Those Christian music watchers who say Michael W. Smith has fully transitioned in the last couple decades from Christian pop pioneer to an arena-ready worship leader clearly didn't seen him in action in Franklin, Tennessee last summer.

During his Tennessee Weekend fan event, Smith played many songs in various venues and with various backing instruments (or in some cases, no backing instruments at all). And while it's clear that worship music best expresses his heart and his passion, there was no doubt in anyone's mind that weekend that Smitty still rocks.

He dusted off songs from some of his early albums--"Wired for Sound" was one of my favorites--and with the energy of someone one-third his age, proved that he still has some pop chops. 

While Smith's 2014 release originally was rumored to be live recordings from worshipping around the world, the singer opted to take a different approach. The result is Sovereign, an album that finds a refined Smith giving us what he gave the Tennessee Weekend crowd: an anointed worship experience punctuated by some solid contemporary pop.

Coming off the recent release, I talked with Smith about the new album, his heart for international ministry, and keeping refreshed in the midst of a marathon of a career.

It's exciting to see all that's taken place with you since the Tennessee Weekend last summer. You were kind of hinting at this direction and hinting at the things to come and it's neat to see it. Congrats on the album. I love it. I love the direction and its bigness and just the sound.

When we talked last summer at your farm, you said, "I'd like to believe my best work is still to come," and now that Sovereign is out there, how does it stack up in the Smitty discography?

It's hard to answer that question actually because all of the stuff in past. I mean I've got favorites in the past. I love Change Your World. I love Freedom. I love Live the Life. I listened to Live the Life the other day for the first time in two years and that was a really good record for me, I think. Whether anybody liked it or not, I liked it. (Laughs.)

This is a little different. It's not completely new. I think it still sounds like me. I think it's the first time I've ever done anything like this. You get a worship record that is not a live worship album. It's a studio record, but you've got the pop sensibilities of who I am as the whole pop-Smitty sort of meets the worship thing and it's not so corporate. Some of it is, but it's more anthemic.

I think it's unique from that standpoint. Is it the best thing that I've done? I hope it's at least one of them. I have to let everybody else make that decision.
 
Just like you said, it kind of merges the best parts of what you do as far as the vertically focused pop songs weaved in with that congregational praise. The press release that was sent out said that this is a new creative chapter for you and you've got a fresh sense of musical innovation. Talk about the stage of refiring and being reinspired again.

I love it. I'm in my sweet spot. I think everybody wants to get in their sweet spot, whatever it is that they're called to do. I'm just energized. Why? I'm trying to figure that out. I think the big thing is that I've matured a little bit. Am I there? No. I'm still on this journey like we all are, but I'm less concerned about what people think about me more than ever today, which is a really very freeing place. I don't have to win another award. Please, I don't need to win another award. I've been successful.

There's just something about going, OK, you want to get in that sweet spot, so let's go out and make great music and knock it out of the park, and not doing it to try to impress a record company or try to sell millions of records. You just do it because it's what you're called to do, but I think your motives are more pure and so when your motive's pure and your posture is right, it's just freeing.

I feel like I'm sort of set free. I feel like a bird or something. I feel like I'm ready to fly. It's the most freeing record that I've done in terms of not trying to impress anybody and just being who I am.

I'm sure that freshness comes with a label change and bringing along all those songwriters that you had the pleasure of working with. 

I did things I've never done before in my life on this record. Working with all these kids and with Capitol, a new record company, and knowing that we've got to do this together. We've got to do this together. This has got to be a combined effort from every level at the label. Top-down to producers to A&R to me. We've all got to do this together and the last thing I need is a "yes" man. My thought was, let's push and shove and let's get it to where we've got something that we can all be really, really proud of, and I think that's what we did.
 
You brought in co-writers like Leeland, of course, who's family to you, and Kari Jobe and Seth Mosley. Why is it important for you to, in a sense, partner with the next generation?

I think it makes a lot of sense. You get this new, fresh blood that's just doing some really cool things. Why would you not partner with them? There's this whole other mentality of "I'm just doing my own thing, and I'm just going to sing my songs and retire one day," and that's just not who I am. I also feel like I've become a bit of a father figure. It sounds weird to say that. I think I'm not only trying to really raise the bar and try to make the best music I've ever made, I think a part of my calling is to be able to mentor this next generation of writers and artists. I get asked all the time, "What's the secret? How did you do it? How did you survive success? You're still married 32 1/2 years. You've got five amazing kids. How did you do it?"

Believe me, I've not done it all right. I've made my share of mistakes, but I think if you can be proud of something, be grateful to God that you have survived success. Basically I have a great wife and great people around me, but people want to know. People want to know how you do this. What are the guidelines? What are the parameters and I think that's part of my responsibility to at least tell them what I do. Hopefully we give them some wisdom in the days ahead.

