Darlene and her husband Mark moved from an incredibly successful stint at Hillsong Church in 2011 and became Senior Pastors at Hope Unlimited Church. In late 2013 Darlene was diagnosed with breast cancer and went through a very difficult season suffering with this disease, but in November 2014 reported that she had been healed.
This is Darlene’s first album away from the Hillsong label and this time she brings the live worship experience from her new church family. The ‘family’ element here is very important, not only does this album feature tracks that are co-written with Martin Smith, Paul Baloche, Jenn Johnson and Leeland Mooring, it also features a short track, ‘Love and Wonder’ written by Darlene’s teenage daughter, Zoe.
It is easy to sing of how great God is when you’ve been healed of a life-threatening disease, but the first track co-written with Martin Smith was at one of the worst points of suffering. It’s a lesson to learn to still cry out that ‘You Are Great’ no matter what our circumstances!
It would be natural for these songs to be a bit of a pity party with some expressions of God’s love and care. Darlene’s focus is to look at God and Him alone. Of course you cannot remove the elements of suffering that we go through in life and there are references to valleys and storms but these never become the focus.
Most of the songs follow a fairly atmospheric and orchestral style and they carry their own strength when it comes to reflection on the lyrics. It’s only when we arrive at ‘First Love’ we have any meaningful strength to the percussion and the hint of a bit of a dance track.
Normally on an album like this I would suggest that it could really do with a bit of extra variety and to push the style a little bit. Having listened to this through many times, I don’t think that this is the case here. This is not really an album for just listening, this is an album for worshipping.
Many modern worship tracks have some self-focus, this is not the case here. Yes the worshipper features, but it’s all about God, His glory, what He has done and continues to do. “Here I Am Send Me” brilliantly shows the surrender we should give to God’s grace and glory before the album commissions us to “Go” into our lives taking the Gospel with us.
Click the artwork below and purchase your copy of Darlene Zschech’s “Here I Am Send Me” album today!
