There are moments in my life where a song grabbed my soul and upon hearing just a few notes of the song, I am transported in my mind back to the place where I originally heard the song. One of those songs for me was called, “When It’s all been said and done”. I remember my friend Larry McIlwaine getting up to sing and as he sang each verse, I could feel the Holy Spirit move over my life in an incredible way. I immediately went out to buy the CD and as I listened to the words of the song over and over again, the Lord began to help me prioritize everything in my life. Every time I hear the song, I go back to those moments and once again thank the Lord for the Spirit being there that day.
Robin Mark was the author of that song. The Lord whispered into his mind the lyrics that helped to transform an area of my life, as well as many around the world. The Lord would also help Robin to write some of the most frequently sung worship songs in the world today. I recently spoke with Robin over the phone while he was at home in Ireland. He helped to give me perspective again, this time through a discussion, and he is our Men of God Spotlight.

His Life

Robin grew up in Ireland in the midst of one of the most tumultuous times any country has ever seen. He would accept Christ at the age of sixteen after a conversation that he had with a man at his workplace.

Q – Robin, can you tell me when you gave your life to Christ?

“I gave my life to Christ when I was sixteen, which was a few years ago now. I had just started working in what we would call a drawing office, that’s a technical office of a civil engineering company, a company that builds and designs roads. I was a young lad and we had some folks in the office who were Christians, particularly one chap called Paul Bryan, who later became the head of the Evangelical Ministries organization here in Belfast. Paul used to start conversations, arguments, discussions during lunch time and it was during one of the lunch time discussions on the nature and length of eternity that I, having been brought up in a Christian environment and generally a Christian home, gave my life to Christ. So it was in my workplace actually, at lunch time, which is interesting given today’s politically correct instructions from the governments that say you shouldn’t allow discussions of religious nature in a workplace.”

It would be the beginning of a life that would strive to please Christ in every way possible. He would grow in his faith and God would open doors to use the talent that He had blessed Robin with in a way that he could not have imagined that day during the lunch time conversation.

His Music
Robin would be known all over the United Kingdom and in Europe before his music found its’ way to the United States. It was his 1999 album Revival in Belfast that would introduce the United States, as well as many other countries, to the talent that God had given Robin and to the message that the Lord was attempting to convey through him. From that point, his songs have been sung all over the world, with one song in particular “Days of Elijah” being one of the most popular worship songs on this decade. I wanted to see what Robin had learned through it all and wanted to understand his experience.

Q – What inspires you when you are writing music?

“I get inspired by events, circumstances, and the Word. Whenever a song that I write comes into being, I always know if it’s got something a little more special than the ordinary. My inspiration can come from events that just happened as you go through the normal things of life, it can come from a sermon that I happen to listen to, or it often comes from just reading the Word. I’ll find a passage where the words jump out at you. There’s a response that you feel to what you’ve just read and that’s where I get my inspiration.”

Q – When you are leading worship and you look out over the crowd, what is it that you see?

“Do you know what I try to see? My brothers and sisters, actually. I remember when I was a young Christian, one of the books I read said, “If you can’t walk down the main street in your city and not find that your heart breaks for the faces that you see walking along the street towards you, you haven’t really understood God’s grace and God’s desire for the hearts of man.” Whenever I am up leading worship and looking out on a group of people, I really try to remember God’s heart for those people. He is seeking their worship. At that point, when you look out and sense that, God gives you a great compassion and a great love for the people. I do tend to see just brothers and sisters and a community, but yet one with that community and with the Lord.”

Q – Is there one worship experience, when you were leading worship, that really sticks out in your mind?

