In November 2000 I was at a worship conference in Eastbourne, and introduced through a mutual friend to Keith Getty, who I had heard was a terrific melody writer. We met up for a coffee, and he promised to send me a CD of song ideas.

I didn’t really think any more about it. Then a CD arrived in the post containing three song ideas played on a piano. I didn’t get past the first melody, because I was so taken with it – it was quite hymn-like, but with a beautiful celtic lilt - I immediately started writing down some lines on the life of Christ.

Often lyrics come in quite a haphazard way. You write loads of couplets, then re-write some, then gradually piece it together to give it continuity and shape. The process for “In Christ alone” was much more linear. Once I’d worked out the rhyming structure (it felt like the song had better shape if lines 1 and 3 rhymed as well as the more usual 2 and 4), I started working on the first verse, setting the scene with a fairly subjective exploration of what Christ means to the Christian. Then I as I worked through the life, death and resurrection of Christ, I was getting more and more excited and emotional, and verse 4 kind of spilled out as a declaration of the impact of these amazing events in our lives.

Within a couple of days I had the whole lyric, sent it to Keith, he suggested a couple of changes, and “In Christ alone” was finished.

I think maybe one of the reasons the song is so popular is that it can stir up our emotions (I still often cry like an old softie when I sing it) – but the emotion is not the central feature of the song. Because the lyrics stay fixed on the unchanging truths of our salvation, it not only provokes emotion, but engenders faith, strengthening our spirits, not just stirring our souls.