|PIC1|CT: What’s it like coming to London?

DM: Doing one night was terrible, but it’s been a long time, probably 10 years since coming to the UK, but I will try to tour around in 2010.

CT: How did you get into the music scene?

DM: Well I have been in the music scene since the early seventies with a band called Love Song, which came out of the Jesus movement in the 70s. Then from '83 to '84 I started leading praise and worship and I didn’t know what I was doing, I didn’t know I was going to be a singer, I have been playing instruments all my life but I didn’t want to be in front of people singing because I was too afraid. I was really scared to be in front of people. I couldn’t give a speech in front of 15 people without starting to shake.

My wife’s sister sent us a letter - we have been married 36 years - and she said 25 years ago she was praying for us and she said in a vision she had seen me standing there in front of thousands of people leading them into God's presence and writing songs that soothe the hearts of kings. I said 'Laura your sister is a great person but she’s not a prophet because there is no way I am going to sing in front of people singing'. Then a couple of years later she found the letter in her Bible. It’s really amazing what the Lord does.

So I do encourage people who lead worship or who are a pastor preaching in front of people. I thought I could never be used like that because I didn’t feel spiritual enough to be used. But if the people know that Don Moen had struggles then it will give them encouragement.

CT: It’s good to show your weakness, to prove that it’s not you but God's working with you.

DM: That’s right, especially when a lot of pastors can be worship leaders, they think they have to be great singers but I say no you don’t. A worship leader does not have to be a great singer but you have to be a great leader to bring people into God's presence and the older I get the more I realise that worship does not equal music and music does not equal worship.

They think worship equals music, but worship means offering up to God and a testimony or serving others, healing a widow, like being a good husband, a good dad these are all things we do in worship and we also sing from time to time.
Because it’s so easy to say worship is about the songs we sing but worship is about the lives we live and out of our lifestyle songs of praise should come out of that.

CT: You have been writing music for a long time. What was your most memorable encounter with God when writing your music?

DM: One that I remember very clearly is “I just want to be where you are”. I wrote it in 1987 and I was at this apartment and I was writing on a grand piano but it was very scary. As I was writing I felt the very presence of the Lord and I thought I had to stop worshipping, because I thought they might find me dead in the apartment, I just felt God's presence so strongly that I just stopped playing. I just felt myself being drawn into a powerful place of worship and the Lord reminded me when I was writing that song that He put that desire in my heart when I was a 12-year-old boy. I was 12 when I accepted Christ and I was 37 years old writing “I want to be where you are” and it hit me that the lord said I put that in your heart 25 year ago, Psalm 27 v 4. That was the first scripture that I underlined in my Bible as a 12-year-old kid, strange that I would underline that and not John 3:16.

So there was a desire in my heart to spend time in God’s presence and when I was writing the Lord reminded me of that desire in my heart 25 years earlier, so that was a powerful song. And “God will make a way” was written out of a tragedy when my little nephew was killed in a car accident so I had to get out of an aeroplane, I had a recording session and I tried to cancel it but I couldn’t, so I had to fly the next day. In my plane I was reading Isaiah 43 v19 and the Lord gave me the words to make that song. So there are moments every song came like that but sometimes it’s a lot of work but it’s that the Lord came in.

CT: As a worship leader how do you encourage people to come into worship?

DM: Well I don’t like to be manipulated, I don’t like people to just sit out and say do this and do that, I just want to create an atmosphere that welcomes the presence of the Lord and let people respond how they want to respond, if they want to stand, if they want to kneel, if they want to sit, it’s okay with me. I don’t respond well to high pressure so some people don’t want me to come to conferences because I won’t want to crank it up, but I’d love to create an atmosphere here and worship and I just know that if we worship, if its sincere, God will heal, save and deliver. So how do I encourage people, I set a table before them where we are in the presence of the Lord. He has invited us to come to His table and at this table there is healing, there is salvation, there is comfort and I am just inviting people to come and partake of the goodness of the Lord, I don’t wont to force.

You see my audience are so broad, I have five-year-old kids and I have 85-year-old grandmas and grandpas who are my biggest fans so it’s really hard. Grandmas and grandpas they cannot stand for 30 minutes because their feet are tired so if we cannot relax in God’s presence then that a problem.

