Facing the Canon with Noel Robinson

welcome to my youtube channel my guest on facing the canon is lead worshipper noel robinson [Music] noel robinson welcome to facing the canon wow this is such an honor to be here to face you oh no this is so good delighted we've uh we've been friends for years and we've ministered together absolutely and it's just a joy always when we're together there is sacred synergy yeah always an amazing time just um being a part of your team uh doing events and not just events just being a part of what god is doing we love it now well we want to hear a bit about your story where were you born now i was actually born in london actually i was born in london north west london in a wonderful area called wilsdon it's an old area yeah um you probably know the bishop of wilston yes and your parents are from the caribbean jamaica the island of jamaica so i am part of the windrush um community or they were the first sort of like second generation of windrush coming to this country as immigrants oh and you grew up in the christian faith so would you say that you've always known the lord um i'd say i'd always i've always known about the lord but i was around nine when i really got to know him because one of the things about growing up in in a christian home there's always this tension between um well i'm doing what my parents said i've got to do and actually now wanting to do that because this is this is what you want to do you know i'm sure and i think that i i i about eight or nine when i went i think about eight years old i went ah yeah i want to be baptized i i want to know this jesus and in my own simple way that's what i was i became baptized and i was a part of the band at church by then playing um my mom had died when i was five years old so my dad was really the one that um you know kept kept me um but what was powerful about that time was the church community was incredibly profound we all had parents you know they say it's sure it takes a village to raise a child oh i think i've been raised by a village there's so many aunties and uncles that don't know how we're related but even now when i see them they're like i remember you i used to change your nappy you know and stuff like that so grew up in a a really really good place so going back to when your mum passed away promoted to glory um was that tough um do you know um that the last few years of of you know or the last 10 years of my life is i've been trying to explore those memories and that's that's a real deal for me because um much of that time i don't really remember my mum too much and those times it wasn't like social media was lots of pictures there's very few pictures of my mum that i have and here i was a young boy not really understanding um that she was gone and and gone forever in in in terms of the earthly context um so i think was it a difficult time i don't know any any different you know but as he said the community of your family just absolutely embraced you loved you supported you black church movement um because they were facing so much what i call um so much rejection from mainstream community um they formed their own churches and i became one of the the true the children of that so informing these these little churches that were in rented halls they didn't have buildings yet they're in rented halls dotted around london where maybe 30 40 gathered and as more people came to the country it it grew and it grew and and here we were like by the teenagers with with maybe 60 70 teenagers because everybody's having children but still protected from much of what was happening outside what they're adults so i think that yes i have incredible memories of the prayer meetings at home um the gathering at home where um there are some people when i knew they were coming to our home for a prayer meeting i was like oh my it's going to be all night yeah you know the kind of prayer warriors it's like it's not 10 minutes praying let's go it's like there's a fervency yes and i would be i'd be like um when i was younger obviously going through my my teenage years rebelling i'd be like dad i've got homework and my daughter my dad will go okay get home early do your homework we've got prayer meetings and you've got to play guitar and i'm like oh dad you know because the prayers were loud they held nothing back so people walking past your liver and we've always kind of walked past with that look like what's going on in there now you were six when you started to uh play the guitar absolutely yeah so what prompted that my dad was a guitarist about two years ago i found out that my mum was the choir mistress for the community church the church that we were part of and that's why i could never forget why there was a piano in the house right now play a little bit piano upright piano and i'd like why is this piano here it's taking up space but actually it's because my mum um she practiced yeah on that when i was before i was born so um the irony of it is that my dad was the backing musician for her guitar so obviously no mom i'm watching my dad um play guitar i think the significant thing for me was um was that my dad played his guitar i'd only use the word escapism but to comfort sure the loss so i was sitting in a room with my dad playing and he'd be singing those old songs you know from the red hymn book redemption hymn noise i remember that you know yes to thee and i think that's very soothing aren't they yeah and that he would just sing and play in his basic way and i think that as any son you want to be like your dad so he played guitar and i'm always grateful for him for giving me and and stirring that gift in me of music um i'm still attached to him because i i said in a statement one day that it wasn't only me and my dad in the room yeah there was this sense of something