When did you start writing songs?

Ever since I first picked up the guitar at six or seven years of age, I have always loved writing. I used to spend time messing around on the guitar and try to make up my own songs and little pieces – I preferred doing that over what my teachers at school were giving me to play. I was also involved in bands when I was growing up and used to write some of the music that we’d play. When I got saved though, I stopped doing all the bands and a lot of the music that I loved – my life needed a bit of a change so music became a lot less of a priority for me.

It was only when I started really getting into the worship at Hillsong Church a number of years later that I ever even considered writing a worship song or anything like that. I used to just sit in worship services and feel so stirred to write and to write worship songs. I’d find myself coming out of church with song ideas in my head – I just started practising and learning. Through this time, I guess I wrote what you could call my off icial “first song”!

What was the first song you wrote?

One of my first worship songs was Lord I Give You My Heart – I wrote this song while I was studying at the music institute. The week before I had been travelling to minister somewhere with some friends and was involved in a car accident… the kind that reminds you how fragile life is. I remembered later that week I was writing and playing around with a melodic idea that I had been working on, and it was just as if (fora moment) I had tapped into this deeper well and I was singing “Lord I give You my heart, I give You my soul” over and over. It’s a prayer I had been praying for a while and it all just fitted together – one of those songs that seemed to write itself.

How do you feel about the impact that your songs (such as Lord I Give You My Heart, Eagles Wings and My Redeemer Lives) have had on people?

I see it as a real privilege. God has blessed our church in an incredible way and the ministr y of Bobbi & Brian, Mark and Darlene’s ministry and subsequently our worship team. It’s incredible that these songs, that began as my own prayer and heart’s desire, would be the prayer of many other people also.

What musical instruments can you play?

I now mostly play the guitar (acoustic) as it works the best as far as worship leading goes, but I have spent lots of time playing and studying the electric. I mess around a bit on the piano but wouldn’t say that it’s an instrument I can play!

What did you want to be or do before becoming a worship leader and song-writer?

I have always wanted to play music – it’s been a bit of a lifelong thing for me… I don’t know if I’ve ever imagined myself doing anything else.

How long have you been involved with Hillsong? What have been the different roles that you had been doing?

I have been at Hillsong church for about 10 years now. I have done many different things such as choir, leading youth worship, answering emails for Darlene, overseeing our musicians, pastoring and discipling people, rostering, and whatever else was the go at the time – there’s always something that needs doing! I have been on the staff now for about 7 years.

When did you first join Hillsong and how did it come about?

In 1995, I moved from Melbourne to Sydney to study music. I had heard about Hillsong church through some friends and started attending; not long after that, I decided to make it my home church. I became involved in the youth ministry and then became a part of the music team – I’ve loved it ever since!

How is your first solo album World Through Your Eyes different from any other Hillsong albums that you have been involved with?

It’s a devotional album. When I set out to create the album, there were a few things in my heart about it – one was that because of the nature of how we come together as ‘church’, there are some themes that have to be excluded. Church isn’t just Sunday – most of my songs thus far have been for Sunday – but this is for the rest of the week.

World Through Your Eyes is meant for picking up and putting in your car and worshipping God – worshipping God when you hear it on the radio, worshipping God in your room – it’s created for that format. That has meant for me that I had more melodic license in creating the album than I usually allow myself for church songs, more license for themes – the breadth of the themes in the Psalms is massive and we don’t cover all those themes on Sunday. My passion behind doing World Through Your Eyes was more diversity: it covers more of my experience, the human experience, which I think is what the Psalms do – they cover every human experience.

Tell us about some of the songs on the album.

The songs on the album have been crafted over years – lots of thoughts and ideas coming together. They are mostly songs that I wanted to write but didn’t intend for congregational worship, so for me they are more personal, even though I know that some of the songs can be and are being used by people in churchsettings. The song World Through Your Eyes, for example, is about being on the mountain with God – it’s all about intimacy and experiencing worship in creation. It’s really meant to be a prayer prayed from this place that, as I go down the mountain from here, God would help me to see the world through His eyes.

There is another song on the album called Waterfall . This song is all about the journey from being in a desperate place of feeling dry before God and in need of Him (the desert place) to believing and experiencing God’s presence. His presence is like a waterfall – like Niagara Falls – in God’s presence all you want to do is cr y “take me deeper in love, take me deeper with you”.

What message do you want to put across to people who listen to it?

The message of the album is worship. It is designed to inspire people to worship – it’s meant to be a devotional experience, like praying.

How did you become a Christian?

It was around the end of 1992 that I finally accepted Jesus as my own. After a real time of feeling lost, I got to wondering about Christianity and decided to read some books that had been recommended to me. After reading the books Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis and No Compromise by Keith Green, I knew that it was real and I needed God in my life.

I made the decision to accept Jesus at the beach one summer when I was away with my family and God began to work in me – His presence has never left my life since!