Picture Spring 2023: a radiant sun, melodious birds, and writers from churches across the nation converging in Birmingham to seek God for new songs for the church. One of the things I love most about New Wine and the place of gathering church on a big scale is hearing the stories and seeing the patterns of what God is doing across the nation and how they relate to us as a local church. As we shared encouragements, challenges, and prophetic senses, it was clear that coming into Summer 2023, God was wanting to remind us to put our focus firmly back onto him – it seems obvious to say it, but it felt like there was so much distraction, so much noise around and God was calling his people to tune back into him. This came out in several of the songs that were written during that time. Most significantly, through a song called Kyrie Elieson.
Kyrie Elieson translated as Lord have mercy started as a simple repetitive prayer as a chorus, ‘Lord would you have mercy for the ways that we have taken our eyes off of you’, ‘Lord would you remind us who you are’. As we prayed, we had feelings of idolatry in the church, and at times we had made church the main thing instead of Jesus. Even worshipping worship. Kyrie Elieson became our prayer of repentance – this was most apparent when we came back together as a whole group to listen to finished songs, and halfway through the song, we stopped as a whole room to cry out on behalf of the church in our nation. I have never felt the tangible presence of God so clearly as in that dining room, interceding and praying for our nation together. As Christians this has to be our hope and desire to see God’s kingdom come in our communities, on the streets, in schools, workplaces, and churches. At the end of January and early February we are heading out on the road as New Wine Worship with a number of friends to gather and sing in different cities; my hope and prayer for these days comes out of Joshua 3:5 – consecrate yourselves for tomorrow the Lord will do amazing things among you. I believe God wants to see his church set apart as Holy to bring about his kingdom here and now and that is what we are going to do on those evenings.
The title track for the upcoming EP is ‘It Was You.’ This was a fun song to write that came together with great joy and ease. We were reflecting on the invitation back from God to put our focus on him and remember his story in our lives which led to the lyrics ‘It Was You, when my life needed mercy anew’. We worship and serve a God whose story spans all history, and we are part of a story with many, many generations before and after us. It can be so easy to get wrapped up in our own stories and significance, but we are all people saved by a God of mercy. For this song, we have partnered with Mercy Ships to celebrate that God is a merciful God who rescues us. Mercy ships travel all over the world to bring hope to those in need through hospital ships.
We recorded these songs live at New Wine last summer, as well as a live acoustic version of Fall On Us – last year’s Summer anthem, plus some other songs that we plan to release soon.
As we come together and try to write and capture what God is saying for the church, we are always drawn back to what is needed for us to sing together. Faith was not meant to be done in isolation, and so we love to hear the corporate voice of God’s people singing. This is also why we are excited to head out on the road this month to sing together.
If you are around Leeds, Manchester, Birmingham, London, or Bristol and able to join us on one of our worship nights we would love to see you – we are also planning another round of venues and dates later in the year.
Finally, if you are a worship leader or involved in the worship life of the local church and are not connected to the regional New Wine Worship networks, we would love to connect with you – head to new-wine.org/network and sign up to be part of the worship network. We would love to connect you with others close to you. There will also be time at NLC to gather together as worship leaders, network, grow and be a community together.
