Stuart Townend

Stuart Townend is known and respected by worship leaders, musicians and churches around the world as a songwriter, worship leader and recording artist. He has to date released four solo albums – Monument to mercy (June 2006), Lord of every heart (June 2002), Personal Worship with Stuart Townend (1999) and Say the Word (1997) - and has featured on many of the UK’s best known live worship albums, including Stoneleigh, Mandate, Worship Together and Mission:Worship.

He first came to prominence through leading worship at the Stoneleigh International Bible Week, a major Christian event that annually drew over 25,000 visitors from around the world, and which sparked a series of ground-breaking, highly-acclaimed live worship albums that Stuart himself produced. Ruach (1994) and Beautiful Saviour (1998) both won the coveted Christian Booksellers Convention Album of the Year.

Since that time he has continued to be involved in leading worship with a number of organisations, including Spring Harvest, New Frontiers, CARE, Worship Together, and Mandate. He is also a regular at Northern Ireland's New Horizon festival every summer. Stuart also features on the 2003 Mandate live album, See What A Morning, and the 2005 live album, O Church arise.

An album of Stuart's hymns has also been released on Kingsway's popular Hymn Makers series. Recorded at Coventry Cathedral with the St Michael's singers, it features many of his best known compositions, recorded in a more traditional style, and confirming Stuart’s ability to write material that crosses many different denominations and worship styles.

And it is as a songwriter that Stuart has made the biggest global impact. From the early success of Lord how majestic You are, How deep the Father’s love and The Lord’s my Shepherd, to the more recent Beautiful Saviour, and the co-writes with Keith Getty See what a morning and the stunning In Christ alone (which this year was voted among the top ten of all-time favourite hymns in the annual Songs of Praise telephone poll), Stuart has been hailed by many as one of the leading hymn writers of his generation. His ability to express Biblical truth in powerful, poetic lyrics has earned him huge respect around the world. More recent compositions such as The power of the cross, Speak, O Lord and My heart is filled with thankfulness only serve to confirm this.

Stuart was born in 1963, and grew up as the youngest of four children in a Christian family in West Yorkshire where his father was a Church of England vicar. From an early age Stuart played music with his brothers (one brother, Ian, went on to become a member of the group Heartbeat), beginning to play the piano at the age of 7, and teaching himself the guitar as a teenager

It was while living in West Yorkshire that at the age of 13 he made his Christian commitment. Then at 18 he moved to Brighton to study literature at the University of Sussex. It is here he met Caroline, whom he married in 1988, and they now have three children; Joseph, Emma, and Eden. Stuart has attends and regularly leads worship at the Church of Christ the King in Brighton, one of the new Frontiers network of churches headed up by Terry Virgo. The church is also home to a number of well-known figures in the area of worship, including Paul Oakley, Kate Simmonds, the band Phatfish, and Dave Fellingham, who has played a significant role in mentoring Stuart.

Stuart also plays an important role in resourcing local churches to worship. As well as teaching and leading at worship conferences in the UK and US, he has run a Worship School at his home church, and his close association with Kingsway Music means he has input into many aspect of Christian music. He helped to set Kingsway’s Worship Together resources, and edited the Songs of Fellowship songbook series. He has also written two books – Playing the Keyboard in Worship, and 50 Worship Ideas for Small Groups. “Big worship conferences and events can be very inspiring,” says Stuart, “but where it really matters is the local church. I want to help to equip teams of musicians to lead God’s people to worship in spirit and truth week by week, so that the local church is built up - because it’s through local churches that God is going to reach this nation.”

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