Nick Herbert has been the Worship Leader at St Mary’s, Bryanston Square in London, UK since 1998. St Mary’s is part of a network of ‘Friends’ churches across the world as well as being in partnership with an organization called Artisan, which seeks to support, network and pray for Christians in Media Arts and Entertainment. Nick’s songs have encouraged a generation of worshippers and in 2004 came the release of his Emerge album Blameless which contained the songs ‘This Side Of Heaven’ and ‘Blameless’.

Growing up, Nick did not have any formal training in music, but when he became a Christian he was handed a guitar and that was that! He’s since gone on to have a variety of lessons in guitar and vocal training and still enjoys learning and progressing in the practical side of his calling. As a young Christian, Nick was given several prophecies about being a leader and was much encouraged in leading worship by his home church near Birmingham. Nick then moved to London to study Fine Art at the Slade School of Art and began to lead worship at St Mary’s. He was given a prophecy about becoming the worship leader in the church – and several years on Nick continues to be passionate about leading the congregation there.

Through St Mary’s, Nick has been involved in church planting in many countries: “There seems to be a real buzz around the Church at the moment because of the church planting thing. I think for a songwriter there is nothing more inspiring than being part of a local church that is seeking to follow God - because that is where true life and creativity are found. It’s very exciting for us to be training up and sending out worship leaders, and encouraging each other from the four corners of the globe!”

Nick released his first full album from Survivor entitled ‘Praiseworthy’. The album was produced by Paul Burton and Tom Mills (who have previously worked with Onehundredhours and David Gate) and Mike Busbee who is based in Los Angeles. Almost all of the tracks on this album have been co-written with other worship leaders – something Nick is very keen on. He is also determined to have carefully thought-out theology within each song and has been helped in this by the resident theologian at St Mary’s:

“At St Mary’s we are fairly mission-based so most of the songs are written with that in mind: that they might be accessible to people who may not have been Christians for a long time. We try to be careful with the theology in each song, and are very fortunate to have a theologian – Crispin Fletcher-Louis – based at St Mary’s, who can bring me up short when I stray from the path! The album includes several tracks co-written with Matt Redman & Tim Hughes, one track with David Gate and a couple of the tracks with John Peters – the rector of St Mary’s.”

“St Mary’s is an exciting place to be as I’ve watched it grow from a Church of around 200 to about 1600 people now. I very much enjoy leading the crowd there in worship and am constantly challenged to write new songs for a church seeking to know God more and welcome his Spirit. I think my favourite track on the album is the title track ‘Praiseworthy’ because it says a lot with reasonably few words which makes it easier to remember!”

“The inspiration behind ‘Praiseworthy’ comes from Philippians: ‘whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is admirable – if anything is excellent or praiseworthy – think about such things.’ Obviously Jesus is all these things, and for me the word ‘praiseworthy’ was highlighted.”

St Mary’s believes that worship should be a dynamic encounter with God and holds a regular service called SOAK where they focus entirely on worship and ministry in the Spirit, often using different elements such as a gospel choir, artists and visuals. Nick is married to Ali who is also a musician and they have a beautiful 18-month old daughter called Gracie.