David Ostby, Norway's local boy

David Ostby is obsessed, but in a good way. His mind, his music and his main passion for all he does revolve around the local church. Ask him about how the world gets fixed, and just two words will come back: local church. Listen to his latest album ‘Because Of You’ and you’ll end up convinced that he’s absolutely right.

"I believe," David explains, "that everything with a global impact starts locally. And that’s where I started as well; by being committed to serving my church, a church that gave me the room to develop my skills – and lead worship at the age of 16."

These days his emergence onto the worship scene means that he now has a whole load more of local churches to cheer on, inspire and connect with. Writing in English – which, let’s face it is probably a whole lot easier for David to do than for us to sing in Norwegian – allows for a wider take-up, which is precisely what has been happening.

"A few years back, when this century was just beginning, worship in Norway was completely redefined. Worship leaders and churches all over the country picked up the torch and it was clear that it was the beginning of a new worship movement, uniting Christians from all churches and ages. My youth group – Ungfila - was privileged to be a part of this wave.

"When our first album ‘Today’ was released in 2002, we didn’t imagine anything big was going to happen; we were just a group of young people with a passion to worship God," he says. "It was only after our second album was released ‘Highest of the High’ that things really started to happen. Our live worship DVD was broadcast on national television several times, as far as I know the first time a worship concert
of this kind has ever been shown on national television."

‘Because Of You’ comes via the talents of Julian Kindred (Delirious?, Sonic Flood) and Sam Gibson (Hillsong United, Delirious?, Neil Finn). The songs are strong, production crisp and there’s no denying that the man’s got a talent for writing the kind of melody that has an unusually decent shelf-life.

UK tours will take place throughout 2009, and the future’s clearly full of opportunities for David, just as his music is for us.