Congratulations on the new album, Tim. So how did you arrive at the album title, Love Shine Through?

One of the songs is called “Love Shine Through.” The song is a prayer. And it talks about how God shines through our hopes, our dreams, the things that we’re doing, the ways that we’re serving. Also, God shines through our fears, our anxieties and the pain. I think that’s the main thing--His powers are made perfect in our weakness; God can use us in our times of pain. God can use us in our gifts. God can use anyone who’s wholly available to him. It’s really a song and a prayer that God would do that with us. It felt like an appropriate title for the album.

Tim, unlike a lot of artists, you won’t go into the studio to record something until you’ve got enough songs for a project. Is that right?

Yeah. I’ve always felt that was the right way to do it, rather just trying to write something because it’s the time of year to do a new album. I want to really feel that they’re songs that have connected with me, songs that are working in the Church. I’m the worship pastor. It’s not really about the recording business or being an artist. It’s more about authentic and responsive worship. It just comes down to knowing what you’re called to do. Some people are amazing can called to write great songs and churn out albums every year, but I think for me it’s about being a worship leader and modeling it, leading it, training others up in it.

When I feel that there’s a collection of songs that are ready and right, then it’s exciting to get into a studio and try to capture them in the best possible way that hopefully inspires people to worship, and also for people to use these songs in their churches and their times of worship.

Love Shine Through is a real collaborative effort. Not only do you have Martin Smith and Stu G from Delirious helping you out and Ben Cantelon, but you’ve also got Kim Walker-Smith from Jesus Culture and Hillsong United. You’ve got Vineyard Worship and Rend Collective Experiment in on this too, right?

It was a great opportunity to get more people involved. We recorded it in the UK and spent a longer period of time with it. We were really excited to have some different people. Kim Walker-Smith was in town, and the Rend Collective guys from Ireland, they’re fantastic. They're people who have inspired me over the years. Just getting all of that creativity, all that input, all that energy into the recording process was brilliant. From the beginning I really wanted to capture a strong sense of team collaboration. Experiencing the different flavors that these people bring was just really inspiring for me, and I’m so honored that they’d be involved in this project.

Talk about the song “Counting on Your Name.” What's the story there?

I think in the last few years, the world has really been shaken. We’ve seen so many of these things that we put worth, identity, security in have been shaken—such as finances and the economy. Or literally, the world has been shaken with earthquakes, tsunamis and other natural disasters.

On a personal level, it might be your security in relationships that's shaken, as we see people suffer illnesses. It’s just become so apparent that the only thing that is eternal, the only thing that we can fully trust in and depend upon is Christ. As worshipers, as Christians, we can count on His name. He will be faithful. We can believe He is the way.

So, really it’s a song that comes at a time of global shaking to say, “In the midst of this, we know that we can depend on Christ. He has called us. He’s chosen us. We’re His children, His people, and He’ll never leave us nor forsake us,” and actually there’s a great sense of hope and confidence that comes from that. It's quite emotional.


Any song that’s named after a book from God’s word has got to be something special. One of your songs is named, “Ecclesiastes.” Tell us about it.

That was a song we wrote with Martin Smith, and it’s quite cool. Late one night we were writing, and we’d been trying to fit these lyrics from Ecclesiastes into a different song. It wasn’t working. Martin just started playing this thing on the piano, and we just began to sing these timeless words from the Book of Ecclesiastes. We just started to sing out this melody, and the song came really quickly. It’s probably one of the quickest songs I’ve written. It’s a heart cry. It’s an emotional calling out to God, the reality of just needing to know more of Him in all seasons of life.

You’ve got a slightly different version of “Jesus Saves” on the project, right?

Yeah. I recorded it on a live album I did a couple of years ago called Happy Day, and then I think Jeremy Camp recorded it. I’d never done a studio version, so I was keen to do that, but obviously there already were two quite different arrangements out there. So, it just felt like a cool opportunity to try something a bit different. That’s the great thing with many of these worship songs; a lot of them are written in a way that can be expressed in totally different ways and styles of music. It can keep them feeling fresh rather than getting stale. It felt like a cool opportunity to revisit that song, fitting it in with the journey of the album.

Tim Hughes, we appreciate you spending time with us, my friend. Really enjoying the new project. Thanks.

Thank you so much.