Kind of what you touched on there sounds like the answer to a question I was going to ask you. "Miracle" is one of my favorite songs on the album. It's so big-sounding and epic, but I love the lyrics of it. "Your miracle is burning bright in me / I was a slave and now I'm free / I'm lifting high these broken chains / You always find a way / I'm a miracle." How do you personally feel like a miracle?

I am a miracle. That was the first song written for the record and it's still my favorite. That and "Sky Spills Over" are my two favorites, but "Miracle" was the bar. That was the one that raised the bar. I think it's a fresh idea.

Interestingly I was watching this Bono interview. There's this new interview of Bono that's really incredible and him talked about his relationship with Christ and he said, "He still does miracles, and I am one." I think we can all say that for ourselves, for those of us who have had this encounter with the person of Christ. We're miracles for sure.

The album, as I mentioned, just feels so big. It feels amazing like it was made for a large gathering. Do you get glimpses of sort of these moments in worship that will come from these songs? In the songwriting process do you get a picture of how these songs will play out in corporate worship as you're writing them?

I do a little bit. You sort of have dreams. As a creative guy you kind of project things like are there going to be 15,000 people singing the whoa whoa whoas in "Sky Spills Over"? Are we going to be in an arena singing "All Arise"?  I've already had a little bit of experience of doing the "You are the Fire" around the world. I was up in the middle of nowhere in, I think it was Holland, and walked off the stage. I was in the car. I was out there, gone for like 10 minutes. I've got videos from my band with their iPhones, they were still singing, "fan the flames"--10,000 people singing "fan the flames so the whole world sees us burn"--a cappella. We've walked off the stage. We're gone.

Moments like that already have given me a little bit of a glimpse of what potentially could be in store for 2014, and then 2015 as we do the world tour around the world. So exciting.
 
You're hitting Puerto Rico, the Republic of Georgia in the near-term and then next year you're heading around the world. Are you going to be doing any kind of U.S. touring in the near future? 

The U.S. tour will be heavily this fall and part of that U.S. tour, there'll be probably a big segment of the spring tour in America. Probably the first part of January and February we'll be in Asia or South Africa or someplace like that. Then in the summer, this is my prediction, we'll probably go back to eastern Europe. I'm doing this thing with Franklin Graham here in a few weeks in Georgia and Poland, but my goal is to go back to Budapest and Bucharest and Latvia--and Estonia, which is one of my favorite places to play.

We were in Iceland last year. We'll probably go back there and then Asia is a big place that we go as well. It's just crazy. Also Europe will be a big play there in London and Germany and probably go back to Paris and play. Fun. Good stuff ahead.

The Christian music "industry" itself, really, seems so Amerocentric. In a sense, you're embracing a calling that's really worldwide. You've obviously traveled the globe before. Talk about that aspect of your calling in terms of bringing these songs and worship to the nations, literally.

I'm just called to the nations. I've known it for a long, long time. Some of those first trips overseas, especially after the worship album came out in 2001, sort of solidified that calling and I just knew that I had favor, and it was just a God thing. Whether it was Zambia or Zimbabwe or Nairobi or whatever, you just found people that were responding to the music and to the songs and I would come back and I would just look at my wife, Debbie, and she'd almost say it before I would. I would say you're just not going to believe what happened and she would look at me and say, "You're called to the nations. You've got to go." That's what I'm doing. I'm still doing it and I'm going to do it for a long time, by the grace of God. 

I don't know why it is, but there are very few artists from our genre that do that. I don't know why. It's unfortunate. It's a sacrifice a little bit, and this is not a guilt thing on anybody, but I would just encourage everyone to just challenge themselves with going are you supposed to sing someplace besides America? We're just a small little field in terms of if you think how big this world is. Everybody says how small it is. I think it's big and you see all the places that there's great possibilities for the music to--that you can go and sew something into a country, just like Bahrain. I was in Bahrain last year. It's a miracle that I even got into the country. I had to be invited by the king. Just crazy. Again, it's just favor, nothing but God's favor.
 
Well, to close out here, I would be remiss if I didn't ask if since last summer you've added any grandchildren to the mix or how the family is doing.

We just had our tenth like 40 days ago, so we went double digits and we're all good, and everybody is great and we are blessed beyond measure. It's a good season. It really is. 

How can we be praying for you in this particular season with Sovereign and touring and whatnot?

Just my strength. I just need to make sure I pace myself. I take good care of myself. I work out. I slept great last night. You've just got to do all the right things when you're kind of pushing it this hard a little bit. This is a big, big week, so I'd appreciate everybody's prayers in the days ahead as well, but this is a big week of just a lot of travel, a lot of interviews and safety and I've already got favor. I'd love to have some more favor. I'll take any of that any day.