It’s 3am. It is still. Other than the distant rumbling of a car, it is silent. Silence can be frightening. It can be refreshing. It can be life giving. It can even be embarrassing.

For an artist, silence can be a dear friend. Friends can help gain perspective, provide insight, help us to laugh at ourselves, bring contrast, and be a catalyst for creative surges.

At the moment, I will happily embrace the sound of silence in my busy life whenever I can. Hello friend.
Blessings,
Katie

Maybe I’m just getting older, but I believe more than ever that it takes great courage to be creative. We become so afraid of getting it wrong.

I find that when I have worked with very young children, creativity is free, bold, and playful. However, the older we get, the more trained we are in thinking that we must get things right. We have learned from experience that those who get it right get applauded.

As a trained musician and composer I have many musical rules, tools, experiences, and knowledge at my disposal. Yet the one personal quality required for creativity that I am talking about most with my students is courage.

The personal quality I am seeking to display myself as I sit up late at night alone composing on my piano, is courage. I am hoping and praying that the older I get, the more courageous as a composer and artist I will be.

I am working on a new album, and I yearn for it to be full of courageous sound, lyric and faith. May you also have courage in your creative endeavours.

Blessings,

Katie

I recently ran a worship workshop down at the south coast. It was such an exciting day, mainly because the participants were so eager to make the theology of worship a priority.

I loved hearing young people talk about the importance of authentic spirituality in worship ministry.

I loved watching older people have courage and try new things.

I loved being part of the wider church community learning how to serve together.

I love doing what I do.

One the themes that flowed through the weekend was making spiritual health a priority. We all love exploring this, but do we all love doing it?

This requires us to deny ourselves, something that can be painful and inconvenient.

Yet I believe it is the foundation of an authentic and effective worship ministry team.

My desire for those involved in worship ministry is that they are not known for having great bands and talented musicians, but rather they are known for being Godly in character.

What are you known for?

Blessings,

Katie

I recently ran a workshop for training and equipping worship teams. One of the most common issues I encounter through these workshops is worship leaders who insist that it is their right as a leader to choose the songs solely based on their musical preference (they are not only generation Y either!).

In doing so, they turn their back on their responsibility to choose songs that reveal the nature of God in a balanced and biblical way. Coming back to the essence of worship I believe is the only way to work through this.

Finding leaders who are teachable and humble is key – us creative lot aren’t always overflowing with these qualities! When we do, however, we have leadership that reflects the nature of Christ in both song and sacrificial life.

Blessings Katie

As a supporter of Young Life Australia, I have been totally bombarded with memories of my days involved in this fantastic organisation. People who I haven’t seen or been able to contact in years have come out of the woodwork as we prepare to gather together at the end of the month to celebrate Young Life’s 40^th birthday. We have been giggling over photos and are amazed at how young we looked (and how old we feel!).

As I reflect on the positive and wonderful impact Young Life has had on my life, it has made me come back to the question of legacy-what impact am I leaving on this world?

When I was about 10, I discovered an Amy Grant record belonging to one of my sisters. I remember putting it on my record player (remember those things?) and being totally captivated by a song written by Gary Chapman that Amy sang called Father’s Eyes. This song, in many ways, had a part to play in shaping my theology, and in turn my song writing.

The desire to reflect the character of God resonated with me then, even though I was so young, and still does today. I am full of failures, of that I am well aware. The older I get, the more passionate I am becoming about being honest with my music, honest with those around me, and honest with myself.

I hope and pray that somehow though my songs, my journey, my voice, and my words that it will be the character of God that people will remember.

Blessings Katie

 I recently finished filming some songs for Impact TV at Foxtel studios and I am now working on a worship retreat for a church.

As corny as it sounds it is such a privilege to be invited into a community and to walk along beside them for a while.

The retreat is called “Essence” and we will be going back to the basics of the essence of worship. We often spend so much time and money looking at the forms of worship and get so distracted that we drift away from the essence of worship and wonder why it falls in a heap.

It is important to help equip and train and support people developing their skills in ministry, but if the central focus on the essence of worship is absent, then something is wrong.

I have never seen a ministry area cause so much conflict or bring so much unity as the music team in a church! I pray that as I work with different teams from around the traps that I will always keep coming back to the essence of it all-Jesus.

Blessings Katie