(Radio interview conducted by Matt Prater of ‘History Makers Radio’ in June 2007 (one of 14 interviews published in Matt Prater’s Book, ‘History Makers in music’ which is available for purchase via www.historymakersradio.com )
Matt: Today we are speaking to Graeme Hush; singer/songwriter and associate pastor at Grace Church in Canberra.
Matt: How did your music career start?
Graeme: My mother was a singer and tap dancer so there was a lot of art, drama, music and general creative stuff happening all around the house. I started singing with Gordon Barr and other mates, doing youth group events, singing in halls…that sort of stuff. We loved singing and no venue was too big or too small. They were humble beginnings, and nothing much has changed really.
Matt: Where did you grow up?
Graeme: I grew up in Wollongong. A whole lot of creative guys came out of there at the time, because God was really moving the place. People like Steve Grace, Doug McFarlane, Mark Matthews, and Peter Shirley all come from Wollongong.
Matt: I gather you weren’t really into the Christian stuff in the beginning, so who was your role model at that time? Who did you want to be?
Graeme: This is really going to date me… Ian Gillan from Deep Purple, or Robert Plant from Led Zeppelin. I wanted to scream at the walls.
Matt: What type of music were you involved in when you worked as a youth pastor at the Wollongong Church of Christ? Did you perform at schools and at other venues?
Graeme: Yeah. I was heavily involved in youth ministries; we did a lot of shopping centres, open-air concerts…we would perform anywhere where there was a crowd of people. It was focused around the youth culture of the time – probably anthemic rock.
Matt: How did you become a Christian?
Graeme: Even though my parents weren’t Christians, they made sure my older brother Ian and I got confirmed at the local Anglican Church, as that was the socially acceptable thing to do at that time. So my brother and I went to church, my parents didn’t go, and I started hanging around some guys who were running the drop-in centre. I was fourteen and pretty independent and spent a lot of time out of the house. I met Jesus in a task oriented type of way. I was doing stuff. I was interested. I was having fun. I was going out on Friday nights and doing drop-in type things. Randall Waller came and performed one night and things just came together. I wanted to know who he hung out with because he seemed like a different type of guy, yes, he understands music but he has a different spirit about him; he has a different soul, a different heart. I thought, “I want a part of that.” I remember giving my life to Christ in 1978, aged seventeen. I had been a youth leader for three years but didn’t know the source of life.
Matt: Now tell me bout your musical career. When did you record your first CD?
Graeme: My musical partner, Gordon Barr, went on this journey much earlier than I did. He played the piano and in the early days I didn’t play any instruments. I sang and had an emerging heart for songs that would encourage people to connect with the lost. To reach out beyond places they were comfortable with. I found myself writing a lot of lyrics and in 1989 Gordon finally convinced me that I had enough songs to record an album. We went into a makeshift studio in a garage and started work on the first album “Where Is The Love?” Since then there have been seven or eight albums that we have been collectively involved in and three or four of those have been solo projects.
Matt: Do you have any funny performance stories, like falling off the stage or head-butting the microphone?
Graeme: I’ve got a few chips on my teeth from microphones. We were at an open-air event down the coast and came in and set up very quickly. I was leading and singing from the drum kit and the whole kit went flying off the front of the stage. I was trying to look like nothing had happened, even though the kit had gone crashing down into the crowd. We’ve had VW Kombis blow up…you name it, things go wrong.
Matt: How do you juggle family time and ministry time? How do you keep your marriage going strong?
Graeme: By believing in it. By giving it the priority it deserves. I’ve learned this the hard way. I have made a mess of relationships. In my immaturity, I have tried to grab hold of all the things that I thought were important. That doesn’t work long term. That doesn’t transform many lives. You need your partner with you in your ministry. Karen and I work together in this mission; we are called for this mission. We have different roles…she is a beautiful singer and performer…but we have very different approaches. We complement one another. There are plenty of times where we need to take stock, we have to discipline ourselves to make the time to be together. We love to drive and we do a lot of our talking in the car. In the last few years we have done a lot of talking on planes as well. It’s really important to know that nothing is too hard to talk about, to have a coffee over. I tend to try and protect Karen and hide stuff and just get on with it, but that is a huge mistake, and not the way Jesus wants us to operate. He wants us to operate openly and transparently and with vulnerability. Our strength comes from the Spirit working in and through us…our strength comes from him alone.
