Albums

A Child Is Born 500 purchase album

A Child Is Born

Christmas at Sojourn has always been a unique thing. From the first year in the life of the church, we’ve been fascinated by the more gritty side of the Christmas story. The church fathers chose the darkest time of the year to celebrate the dawning of the Light of Lights in the birth of Christ, the entrance of hope into darkness.

The Christmas story itself is one of contrasts – God as a baby. A king in a manger. His birth was welcomed not by crowds and royalty, but by outcasts and foreigners. Because the Christmas story is ultimately a story of hope for the hopeless, healing for the broken, and light in the darkness.

We’ve sought for many years to capture that emotion in our Christmas music. There’s a place for joy, a necessary and central place for celebration, but that joy and celebration has it’s most weight when seen in the context of the suffering and longing from which it emerges. So Christmas music at Sojourn has always had a dark edge, a sense of tension and angst, which points us to the darkness of our own hearts that longs for the light of Christ.

This new record is birthed almost directly out of our Christmas worship services. We recorded this one at home, so to speak, at the 930 Arts Center (our Midtown campus) and at Eddy Morris’s, our Production Director, studio (Ear Candy studios, where we also recorded Before the Throne and These Things I Remember). It’s an indie rock record, recorded the indie rock way, piecing together what we could to give you this homemade gift. It’s not perfect, but most home-made things aren’t. (more…)

Water And The Blood purchase album

The Water And The Blood

During a cold, snowy week this January, a group of Sojourners trekked up through nasty roads to Bloomington, Indiana. There, they had the privilege of working with producer Paul Mahern (who has worked with Over the Rhine, The Fray, John Mellencamp, T-Bone Burnett, and many, many more), recording an album that had been years in the making. They recorded live on an old tape machine, creating and album that is warm and intimate — a true “record” of what happened: a band making music, responding to one another, and singing together. It’s raw and rough around the edges, much like Sojourn itself is.
The songs are re-imaginings and adaptations of the hymns of Isaac Watts, the “Father Of English Hymnody.” Watts was an extraordinary pastor and poet. These songs, these snapshots of the gospel, can profoundly help us to see Jesus as more beautiful and more believable.

As musicians, pastors and songwriters, it was an honor to explore the hundreds of hymns that Watts wrote during his lifetime, to learn from the incredible range and depth of his lyrics, and to re-envision those songs with modern language and melodies.

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TWO FACE Jamie_Barnes_theMercySeat_700x700 purchase album

Split EP: The War & The Mercy Seat

Brooks Ritter and Jamie Barnes are a big part of Sojourn Music. They’re also two of the most talented and respected members of Louisville’s music scene, having received extensive local radio airplay and having performed on some of Louisville’s most prestigious stages.

Now we present to you a double-EP of ten worship songs, including “Absent From Flesh,” “Rock Of Ages,” “Approach My Soul, The Mercy Seat” and “Whom Have I In Heaven But You” from these acclaimed singer-songwriters and humble worship leaders. Listen to all the songs in full, and buy it in a variety of formats right here.

The songs on these EPs explore themes of lament, hope and grace.

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Over the Grave purchase album

Over The Grave

In the midst of the Reformation in England, Isaac Watts recognized that people needed to see the gospel in the psalms and hymns of the church, and they needed to sing them in language and metaphors that they understood. In this, he became not only the father of the modern hymn, but the pace-setter for contextualizing the gospel for the people of God.

As musicians, pastors and songwriters, our desire was to explore the hundreds of hymns that Watts wrote during his lifetime, to learn from the incredible range and depth of his lyrics, and to re-envision those songs with modern language and melodies.

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Advent Songs purchase album

Advent Songs

Original and Traditional Christmas Songs from Sojourn Artists, including Jamie Barnes, Dirt Poor Robins, Brooks Ritter, and more.

The emphasis here is on the already/ not-yet tension of Advent, the season of waiting and anticipation before Christmas. Advent comes to us in the darkest season of the year — a season when the nights are long, the days are cold, and we look with anticipation for the return of the warmth in the spring. The songs have both a dark sense of anticipation and glimpses of light dawning in the face of the Christ child.

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Before the Throne purchase album

Before The Throne

Sojourn’s 2007 worship album connects the worship practices of the Church gathered to the ordinary stuff of daily life, a life lived before the throne of God. This life is a rich and varied experience of adoration, confession, thanksgiving, prayer for guidance, prayers of repentance and communal sharing of God’s peace, blessing and love.

Comprised of one classic hymn and ten new songs for worship written by members of the Sojourn community, “Before The Throne” is our most ambitious and collaborative project to date.

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These Things I Remember purchase album

These Things I Remember

This 11-track collection of aesthetically diverse songs of faith, pain, longing and reflection based on the Psalms features worship music by Sojourn community members Mike Cosper, Rebecca Dennison and Jeremy Quillo.

With stylistic influences ranging from the mountains of Appalachia to the villages of Asia to modern American rock, this record reconnects modern listeners with the language of the Psalms, reflects the diversity of creation and explores the tension between faith and doubt, triumph and struggle, laughter and lament.

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With the Angels purchase album

With the Angels

Sojourn began with a series of conversations between a group of people hungry to experience God in an authentic community. The first original songs that Sojourners sang together were the raw, Bible-infused songs of worship leader Jeremy Quillo.

Nine of those songs, in addition to the classic “Come Thou Fount,” are featured on this, Sojourn’s first CD, with Jeremy leading a diverse, energetic band through praise, confession, questioning and fulfillment in Christ.

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