Transcript:

I think a real key is to, first of all, you’ve got to establish who the songwriters are so you’ve got to kind of get a community together, maybe set up a group, get some people hanging out. Start encouraging people to write songs, listen to them and feedback, and, you know, that whole process of critiquing people and encouraging them on their journey, because the thing is, there are some people who are just gifted to write songs and they need the encouragement and they need the context to fail and to flourish and to just thrive.

So I think it’s important to recognise it first of all, because the Psalms always say “bring a new song”, “sing a new song to the Lord” and I think there’s something that unlocks in worship when new songs are sung, like nothing else, so that is always the art. And, I mean, at the church I’m at of course we’ve got a lot of songwriters, you know the church, we’ve got this phrase that it’s woven in worship so we’re always encouraging people, I’m always on the lookout. People often write to me or grab me at the end of a service and I’ll listen to their song, they’ll send a song. Let me hear what you’ve got and try and take it from there.