Kathryn Scott: The Heart of a Worshipper
01-08-2008
by Kevan Breitinger
Worship leader and Integrity Music recording artist Kathryn Scott lives in Ireland, so our interview was actually an e-conversation. But it didn’t detract at all from Kathryn’s openness in sharing the heart for the Lord that drives her ministry and creativity.
CMCentral (Kevan Breitinger): Wow, Kathryn, I didn’t realize that you had a family background of touring each summer doing musical evangelism with your family. How many years did you do that?
Kathryn Scott: It is a little mad isn’t it ? The funny thing is, I thought it was totally normal for everyone to go around the country telling people that Jesus loved them – I’m so completely grateful for that legacy! It was really my Mum and Dad who were involved in this, and as kids, we got along for the ride (so I didn’t do any performing). I think I was two when we started doing it – and eight when we stopped.
I read about your dry season before meeting and being mentored by Brian Doerksen. What happened during that process that freed you up to go on to write “Child of God” and “Hungry”?
I went through a three year dry patch when I was about 20. I had written songs since I was nine, and to be truthful, a lot of how I understood who I was, was wrapped up in that ability – I had no idea that was the case though, until I couldn’t do it anymore! I’m so grateful now that the Lord brought me through this, because it taught me SO much I would have otherwise missed.
When something you have always been able to do is suddenly gone – you go through some changes. At first, I struggled with a sense of tremendous loss – this was how I had always expressed myself to God. I also was left having to wrestle through some pretty tough questions - ‘why did this happen’, ‘was there something I could have done to stop it’, ‘who am I without this gift’? It was not how I expected things to go – I’d had so many prophetic words given to me that I was going to write worship songs that would go all over the world – now I was sitting unable to write a single note. But in His mercy, this is what the Lord showed me…
…I realized that it’s relationship with God that is the ‘gift’ – everything else simply points to that. I learned that pursuing ‘something to do’, was nowhere near as satisfying as pursuing a King who gave everything to love me. I found out, that no matter what I could, or couldn’t do – I belonged to Jesus, and that was enough for both of us! That He was happy with me just knowing I was His, and then ‘doing stuff’ for Him because of that – rather than ‘doing stuff’ so that I could know I belonged.
Wonderfully, that’s the very thing that sparked the writing off again! By the time those three years rolled around, I honestly didn’t think I would write songs again – but I didn’t mind any more – I loved Jesus with all my heart – and I knew at the very deepest part of me who I was, that I was His child! So it was an amazing surprise to sit down one day and start to write – and the first song to make it’s tentative way to the surface was ‘Child of God’, followed just a couple of weeks later by ‘Hungry’. Both of them took several months to finish – but the raw material was all there. The writing was back, but both the songs and I were different!
I know when you started pastoring you ran into the same thing many churches do: you were reaching many people already saved, while not really getting to the lost. But that changed in your ministry, marvelously. Did music play a role in that change? How do you see your gift as a musician empowering your ministry and being used to reach those who don’t know Christ?
I honestly don’t think that music had a specific role in things changing – I think it was totally a God initiated thing – but we certainly took a more keen interest in how we were presenting things on a Sunday morning after we started asking people to invite their friends more deliberately. It’s amazing how differently you look at everything you do at church, when all of a sudden your friend from work shows up – or a college friend – or someone from your school. In a way, you see things for the first time again!!
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From that perspective – we started to ‘raise our game’ – we didn’t want people to feel let down by our musicianship, when they had taken the plunge to bring their friends along. As we made the transition, the two things we decided that we would hold as our goal in worship were intimacy with God – that had always been our focus; and excellence in music - we wanted nothing to be a distraction as people encountered God for themselves. This continues to be the aim as we use music in church – I love the way it both honors the Lord, and leaves room for people to meet Him.
(Just to let you have a sneaky peek at what’s been going on over the last almost 4 years in our church – just the same as every church everywhere, we’d been praying for people to come to know Jesus in and through our church – the problem was, we didn’t have any non-Christians coming. We really felt like the Lord told us to ‘go after the lost’, and the He would take care of the church. And so we went headlong into that, realizing that it would change the shape of our church forever. We started to look at Sunday mornings as the place people could connect with Jesus for maybe the first time – and we decided to make it as easy as possible for them to find Him (without us getting in the way – in other words, we decided to make everything as accessible as we could – losing ‘Christian talk’ that make others feel like outsiders – using Sunday as an opportunity to meet new people rather than just catch up with our own friends – making the teaching super practical – working on the music – everything designed with our guests in mind). Since that time, we’ve seen more than 400 people come to faith for the first time – that blows my mind!!! I just have to tell you one more thing – we live in a quiet little corner of Northern Ireland – if God can do that here, with people are ordinary as us - he can most certainly do it where you live too!!!)
I know you have a heart to empower and equip other worship leaders. What is the most necessary gift for a worship leader to possess? What is the focus of your training process for leaders?
This might sound a little obvious, but I think that the most necessary gift for a worship leader to possess is a passion for Jesus. There is nothing more important than this – without it, we might be great musicians, but we’ll have missed being ‘lead worshippers’.
A very close, but definite second is our musical ability. If our aim is to pour out our love for God in music, and help others to do the same, then we have to be as good as we can at our instruments – otherwise, it really doesn’t help others to connect, in fact, it really gets in the way.Those are my two ‘biggies’.
The focus of the training process with other leaders has always revolved around these two elements too – can I see their delight in Jesus? – and can I help them work on their musical ability? The way I love to do this the most is have people I’m training play with me in my band. This is the way Brian Doerksen taught us all those years ago now. I learnt SO much just from watching him, and then getting to co-lead with him. I also learned from the very beginning, that part of being a worship leader, is learning how to give what you’ve been taught away to others.
It’s wonderful to be able to pass all of that on to someone else, knowing that they will then go and do the same!
It seemed to me that the cross is the central theme on I Belong. Do you find it difficult to find fresh expressions of wonder for the Lord’s amazing sacrifice? How do you keep finding new avenues of expression?
This is a good question J. I think one of our main jobs as worship writers is to ‘re-express’ the truth that God has so wonderfully ‘brought to life inside us’. In a sense, worship writing is limited in its subject matter – we tend to come back to the same themes (just as all the hundreds and thousands of writers before us have). The thing is, there is a personal relationship going on that is totally unique in each writer. We all catch a glimpse of God, but we all see Him slightly differently. We all have a grasp of the incredible truth of who He is, but we all articulate that in our own way. That’s where the ‘fresh voice’ comes from. Without relationship with God, there’s no fire in our bellies that we just have to express – without that connection with Him, there’s nothing to say. It’s out of the overflow of hearts that are so full of Him, that new songs are born, telling of ancient truth. I love that!
I love the way you mix delicacy and power, especially in tracks like “Love Rescue Me” and “How Could I Ever Say Thank You.” It’s a unique approach. What do you most enjoy about writing worship, Kathryn?
Thank you. I’ve not really thought about that before J. Basically, I think it boils down to the fact I just love to sing out what’s going on inside me! I also love writing songs that others can then use as their own expression of worship – as a writer, nothing gives me more pleasure than that!
To find out more about Kathryn Scott’s rich legacy as a worship leader check out her webpage at Vertical Music. Read the CMCentral review of I Belong here.
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