A Canadian release by LIANNA KLASSEN is featuring heavily on UCB Europe. Mike Rimmer reports.

Lianna Klassen

Lianna's been singing and taking piano lessons since she was eight. When she was 18 she went to Capernwray in England for six months and fell in love with Britain and its people. She says, "I've only been back once since then and would LOVE it if God opened the door for us to come again." That might happen for Canadian singer/songwriter Lianna Klassen because the title cut of her 'Listen To The Sound' album has recently become one of UCB Europe's most frequently played songs. For the moment, Lianna sings mainly in Canada in churches, conferences and conventions as well as worship leading in special events.

The 37-year-old worship leader also sees herself as a performer, so how does she tie up those two things? She responds, "For me, the best worship leaders in the world are ones that are broken and real and the more they worship in truth, the less they perform. But at the same time, performance and stage presence are an integral part of communication. It is a struggle to balance these things and I know that God is teaching me every time I get up on the stage. I believe that the Church's heart is changing and that people want truth in performance. They want to see Jesus. I want to be able to communicate Him when I do a concert and lead people to worship."

God has led Lianna to some challenging situations to sing. One song on the album, "God Is In The Midst Of It All", illustrates this. Lianna explains, "A couple of years ago, a 16 year old in our community was brutally raped and murdered. I was asked to sing at her funeral which had become a national media circus because of the brutality and the lack of any leads to her murderer. There were about 800 young people there from her school and the sense of hopelessness was overwhelming! I wanted so much to tell these kids that there WAS hope and that God loved them."

Musically Lianna's album gleans a lot of different sounds from around the world and she explains, "The world beat overtones on the CD are there as a symbol of the nations coming together to worship God. I also LOVE the sounds and drumbeats that are unique to every culture and nation. In fact, I have never heard an indigenous sound I didn't like! It was great fun to try out all these different instruments and put them together in the songs."

She continues, "I was at a gathering of Christians from across North America as well as Native Americans, New Zealand, Samoan and Asian nations were represented. For the first time I had revelation of what can happen when the nations come together, lay down their agendas and worship the Father in spirit and in truth. Each nation brought their own songs, sounds and drumbeats and jammed and worshipped together. It was incredible! The song "Listen To The Sound" grew out of that gathering and is dedicated to those nations and cultures that are beginning to worship Jesus with the musical diversity that he gave them long ago. In fact, I wrote this song after most of the album was complete and it was a last minute addition to the CD."