Stuart Townend is a well-known Christian songwriter, worship leader, musician and seminar speaker. He also spends time training emerging worship leaders and songwriters. His latest album Creation Sings was released in May 2009.

Here is a taster from Stuart's podcast interview:

If people don't have a mentor or encourager and they want to test out a calling in worship leading, what are some of the recommendations you could make to them?

I think everyone needs pastoral input. Everyone needs someone speaking into what you do in terms of ministry. If you haven't got that, you look for that, not necessarily in someone who is musically massively gifted, but somebody who pastorally can have input into you as a person, and input into how you interact with the church and how you develop resources for the church...But it's important to have some pastoral input - even if it's your local church pastor. I would be very cautious about people who are writing songs who are not connected into a local church, who are not part of that body of believers. First, because I think that if you do develop ministry, you need support; but secondly, that's where you learn what it's all about. You learn what works as a song by trying it out with your local congregation. That's what keeps you sharp in terms of your writing. Otherwise the tendency is you can go off and write songs, but actually they don't work when people sing them because you're not hearing people sing them. You're not learning your trade, if you like, not learning your craft in the local church...