Since 1968, our hearts have been passionately set on leading people to worship God in spirit & truth.

It’s been 50 years since we started Scripture In Song and what a wonderful journey it’s been! After we collected and curated all the albums, adverts, newspaper clippings, magazines, cassettes, vinyls and books from over the years, we thought what better way to commemorate the past 50 years by creating an online museum of history. Only God could have orchestrated a story like this and we’re so grateful that He did. It’s been an honour to lead you all in worship over the years and we pray this timeline/museum is a both a blessing and a joyous look at what God’s done through two unlikely followers of Jesus from Aotearoa (New Zealand).

1960s — Using what’s in our hands

1962 - Youth For Christ and a chance meeting! We were two young followers of Jesus, helping out at Youth For Christ NZ (YFCNZ), this was were we met, fell in love and were married from. At this time David played very simple guitar and we both sang.

1963 - A clear directive from the Lord. While spending time in prayer and seeking God’s word for our lives, we went out for a picnic together. On that picnic, the Lord brought us to Isaiah 49. “Before I was born the Lord called me; from my mother’s womb he has spoken my name. He made my mouth like a sharpened sword, in the shadow of his hand he hid me; he made me into a polished arrow and concealed me in his quiver. He said to me, “You are my servant, Israel, in whom I will display my splendor.”

1967 - Sing to Me, not just about Me

1968 - Lead the people to Me — Scripture In Song is born!

1970s — From New Zealand to the world

Loren Cunningham arrived for lunch, Dale gave him pizza “Go is a change of location. I’m sending you to Switzerland.” Teach!? We don’t teach! God lead us and gave us the words to speak — teaching for a week in Switzerland.

YWAM began to translate our songs and David said “No, write your own worship. Make it your own.”

1970 - “Thou Art Worthy” and “The Bible Tells Me So”

1972 - “Prepare Ye The Way” — we had a lot of songs by this time, so we decided to record our first 24 track studio album recording. The engineer came to the Lord during the process of recording this double album. Meanwhile in the other room, a cat was being castrated in the living room. Praise God how things come together! This album was the first record to put us on the map across the globe — selling 100,000’s of albums and being certified platinum in NZ.

1973 - “Love, Joy, Peace” — the 3rd album in a series of kids worship music. The follow-up to “Sing a Song of Scripture”.

1974 - “Praise The Name Of Jesus” — This album stayed at the top of the UK charts for 6 months — an incredible feat for a 4 track live album from New Zealand. This was the year that Jack Hayford invited us to come to his Church On The Way in San Fernando, CA. We came and led worship there and Jack asked Dale to sing a song “He Shall Feed His Flock Like A Shepherd”. Dale says, “I got up on stage to lead worship, looked out and saw a room full of film and TV stars, I almost lost my mind I was so nervous, but the Spirit of God fell in the room and it ended up being such a powerful time of worship and established a long time friendship with Jack Hayford and his congregation.”

1975 — “All Thy Works Shall Praise Thee” — The second double album, recorded “live” in a portable studio in Bill Subritzky’s house in Hillsborough, Auckland. In part, this album was a follow-up to “Praise The Name Of Jesus”. On the success of this record, we set out on our first ‘world tour’, traveling to the UK, Europe, South Africa, United States and Australia.

1976 - Touring, touring, touring!

1978 — “Father Make Us One” — a live recording at Auckland Boys Grammar School taking songs that teach and highlight the importance of unity within the body of Christ. Having met Jimmy and Carol Owens at Jack Hayford’s church, we were inspired by their approach of taking sermons and pastoral teachings and putting those simple thoughts to music.

We took inspiration and heart from Jesus’ prayer for all believers found in John 17:20-23 “My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one — I in them and you in me—so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.”

Dale recalls, “After having seen Barbra Streisand wearing a brilliant pinstripe pantsuit, I went out and bought a similar one for the live recording, however upon arriving at a church on a following Sunday I was told that women don’t lead nor do they appear in pants in public. I saw no problem with it and proceeded to get up on the stage, pant-suit and all and lead worship!”

1979 — “Strings of Praise” — our first instrumental album, recorded with the Auckland Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Tony Baker. We chose some of the most popular Scripture songs from the first decade of Scripture In Song and arranged them in an orchestrated setting.

1979 — First “Music Book” — Songs of Praise. Our first book was a compilation of songs that were popular within the charismatic movement at this point. Dale recalls, “I was very into the “England Women’s Diary” and was inspired by her use of flowers throughout — which I replicated within our songbooks, which I cannot believe I did to this day!”

Early 80s — The Kona Connection

1983 — “A Sound Of Joy” — This was a pioneering record in terms of dance, spontaneity and freedom. We met Wayne Drain and he introduced us to a song he’d written called “Go Ahead" (Here We Are Gathered Together)”. David felt like this was an answer to a feeling he’d had about getting people/congregations to move and dance as a form of praise to the Lord. We felt a need to inject joy into the Body of Christ, so after its release, we toured this album for 3 months across Europe, complete with a dance entourage that came with us and danced (and taught) the churches with us.