else was happening i i didn't know what to call it now i would say of course the holy spirit the presence of the lord was in the room as he began to sing from his tender heart that had been broken and and that that kind of thing and in a way i think that's that set the the desire in my heart to chase after the presence of god yeah when did you kind of sense in your heart uh that the lord wanted you to be a lead worshiper well this is the the part of the irony of the black church movement was they didn't have worship leaders that wasn't a terminology that was used to describe the people who led the songs and and oftentimes if you're going to a pentecostal church you'll recognize that especially black pentecostalism you'll recognize that the musicians are off to one side the signals are off to another side and the preacher takes the dominant place where when you start looking at much of the evangelical model and you'll see that the music is all centered the music and preaching are together so i was one of those musicians that was off to the side but i was the lead musician um so i think leading worship came about because one day um our singers had to go and do something on a sunday night and and i was left what were you gonna do and i ended up going well okay i will lead so i got this song chorus book and i just sat on the piano and started playing and singing and and what i saw and what i felt uh that was the thing that really engaged me that people began to sing the songs and all of a sudden there was this switch from being turned on by the music if that's a term i could use just being the music was everything i mean like come alive yeah i came alive when i heard people singing the songs that i was leading yeah and i saw god moving on people and and i went well there must be something like but i didn't know this was worship leading yeah it was only until um some years later when i i i got involved with um two great worship leaders um my mentor graham kendrick yes and ron canole that i i realized that actually maybe god you had really called me to this so worship leaders are calling it's not just a response to having a gift but it's actually a calling to see the people of god uh jesus being revealed to them rather than being called to the music yes so i learned very early on that the music the music can become an idol so we kind of worship what we do rather than use the gif and that scripture romans 11 always stands out to me the gift and the calling of god are out repentance and we can recognize the gift in because it's it's very visible but the calling is a discovery where and that's what i felt happened i discovered this is something that god wanted to place me in yeah and you know we use words like uh an anointing a gifting from the lord yeah and then obviously that developed i mean your skills uh playing music developed so you were am i right initially a musician that became a lead worshiper absolutely yeah so um so much of my uh worship that people may consider spontaneous and being able to flow from one thing to another different styles that was birthed in me and developed to me before i stood to sing and and say well and even write songs so i think um you know part of my journey in this day is to really just really encourage worship leaders to um you know there's the calling but there's a gift in and of course and you you've got to grow both it's a bit like you know i use this story all the time um a young child at three years old drawing a picture of mummy and daddy and it's it's it's a stick man and there we are holding that picture up oh there's a picture of me you know talking family and friends and it's like doesn't look anything like you but that same child whose ability is developed at 25 he's gone to art school he's joined a picture with depth with dimensions that you look at that picture and go wow that you've captured that moment that's a likeness and i think that that's why we have to grow the gift in but a blind painter you don't see many of them if at all so the ability to see is the ability the spiritual ability to see what god is showing you and to interpret that with your gift so when you present it to people they get absolutely a picture of it yes now um when did you start writing songs very early on you know my first earliest i remember being about 14 years old and um sitting down and going and looking at the hymn book and i thought the hymn book some of him looks weird didn't have music to it so i thought these words look great let's just make up a melody and i did that and i sang it in church and it was like that was great but the song doesn't go like that and i was like i don't know how it goes so i've always been wanting to create um words that describe what my heart is talking about and i and then it really led into um this whole thing about what about writing songs that can give words to what people feel in their heart and give words to their revelation so um most certainly over the years i've constantly just written some have been released some have been put away some have been thrown away you know as you grow in this thing you kind of like know what works and what doesn't work you know i you know one day i had a saturday job uh working in a hardware store and i believed i've written a hit and this this song was like i got the words and i was like you know and the melody was and i was like yeah i've got a new song not realizing that i had stolen a stevie wonder melody my own kind of love lyrics to it when i sang it somebody goes that sounds like stevie wonder and i'm like going no god gave it to me i thought what have i been listening to yeah yeah yeah i think i've been listening to a bit of motown yeah yeah and it kind of absorbed and in your subconscious i know i sometimes i'll say something and people go oh it's so