I’m one of those guys who can easily slip into, “Well, I can do this because I’ve got these gifts and abilities and I can make this happen” and Karen can easily slip into a space of not letting the externals get in the way. She is able to cut off the whole world because she is happy in her own space. Both can be really dangerous because when you get out of touch it’s really hard to re-connect. And as human beings, we start to shut down, don’t we? It’s much easier to hide than engage. I’m in the best space I’ve ever been in relationally. I’m in the most empowering relationship of my life, outside of my relationship with Jesus.
Matt: Tell me how you maintain that relationship with Jesus.
Graeme: It’s tough, isn’t it? When you love someone, and I love Jesus so much; sometimes they get pushed into the background because you know that you’ll re-connect somewhere down the track. Of course that’s true, because there is grace and mercy onboard, but the amount of love that is lavished upon us is indescribable. I find that I have a new energy for the Bible. I have a new energy for reading the Word. It’s a really simple process: I have questions, and instead of trying to work them all out with reason or in a conversation with someone who I think has more wisdom than me, the first thing I try to do is just sit down with one of the gospels. I will read five, or six or ten chapters until I get an answer. I’ve learned this from hanging around with Brian these last few years. I read the Bible with the question in my mind and I keep going until I get an answer. That’s refreshing, because it gives me a fresh revelation from the Lord on a regular basis. I love just relaxing with Him and knowing that the cause is all about the mission, the lost being saved, communities being transformed…these things keep me alive. Beyond the task is the relationship.
Matt: Tell me a little bit about Crosslink. You are part of a church called Grace Canberra with Brian Medway and you are part of Crosslink, where churches all over Australia have partnered with you. Tell me about the vision for Crosslink and your involvement.
Graeme: Many people would know Brian Medway’s name and it would probably be fairer to ask him how Crosslink came in to being. Crosslink is a relational network that desires to empower churches that are otherwise finding it difficult to find apostolic and prophetic foundations, to find sources that will enrich them to complete the task, to the purpose of finding fullness in Christ, for the purpose of the heart holiness of God, for the purpose of oneness, like the relationship between the Father and the Son. These are the four mountain peaks that Brian talks about. We believe that in the West, there are many churches that haven’t climbed these peaks yet, and if they have climbed them, they’ve climbed them one at a time. In Crosslink we are trying to meet with people, connect with church plants, connect with churches that have gone through difficult times and gather together a bunch of people that desire to relate together in a way that sees these things come about. The Crosslink network is about eleven or twelve years old now. There are about seventy churches independently connecting in this relationship. It’s all about relating together to empower one another for the vision that we’ve been given. Each of us is the guardian of a vision and Crosslink’s heart is to empower each vision, with all the legalities and credentialing that goes alongside of that. The main heart is the relationship.
Matt: How do you draw others to a closer relationship with God?
Graeme: You’ve gotta be real. You have to start where you are. You have to be who you are, because that’s how you’ve been made. I find it really frustrating when you hear a whole bunch of words that sound like spiritual or ministry language or sound like things that would come straight out of a Bible. What I have discovered, through the difficult circumstances in my life, is to just stay real and be able to express how we really feel, rather than what we think we should feel, or act, or how the church down the road expects us to operate. Just keep going to the source; just keep going to the word of God. Keep going to the Bible…just open it up and read. Find a message about Jesus. Grab something that’s attainable and chewable. You can find the answer in small ways, instead of in big chunks of the Bible. Listen to positive music. Listen to the things that are happening around you with a different set of ears, instead of being bogged down by the pressures of life. Think about what the grand plan might be. Think beyond your circumstance. I know it’s easy to say, but I can say, with absolute passion, that the only way I was able to get through the darkest times; where I’ve been out of church life, out of ministry, out of relationship, is to see God in the whole of the earth and the whole of life experience. I can walk down the shopping centre, and instead of seeing all the marketing, I might see something lovely, something worthwhile, something positive that’s obviously in the image of God. Look for the simple things, but keep it real. If you’re angry, be angry. Find someone that you trust to share that with openly. If you’re sad, be sad. Find someone that will be sad with you and help you see that there are better things to come.
