Martin Smith and Craig Borlase | David C. Cook
Singer-songwriter Martin Smith of Delirious teams with co-writer Craig Borlase to tell the story of one of Christian music’s most popular worship bands in Delirious: My Journey With the Band, a Growing Family and an Army of Historymakers.
For 17 years, Smith fronted Delirious, known for such songs as “Did You Feel the Mountains Tremble?” and “I Could Sing of Your Love Forever.” The Dove Award-winning, GRAMMY-nominated band helped bring the modern worship movement into existence.
Written to show how God used “five ordinary guys” and how He can use every believer, Delirious also offers thoughts on today’s music scene. Reflecting on the early days of the worship movement, Smith writes: “We’ve become too song focused, and in truth I believe that we need to be more worship focused. We’ve lost the ability to push aside the songs and replace them with twenty-five minutes of crying out, opening our hearts and heads with the raw worship of God who’s within us.”
He offers his thoughts on topics ranging from the art of leading worship to the challenges of parenthood—and urges readers to be agents of change, not just singing the band’s songs, but living them.
Smith found himself in such a place when at age 26, he landed in the hospital with a broken femur after falling asleep at the wheel while driving late at night. By all rights, he should have been dead, he writes, acknowledging that once again he had to offer his life back to God.
“It was up to me to pray, up to me to lay down what I had and get real with God.” He did just that, and not long after the accident, Delirious launched into full-time ministry.
Through the years, the band was an integral part of their local church in England, choosing to be away from home only up to 10 days at a time. “It’s been really important to us for our children to grow up in a strong local church,” he writes, “Our world is not totally consumed by music, and not even by ‘saving the world’ with our music.”
Growing up in a Brethren church, Smith learned to appreciate different denominations. “I’ve always liked the way that God worked through us without our being affiliated to one sole tribe, denomination, or movement,” he writes. “That simple truth kept us aware of the faith that we cannot claim to have all the answers.”
Smith learned the power of the Holy Spirit early on at a New Wine conference and through Kevin Prosch, a key worship leader, and was used by God in seeing healings take place. He learned not to pray faithless, “double-sided prayers” and saw the power of God break through and make people whole.
Having gone on to other projects such as CompassionArt, which joined other artists together to write and perform songs to fight global poverty, Smith acknowledges that coming off the road with the band was “bittersweet.” Still, he writes: “I’m hearing God’s voice louder than ever. Turning the volume down on the rest of life always results in God’s voice sounding clearer.”
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