There was a time (a beautiful time, mind you) when it would not be uncommon for Grace London's Sunday worship team to be short of a pianist, a guitarist or a cajonist and for Andrew Haslam to spontaneously jump up onstage himself to pick up the slack and play one of the instruments to fill the band out. That time seems to be just a fading memory of the past, since, over the last few years, our worship ministry has become a robust, lively, creative group of rotating worship leaders and musicians helping us to meet with God through praise and song each week.
We have Pete Mills, who heads up the worship team, to thank for a lot of this transformation as Pete has worked hard both behind the stage and in front of it to help shape the Grace London worship vibe that you experience each Sunday. Alongside Pete, we also have Jono Thorne, who is joining our staff team this month. Jono will take over as my maternity cover, helping out with Grace London's communications and digital work for part of the week, and then as worship coordinator for the other part. Jono will also take on some theology studies at Crosslands.
Get to know Pete and Jono a bit more in the interview below:
Can you tell us a bit about yourself?
Pete: I spent the first 24 years of my life in the North East of England, growing up in a small town called Stockton-on-Tees before going to study music in Newcastle. This is where Nats and I met as we were both a part of Cornerstone Church Newcastle, which is also part of the Advance Movement. During our first year of marriage, we felt God call us down to London, thinking that we'd be here for a short time. But here we are six years later with Ezra (our lively 11-month old boy) and a wonderful church family! Outside of church and work, I'm a long-suffering supporter of Middlesbrough FC and I enjoy trying to find my favourite albums on vinyl.
Jono: I grew up in Coventry in the West Midlands with my parents and two older sisters. After finishing school, I decided to take a gap year and moved to Brighton where I worked as a worship intern for a church called Emmanuel. As I was preparing to move to London to start my undergraduate degree, a friend mentioned Grace London to me and so I decided to visit on my first Sunday in the city. I soon decided to settle at Grace and have been here the last four years. In my spare time I enjoy (unsurprisingly!) playing guitar and songwriting, bouldering and reading.
How many instruments do you play?
Pete: The threshold for 'play' is debatable, but I think I've played six different instruments on stage.
Jono: Four - I learned clarinet from a young age and taught myself guitar as a teen. I also play bass and saxophone.
Pete, Can you share with us a bit more about your role and what you do on a day to day basis/Sunday?
Pete: I'm responsible for enabling our musicians and technicians to flourish when we gather as a church family. This involves everything from leading sung worship to helping the tech team get everything ready for a gathering. Each Sunday can look quite different depending on what's needed, but it could involve auditioning people for the worship team, deciding new songs with our worship leaders or fixing some technical issues that inevitably occur!
What have you seen change since you first began leading the worship team until now?
Pete: The most obvious change is the size of the team. When I first started, there were some team members who were serving every Sunday, as we didn't have enough people on certain instruments. There are now over 40 people on the team and I serve alongside five brilliant worship leaders who help to facilitate our times of sung worship.
Many people might not know that the team actually wrote a few original songs which we sing on Sundays. How did this come about and how has that whole process been?
Pete: Yes, it's been great to see how this has developed over the past year. Nats and I wrote a song about the prodigal son over lockdown and thought it could be a blessing to our church, so we decided to start singing it on Sundays. From there, several people encouraged us to write more, so we put together a small songwriting group to write songs that were engaging, theologically rich and could be easily sung by a church congregation. We now have four original songs that we sing as a church and it's been incredibly rewarding to see how they've encouraged people in their faith.*
And this is where Jono comes in as for a few days a week, he will help you with worship and song composition.
Pete: Jono in particular is a song ideas machine, and I'm very much looking forward to him being able to give even more time to this as he joins the staff team.
Jono, you’ve been on the worship team for a while now and have just recently re-joined the staff team as worship coordinator and (my!) communications maternity cover. What led you to take on these roles?
Jono: After working at Grace part-time during university, I decided to venture into corporate communications over the last year. However, I've had a passion for worship and composition for some time and had hoped at some point that I'd be able to do it in a professional capacity, though I was unsure when. So, I jumped at the opportunity to rejoin the staff team at Grace and combine my professional experience and passion to support the church in this role. When I'm not working in the office, I'll be studying theology online at Crosslands, exploring the bible with people from across the UK and the further afield.
What are you most excited about doing in this role? What are you hoping it will look like?
Jono: I’m hoping the role will involve lots of collaboration with other church and staff members as well as the opportunity to think creatively and produce engaging content.
Do you find it challenging to worship when you have to do it in an “official” capacity?
Pete: There can be a challenge around the sincerity of our worship and I'm mindful of ensuring that my worship remains devotional rather than it becoming just 'my job'. I think it's something that every worship leader has to wrestle with and we must regularly examine our hearts to discern what the object of our worship is. But this is also true for everyone - Jesus calls us to be worshippers who worship in spirit and truth, so we must never be content with insincere worship.
What does worship mean to you?
Pete: True worship is the continuous giving of all that we are to God and this affects our whole life, not just the songs we sing on a Sunday. To worship God is to love him with all our heart, soul, mind and strength - this should affect how we sing on Sundays as well as how we live our lives during the rest of the week. Worship brings feelings of awe, reverence, contentment and joy, which can only be found in their ultimate sense when Christ is the object of our worship.
Jono: I would describe worship as a joyful sacrifice. Like how the Israelites would offer the first-fruits of their harvest on the altar, for us, true worship involves surrendering to God everything in our lives and giving Him the place of highest honour in our hearts. It is a costly act, but one that brings deep joy and rest.
What is important for you in selecting a song to sing on a Sunday?
Pete: I think it's important for us to start our times of worship by declaring something about God before we sing something about our response. This is why we'll often start our services with something like 'King of Kings' or 'Lion and the Lamb' before singing a song like 'God I look to you'. It's a small thing but I think it helps us to keep Christ at the centre of it all.
Jono: It may sound like a no-brainer but I always try to include mention of Jesus in the first couple of songs. God has revealed himself most abundantly through Jesus - and He is the object of worship! - so I find it helpful to explicitly refer to Jesus early on in the setlist.
How can we pray for you and the ministry?
Pete: Please pray that God would bring us more skilled musicians and technicians as the church continues to grow. There is a real love for the church family in both teams and this is evident as they pray for the church before band rehearsals every Sunday. Please pray for this to continue and for an even deeper love for the church.
Jono: Over the last few weeks, I’ve been dwelling on Jesus’ Great Commission to make disciples of all nations and so I would appreciate prayer that my work in the team would serve to advance God’s kingdom and bring those outside the church to know Him. My prayer too is that as a worship team, we would have an increasingly missional focus and that through our times of worship we might encourage the church to share the gospel with others.
Can you share with us the link to the Grace London Spotify playlist?
Pete: Absolutely! Here it is.
*In case you were wondering, the four original Grace London worship songs are:
Better
Come to the King
Crucible
The Grace of the Father