Contributors

Rose Morris

As a one time Katikati girl, Rose is now part of the community at St John’s in the City, Wellington. Passionate about sustainability and Fair Trade, Rose is studying History and Religious studies at Victoria.Rose pretty excited about writing songs which knit together our individual walks of faith and our faith as a church community, so that we can sing with One Voice.When the sun’s out in Wellington, Rose likes to take her camera for a walk and get snap happy and can kind no fault in the combination of knitting, folk music and a pot of tea.

Sue Mepham

I belong to the Flagstaff Union Church in Dunedin, where I have a role in leading worship and playing music.
I studied music at Otago University and have taught piano for 30 years.
In 1999 I went to Teachers’ College and did a diploma which has enabled me to teach in schools as a music specialist.
I have written songs for several years, more recently the content changing from personal ‘prayer songs’ to songs more relevant for group singing.
Here are some examples of the different songs:
“No Room” a Christmas Musical for our Parish
“See He Comes in Peace” an Easter hymn for the community choir that I take
“Rebuild” a song for school about the Christchurch earthquake
“Walk With the Lord” a song for church with a message about keeping in step with the
Spirit
Currently I am working on a musical for this Christmas (no title yet) focusing on Mary, the teenaged girl, pregnant, unmarried and vulnerable. This has become a team project now, which includes several people with various gifts in writing, dance, organisation, etc. and we see it as a way of drawing in children and parents from the various activity groups based in the churchThe One Voice Project is a really exciting venture to create worship music for God’s people here in New Zealand. The weekend in Katikati gave us a glimpse of what can be achieved and was a wonderful time to be together with people you felt akin to in terms of faith, worship and creativity.

Zoe Henderson

Zoë is most at home in the kitchen, and hopes one day to make a living from what she creates in there, and by writing about it. She is part of the congregation at St Johns Church in Wellington, and especially loves being a part of the evening service music team.
(Hopefully) like Wordsworth’s description of good poetry, Zoë’s songs are a ‘spontaneous overflow’ of feelings (and ideas). Crafting these in a way that is helpful for worship and connecting with God is a developing passion.

Sophie Macaulay

Sophie is studying law and international relations in the windy city of
Wellington, and belongs to St John’s in the City. She’s been playing
music since she picked up a recorder at age 5, and loves making music to
help people connect with God. She’s super excited about songs being
written here in NZ and can’t wait to sing them with the rest of God’s
church.

Sophie likes a good flat white, the cello, the West Wing, and listening to the
tui outside her window in the morning. She misses her piano at her
parents’ house, and is becoming a master glockenspiel player. If she had
more time, she’d make more music, and maybe sew some more dresses.

Sam Bennett

Sam Bennett attends St John’s in the City, in Wellington, where he is a part of the night church music team. He loves singing, melodicas, choirs, glockenspiels, capos, new-folk and reverb. Sam studies Psychology and Music at Victoria University, and is interested in how music can effect the mind. When bored or procrastinating, he likes to record, mix, and effect songs on his computer.

Jordan Redding

Jordan Redding studies theology at the University of Otago. He attends Highgate Presbyterian in Dunedin and is involved both in the youth group and music team there. This year he has been part of a new service called The Table which is focused arounds the Eucharistic community. It seeks to provide a thoughtful and non-intimidating atmosphere for youth to participate in the wider community of Christ. In his free time he writes songs both for a performance and worship context.

Gather Round The Table

You, Lord, prepare a table for me,
share the bread and wine amongst enemies.
You, Lord, preside and gather me in to feast,
with you a branch of the vine.
Open my eyes, Let me see, as we gather round the feast.
Open my mind, let me know, let the word of God be shown.
You, Lord, do lead my feet to your door so,
I become one with the people of God
You, Lord, are God, Father, Son and Holy Ghost.
We are your heirs because Jesus rose.

