you can hurt yourself . And whereas a calling , you ’ re abandoned to God ’ s voice and what He wants you to do . And it makes all the difference in the world to trust in the Lord and not trust in yourself and the pathway that you have outlined for yourself . [ Tauren ] Yes , exactly . If you don ’ t define what success is , somebody else will define it for you . And that was another thing I had to wrestle down was success may be one of the greatest traps of the enemy to keep you out of significance . Because if you ’ re really thriving in an area of your life , but God wants to pivot you , it ’ s really difficult to be willing to carry that Isaac up that mountain of success and lay it down for what God wants to do next .
[ WM ] Absolutely . It ’ s interesting you bring up that word success because last week in my entrepreneur class , I did two days on success and one day on failure talking to my students .
I ’ ve always been driven , and so I ’ ve wondered if I was a success , Success means a lot of things to a lot of people , to one person , it ’ s $ 10 million in the bank and to another , it ’ s $ 20 million in the bank . There ’ s a sliding scale to success . I appreciate you bringing up that term success .
Well , let ’ s talk about the new project Let the Church Sing . It ’ s a five-song EP . First of all , where did you record it , at least the basic tracks ?
[ Tauren ] Well , we recorded it in different places . I ’ m trying to go back to how it has all come together . Every one of these songs has had a different genesis , but “ The Room Is Yours ” was a song that we started to write before the church launched , which was pretty special . I wrote it with our worship pastor Demetri that I mentioned , and Davies , who is on “ Take It All Back ” with me . He ’ s featured on many songs throughout my career , but he ’ s one of our worship leaders here , and his wife is our Dream Team director . She ’ s one of our directors on staff . And so . we recorded some in Nashville and some in Austin .
“ Thank You for the Cross ”
“ Making Room ”
[ WM ] Gotcha . And so , the new songs written have likely come from a different place within you due to the changes in your life . I know that two songs that are going to receive initial focus are “ Thank You for the Cross ” and “ Making Room ”. What can you tell us about these two songs ?
[ Tauren ] Yes . Obviously , the title of the album Let the Church Sing lets you know that the heartbeat of this project is the church , which has actually been my heartbeat all along . I ’ ve been on staff at a church for as long as I ’ ve been an artist because I love the local church . I believe in it , but I ’ ve never been able to , or I ’ ve never taken the opportunity to really write songs from the church or for the church . I ’ ve been able to feature on other people ’ s projects in that way , which has been very fulfilling . But as God has sharpened our focus to the local congregation , it just felt so natural to write from that place . And so , these are songs that are central to the fabric of the church . And so how can you write about the church without writing about the cross ? And so that ’ s why “ Thank You for the Cross ” stands as a centerpiece of this work because without the finished work on the
cross , there would not be the active work of the church .
[ WM ] Okay . And then how about “ Making Room ”? It asks some great questions from the listener .
[ Tauren ] Yes . So , this was another song … I actually wrote this song in Houston right after we put our house up on the market . And God was really just excavating my heart around this idea of making space for him to do what he wants to do , not trying to cram my dreams into his , not trying to force his timeline for my life into my immediate present . And so that song was just a prayer . If love starts with listening , which worship is our expression of love , then a lot of our worship should not just be singing … it should be hearing from the Lord .
So that ’ s the thought behind “ I ’ m Making Room for You ”, not just in the congregation on a Sunday , I ’ m making room for you in my life , in my dreams , in my ambitions . How much of what I want to accomplish is what I want to accomplish , and how much of what I want to accomplish is what God wants for me to accomplish creating margin . God does so much of his best work in the spaces in between , in the unfilled spaces , in the unscheduled spaces , in the unexpected spaces . So that ’ s the heart of “ Making Room ”. And then the feature songs as this album comes out will be “ The Room is Yours ” and “ Let the Church Sing ” and “ The Room is Yours ”. It just kind of got me thinking , the sequel to “ Making Room ” would be “ The Room is Yours ”. It ’ s the deeper thought . Level one is I ’ m going to make space for you . Level two awarenesses , the space belongs to you . And it ’ s kind of a critique on what some of our church culture is like , “ No , now we ’ re going to leave space for God to do what he wants to do ”. What are we talking about ? Leave space . We ’ re going to make room . It belongs to him . And so that ’ s kind of the impetus behind that .
[ WM ] Well , what you ’ re saying , one of my prayers for you will be that you teach your
14 March 2025 Subscribe for Free ...