When I moved to Berkeley, I left behind a lot of things.  Some tangible, but many intangible and difficult to quantify.

One of those things was my band.  Hiatus was a large part of 5 years of my post-college life, and the things that God used those men and that band to disciple me about friendship and art are (hopefully) unforgettable.  But when I moved, I gave that up, and all of the plans that I had fashioned for us.

I was beginning to write a lot of music.  I pushed myself to put out a self-produced EP so that I could be faithful to what God and I were exploring musically.  I had a lot of plans as to what I could do with that material.  But when I moved, those plans got placed on a shelf.

But now that I’m here, I can’t stop writing.  It’s really amazing to me, because there isn’t much that has changed about me.  I still generally have the same internal struggles and insecurities as when I left, but there’s just a lot more coming out.

And what’s more, I’m in a band!  An R&B/funk/hip-hop band!  With people who love the same music that taught my 3 and 4 year-old self what music actually was!  Holy crap!

This, of course, has triggered my memory about all the artists that formed my musical tastes and taught me how to sing and play and listen to music.  And when good memories are triggered, the imagination is soon to follow.  (Non-sequitor: I think this is why God tells us to remember; perhaps intentionally reflecting on God’s past faithfulness gives Him permission to shape my imagination for the things that He’s about to do.)

And so my decision:
I need to write and sing R&B worship music.

To me, this is nothing short of preposterous.  As far as I know, nobody who means anything in the music world sees any link between R&B and church.  Most R&B fans think the art form’s major purpose is to be the soundtrack to babymaking, and most Christians (of all traditions) have been fed such average music, they wouldn’t know know what to do with crafted R&B.

But as strange as it sounds, it also makes perfect sense; I submit to you that R&B comes from a prophetic tradition and history.  What if it were the vehicle that could deliver a prophetic message to my America, criticizing us out of our slavery and idol-making and energizing us into radical generosity and loving the needy among us?

Saying all this was the (kinda) easy part.
The hard part: discerning when and how any of this is actually supposed to happen.

In the meantime, time to start writing…