print: Stephen Hurd - Interview (September 2006) | BlackGospel.com, Your Music Ministry Source!

Interview with Stephen Hurd
September 2006, BlackGospel.com by Christopher Heron

Recently, BlackGospel.com spoke with Minister Stephen Hurd about a variety of topics that ranged from his new breakout worship & praise album – My Destiny – to his prophetic calling as a worship leader to his fascinating insights on everything from the cries of the saints to Kingdom worship. It was an illuminating conversation that revealed a genuine desire on the part of Minister Hurd to please God in every facet of his life.

Christopher Heron: Stephen, you’ve always had a love and interest for music, ever since you were a child. How did you cultivate this love for music? And who were a few of the artists you quickly identified with and enjoyed immensely?

Stephen Hurd: Well when I was a little boy, I loved Jeffery Osbourne and Peabo Bryson. My goal really was to emulate them and be just like them. Then I found out that they were still in the same place. They hadn’t grown. Then, I began to seek my own identity. I was in the fifth grade when I said “The Lord is my Savior” and from that point on I began to listen to different artists, like Lionel Harris. I was captivated by the richness of his voice and so he inspired me to do what I wanted to do.

CH: Who are some of the inspirational or gospel artists that really captivated you other then Lionel Harris?

SH: I’m a real Andrae Crouch fan. I also enjoyed the late Donald Vails, Calvin Bernard Rhone and Judith Christie McAllister.

CH: Why did you gravitate towards sacred music as you got older? And how did your love for sacred music and gospel music in general lead you into a leadership role, now more recently with the First Baptist Church of Glen Arden?

SH: I’ve always been called as a leader, even as a little kid I was set up to be a leader, even when I didn’t want to be. I think the passion for worship music came about when I attended this church during my days in high school called, “The Cathedral of Washington, DC.” Every Friday night, they had a service called “New Generation”. A friend of mine from school invited me to that service, and I would go.

CH: You’ve emerged in recent years as one of the pre-eminent Worship & Praise composers and leaders of today. When did you begin to discern your calling was more then just being a minstrel or a choir director but it was indeed leading believers and worshippers to the alter of God through song?

SH: When I was in High School, I used to sing a song by Douglas Miller called “When I see Jesus, Amen” and I asked the Lord at that time to give me, what I call an “out-of-body experience”, to help me to see that I’m helping people to be with Him. If I can see the evidence of that then, for the rest of my life, I will sing about You and help people to get to know You. And I had that experience. I had that encounter and I really watched myself minister to the people, and watched people’s lives change, and it literally blew my mind. I will never ever forget the day that I witnessed that. It kind of put a passion in me for the power of God to be in my life, not just when I’m singing but to also walk in a power that causes things to happen.

I was in Free-Port Bahamas in the mid 90’s, probably in 95 and I was doing a worship conference there at a Church of God. And we were praying and singing this song I wrote years ago called “The Lover of my Soul”. We were singing that song and we prayed for this man who appeared to have a stroke. This man said he used to play the guitar before the stroke. After singing and preaching, I went to change my clothes and when I looked over in the corner, he was playing the guitar! And really the demonstration of this miracle really sealed the deal with me to believe that God was greater then any expectation we could ever have.

CH: Stephen, I believe that the responsibility of a composer, or singer, or worship leader; for Worship & Praise music, is so much heavier and so much more profound then any other form of gospel because it requires such a transparency on the part of the artist and such an authenticity on their part that you simply cannot fake that type of relationship, not before God or before man. So my question is how daunting is it to write, perform, or lead the saints in worship versus as a choir director? And what are the steps you take daily and weekly to stay in tune with God so that you’re worship mode stays authentic?

SH: Well, I am still a choir director. I direct the seniors at my church. I’m absolutely in love with the older people because they always make a deposit into me and allow me to mature and develop with the little nuggets of wisdom they drop. But to answer that question, I use the phrase, “practice in the presence of the Lord”. In Psalm 34 the scripture says this on two different occasions. One verse says, “The poor man cried and the Lord heard him,” and then it says later “The righteous cried and the Lord heard him.”

I believe that when we cry out to God, crying is always a sign of some sort of desperation and God is always attracted to those who are destitute and desperate. I believe as a worship leaders or a leader of the Lord’s Church, pastors or ministers of the Gospel, whatever we do, we need to cry out to God consistently and deliberately, then God will look at our situation with a fatherly attitude towards his own son or daughter. Crying to the Lord gives us the opportunity to make our petitions known. It also gives us a chance and an opportunity to be in His presence and that gives us the experience to encounter His glory and His strength which is made perfect in our weakness.

CH: You’ve been a part of a label that’s built a reputation for its worship music in recent years, of course Integrity Gospel. How did this relationship first begin?

SH: It’s kind of funny how it happened. In 2001, we were at a leadership retreat and I got a call from an executive at Integrity who’s not there anymore. And he was saying that he had heard my name, he heard my project and he wanted to come up to Maryland to meet me and my pastor. We were at a staff retreat and I had called to see if he could schedule it for a later time because my pastor said “You can’t leave the retreat.” A whole year passed and I didn’t hear from that gentleman or the label.

