Story Behind How He Loves

Uncensored Conversations

For John Mark, the song gives people permission to have whatever kind of encounter with God they need to have at that moment. “I want to give believers a language. I think that’s what being a worship leader is: helping people have their conversation with God, helping them say the things they need to say. Giving them permission to enjoy God, complain to God, love God, in an action-oriented way, where they can worship God at any moment of any day. Why do you wait until you get into a service to do it? Is it because for some reason when the guy gets on the stage or the lady plays the chords, that gives people permission to do it in that setting?

“The Bible says there’s one mediator between God and man, and that’s Jesus. So as a worship leader you can’t be a mediator, you don’t stand between the people and God and offer sacrifices for them, like the priests did in the Old Testament. But what you do is create a space for them to come and offer what they have. So I absolutely love doing it. I want to help cultivate worship in people’s lives.

Finding Your Own Voice

“I think I’m called to inspire worshiping bodies to write their own music. And just connect with their own heart for the Lord. You can write something that is kind of important to a huge group of people or write something that’s very important to a smaller group of people. I feel the culture of every single city in the United States is different—every nation, state, the culture is different. People communicate differently. They have different needs and different conversations they need to have with God at different times. And they have different ways of doing it. We definitely don’t worship the way David did, you know.

“It’s not that I don’t want people to sing my song, too. But my hope is they’ll say, ‘This inspires me to go write something and sing my heart and help my group of people connect with God in a way they’re called to.’ I’m hoping that people will take it and be able to use it as a tool for their conversation with God—whatever conversation it is they need to have.” I have so many kids, college age, and full-grown adults who come to me and tell me things like, ‘I totally gave up on God after my friend committed suicide. And I heard your song and something broke in me’— because the song identifies with their pain. Just like Jesus was able to identify with mine. I think really what’s happened is that this song has given people the opportunity to have that conversation, a conversation that they didn’t know they were allowed to have, giving them opportunity to experience God again.” How he loves us, indeed.

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