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In partnership with Australian Christian Records, The Daily Declaration shares a monthly Christian music column featuring artist stories, new releases, the national OZ 5 chart and local Christian music news.

If you have something to contribute, please send through to: news@ozchristianrecords.com.au.

Recommended New Releases:

• CXMMXNS – The Commons Chapel [Album] (NSW) #Worship
• Messa – Take ii [EP] (NSW) #RnB
• Nathan Plumridge / Compliments of Gus – Jesus in these Shoes (VIC) #Soft Rock
• Youth Alive – Forever & Always (QLD) #Pop
• Meera – Life is Good (VIC) #EDM

More local Christian releases on our Australian Christian Pop Spotify Playlists.

Upcoming Shows:

• Christian Music Conference, March 6 (NSW)
• Majozi, March 13, 15, 19, 21 (NSW, VIC, QLD, WA)

OZ 5 Top Tunes Chart*

1. FOR KING & COUNTRY – WORLD ON FIRE
2. Tarryn Stokes – Rubies & Gold
3. Aodhan King – Hallelujah (If Not For Your Love)
4. Justin Michael – Cannot See Tomorrow
5. Ethan Beer – Eyes For You

*Compiled by TCM based on Australian Christian radio airplay from the preceding month.

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Nathan Tasker & We Are Messengers: Creating Space for Divine Encounters

Award-winning Australian singer-songwriter Nathan Tasker has been a mainstay of Australia’s Christian music scene, touring extensively with renowned artists such as Casting Crowns, Mercy Me, Michael W Smith, and Amy Grant.

Back in the spotlight supporting We Are Messengers on their national tour (for a second time), Lesa Scholl caught up with Nathan at the Melbourne concert. Also jumping on the couch was We Are Messengers frontman Darren Mulligan.

“Is this couch big enough?”

Joking around backstage, it might be hard to tell, but in the middle of a whirlwind trip to the antipodes, both Nathan and Darren are exhausted, but at the same time love touring New Zealand and Australia and are excited to connect with their audiences.

‘We’re running on absolute empty,’ Darren said. ‘But we’re honoured to be here, privileged, exhausted, but expecting these nights to be really special. We’re going to work really hard to make sure that happens.’

According to Nathan, the best thing about touring with We Are Messengers was the truth on stage.

‘No one’s going to be trying to sell you anything,’ he said. ‘I’m so over people getting up on stage and pretending,’ Darren added. ‘We feign authenticity, and we feign vulnerability, and we feign it just enough so that it might actually feel real or true.’

‘I think the key is to come as you are,’  Darren continues. ‘What’s the point in me standing on stage and telling all these people “come as you are,” but yet I don’t? Be vulnerable. Be authentic. Tell the truth,’ he said. ‘It’s worth it because it allows other people to tell the truth, too.’

Nathan reflected on the woman in the gospels who poured the perfume over Christ’s feet. ‘She knows that she’s been forgiven, and so she’s able to experience grace and mercy in a deeper sense,’ he said. ‘The more we pretend, what we actually lose is a deeper experience of the grace of God.

‘But she also had to have the courage to go into that room,’ Darren added. ‘How often do we say things like “You’re welcome, everyone is welcome,” and then when people come with their divorces and their abortions and their relationship breakdown, we get weird and funky about it?’

Darren said his art was about paving roads for people to get to Jesus, creating an environment for people to encounter God. Nathan pointed out the story in John 8 where the adulterous woman was brought before Jesus, and He said: Let the one without sin cast the first stone.

‘His next move is to stoop down and draw in the sand,’ Nathan said. ‘There’s conjecture about what he’s writing, but it doesn’t matter.’

‘He’s doing something creative in order to give space for the people in front of him to actually get what he said.’

Nathan said creative art does a similar thing, creating space for people to consider the things of God. ‘Both Darren and I write about our faith and its impact on relationships, life, our families, the world.’

Fulfilling their promise to return, We Are Messengers toured Perth, Melbourne, Brisbane and Sydney between January 27-31.

Darren followed on, sharing how being on the road as a team felt like community, an extension of what church should be like.

Nathan agreed that there are really important things at stake when you’re a team, but it’s very rarely how the band sounded.

‘Darren is the leader of a small group of guys in a band and in a crew,’ he said.

‘There’s a real sense in which their lives, their families, their relationship with God, those things are really important. The most important things are actually happening off the stage.’

Darren said they always ask Nathan to come when We Are Messengers are touring.

‘He’s a good mate to me,’ Darren said. ‘What I do is really lonely. So having good friends out here is rare. I’m lucky to have Nate and these boys in this team.’

It has already been two years since We Are Messengers last toured Australia, and it happens to also be the last time Nathan performed back home in Australia. ‘We’ve both lived in Nashville, Darren’s now in Ireland, but we have a deep sense of what it means to be where your people are,’ he said.

There was a recognition of how home and belonging are important – especially when spending so much time touring and Darren spoke of the importance of being a good steward of the places God gives us to live – to be rooted and established there.

‘God has given me a garden back home in Ireland, and that’s my primary place to be a follower of Jesus,’ he said. ‘That’s where I belong. And then, by extension, I belong in a whole different world, the world that people in the public see. They see the public part of my life. I belong there, but I belong there temporarily.’

For more, read our exclusive interview, “We Are Messengers: Telling a New Story to Australia“.

Follow:

Nathan Tasker

Website:                  www.nathantasker.com
Instagram:            @nathantasker
Spotify:                 @nathantasker

We Are Messengers

Website:                  https://wearemessengersmusic.com
Instagram:            @wearemessengers
Spotify:                 @wearemessengers

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Interview Date: January 29, 2026.

This interview transcript has been edited for the sake of clarity and readability.

Images courtesy of Nathan Tasker, We Are Messengers & Lesa Scholl.