About this episode

Alexander Pappas discusses his return to church music and the significance of Sunday gatherings in worship.

Alexander Pappas, founding member of the Grammy-nominated group Hillsong Young and Free, has spent 15 years writing songs that congregations around the world sing without always knowing his name. Alive, Real Love, Echo, A Great Awakening — his fingerprints are on some of the most-played worship songs of the last decade. Now he is stepping out with a solo EP called Sunday, a project born out of a season of personal doubt, a reckoning with whether ministry was done with him, and a fresh revelation about why gathering with the church every week actually matters. Worship as strength training, the power of praise, and a God whose plan has always been Jesus: Alexander unpacks why he believes Sunday gatherings are not just services but practice sessions for the hard moments of real life, what it looks like to sing a song you don't fully believe yet until you do, and how studying Abraham and Isaac gave him a song called Always Been Jesus that traces the thread of Christ all the way back to the first time the word worship appears in Scripture. He also tells the story behind Echo, the elevation Worship hit he co-wrote and was supposed to sing before a broken tour bus changed…

People in this episode

Guest: Alexander Pappas

Topics covered

• church music
• worship
• personal doubt
• Sunday gatherings
• praise songs
• Christian ministry

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Hillsong Young and Free

Books & works: Sunday, Always Been Jesus, Echo, Alive, Real Love, A Great Awakening

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