and it was powerful too . While we were doing these home churches , they would come up and say , “ We haven ’ t felt this way since the Jesus movement .” So , it ’ s just really cool , the experience with people who have that anointing on them . But yeah man , we ’ re in hope , not fear these days .
[ WM ] That ’ s right . And see , that ’ s the thing that lasts is the community and the Holy Spirit . That ’ s what lasts later into your life . It ’ s not sermons that you ’ ve heard , although you need to hear them . There ’ s so much that doesn ’ t last in your consciousness , but community and the workings of the Holy Spirit , those things do last . That ’ s what gets you through , those things . Well , what was the biggest surprise to you when you became part of the Housefires community ? Anybody ?
[ Ryan ] I don ’ t know . Well , I ’ m the newest one here , except for Blake , but Blake ’ s out there in Atlanta with the homies . I would say the biggest thing for me , and then maybe everyone can maybe chime in ... the biggest surprise that I had was there ’ s an ownership . I think you have to really take over it . There ’ s an ownership you have to have in your heart coming into a group like this . We ’ re all doing stuff . Kirby ’ s a mom , which is one of the hardest jobs in the world , and she ’ s also a pastor and a wife and discipling . And Blake ’ s writing songs and A & R- ing and doing a bunch of stuff . There ’ s a lot of us that are super busy . I ’ ve gotten really busy in this last year trying to keep up as well . What I really found was you must pick up your heart in this situation .
You have to come lay everything down because it ’ s not like there ’ s somebody who ’ s just carrying this for all of us . It ’ s like we all must come to the table and really choose to show up , and I ’ ve just seen that . I ’ ve seen the individualism where people are like , “ I really want to be a part of this .” That really surprised me , I was like , “ Okay , this is a group of people , individuals that are really believing this .” This isn ’ t just like an organization thing , like Housefires is a brand , it ’ s like everybody that ’ s coming to the table is bringing their offering , is bringing their sacrifice , their surrender . And that was really cool for me to see and a dynamic I wasn ’ t really ... You don ’ t really know what you ’ re going to step into when you step into this , but just to see that it is such a heart thing for everybody that really makes it just worth it . And you can just really feel Jesus in this project , for sure .
The goal behind my album to release these songs , was to really give people something they could bump on the radio or just in their car . And then when we decided to go forward with Housefires , it was like , well , these songs are worship songs . Originally , I ’ m a worship leader , I ’ ve always been a worship leader . And just recently , did I step into CCM music , but I wanted to show that these songs could live in a living room and that you could lead these songs in a way that would make people worship as if it was a house church song . So that really was what the goal was with putting these songs on this album , it was giving people a version that they could lead on acoustic guitar just with a couple friends . They don ’ t need a huge production to try to rock this song out .
[ WM ] So , I may be wrong on this , but I love the fact that in many instances , you are probably introducing gospel music , and by that , I mean black gospel , influences to new sets of ears . What are your thoughts on this ? And I say that