The next February, the exact same month one year later, I receive a call from Jackie Patillo from Integrity Gospel who says to me that we had spoken before, even though I do not remember speaking to her. She called me on my cell phone and most people don’t have my cell phone number unless I give it to them. My concern was not that it wasn’t about who was calling. I wanted to know how she got my cell phone number. I had just gotten up off my knees and I said to the Lord, “God, I have done everything that I can do in my own strength in relation to helping this music go across the world. I need something bigger.”

And I was actually getting ready to call my lawyer about going through another label that didn’t have a great reputation with business or taking care of artists. He said, “If you do that, you’ll regret it for the rest of your life. Don’t do that”. So as I got up off my knees, I tell you no lie, the phone rang and it was Jackie Patillo from Integrity Gospel. And her statement was, “I’m not a dumb lady. I keep hearing your name. And I believe the Lord is speaking to me, and I believe he wants us to partner in a ministry.”

It was really incredible. I grew up listening to Alvin Slaughter and Integrity music and I said, “One day I want to be with this label.” I think I was a teenager when I said that, and that was a passing thought when I said it.

CH: What are some of the valuable lessons you’ve learned as a worship from other worship leaders such as; Jackie Mccullough, Judith Christie McAllister, Alvin Slaughter and Israel Houghton.

SH: The things I’ve learned from them all is to be transparent and to be integral, to walk with the grace of God at all times, because God has placed you on a platform to realize the opportunity and the responsibility to help people to be clear and proud of God. Because there are so many different sounds that are going into the atmosphere now, there are so many different interpretations of who God is and what the real God is. Our responsibility is parallel to the life we will experience in the Kingdom of God. People need to hear the truth and the real heart of God and not the imitation or the made up, “feel good” religions in place of a relationship with Christ. It’s so funny that you mention Jackie Mccullough, because she is by far my most favorite preacher in the entire world.

CH: Let’s talk about this remarkable new project which you should be proud of. “My destiny” is truly a worship album. Tell me how the compositions came to you and the level of maturity that you experienced from this album versus the previous one, “A Call to Worship.”

Stephen Hurd - I think this project is another dimension of worship, as it relates to God really speaking more clearly and stronger to me than ever. One of the things that is clear to me is that this project is a prophetic project. It speaks to the spirit of man. It’s not just designed to sound good or feel good but it’s designed to capture a heart and to allow someone to be introduced into a place where God dwells. In some instances where people are afraid to go, unveiled communication with God is as intimate as intimate can be, where he reveals who we really are and how he’s willing to wash us up from who we are and show us who we are to become.

I’m just so excited about it because I think the “Call to Worship” is a great project but I think the Lord showed me it was kind of two-faced. It was good for introducing me to a larger audience. But one of my strengths in music ministry as a worship leader is to really operate on a prophetic realm. I think this is an opportunity for the prophetic to be kind of announced or pronounced in the music community.

CH: Can you elaborate on your understanding of the “prophetic realm”? Is that something manifested to anyone who unveils himself or herself and commits to God or is it a specific calling from the Lord?

SH: I believer there are five soul gifts from the Kingdom. I don’t have all the five gifts and I don’t consider myself a prophet. But there are times when the prophetic gifts, utterances of God, rest on me in my conscious settings in such a crystal clear way, ushering people to go higher in God and deeper in God. Some people think that worship leading is just standing up before people and cheerleading and singing songs but it really is challenging an atmosphere to bow down to Grace and the Glory of God’s presence. If you don’t make yourself familiar with God in prayer and relationship, you miss these opportunities when he makes known His presence.

CH: In closing, I want you to discuss the choice in the title “My Destiny” and how it your destiny became clear to you and how the Saints must challenge themselves to discover their own destinies, their own callings, their own ordinations in this life.

SH: I think that this destiny message is the message of the Kingdom. When I was preparing for this project, I told one of my greatest friends in ministry – Jonathan Nelson, “I want you to write something with me, but I don’t know what it is.” I was hoping to record last December but I didn’t have enough songs yet. I was supposed to record in January but I still didn’t have enough songs. And then, something happened in February that I wasn’t prepared for and we ended up recording in March.

I was talking to my sister about finding the passion of your heart, because the string of opportunities and resources will come out of that passion. After having that conversation with her, I was disturbed because I didn’t hear passion in her resolve and in her conversation and that bothered me. That put a real burden on my heart and I began to petition God about it, “Am I in my lane, am I functioning the way I’m supposed to function, am I serving the people I’m supposed to serve?”

And out of that conversation, I began to pray and ask the Lord the questions from that song, “What’s the Plans You Have for me?” I began asking that and I began to really revisit that office in my church and Jonathan came over and I let him hear what we had and he said, “Wow, this is big, this is huge!” And he started singing, “Lord Hear my Dreams” and I said, “Yes! That’s it! That’s it!” And we started moving into a place where, after making our petition before God, we had to believe by faith, that He answered it and we started saying, “Thank you for showing me!” It was incredible, it all happened in about 45 minutes.

For more information on Stephen Hurd, visit www.hurdthewordmusic.com. To contact Stephen Hurd for singing or preaching engagements, worship seminars or general questions, email him at rollo0302@yahoo.com.