CT: How has the recession affected you?

DM: Well it’s affected every church and every people because everything has been shaken. I think people realised that there is no people to turn to, except to the Lord. I found that people are more inclined to be open to the things of the Lord, because guess what? The retirement fund wasn’t their safety net.

I think people are generally seeking after God more, because of a lot of fear. I had fear. I started my own company, moved to Nashville after 20 years with the same company that was secure, and it was a scary thing for me to do, but in my heart I just knew that there was more that God had for Don Moen to do, there was more.

There is a song “I believe there is more”. I didn’t know what it was but I believe there was more than I was supposed to do and I didn’t know how to get in the boat to do the new thing and keep one leg on land, so eventually I resigned and I launched out into the deep and the scripture that comes to mind is psalm 107 vs 23 to 27. Sounds good, but it says v25 God caused the waves, not the devil, God caused the waves.
V26 this verse was good. So there’s the picture for you, and then you go through hell, then you say what did I do wrong or where did I go wrong? Well you decided to follow God and he said to the disciples let's go to the other side, they got to the other side of the Sea of Galilee, they encountered the storm. What was Jesus doing? Sleeping in the middle of the storm, they wake Jesus and say “don’t you care that we are going to perish?" And He says: "Oh you of little faith.”

I countered a lot of storms and woke up scared but I believe that God has more for me to do, not only me but everybody. It's easy to get content where we are and there is this stirring inside of each of us that there is more that we should be doing. But as you get older, you have children, house and responsibilities it becomes harder and harder to step out into the deep and I think the people miss the blessings of God, they miss an exciting adventure.

I haven’t written anything about a year. So I believe there is more. People think that you are 60 to 70 years old God is finished with you but that’s not true. Caleb was 85-years-old when he went into the Promised Land. Abraham, these guys walked into the greatest blessing in their lives late in life.


CT: What has been the highlight of your career?

DM: The highlight of my career I have had some great privileges to play with some of the greatest musicians in the world. Those are always high moment for me to see what God had allowed me to be with and probably seeing the favour of God as I lead worship and that’s a high point all the time. I think that God will let me do that and trust me to do that. Tere is nothing like feeling the Holy Spirit around me just saying "Son you are doing what you were called to do" and that a great, high moment. Every night, I feel confirmed by the holy spirit that this is my calling this is what I am supposed to do, than any better recognition. I have received awards but this is a lot better and that’s just awesome, just awesome.

CT: People believe that in 2010 a lot of big things are going to happen, that there is going to be a big change, revival, and that more people will turn to Christ. What do you think?

DM: I think that the Christian music industry has been blown up, it doesn’t work how it used to be. Before you could sign up an artist, then sing these songs, look like this move like this and play on a radio, then get on a tour, then get record sales. That’s all broken now because they way people buy music, they buy iTunes and download, I think it’s a good thing because people are not sure how the industry works and that’s good because there is going to be pure motives in Christian music, what it should be, and it’s not going to be about building a big record company it’s going to be about: “Do you want to be a part of what god is doing his next move.”

The music industry doesn’t know what they are doing and now suddenly it’s what we talked about with the recession everybody is saying now what do we do, now it’s a perfect time for the Holy Spirit to reinvent why we do what we do. I would agree that there is a feeling that there is something new coming. I do believe that God wants to do a lot more and I think worship is at the core, I think he really wants to build his kingdom and its going to be built by a doctor who has been touch by worship, by a school teacher who has a heart of worship, by a lawyer, banker a mechanic, by a musician.

Gods is looking all over the earth for true worshippers and saying you are going to build my kingdom. I want to be a part of that and play a role in the way the music is created. I really do believe it and everybody had to be disillusioned before it can come. If everybody is happy and the industry is flourishing, how can God bring a new thing in? And I think going back to the scripture Psalm 107, getting people to a place where they cry out to God in their distress. Then God calms the storm but those moves cannot happen until people cry out to God, unless there is a crisis. But out of this time I believe there is going to be fresh moves of God happening and I want to be a part of it.

www.donmoen.com