GRAHAM KENDRICK has been called the greatest living composer of hymns and worship songs. Tony Cummings quizzed the man.

Yes I think there's a common misconception that singing equals worship and I think very often we say 'Let's worship' when what we mean is 'Let's sing another chorus' and it's easy to think that worship starts when the first song starts and finishes when the last one ends and people walk out onto the street again. I think it's very clear from Scripture is that worship is much more fundamental than that. I've sometimes pondered on whether in fact the greatest example of worship in the Bible isn't when Jesus in Gethsemane struggled with obedience to His Father and in the end said "Not my will but yours be done.' Previously he had been singing a hymn with the disciples in the upper room. But he went out and worshipped with his will, he gave his whole body, he gave his whole self as a sacrifice. I think that's the essence of worship. In fact in Romans 12:1 the apostle Paul says:

'By the mercies of God present your bodies as a living sacrifice holy and acceptable to God which IS your spiritual worship.' So we worship God by giving our selves. Having done that, singing music, bodily expressions are all ways we can let that overflow and be expressed. I think it's very important that praise and worship is expressed. Whenever praise is mentioned in the Bible, it's verbal, something is happening, a sound is coming out of someone's mouth, or someone is taking action, it's not an internalised abstract thing at all. But let's not confuse it with singing a few choruses. A lot of choruses are sung by people who walk out the door and worship anything but Christ. The real test is our lives. Jesus complained about many of the religious people of his day, saying these people worship me with their lips but their hearts are far from me.

But not every worship song is much good.

Oh definitely, a song is a vehicle and to take that illustration literally, some are like bicycles and some are like Rolls Royces, some songs can take you further, better because they're a better song. Much of my life is taken up with sweating over songs and lyrics to try and make them into as near to a Rolls Royce song as I possibly can, because I believe it does bring a greater release of worship.