change on original and i think i think so you know all i can say is it's holy spirit copyright exactly and you know i found that quite a lot of songs you know and i've got one i think i need to scrap the melody on that because that sounds like something that matters yeah i know but then a lot um a lot of you've done a lot of collaboration with a lot of absolutely worship leaders yeah and that's been a great thing hasn't it i i think so i think one of the most amazing things is like people carrying each other you know i can sit in in a room when you speak and and you will you will say a line and i go whoa i make a note of it and i go whoa i could use that that that familiar context of what you're saying in a song and and and that's what i do often times i'm listening to i love people go you're interested in musicians most musicians when the words are going to be preached they kind of like shut down sometimes but i'm like wide awake because i'm looking for nuggets yeah that i can use in in the songs to help propel that story you know wow so collaborating with people actually does work you know i can sit in a room with whether they be a songwriter or not and we recently just rewrote a hymn yes that's going to be used for thy kingdom come um you know i sat with a couple of guys you know and we were commissioned to write a civic hymn we call it him that could could help the church to pray for community and the civic world so we we decided that we would um we would take a very familiar melody we thought he was sacrilege to use amazing grace we might get into trouble for using that yes and we found the melody that they sang on football terraces they sang at the opening of abide with me you know and we actually wrote five verses that actually act as a prayer for the civic nature of our community you know finance law um community economy ecology and it's called we seek your kingdom and the final words are uh transform revive and heal society you know we seek your kingdom throughout every sphere we long for heaven's demonstration here and it's that melody and we're not bringing sacrilege to the melody because we found out that him was pope a poem but then it was an organist in london a scottish writer wrote the poem and it was an organist many years later put in that melody even tied to the words so we we're actually doing exactly what they've done in the past taking popular melody and putting words that can encourage people to engage with the things of god for a time such as this yeah for a time such as this now many of your songs uh know uh i i i would say come under the banner of um restoration renewal revival yeah you're you're you're a man of revival yeah i would just people ask me describe what you describe who you are and they're expecting um well you worship leader and actually i got no i'm actually a revivalist at heart yes um you know there's a saying that there's a saying that god doesn't use a man until he gives them an encounter and the reason why and i love that picture of the first disciples who didn't have they didn't have the book of acts uh the thessalonians or the galatians and all those books in the new testament but they became revivalist because of an encounter in an upper room they saw something that they'd never seen before they heard a sound they'd never heard before because they said it was leica because they could only use they could only use things that they'd recognize to describe what happened to them in that room you know and and just to cut a phrase it's the two senses that were shut in the garden of eden when man fell but on acts 2 they came alive you know i was in israel not too long ago and on a tour and i was like where's the upper room is this the upper room well it's not the cro and i'm like where's the actual one again well we don't know and but one thing you can't deny is acts 2 in the last days i pour out my spirit on all flesh because at the end of acts 2 we see this amazing act of revival which is another word evangelism that happens that the bible says three thousand it numbers it we're adding yes to the church because of an encounter that couldn't be denied and we know the story of acts so many of the disciples went through rejection and people denying that crazy but they had an encounter that they could not shake paul had an encounter they could not shake and i think that in my life there's been a backdrop of many things that happen that give me encounter that i know beyond the shadow of a doubt for myself that god is real yes absolutely i can't explain it any other way and psychologist and therapist might want to say a different thing or humanists want to say something different i know that jehovah elroy the god who sees and knows jehovah shalom my peace is real jehovah my provider raphael my healer he exists and he exists in me so if nobody believed in a room i walk with that confidence knowing that god is real so for that my soul being revived not being revived by an external force that's music and i can sit in the room and listen to great music i can listen to great preaching but when great when the word of god reaches no robinson's soul yeah it stirs it more than any music it actually stirs it more than any worship experience and this is the thing that i say god i thank you for touching the core that the know that that people can't see because that's what you see it's not that my life is without trouble you know the way of man is trouble but if in the midst of my fire i can look up and see the fourth man yes if in the midst or the bottom of the sea where big fish has swallowed me up and i'm being strangled by the waves and you know i always have a laugh at this a big fish you're in its belly it must really smell because like to a human like what else is in there do you know that i can be in the midst of there's