What do you get when you put 15-year-old Heart of God Church youths leaders and two-time Grammy-award winner Matt Redman together? Deep insights… and a whole lot of fun!
Watch until the end for what is probably Matt Redman’s first and only TikTok video online?!?
Rinnah: We’re all in the same church but serve in different ministries. I lead about 40 people across two Connect Groups. Today we just want to ask you, how do you stay on fire and fresh for God after so many years of ministry?
Matt Redman: That’s a great question and, by the way, I love that you guys are all leaders. That’s just awesome. You know I think a lot of it is about seeing Jesus.
I’ll tell you one, it’s quite a full-on example but in the New Testament, there’s the first martyr; Stephen. And he had this moment, he’s being stoned to death for his faith, they’re throwing rocks at him but he’s seeing Jesus in heaven. He says he’s seeing a vision of Him even though it’s happening and he was able to endure the moment, because of what he was seeing.
Put that on to a smaller level in our lives, sometimes just being able to put up with someone who doesn’t like what you do in your faith or being able to work hard for a year, over the long term it’s about like seeing who He is and Scripture in your daily walk with Him.
Darius: Because of my leaders, as a youth, I was given the opportunity to rise up and play in the main service. So I just wanted to find out, how old were you when you first started worship leading and how did you get started?
Matt Redman: I was 14 or 13, it was so long ago, I can’t remember. I didn’t want to be up in the front leading people. I just wanted to play the songs at home. I loved worship songs. So I started, bought a guitar, started playing the songs at home. And I’m thinking, “I’m cool with that”. Then my youth leader found out I was doing that and he’s like, “I want you to lead worship in the youth group and I was like, “Forget it, find someone else, not interested”. I didn’t want to be up in front, and he’s like, “no”. He asked me like ten times, I said no ten times.
In the end, he set up this elaborate trick to make me do it. So he had this moment where we’re standing outside the church and the other worship leader run up and he said, “Oh, I’ve got a family emergency I can’t lead worship tonight the youth group and he just ran off. So the guy is like, “Wow, what are we going to do? Matt, worship is important isn’t it?” I’m like, “Yeah” and he’s like, “We don’t have an evening where we don’t worship God together”. I’m like, “Yeah” and in the end, he makes me lead worship and I found out after it was a trick. That’s how I did it.
Irving: We want to tell all our friends who are not in church that a Grammy Award-winning artist has a message for them. Can you record a message for them?
Matt Redman: Hey everyone, it’s wonderful being in Singapore. When I was about your age, I heard a guy talk about God and he talks about that He’s like a father. He’s a father in your life, it says in the book of Psalms in the Bible, He’s a father to the fatherless and it really resonated with me because I’d lost my dad when I was aged seven and I want to tell you the same message today, that God is a father, a perfect father over your life.
Rinnah: Do you have anything else to say to the youth in church?
Matt Redman: You have no idea the adventure you’re going to go on with Jesus. You know, sometimes some people have this misconception of Christianity of church and it’s like, “Oh, it’s all about the stuff you can’t do and it’s going to be boring and you’re going to have to give up loads of fun stuff, that is not true. I can tell you, after years of following Jesus, you go on the most amazing adventure in His Kingdom and you guys have seen it already even here in this church. But there’s gonna be so much more.
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Check out what went down when Matt Redman flew over to Heart of God Church exclusively for our 20th Anniversary Celebrations HERE!