Fighting Back
By Tom Eccleshall
‘Fighting Back is a song which I started to write recently when I was beginning to feel unwell with suspected Covid-19 (luckily in my case I had relatively mild symptoms). It was just at the start of lockdown in London. Given the way the pandemic was unfolding, it felt like a pretty scary time. Our first child was just six months old at the time and I felt guilty for bringing this virus home to Sarah and our boy. I began feeling fairly anxious. I started to think about all of the destruction that this virus is causing – it’s bringing death, it’s attacking the frailest in society disproportionately, it’s crippling economies, it’s breeding fear and it’s even shutting churches down. It seemed like everything this virus was and is doing is the antithesis of what God does.
‘If there’s one thing I’ve learned in my time overseeing worship at KXC, it’s that worship is far more important than I’d ever appreciated beforehand and is so much more than singing songs. I’ve learned that when you participate in worship, you are actually entering into a spiritual battle. Ephesians 6:12 talks about this – that our battle is not against flesh and blood but against what is unseen. With that in mind, while lying in bed with a fever from this virus, I started to write and sing what became the opening lines to this song: “I’m fighting back with a song of praise, I’m fighting back lifting up Your name,” and it became a prayer that God would let his kingdom come, right here in our city and this country, right now.
‘Sarah and I wrote the rest of the song during the lockdown in the following few weeks. What was becoming clear was that although this virus wasn’t from God, he could still use it. We were beginning to see churches working together in ways we’d never seen, oppression and injustices were being exposed and the church was also being refined. We felt we wanted to capture this theme in the song – that God would continue to redeem his people and even though we were in numerous scattered rooms, his kingdom was still advancing.
‘The final piece in the puzzle for the song, arose during our Tuesday morning KXC staff meeting over Zoom, where Pete shared 1 Thessalonians 4:13: “we want you to know what will happen to the believers who have died so you will not grieve like people who have no hope.” Instantly, I knew that needed to be the bridge of this song. Even amongst all the suffering, fear and death that we were seeing around us, we rest in the hope that Jesus has ultimately defeated the grave.
As believers, even though we do grieve, our grieving looks different because we grieve with hope. Jesus is calling us to be this hope in the world right now.’
When we are in a spiritual battle, this song has helped us lift up the name of Jesus. It is our prayer that this song also helps others do that too.
Tom + Sarah Eccleshall (Worship Pastor, KXC) and Pete + Bee Hughes (Leaders, KXC)
The single Fighting Back is being released on 24 July through KXC, and is taken from the new EP Kingdom Dreamers which will be released on 21 August.