Worship Musician Magazine June 2024 | Page 8

our journey . Promise turned into the Milk and Honey album , and it was super easy to make that one in the middle of the Covid season . We were all locked down . And if you ’ ve ever felt like you ’ re in the wilderness , it was like , okay , there ’ s got to be something on the other side of this .
So , it made it really easy to talk about promise thinking , “ Man , there ’ s surely got to be hope in the middle of this !” And so then here we go into this exile season and I ’ m thinking , “ Well , shoot . We kind of feel like we already kind of came through . What am we going to say about exile ?” Well , what I found happening is that we were reconnecting . All me and my friends would get back together after having been isolated for so long . And what we would do is tell stories . We ’ d catch up , how ’ s it going ? How was it going ? And all these stories would happen that then turned into these songs as most of my friends were songwriters . And so those were the environments I was in . And then these songs would come out of conversations . Speaking of the social thing . It ’ s like somebody prayed as a song that came out of talking to Michael Cochren ( Cochren & Co .).
We were on tour together on the Toby Mac Hits Deep tour , and it was right after the Nashville shooting had gone down . And so tons of people are in Nashville . Immediately affected family members at the school , and friends teaching there . It was really heavy . I mean , it set into our tour circle in a heavy way . And what I found happening is a lot of people pushing back on Twitter and social media . It ’ s like immediately what happens is people of faith say , “ We ’ re praying for you . We ’ re with you . We ’ re sending our thoughts and prayers ”. And for people that are not of faith , that feels like a really … almost offensive thing to go about . It ’ s like , “ Okay , great , that ’ s really cool , but you ’ re not going to roll up your sleeves and do something to change things ? And so , there ’ s a critique of inactivity there . At the very least , you ’ re just wanting people to know that you ’ re empathizing and empathetic , and with them . In the most guttural though , you ’ re begging reality to shift and for things to be different in a real physical way . And we know that there ’ s the activity of God that does come along and shift history and shift our circumstances and change things .
And so this “ Somebody Prayed ” song came out of a sort of response or retort to say , “ Okay , I ’ m going to speak my truth . I would not be here today doing what I ’ m doing , talking to you , if not for people praying . I mean , I know that if my Mama wasn ’ t on her knees , I wouldn ’ t be here doing what I ’ m doing right now . That ’ s right . And she probably is right now on her knees praying for me . So , I ’ ve seen things , I ’ ve been in hospital rooms where all of a sudden , the nature of reality shifts and you know that this is not all there is what we can feel and touch . There ’ s more than this .
And so that song really was just a response and a retort and a rebuttal to the “ thoughts and prayers ” sentiment that can be offensive . I wanted to express that I believe prayer is effective and works , and as Daniel demonstrated , I think it ’ s worth contending for .
And so that was where these songs kept coming out of moments that we were carrying . And it was very different for me as our journey always had a corporate element , and this album , it lacks that maybe one song , maybe “ Lord of All ”, is the only song that really feels like we get in a room and sing this together song . And even it ’ s pretty , I mean , cinematic , theatrical , maybe a little bit too much for the setting . So that was really different for me as well . And it felt really fitting , that and trying to sing about a moment of displacement . I ’ m
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