Worship pastor at Nottingham Trent Vineyard NIGEL BRIGGS spoke to Sarah Yates.

Sarah: The songs (such as 'Hold On', 'Sweetest Sound', 'Turn It All down' and 'Journey Home') seem to revolve around the realisation of the truth of our utter dependence upon God's grace and the intimacy, love and trust that stem from this simple but profound realisation. Is this something you were conscious of as a theme when you were writing, or did it just evolve?

Nigel: With going through a building project the church was certainly more conscious of this theme and more aware of our reliance upon God. It also affects me deeply on a personal level: I was not born into a Christian family and did not get saved until I was age 20. The whole experience of discovering God in this way was incredibly powerful, and it is something that will always stay with me. I realised how incomprehendably big God is, how small I am in comparison and just how much I depend upon him who has given me everything.

Sarah: What would you say is the overriding theme running throughout the songs on the album?

Nigel: 'Our hand in his' - my way of trying to say that was 'Hold on'

Sarah: Were there any songs that you found particularly difficult/easy to write? Why was this?

Nigel: All of them were difficult to write, and I'm not sure if any of them are finished yet!!!

Hold On was without doubt the easiest to write - I don't really know why, perhaps because it was the last one to be written. We got together for a rehearsal and I'd been thinking over a few lines and had been reading psalm 31. Ross the drummer said ' you need a chorus for it don't you?' and I knew there was something there but was not quite sure how to express it. When I got home I just played it through and literally sang the whole thing out, 2nd verse and all! It was God's timing that it was the last one to be written, because for me it just rounded everything off.

Sarah: Why did you choose to do the U2 cover?

Nigel: As a non-Christian I listened to it and was intrigued by it. As a Christian I really love it as a worship song - and it's one of u2's best worship songs, so why not! Since worship music in the Trent Vineyard has a definite contemporary feel about it we felt it would be a great song to use in Church and at events, it's worked really well.

Sarah: What was the inspiration behind
Turn It All Down
Sweetest Sound
Be The One

Nigel: Turn it all down is a co-write with Rich Bull the electric guitarist. I was driving along sitting at the traffic lights (sorry to use such a worship leader cliché - but I was!). I was outside the Baptist church we used to go to and had a chord sequence Rich had written playing back to me on my minidisc in the car. As I was sitting there this really big lorry came up beside the car and the phrase 'Just turn it all down' came into my head. It stuck with me for a few weeks after that and we began to use it as a little section at the end of a song, never really knowing if it would grow into anything more. We didn't add anything else to it for a good year afterwards. At a rehearsal one day I decided it would be good to look at developing it further. Once again it was one of those really strange instances where I had a few chords and the song wrote itself within about 10 minutes. It has captured something special for many people in the church and has meant a lot to them, which is good!

John spoke the words Sweetest Sound in a sermon. They really struck me and I had the phrase written in the back of my bible. This is what happens to me a lot of the time. I hear a phrase or an idea in a conversation or a sermon that particularly strikes me and I write it down. I don't usually think about writing a song from an idea for at least a good month or so, I like to let things gather. There is a constant filtering process going on in my head by which I select those ideas that might work as a song and get rid of those that won't. I'm not very good at sitting for ages and writing reams of notes or trying to create a song vision in the way that some writers do. It usually all happens gradually inside my head! Eventually I will sit down with a few chords and produce something more concrete. There comes a point when you have to acknowledge that you must craft something and work at it. I still get rid of loads of ideas at this stage until I am happy with the song.

Be the One is a special song because it was one of the first we wrote for the church. I was doing a silent retreat at a convent with a guy called Jim Ball (another guitarist at the church). We were trying to be really spiritual during our time there and we thought it would be a great chance to write a song, surrounded by lots of nuns and complete silence! We took our guitars and tried but for 3 days we couldn't think of anything to write! Ten minutes before we were being picked up to go home I strummed a chord on my guitar and sang 'you are life giving', to which Jim replied 'and I give you this life.' We knew from this point that we'd hit on something and were frantically trying to write more lyrics as my wife arrived to scoop us away! Unfortunately that's all we could manage, which was really frustrating because we felt like we only needed another few hours! Once again it took some time before the song was as it is now and it has gone through quite a few changes including the addition of a new chorus, and a second verse (which I added during recording!)

Sarah: What is your favourite song on the album, why?

Nigel: Forty is my favourite because for me it is a real cross-over song that I listened to before I was a Christian and now makes much more sense to me as a worship song. I also love some of the stuff Kat has written. She is a wonderful young person who God's really got hold of!