Liverpool-based worship leader IAN YATES has been a mainstay of Cross Rhythms radio for years, now having a striking 19 songs making your favourite station's playlist. Tony Cummings quizzed the songsmith about his years in music ministry.

Trev and I got together in November 2021 and recorded 22 songs that I'd been working on and we ended up releasing 18 over the two projects and the other four, which have a different feel and vibe, will be released this year. I've also been working on a podcast with two friends where each episode looks at a song from the album. That will be out soon. And I've been writing a lot since the end of 2021 and we're looking at recording album number seven at the end of this year.

Financially it's been tricky and difficult at times. I certainly struggled a lot in 2020 and 2021 and wrestled with getting a different job or working for someone else, but I felt God asking me to keep going, which wasn't easy when you need to provide for your family. But time and time again I was blown away by God's provision. Throughout that time people would send us gifts and at the end of 2021 my wife Kate and I were given a really generous gift which meant we didn't need to worry about our finances for the next year. In terms of streaming, it's a challenge, especially with the payments being so low. To be honest we've never made much money on the albums so at least now with streaming there is some money trickling through every month which helps pay back the money and time we have invested in the projects.

Tony: What are your thoughts about streaming?

Ian: To be honest with you, until last year I really struggled with it. I'm not great at pushing my music or having an agenda, it's not who I am, and I've never enjoyed the business side of the music industry and how things work. I used to feel pressure to do more and be a certain way and keep pushing the music. But now I'm really comfortable being myself and who I feel God has called me to be.

I especially struggled with streaming as getting the music heard is harder than ever in some ways and getting on a Curated Playlist or certain 'high profile' playlists changes everything for a song. Songs from the latest album that have been on a New Music Friday playlist generate around 10-50 times more streams than songs that haven't and then if a song gets on a larger playlist, like what happened with "Loved By You", which has generated 140-350 times more streams than the other songs on that album. So it can be really tough to navigate and work through. Last year I had a moment where I felt like I could reconcile these tensions. I was looking at song data for my music and Elim Sound's music and realising people are listening to songs that are eight to 10 years old every day. At the time the most popular Elim Sound song was released eight years prior. Thousands of people all over the world are listening to the songs each day which is so encouraging and so good. 10 years ago that wouldn't have happened. When I first met you and Mike Rimmer in 2010 it was just CDs and at the time the biggest Christian albums would sell around 30,000 CDs - ok, there was more money to be made, however you can potentially reach more than that in a month. A CD usually got played for a year or two and then ended up on a shelf never to be played again, whereas songs from years ago can impact people's lives each day. That really excites me. For me the goal has always been that songs would bring hope and encouragement, that they would inspire people and connect them to God's love. And that is what they are doing, so I'm really grateful for that.

Tony: How would you say you've changed spiritually or creatively or both since covid, streaming and the financial crisis?

Ian: The last few years have been really tough for me. Trying to trust God through the pandemic and trying to make sense of all the noise around us has been a real challenge. Plus losing close friends and family to cancer have really impacted our lives. We've all gone through a crisis, there has been a lot of change and then the Church has been hit with so many controversies. I realised I wanted to understand what was going on and try to work it out. I've got lots of questions and I've wrestled with a lot of things, but I've come to the point where I know I'm not going to understand it all.

God is not a vending machine and prayer isn't a magic wand that gets me what I want or what I think I need. It's been tough, a lot of things have disappointed me and frustrated me, but within it all I know that God is good and God is love. I'm learning to be comfortable with things I don't understand and embrace life's mysteries. I've been reading a lot by author Henri Nouwen and I've found his writings really inspiring and they have helped give me some language to how I've been feeling.

Creatively I've been really inspired by Bono's book Surrender and Rick Rubin's book The Creative Act' They've both inspired me to make the best art that I can. I think with releasing music you can get caught up in the marketing, the numbers and money, but we need to release the music/art that is inside of us and be the individuals that God has called us to be.