Encouraging saints around the world since 1991 !!

FEATURED
CHRISTIAN SONGWRITERS

STUART TOWNEND 

A Brief biography
(from bbc.co.uk)

Stuart Townend is known and respected by musicians and worship leaders throughout Britain and beyond, and has to date released three solo albums 'Lord of every heart' (June 2002) "Say the Word" (1997) and "Personal Worship with Stuart Townend" (1999). He is probably best known as a Stoneleigh International Bible Week worship leader, a major Christian event drawing over 20,000 visitors from around the world; but he is involved in worship in a great many other areas.

Stuart continues to be involved in leading worship with a number of organisations, including Spring Harvest, New Frontiers, CARE, Worship Together, and Mandate, and will be at Northern Ireland's New Horizon festival in August 2004. Stuart also features on the 2003 Mandate live album, See what a morning.

An album of Stuart's hymns has also been released on Kingsway's popular Hymn Makers series. Recorded at Coventry Cathedral with the St Michael's singers, it features may of Stuart's best known compositions, including In Christ alone, How deep the Father's love, and Beautiful Saviour.

As the main driving force behind the Worship Together Pack, of which he is the editor, Stuart has had a major impact on many recent developments of worship in the church. Worship Together provides worship resources, information, training, and new songs through a quarterly pack, magazine and major seminars program. Stuart explained, "I see Worship Together as a major way of resourcing the local church, not only with present resource needs like new songs, but also with yet unknown resources to come in the future. It is my passion for Kingsway to make these resources, specifically tailored for the local church."

Stuart is much respected for his small group training for church worship leaders, and has met with much success as a keyboard player, singer and record producer, including producing the Stoneleigh live worship albums, including "Ruach" which won the Christian Booksellers Convention Album of the Year Award.

Stuart grew up as the youngest of four children in a Christian family in West Yorkshire where his father was a Church of England vicar. Stuart's family always enjoyed music and one brother, Ian, went on to become a member of the group Heartbeat. Stuart himself began to play the piano at the age of 7.

It was while living in West Yorkshire that at the age of 13 he made his Christian commitment. Then later at the age of 18, when helping to lead a children's camp in Hand Cross, West Sussex, he had a profound experience of the Holy Spirit. A literature degree at the University of Sussex brought Stuart to Brighton and there he met Caroline whom he married in 1988. They now have three children; Joseph, Emma, and Eden, and are members of the Church of Christ the King in Brighton where Stuart regularly leads worship.

One area in which Stuart is making a significant contribution to the life of the church is his songwriting where songs like "Lord How Majestic You Are," "How Deep the Father's Love" and "The Lord's My Shepherd" and his new 'In Christ Alone' are making an impact. Yet Stuart says that he wrote nothing until he was 22 years old.

"I had a project to complete, and I had left it late. I picked the topic of worship and started to write. I had what I can only call a revelation and this led to my realizing there was a call on my life to write and lead worship. Until that moment, it had never crossed my mind." A great many worshippers are now very glad his homework was late.

"Personal Worship with Stuart Townend" is the first of a series of albums released by Kingsway, when the featured worship leader simply worships with simple, sparse accompaniment, and sometimes with no accompaniment at all. In Stuart's words, "My prayer is that these songs and this recording will be a useful tool in the simplicity and humility of your own personal worship".

SONGS STUART HAS WRITTEN/COWRITTEN 
THAT MIGHT "STAND THE TEST OF TIME"

"In Christ Alone", "How Deep The Father's Love", 
"The King Of Love", "Beautiful Saviour", "The Power Of The Cross"

favorite hymns & choruses

favorite songwriters AND HYMNWRITERS

Tips for writing a successful hymn

There are probably more hymns and worship songs being written today than in any period of church history. But relatively few will stand the test of time. And that has always been the case: for every "Amazing Grace" or "And Can It Be", you can bet there are several hundred trite, interminably dull ditties that did the rounds at the time, but have now thankfully faded into blissful obscurity.

So how can we make sure what we write is worth singing for years to come? Here are a few ideas that I try to put into practice myself:

• Study the Scriptures. The best hymns demonstrate insight and understanding of the Bible, and consequently bring the truths of the Christian faith to life. If you don't know the message of the gospel, you can't write something that will enable others to worship in spirit and truth.
• Be poetic, not pompous. Sometimes when people set out to write a hymn, they use phrases which might sound 'hymny', but actually mean very little. Make your phrases mean something!
• Combine objective truth and subjective response. When a hymn is just a statement of theological truth, it may be accurate, but it can be dry. Equally, when a hymn is just about how we feel, it's wishy washy. The best hymns powerfully express the emotions of the worshipper, but as an emotional response to the objective truth of the gospel.
• Look for musical dynamics. A hymn should have musical peaks and troughs, and there should be a sense of building to a climax where the melody soars while expressing the main theme of the hymn.
• Make every line count. I see hymns that contain a few good ideas, but some of the lines are clearly there as just 'filler', and let the whole thing down. Don't just stick in a line because it rhymes, or because you couldn't think of anything else to say.
• Prune it mercilessly. Once you think you've finished, go through it carefully, and get rid of anything that distracts from the main theme you're expressing. Better to have two compact, punchy verses than four rambling, unfocused ones.

So get writing!

Copyright © 2004 Stuart Townend.

Link To STUART'S Web Site 

http://stuarttownend.typepad.com/

Email   

stuart@stuarttownend.co.uk

Other Featured Christian Songwriters !

Graham Kendrick

Gerrit Gustafson

Lenny Smith

John W. Peterson

Bob Kilpatrick

Lynn DeShazo

Jimmy & Carol Owens

The following have also agreed to be 
Featured Christian Songwriters

Paul Baloche (Open The Eyes Of My Heart, Above All - with Lenny LeBlanc)
Rick Founds (Lord I Lift Your Name On High,  Jesus Draw Me Close)
Mark Altrogge (I Stand In Awe Of You, I'm Forever Grateful)