To continue doing so after twenty years without always receiving large monetary compensation is a wonderfully commendable act. An act in which Johann Sebastian Bach spent his entire life. Steve Kilbey discusses many of these same artistic issues in his introduction to the book Earthed, in a much more poetic style than myself. One more area of discussion before moving on to the musical side of things is the lyric writing. The argument is almost too obvious to state, but just to cover all bases, I'll briefly mention it.
Good writers are a rare commodity in all areas of the world.
With that in mind, I have always been impressed with the diversity of topics that are covered by The Church. Steve finds insightful things to say about most anything. I get a good laugh when I read through his liner notes to the Hindsight compilation. The songs that he writes-off as mindless pop tunes are, rather sadly, as good as much of the best material written by the vast majority of the world's pop groups. The music is undeniably the most important aspect.