“It was in Israel actually. I got asked to come and do a convocation, which is the way the Israeli Christians, Israeli believers, have of saying a Christian conference because they can’t say the word conference because it (the word “conference”) has problems with the security over there. I was asked to come and be a part of a worship convocation that lasted over three days and was continuous worship for three days. This was about eight years ago and the song “Days of Elijah” had just started to come into common use and the Messianic Jews, the Christians, the believers in Israel had picked up on the song for a whole bunch of reasons. We were together in a hotel; there must have been three hundred or four hundred people, Christians from countries all over the world. I think there were eighty countries represented there and I started to sing Elijah at the end and people began to join in. When we got to the final chorus, there was just a sort of roar of applause and sound and voices that didn’t stop. It went on and on and on. I could smell something like an incense smell in the middle of the room and I was thinking, “Someone set something on fire.” I sort of looked about the place and there was nothing and I looked down to see if any of my instruments were smoking or whatever and it didn’t go away. At the end of the meeting, one of the other folks at the conference came up and said, “Did you smell that incense smell?” I said, “Yeah, I did actually. Did someone light some incense?” They, being a Messianic Jew said, “No, no, no. You get that sometimes when people are really taken in worship.” That blew me away.”

Q – What is the scope of Christianity in Ireland right now?

“It’s pretty good actually. There are two parts to Ireland still; The Northern Ireland part which is part of the United Kingdom and the Southern Ireland, which is part of an independent country now. Southern Ireland’s traditionally mainly a Catholic country and Northern Ireland is mainly a Protestant country. What has happened a little is that the role of the Catholic Church has diminished a little bit just because people have become less institutionally religious, if you know what I mean, whereas in Northern Ireland, you have a fairly steady level of Christian belief. Basically, in the midst of the troubles we’ve had for the last thirty to thirty-five years, when people are in troubled times, they tend to look to the church and they tend to sort of hold on, maybe for the wrong reasons or maybe just for traditions, but they tend to hold on to the beliefs that they were raised in when they were children. I think you discovered that in America after 9/11 when the Sunday after the terrorists attacks, the churches were filled with people who hadn’t been there in a long time. We’ve had year upon year of terrorists’ attacks and people did hold on to their religion. In actual fact, in Europe, we’re probably the highest percentage of evangelical Christians. We’re in a good place and part of that is due to the troubles themselves, would you believe, and part of it is due to the fact that in the midst of the troubles, the Christian church is where people find solace and comfort in troubled times.”

His Advice

Robin has traveled all over the world, leading people in worship in a wide variety of cultures. He has seen and experienced things that we all hope one day to be a part of and his advice is something that we can all take and apply to our lives.

Q – What gives you the most hope about modern Christianity?

“The more I see what the world and other religions want to present and the more I hear of what people’s hopes and dreams are all based around and what other religions are saying, the more I am entirely and utterly convinced that this message, the message of the cross, is the most important religious, if you want to use that phrase, message for our society. The more that society crumbles and starts to break down and the more problems that arise, the more it tends to reflect exactly what the Bible says will happen.”

Q – What troubles you the most about modern Christianity?

“That’s a good question. There are a number of things. I think I’m encouraged by modern Christianity more than I’m troubled about it, to be perfectly honest. There’s a general response amongst the nominal Christian churches and nominal Christian countries to give way to the attacks. I’m talking about intellectual attacks and attacks on our belief systems. We seem to be more inclined for the sake of not wishing to offend people to stand back and not make a declaration of what we believe in or else we don’t adequately understand the great depth of the faith that we do believe in. We’re not able to react and we’re not able to respond.”

I asked Robin what his advice would be to worship leaders all over the world and his response was, “Commit to the local church and let God do with your ministry what He wants to do with it.” He talked about committing to the local church, being committed to God in the small things first, and allowing God to work through the ministry from there. So often, in worship, those who are leading worship or want to serve in worship get caught up in the push to sell music and perform in conferences and concert venues all over the world. Robin commented, “I am totally convinced that God has a call for each of us and each worship leader’s primary call is in the place where He has put us…in the church.” After we show commitment there, then God can open more doors if that is His will for our lives.

Robin Mark has penned some of the great worship songs of our generation, from “Days of Elijah” to “All for Jesus”, and with each song his purpose and his intent has remained the same; to lead his brothers and sisters to the throne of God so that they may have a real experience with the Creator. As we enter into worship each Sunday, we should all heed the advice that Robin has blessed us with and pour ourselves into our local churches and allow God’s plan to unfold right before our eyes. Now is the time for us to make a stand and live lives of worship for we truly are in the Days of Elijah; “Behold, He comes!”

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