Back in the Studio

The Joy of Making Things Slowly... and Being Re-Made Along the Way

A few weeks ago I was at Big Fish Studio, a dreamy-sounding acoustic room in the coastal hills of North County San Diego, collaborating with dear friends: Patrick Dodd on bass, the delightful Ed Benrock on drums, and the great engineer Nathan Cimino. We were working on songs I’ve been slowly writing over the last couple of years.

I was struck all over again by how good it feels to be back in that kind of creative space … putting sounds into microphones so that one day those same sounds will emerge from earbuds, car stereos, church pre-rolls and God knows where else.

It’s been wonderful to be writing music again, alongside all the sermon and prose writing I do for a living. I’m discovering that I’m a better pastor when I’m writing music. And a better worship leader when I’m praying for my church with a fresh word from God.

I was also struck by this: these are the first non-Christmas songs I’ve recorded since 2013.

Last November, I released the first-fruits of these new labors: a song called My Life is Christ. I only half-jokingly call it my mid-life crisis song. In truth, it’s my sung witness the grace of Jesus which has sustained me like an IV drip for over a decade.

The chorus goes:

I am blessed but I’ve been broken down and battered
As I’ve traveled down this long and winding road
I will sing my life is Christ, that’s all that matters
Jesus, where you lead me, I will go

And the bridge:

I have been crucified and now to live is Christ
I’ve got nothing to lose and nothing to prove
Your love has set me free
You hold my every step, you are my very breath
I’ve got nothing to lose and nothing to prove
It’s the Year of Jubilee

Those lyrical seeds were planted in a prayer meeting in 2018. I had just begun the journey of planting our church, and the road already felt treacherous. You know that feeling when you’re in real pain, but also aware the worst may still be ahead? That nails it.

At a retreat house in Northern California, surrounded by men who have since become spiritual brothers for life, I received prayer. One older man said something I’ll never forget:

“Evan, I sense that you will be taking a lot of hits. Like Tony Stark, you won’t survive them without a suit. Praise God, you are in Christ. Christ is your Iron Man suit. When you need hope, repeat this prayer often: My life is Christ, nothing else matters.”

Since he was obviously a fellow Marvel fan, I received his words as though from a time-wisened sage.

In all seriousness, I’ve been praying that prayer for the last eight years.
In My Life is Christ, the prayer became song.

Other aches, laments, sermons, and late-night conversaions about Jesus have also taken shape in these new songs. Some have already found a voice in other communities.

One of them is Let Me See Jesus, written with Matt Redman and Leonard Ray Jarman after I preached through the book of Revelation at my church. Revelation is the dramatic parting of the cosmic curtain so that a suffering Church might see reality as it truly is. Who runs the world? Not the bombastic beast of empire, but a slain Lamb who looks beaten. Despite how things appear, reality is always more than it seems.

So I pray: Let Me See Jesus.

I’ve also written songs that try to give language to the already-not-yet reality of God’s kingdom. Jesus preached that God’s kingdom is already present, breaking in through His work and through the Spirit-driven life of His Church. That’s why we expect healing. We expect demons to flee. Why forgiveness is always on the table.

At yet Jesus also taught us to pray, Your kingdom come … which assumes it hasn’t fully come yet. That’s pain and loss still find us, even when we boldly pray in Jesus’ name. We live in the messy middle.

One song born from that tension is Even There, written with Rich Dicas, TEMITOPE, and Abby Siler. Rich and I are both married to godly women who have walked through profound seasons of loss. Rich has since chronicled his family’s lament in his exquisite EP Still Here, which I cannot recommend highly enough.

In that same vein, I wrote King of Wounds with Matt Redman and Calvin Nowell. The first verse says:

There is a place where all is well
All hearts are healed, all bodies whole
There is no sickness or suffering in that land
But in the center are the scars of the Lamb

While writing those lyrics, a five-year-old girl in our church was diagnosed with a very rare terminal disease. The road ahead for her family will be slow and unimaginably hard.

So we pray for light.
We ask for healing from the scarred hands of the Lamb, even if the healing we want looks different than the healing we ultimately need.

King of Wounds is our attempt to pray honestly in that tension.

Soon I’ll begin releasing my own versions of these songs soon, along with several others. It feels like part obedience. Part devotion. Part hilarious playground.

My dear friend Tyler giving an exquisite talk on creativity last Wednesday

Last week, I got to play some of these songs at the Practicing the Way conference in Santa Monica, a three-day gathering of six hundred pastors pursuing deeper formation in Christ. My friend Tyler Staton gave the closing talk, an exquisite plea for pastors to wistfully resist the urge to imitate … and truly create.

He reflected on an ancient Christian idea: that God delights in revealing Himself through two books, Scripture and creation. We participate in Scripture when we read it, pray it, and embody the Jesus story together. In the same way, we participate in creation when we make art. Any vocation becomes art when it is offered to call attention to beauty.

Painting. Preaching. Practicing law. Nursing. Investment banking. Baking bread. Writing songs.

Jesus is the Word through whom the universe was made. And He made humans who wander the earth making things in response to what has already been made through Him. Flawed. Small. But real.

So a few weeks ago, I started recording songs.

I believe most good work should be done quietly, even anonymously. But sometimes it’s good to encourage one another to practice the slow making of things. Sitting with an instrument. Waiting with paper and pen. Learning again how to see the world God has made.

To rediscover Him through His second book.
And in doing so, to unearth some fresh joy of being that He delights to share with us.

P.S. ~ If you’ve drifted from whatever it is you used to make (music, words, meals, gardens, sketches or solutions) consider this a whimsical invitation: make something small and slow very soon. Not for an audience or an outcome. Just to notice again that God still speaks through both of His books. When we only consume and explain, something in us withers. Making things won’t solve everything. But it may keep your soul porous enough for joy to find you again. This is what it’s doing for me. Somewhere between Scripture and creation, between prayer and making, there is a joy God seems especially eager to share. I’m learning not to rush past it.