Worship with an Irish twist

|PIC1|Awaken The Dawn is a new collection of hymns and songs from Keith and Kristyn Getty. With a distinctly Irish flavour and shaped as a service of worship, this album takes listeners on a lyrical journey of grace and hope for all the nation.

They tell us more here about the inspiration behind their latest release.


CT: You are releasing this album in the middle of recession. Was that on your mind when making this album, were you singing about?

Keith:
I think that we need hope as much during the recession because hope is ultimately found in Christ, it’s not found in parties or materialistic success. The goal of the album and our ministry was to write modern hymns for the church and of course in Christ my hope is found.

All the songs tie in this truth in the Gospel story to the reality of everyday life. Rather than focusing on ourselves or how we sing or feel, we focus on the Gospel and out of that, the fact that we celebrate the hope that we have. Each album,well ok that might be another album, but it’s actually a collection of hymns that churches around the world are able to use.

With this one in particular, we wanted to give it a disctinctively Irish shape like our early albums because we are actually doing a special tour with an Irish band so that will be fun!

The other thing is that increasingly artists are making albums to fit iTunes so there are single songs popping up here and there. We wanted to do an album that was actually a worship service in itself.

CT: So what continues to give hope in your lives?

Kristyn:
My hope comes from Christ, whether we are song writers, doctor, businessmen, or teachers. Our call is to seek first his kingdom in all that we do. Our writing is very much an extension of that call on each life to hope and trust in Jesus.

CT: You went to Ecuador recently. Do you think that will inspire your future projects?

Kristyn:
We have worked with Compassion International for a while so they invited us on this trip. We really wanted to see firsthand what they were doing and it made a huge difference in terms of understanding what they do, how it affects us, what their work is and how it really does penetrate the culture in terms of meeting the needs of children not just physically but spiritually. So we were excited to see that and meet our own sponsor child John.

Keith and I were writing the song Compassion Hymn, exploring ideas of compassion in the Old and the New testament and the call in each in our lives to live out this compassion of Christ are to show people the compassion of Christ ultimately through the cross so all that has joined together around the same time.

So that impacted our writing before we went to Ecuador and we did a little journal on our time there and I think it does become part of the colours of the threads of life as you continue on with the creative challenge to write new songs, it becomes part of the fabric of that.



|PIC1|CT: What is important to you as a live worship leader?

Kristyn:
I think our role is to help the congregation sing and to sing songs that are full of the greatness, the height, the depth, the mercy, the character of God in such a way that not only it brings relief and comfort to your heart, but stirs our hearts to follow him more closely. It's a matter of getting people to sing and trying to pick the best songs you possibly can wherever they are from and whatever age they come fro, contemporary of older ones as well.

So if we the congregation are singing together, able to sing, and helping people to fix their eyes on Christ then actually the job of a worship leader should be straight forward.

CT: You have just released your album in the summer. Do you have any future projects?

Kristyn:
Well we always have something; we have a million ideas for breakfast! What we want to write about is totally inexhaustible.

Keith:
This (US) tour finishes March 27, then we are going to spend some time with the family, we will go and have a little holiday and then we are going to spend just a little over a year writing and then we are hopefully going to finish off three or four different projects that we are looking forward to getting done.

CT: You are not looking to change the style of music?

Kristyn:
We have been for other songs, like songs for services or even children’s music but the focus has been on the hymns, so if you were to pick a hymnal and look at the content page you see so many different topics of a singing church to sing. It’s an exciting challenge for a new generation to build on and be inspired on what is gone before and to write new songs for this generation that really explores as far and wide as it can the treasure of the gospel and the treasures of God's work.

CT: What kind of message would you like to deliver to new artists making Christian music?

Kristyn:

We can only speak to the part that we are involved in, writing songs for congregations. There are so many types of music that can be used in church so the principles we follow are to try and write songs that people can sing across the generations. To try and write this big story and really explore it from all parts of the Bible as you write the songs, it’s a task that we set ourselves.

Is there a possible UK Tour?

Keith:

June 2011. We are really looking forward to it.