1986 — “First Love” — a live recording at the Auckland War Museum produced by Dan Collins. After recording in Auckland, Dan took the recording back to the United States where a host of friends joined us for overdubs and additional instrumentation. Friends who added their voices and instruments included: Bob Fitts, Annie Herring, Jamie Owens-Collins, Matthew Ward (2nd Chapter of Acts) and Brent Chambers. Musicians included Abraham Laboriel on bass and Phil Keaggy on guitar. Following in the footsteps of “Father Make Us One”, we asked our writers and friends to craft worship songs around the theme of “The Exchange of the Cross” (a series of messages by our friend Derek Prince) — beauty for ashes, joy for despair, life for death etc. These themes were set to music and some of the stories are as follows…

— “Healing To The Nations” was a beautiful song written by our dear friend Bob Fitts (who joined us live on the recording) and was written as a call to congregations to answer the call of the Lord to missionary work.

— “Highest Place” was written by Ramon Pink and debuted at one of our writers retreats. It’s one of the few songs that wasn’t tweaked or changed from its inception to recording. It’s gone on to be one of the most loved and most enduring songs of our 50 years.

1988 — 3rd Music Book — “Songs Of The Nations” — our third and final compilation music book. Released worldwide in 1988. Accompanying albums in a “Songs Of The Nations” series were released alongside. Albums in the series included, “Celebrate”, “We Will Triumph”, and “Come With Praise”.

The 90s — Scripture Memory Series and 25th Anniversary

1990-93 — Living Power Scripture Memory Series — a pair of scripture memorisation albums released after David received the word of the Lord to him, that he needed more of the Word of God within him, if he wanted to take on the future before him. “Keep On Praying” was produced in Australia by Peter Beveridge and featured a young Darlene Zschech on the title track.

“Combat” was produced in New Zealand by David and Dale with a band who took the album on a tour of New Zealand for two weeks upon its release.

These recordings were a simple return to the roots of Scripture In Song, direct scripture with no paraphrasing to get the pure Word of God into the heart of the listener. The scripture reference was added to each song for further memorisation.

At the same time, “Young Discoverers” was released across the South Pacific. These recordings, developed with Barry McGuire, were a product of wanting to continue this work of “scripture memorisation”, this time for children. Stu Duval created the illustrated story book to accompany the songs.

In October ‘93 the 25th Anniversary of Scripture In Song celebration “Oct 1” was held at the ASB Arena in Auckland, NZ. Thousands of people from across the globe gathered to celebrate and give glory to God for this beautiful worship movement. Guests included, Kevin Prosch, Steve Grace, Geoff Bullock, Steve Apirana, Winkie Pratney, Loren and Darlene Cunningham and more.

It was around this time that the Lord spoke very clearly to us and showed us more of His heart for indigenous people and their cultural worship expressions. Prior to the “Oct 1” celebration, we invited the indigenous people from both NZ and beyond to join us and worship; to bring the beauty of their individual, cultures and worship God in their spirit and truth.

1995 — “New Sound” — In 1993 on the heels of the “Oct 1” 25th anniversary celebration, we felt it was time to conclude the Scripture in Song chapter as we knew God was calling us into a new direction. In the same year, New Sound Publishing was born (and continues to this day) as a way to produce and facilitate this “new sound” we saw God highlighting through indigenous cultures and their unique worship expressions. Later, in 1995, we released the album “New Sound: Vibrant Sounds of Multicultural Worship”. This album was recorded live at “Oct 1” and featured different cultural expressions of worship from the nations represented at Oct 1.

2000 — “Let My People Go” — a documentary, was filmed from ‘98-99 in New Zealand, Switzerland, France, Australia, Hawaii and released in 2000 in response to this indigenous call. We wanted to educate people on the importance of indigenous cultures and their unique expressions of worship.
*We have DVDs available for purchase, or watch the full documentary on YouTube here.

The 2000s & 2010s — “Coming Home” and 50th Anniversary

2007 - “Coming Home” — From 1998 to 2005, we journeyed through an intense seven years of pain and loss. Our beloved 31 year old daughter Rachel was diagnosed with cancer and died at age 33. You never contemplate your child dying before you. We suffered other losses (financial, sickness and brokenness of all kinds).

One day we realised something. In all of the nightmares we had walked through, one thing stood out above everything and that was the depth and richness of God's never ending love to us. Holding us in its timeless tenderness, this unbridled love was always our certainty and assurance. Out of our experiences, the words penned so aptly by George Macdonald became our reality, the corner stone of our sensibilities. This is what he said:

'This is and has been the Father's work from the beginning, to bring us into the home of his heart, this is our destiny.'

With the gravity of this statement foremost in our minds, we did what we have always done. We wrote and wrote and ended up with Coming Home, a collection of songs inspired by Scriptures that express the longing on God's heart to have us with him where we belong. The song of the prodigal son pictures the father watching, waiting endlessly for his child. Finally, he sees him coming home and runs to meet him, embracing him and restoring him totally. Joining us on this recording is co-writer Luke Kaa-Morgan with Maori and Polynesian singers from the South Pacific.

2018 and 2019 - “I Exalt Thee” and our 50th Anniversary — In 2018 we celebrated 50 years of Scripture In Song. As we gathered with friends and looked back over the incredible faithfulness of God to us over the past 50 years, we decided that we should commemorate this anniversary with a 50th celebration event in Auckland, New Zealand.

Alongside this event we also released a brand new album, “I Exalt Thee” comprised of some of our personal favourite worship from the past 50 years, all newly arranged, recorded and produced to celebrate this milestone. The 50th celebration event proved to us once again what a longing there is in people’s hearts to worship God. For us it was very gratifying to see so many people worship so exuberantly. The purpose of the album and the event was (as always) to lead people in to the presence of God to enable them to establish a personal relationship with God.