Worship artist Darlene Zschech will release her first new album, Here Am I Send Me, since her cancer diagnosis in 2014.
Integrity Music will release the live DVD/CD March 3. The album will take listeners through a journey declaring God’s greatness, love and call. It will give worshippers a voice of response, even as they face their own life challenges.
Zschech is the pen behind powerful worship songs including “Victor’s Crown,” “In Jesus’ Name,” “Worthy Is the Lamb,” “At the Cross” and the global anthem “Shout to the Lord,” which is sung by an estimated 30 million churchgoers every week. The new album is set to add to this amazing song repertoire.
Recorded live with her team at Hope Unlimited Church in New South Wales, Australia, Here Am I Send Me features 11 new songs penned by her along with guest writers including Martin Smith, Paul Baloche, Jenn Johnson and Leeland Mooring.
The album opens with “You Are Great,” a full-on declaration of the greatness of God written with Martin Smith (Delirious?) in response to the most challenging season of her life.
“When I was at my sickest, Martin flew over from England to sit with us, sing songs over our church and walk with my husband and put courage in,” Darlene says, her voice full of emotion recalling the dark days after her diagnosis of breast cancer. “It’s Week One of treatment and you think you’re going to die, and Martin said, ‘Darls, I know you’re going to want to write songs about this season. What do you want to say?’ And I said, ‘I want to say ‘He is great!’ And so we wrote this song together, and have been singing it in our church. That’s where it started. … In the midst of the fire, it doesn’t change who He is.”
Regarding her cancer, Darlene says, “The medical world doesn’t like to use the word ‘healed.’ They like to say the word ‘remission’ … but I’m believing God’s report over my life. I speak Psalm 91 over myself every day; I take my medicine and I take the Word of God, and I do my best with what I can do in the natural and trust God with those things over which I have no power.”
Following this opening track, the song “You Will Be Praised,” written with Baloche and Johnson upon Zschech’s first return to America after cancer treatment, unabashedly declares the power of the Holy Spirit living among us that makes fearlessness possible in every season and circumstance of life. It is, in many ways, her testimony.
The album also features “Beloved,” a modern hymn of surrender co-written by Zschech with Mooring and Casey Moore; “Love and Wonder,” written by the Zschech’s teen daughter, Zoe, who also sings on the track and Hope Unlimited team member, Bonnie Gray; “Kingdom Come,” co-written with Thomas Macken and reflecting a year-long teaching theme at the church; and “Go,” a song of commissioning written with Macken that closes the album.
The overarching message of the album is that worship has more to do with what comes from our lives, not just our mouths.
“None of us know how many days we have,” says Zschech. “Whatever days I have—and I’m declaring a ripe old age—I want to live them intentionally. I want to live the love of Christ. … Everywhere we go, we take the presence of the Lord, we take His presence and His hope, His extravagant love. It’s a journey. I’m not there yet, but that’s the journey.” {eoa}