no oxygen but yet stop the little oxygen that i have like jonah did begin to offer up thanksgiving and say lord i just want to thank you that's more than a song and i tried to always put it in song but there's something about being able to just say lord i just want to thank you and i lift up my head to you and i watch god sometimes suddenly bring me out sometimes it's a process but always at the end he gets he gets he gets the glory yes and her buck up one of the greatest song i know it's one of those scriptures about he's one of the greatest songwriters he writes this thing in her backup three where he goes even though the fig tree doesn't blossom and there's no harvest in the field i will praise you because you've made my hind feet strong and maybe to someone listening today you're thinking i'm going through so much i don't know how i'm going to get out of this take a look at your hind feet horsepower take a look at not what you've lost but what you've gained you may find that you've gained some strength and faith is the economy of heaven yes and let the process where god brings us out of that place of the cloud brings us out of the shadow of what we're experiencing into the light so we now cast a shadow and these are some of the things you know that i've been through i've been to that place where like i say even my shadow left me yeah i felt alone one of my favorite songs of yours no is is rain um alexa knows it very well because she's played it for me so many times well god what prompted you to write that song well it's interesting how um the backdrop to that song is actually a lament and the lament was i feel so dry lord yeah i you know went through just i've gone through many seasons like that i feel so dry i don't think i've got anything to offer you know and i'm doing the same things i'm playing the same chords over and over again i'm saying lord i feel so dry and i think it was a prompting um how would you respond to it what would be your lament what would we already really look back and and my lament didn't look like woe is me it looked like going rain rain on me open the windows of heaven yeah and my mind is is cast to this beautiful picture of the rain in some parts of the world like the uk we have too many days of rain but there are parts of the world where they don't have enough days and every day they wake up going rain rain rain we need a harvest we now crop and i just felt that there were things that god had buried in me and we started to sing the song open up the heavens pouring out a blessing lord we need refreshing till it overflows and that's the backdrop it's funny how the backdrop to what we're going through can produce absolutely the most incredible moments of faith can you sing some of those words to our its viewers rain rain on me open the windows of heaven open up the heavens pouring out a blessing lord we need refreshing till it overflows i hear the sound of revival raid i hear the sound i hear the sound those three lines or components make up the song that is a petition but in the heart of it it's sung with a heart of praise and we see god revive us revival starts with us it does start with us doesn't it it doesn't stop the road it starts with us revive us lord i know you've written many many songs no i've got a couple of your cds here um i mean nowadays we download a lot absolutely i still i still like these don't you i do actually tell us about these well i'm outrageous love which is the app the one with me playing the guitar on the front um that was an album done a few years ago um and it's got the song reign on it it's got freedom uh so many different songs that outrageous love it's called and it speaks about the outrageous love of god um and and how it meets you in the doorway sleeping and turning your life around and then um there's the album that followed up just before the pandemic here is i surrender um yeah and um really the songs on an album were written um because i wanted a songs to say something in every season um you know i realized that uh surrendering is an ongoing thing it's it's never surrender once then you're surrendering it's an ongoing thing that we as people um because when god does something for us the thing that we desired him to do now we can do it we don't always rely on him so i wanted to just commit everything that i am and everything that i'm doing to surrender him so that that was that's the real uh thing for me um and i uh i think that's the strongest song for me in this season i sort of surrender even in a pandemic surrender was hard but but i believe that a surrendered life is a life that god can use absolutely no no you you're an absolute tonic um it's always a joy seeing you always a joy uh ministering uh together uh thank you so much for joining us on facing the canon it's been a real honor and a privilege uh i'll tell you i was looking forward to it i kept him saying he's interviewed everyone else what about me then i got the email and i thought this is so good i i thank god for your life and all that you're doing john you know how many people's lives you touch and and i love the heart the humility and the power and the grace that you walk in and that's what i want to emulate so thank you thank you well wasn't that refreshing it truly was refreshing can i encourage you uh to tune in to noel's songs and i i remember listening to rain over and over and over again as a prayer that god would saturate my life knoll truly helps us tune in to the melody of heaven thank you for joining us on facing the canon [Music] you

Channel: J.John

Views: 1,313

Rating: 4.8947368 out of 5

Keywords: j.john, jjohn, philo trust, philo, Christianity, Christian, Jesus, God, Worship, Worship Leader, Guitarist, Noel Robinson

Id: OzDfnaKSJVI

Length: 28min 30sec (1710 seconds)

Published: Sun Jun 06 2021