A few weeks ago, I hit 50,000 monthly listeners on Spotify for the first time. Now, as I've said before, numbers aren't the best metric for judging faithfulness in songwriting, but I would be remiss if I didn't raise another Ebenezer and publicly praise the Lord for his kindness in this milestone.
The two pictures in this post are tangible evidence of him expanding the reach of my music in the last year and a half. The first photo is a screenshot from March of 2025, when I was thrilled that I surpassed 10,000 monthly listeners. The second photo is a screenshot of the latest height of listenership. While monthly listeners have decreased since then, I praise God for his grace in expanding my audience as of late.
This recent expansion has much to do with the release of "The Deeps", the single that Ian Austin and I released last month. Since its release, it has found it's way on a handful of Spotify-curated playlists (something that has never happened with my music before either), including "Fresh Finds", which is not faith-based. We're hopeful that this allowed more non-believers to listen to our song and grow in their curiosity concerning spiritual truths.
In light of the growth that God has brought quantitatively, I am praying and hoping that God will continue to bring growth spiritually in and through me going forward. I don't fully know what my creative endeavors will look like in this next season, but I'm continuing to put my hand to the plow in our church's songwriting initiative (hopefully we'll share two songs from Hebrews this fall) and I'm proactively seeking inspiration for my writing.
Even now, as I write this post, I sit with a variety of books at a local coffee shop, spanning from poetry to prayers, from recent publications to works that are centuries old. My hope is that by immersing myself in truth and in beauty, a reservoir of phrases, ideas, and melodies will follow. I've found that so much of songwriting requires spiritual legwork on the front end, for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks (and the hand writes).
Although I have a handful of ideas in the works, I would greatly appreciate your prayers, as I discern what to put my hand to next. Please pray that the Lord would inspire songs that would be good, beautiful, and true.
As always, I am so grateful for those of you who have partnered with me through this site. Thank you for your generosity, both financially and through your intercession. May God be glorified more and more through these songs!