Matt Chapman

Matt Chapman is a minister from St Columba Presbyterian Church, Botony Downs Auckland. He was a foundational member of the Christian band Detour 180, and wrote many of the band’s songs, including Hallelujah, Beautiful, and When you call. Matt went on to form the acoustic duo Season Pass, writing and performing songs such as Ocean’s Away, and Recreated. He has served in churches as a Musical Director, Youth Pastor, Young Adults Pastor, and now as a minister of Word and Sacrament.

Matt is excited to work alongside other musicians and theologians as part of the One Voice project, and is looking forward to this collaborative approach to song writing. He is also passionate about helping churches arrange music used in worship, especially those battling with the dynamics of contemporary music. In his spare time, Matt enjoys audio recording production and back yard cricket.

Cate Burton

Cate is the Children and Families Pastor at St Paul’s Presbyterian in Katikati, BOP. She lives in this cute little place at Waihi Beach where there’s always salt in the air and sand in her shoes.

Cate is pretty keen on this all age worship stuff, when the whole family of God creatively, meaningfully and authentically tell God’s story and are transformed by it. She gets excited even.

Cate prefers colouring pencils to crayons and glue sticks to glue guns.

Mary-Jane Konings

Mary-Jane is part of the ministry team at Timaru Presbyterian Parish. She’s been hanging around worship teams since she and Darryl were in youth group together back in the day, and recently completed an M. Theol., at Otago, looking at contemporary worship. A key theme from that study is participation, and the idea of helping people to actively participate in worship shapes her work.

MJ plays guitar and keyboard, she’s an ordained minister along with husband Chris, and has four children, and a dog.

MJ is a song writer, but is also contributing to our All-Age worship section. Her blog can be found here.

Darryl Tempero

For years Darryl and his wife Michelle headed up the Creative Ministries team at Hornby Community Presbyterian Church. Recently, Darryl and Michelle felt God’s calling to plant a new congregation in Halswell in Christchurch. Darryl is an ordained minister, and has been helping congregations around New Zealand access and use contemporary music for a good few years now.He’s even qualified! Darryl and Michelle spent 2 years at Hillsong training in worship leading during the 90’s. They also run the annual ‘Inspire’ worship conference, based at Hornby.Darryl has recently been lecturing at the Knox Centre for Ministry and Leadership as part of the Centre’s scholarship programme for young musicians in the PCANZ.

Malcolm Gordon

Malcolm is a Presbyterian Minister, serving as the music director at St Peters in Tauranga. He’s been writing songs for the last ten years, and started writing music for worship in 2006. He was the primary writer behind the first two One Voice albums (One Voice and The Ministry of the Exterior/Interior). He’s married to Vanessa, and they had their first child – Samuel in November 2010. Malcolm is passionate about writing music that helps God speak to his people, and enables God’s people to speak back. Together with the leadership team at St Paul’s, Malcolm developed the revolutionary ‘Mutating Egg’ service – to address the issues of diversity and unity in congregational worship.

Tony Zwies

Tony is a talented pianist, arranger and creator of sonic soundscapes. He developed most of this website that you’re currently enjoying – shot Tonz.Tonz has been playing music with Malcolm Gordon since before their band ‘Somebody’s Cousin’ was born in 2002. They were both members of the tragically shortlived band ‘Grill’ that played in Lumsden in late 2000.Tony was a good chunk of the musical brains behind the Cousins and has continued to have an influential role in Malcolm’s music, playing keys on the ‘One Voice’ album and workshopping some of his newer material.

Tony is also a draftsman and a visual designer. For all this and more, he uses his beloved mac book pro. Tony plays Korg keyboards, not Roland.

Vanessa Gordon

Vanessa has led worship for over 10 years. She has a thoughtful approach to crafting worship services and sessions, and plays a mean piano.Vanessa co-wrote ‘Who are you’, ‘New kind of day’ and ‘Hands’ from the ‘One Voice’ album. Despite having glandular fever during the recording sessions, she even managed to fly up to Wellington and record some bv’s and piano parts! What a trooper.She’s married to Malcolm, which is nice for everyone involved. For some of the rest of the time, she’s a physio.