything good about me; I’m just saying that I think that’s God’s way sometimes. Until you close the door sometimes, he’s not going to open the other one. It’s all about obedience. So I had a tiny little season of pain there where going to school was really hard for me. My friends were angry with me and all this stuff. It was about a year of a real hard thing, but the fruit of it was that God was teaching me to be obedient and God was opening up the worship leading thing and making sure that I was investing in that; not trying to do two things.

You feel like God was opening doors and leading you…
MR: Yeah, it’s kind of weird. I never tried to make it happen. Young worship leaders come up to me and ask me how they can get their songs out or how they can get their cd published, you know, could they lead a certain conference, and I kind of just answer back, “I don’t know.” There’s no strategy. There’s never a case in the Christian ministry to kind of be pushing yourself or trying to make it happen. But if God’s favor is on you, if God’s called you to do it, then he’ll open the doors. The Bible says that the doors He opens, no one can close; the doors He closes, no one can open. You look at the life of David, David had this call on his life to be king at a young age, but he never tried to force it to happen. He beat Goliath and he went and lived in the palace. He could have been thinking, “Oh, now it’s time to be king. How do I make this happen?” But He didn’t. He just chilled out and in fact, he got kicked out of the palace. Saul was hunting his life down for seven years and he was living in caves. He could’ve been thinking, “Oh, man, I missed it, I should’ve pushed a bit harder.” But he knew it’s all in God’s timing. God’s God. He’s sovereign. He’ll make it happen. Even when Saul dies, David doesn’t become king right away. God tells him to go and be king of a tribe for a little while. So, he’s the king of one tribe for about another seven years. So, it’s something like 20 plus years after the original calling and anointing to be king that he’s actually king over all Israel. He just went with the flow with what God was doing. So often we can do the opposite. We’re like, “Oh, God said this, so this is going to happen right away.” You know, maybe He has called you to be a worship leader, but just chill out, let God pace it, you know, perhaps you’ll never lead beyond your local church, well, there’s nothing wrong with that. That’s a beautiful thing. That’s the most beautiful place to lead. But perhaps God is going to take you around a few places, but wait for His timing, wait for Him to open the door. And then you can look back and then you can say that that was all God and not you. I look back and I think, “I never asked for any of this. I never tried to make it happen.” I know my ability; I know I can hardly play the guitar. I can’t read music. I think it’s hilarious that I do it full-time and get to travel the world doing it and I have to think that this is all God. There’s no way that I could in my own human strength. If I had pushed or manipulated I never could’ve opened up these doors. It’s just favor and I’m humbled by it. I’ve seen it with a couple of friends of mine working in the music industry, not in the Christian music industry, but just trying to be there, just trying to be there in the light and it’s amazing to see how God’s just opened the doors for them. You know, they just nudged the door and it flew open because God was with them. All of a sudden they’re in the spotlight and being able to reflect Jesus.

Like you said, the music industry is very competitive. There are so many aspiring song writers and singers and worship leaders. Why do you think God had favor on you?
MR: I don’t have a clue. You know, I think the things that you want to have as a worship leader, you want to have a heart for God first of all, and then you want to have a heart for God’s people and for the lost as well. That’s really important. And then you have to have a burning heart for worship—music. You don’t want to get these things out of order. If you have a burning heart for music before you have a heart for people, you’ll never be a good worship leader because you’ll write things that will satisfy you musically but you won’t be able to help people worship. First you’ve gotta have a heart for God then second a heart for His people and the lost and then thirdly, a heart for music. And in that order. I don’t know why God has helped me do these things, I love doing them but I have no clue why He wants me in this particular role, but if I had any answer, it would be that I try to have a heart for God, a heart for His people and the lost, and a heart for music.

What is worship to you?
MR: I like to say that worship is the all-consuming response to the all-demanding revelation of God. In other words, when you see God and who He is, you realize that that actually demands everything I am. You can’t come and just give a little bit. And so it’s an all-consuming response to the all-demanding revelation of God. Music is a part of it—a special and beautiful part, it’s a way that we can journey together in worship in church congregations, but clearly, if you don’t live the life, the music doesn’t mean much.

What’s the process that you go through when you write music?
MR: I almost always start out with words ‘cause usually I have what I call a “seed of a song.” It may be just a little phrase or even a word sometimes, or perhaps it’s a scripture verse or a theme that my pastor’s been speaking on at church. So there’s the seed. Lyrics are based on the truth. Music comes and goes but words stay. A lot of the great hymns that we sing today, the music has changed but the words stay the same. You can rewrite tunes, but if you can write words that are based on the words of God, then they can endure. But then again, that’s the reason why I start with lyrics, because I think it’s the most important thing. The other side is, you could have great lyrics and if you had a rubbish tune, then no one would ever sing the song. It’s important to get it right.

What kind of music do you listen to?
MR: All sorts of music. Well, because I don’t read music I feel that the only way I can learn is by listening to what other people are doing and try and let it inspire me and teach me. I believe strongly that it’s okay to listen to music that isn’t Christian. And the reason I think that is because… you have to be careful, I mean, you have to draw the line somewhere, but I think the question at the end of the day is, “Can I thank God for this?” Can I listen to this and be thankful to God? And clearly if the music is really dark and the lyrics are dodgy, you can’t do that. You don’t use the word “dodgy” here in the states, do you? Clearly if the lyrics are unhealthy, then you can’t [thank God]. But the thing to remember is a lot of these bands, they are out there in the world. The gift that they’re using is from God. It wasn’t the enemy that gave them the gifting. He can’t. It is from the Creator—it’s from God—who breathed on them this gift and the sad fact is they use it in ways God didn’t want them to use it, so they use it to glory themselves or they’re trying to glorify something else through their gifting. That’s a real sad thing but sometimes I just have to remember that I want to be a student and I want to learn and I think if I just listen to Christian music then that’s very limited in the sense of learning. I listen to classical, I listen to rock, I listen to pop. I listen to jazz. I try to listen to everything I can and just learn from it. You know, I gotta be careful and filter out stuff that’s not good for my soul and make sure I get a good dose of Christian music and worship music because you need to be making sure you’re feeding your soul. I like Coldplay, Keane, I love all those kinds of bands. I’m also really into my friends, like Crowder, Chris Tomlin. Leeland, Starfield, Switchfoot. So it’s a real mixture.