Matt Redman: The British worship leader barely out of his teens

Monday 1st August 1994

The New Wine and Soul Survivor events have propelled a young man, barely out of his teens, into national ministry. Andrew Long spoke to MATT REDMAN.

There are not many who can claim to have ascended to the position of full time worship leader at their church as well as at an associated youth project and have an album out on a major Christian label to boot - and all this by the tender age of 20. This though is the case for newcomer Matt Redman.

The church in question is the Anglican church of St Andrew's in Chorley Wood, where young Matt was brought up and became a Christian when he was 10 years old. It was here that he first began to play guitar, to assist him in leading worship for the youth. Matt is now part of a team that works in a youth project called Soul Survivor, Watford. I asked Matt to tell me more.

"We started last September and it's growing quite fast. We run an evangelistic thing on Friday nights called The Dregs' and we're getting over 100 each week, about 80 or 90 are non-Christians. We have a celebration once a month - it's kind of growing into a congregation really."

Last year Matt was one of the worship leaders at the Soul Survivor conference and it was there that he met American pioneer of prophetic worship Kevin Prosch, who was also there to lead worship. On the last night of the conference Kevin sang out a prophecy over Matt which revealed that he was about to have some kind of breakthrough.

"We felt that this was something to do with my songwriting," Matt continued, "and a week later I felt that it had happened at a ministry time at New Wine, when we were playing together and I came up with a song called 'I've Got A Love Song In My Heart'."

From that time on Matt felt that he had been released in the area of songwriting and that particular song is one of nine which he has written for his debut album 'Wake Up My Soul', which Matt recorded at ICC studios in January and February.

The album has an impressive line up of musicians including lona's Mike Haughton, percussionist Martin Neil, Split Level's Adrian Thompson, Helen Burgess and Les Moir on bass, with production by Martin Smith. Kingsway have picked up the distribution of the album, which is a New Wine/Soul Survivor project. The album is a mixture of electric and acoustic styles and the influence of Kevin Prosch is clear in Matt's songwriting style. Matt also cites Bryn Haworth as inspiration and admits to the musical influences of his favourite secular artists Sting and the Spin Doctors.

'Wake Up My Soul' was released in May and all parties concerned are very pleased with the initial response. This summer Matt will again be sharing the task of worship leader with Kevin Prosch at the Soul Survivor conference and will then be leading worship in the main celebrations at New Wine, having served a three year apprenticeship leading youth worship at this event. The band will include Martin Neil and Les Moir.

Matt had initially taken a year off from university, where he was studying psychology, to work at St Andrews. But he has now abandoned his course to continue working full time at the church. Matt told me that he sees his music ministry falling very definitely within the category of worship leader with an emphasis on leading people into intimacy with God. Although there is some element of entertainment in what he does, he believes that worship leaders like Kevin and Bryn have shortened the gap between performance and worship.

"At the celebrations we have a sort of evangelistic worship, where the music is good, so you can come and just enjoy the music, but on a deeper level people do come to know the Lord through what we're doing."

Matt's planning to record a second album next January for release in May. It's always very encouraging to see fresh, young songwriters with good material getting the breaks they deserve. Maybe in a year or two we'll all be standing in church singing songs from this album, instead of "Shine Jesus Shine" again. CR

The opinions expressed in this article are not necessarily those held by Cross Rhythms. Any expressed views were accurate at the time of publishing but may or may not reflect the views of the individuals concerned at a later date.
About Andy Long
Andy Long writes regular music features for the European Christian Bookstore Journal and plays bass.


 

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