A Tidal Wave of Worship
A Tidal Wave of Worship
Profile of Jonathan Ogden by Joanne Amarisa
Jonathan Ogden is writing music in the attic of his family home. A record player sits on a wooden dresser, a skylight above his head points to the gloomy sky of Manchester. Behind him, a blue grid-like divider conceals a double wardrobe; a familiar backdrop to all the musician’s broadcasts.
On January 1st, he hangs a string of lights, turns on a lamp, and sits by his keyboard. He closes his eyes and begins to play. For the next 45 minutes, he sings. This is my home, my dwelling place; sitting at Your feet in worship.
Such is the scene of his many worship sessions. In the first minute, Jonathan is quiet — submerged — the sound of the keyboard preceding his. When the melody starts, something sweeps into the room. The music sails on a tide; adrift, yet at peace. He’d sing several songs — some other artists’, some his own — yet beneath his diverse setlist, lies a steady current.
That current feels like a presence. An intimacy, augmented, too, by the room he’s playing in. The low, sloped ceilings of a dimly lit studio, nestled under the glass of a skylight, out of which no cloud is seen. When he opens it, there are barren trees and rows of rooftops in the distance. A bird’s eye view of the hometown in which his music journey began.
“When I started making music I was 17 or 18,” he said. “The very beginning when I started writing was kind of an experiment in itself. I was seeing a lot of creative different music around — Manchester, it’s a big music city. We get live bands coming through all the time, so I was realising the diversity of all the different styles and genres that are around. And then recognising [how] our church has this one sound of worship and we kind of stay there, so the whole start of my music was to experiment, and do something new.”
For about a year, Jonathan stuck with playing off of hymn books brought home from church. Self-acclaimed “shy, geeky, awkward teenager” at that time, he played as part of his church’s worship team. “I just never wanted to be in front of people, and I’d never sing in front of anyone, like that was a complete no-go,” the musician recalled. “But I think I was about 16 or 17 years old, and I was praying a lot about a verse that says we’re all different parts of one body, and it connected with my heart. I felt the stir that leading worship was something God was challenging me to do.”
And it was a challenge. The first night he led worship was in a prayer meeting; the teenager stood at the front of a hall with one piano and a mic stand.
Six people there, he recounted. “It was horrible. Two songs, and I was just shaking the whole time,” he laughed. Little did he know that some ten years later, Jonathan would’ve performed with his band in a tour along the West Coast. They would fly to play in a venue in Brazil. A prison facility in the Philippines. A night bar in Tokyo.
Looking back on his teenage self, Jonathan thinks about what shyness signified. “People used to say that I was really humble, because I was always shy and didn’t want to be in the spotlight,” he said, “Well I probably looked humble, but I started realising, it was probably pride more than humility. Because I was so worried about what people thought about me.” With candour, he pondered on what sounded like a heaven-sent reminder. “It was learning to just accept who I am, and who God made me to be,” he explains. “It’s not really about my performance.”
And perhaps this is true for every Christian artist: What are we if not mere vessels? When we truly encounter the beauty of Christ, what is the most natural response if not to proclaim, unfazed by what that may look like?
Songwriting continued to be Jonathan’s response, even though it took some awkward, unglamorous beginnings. “The second album I released, I think one person bought it. And that was the guy who sat next to me in my office,” he said. When he was still working as a web designer, music was merely a side project he’d do on the weekends. “I had one box of CDs next to my desk just in case anyone wanted to come over, and my friend was like, ‘Oh your album came out today right?’ I was like, ‘Yeah!’, and he was like, ‘Oh, I’ll buy one, here you go.’ And that’s it,” Jonathan laughed, “That was release day.”
Not long after, Jonathan decided to pursue music at full capacity, both through his band, Rivers & Robots, and with his solo career. During the time they were touring and recording, the band also initiated a movement called Set Sail — a missions organisation founded with the aim of spreading Jesus’ gospel through creativity. In the second half of the band’s ten-year journey, they created films, video essays, and other forms of digital content, documenting everything from creative processes to experiences traveling abroad.
The band has put out an announcement of their hiatus earlier this year, but meanwhile, Jonathan’s own musical repertoire continues to evolve. His albums are allegorical, and conceptually diverse — each articulating either a desire in seeking divine presence, or a delight in finding it.
There are EPs based on seasons — Winter (2017), Spring (2017), Summer (2017), and Autumn (2018). There is a track — Laid Down Lover — a near romantic, mesmeric vow to an unchanging Saviour. There is a beat tape — Twenty Four — that illustrates the omnipresence of God in every hour of the day. With every piece, Jonathan nudges the boundaries of gospel music ever so slightly, aiming to widen the perception of what CCM could be.
“I think I had quite a narrow view of, This is worship and the songs have to sound some way, have certain lyrics, fit a certain context,” he said of the creative process behind Twenty Four. “It was just realising that actually, I could be in the city at night and look at how the light’s changing, and feel God’s presence there. God’s in nature, in the sky in the morning, all these beautiful ways that we can recognise His presence all the time.
“It doesn’t have to be a big Christian event with thousands of people with their hands in the air,” he explained. “It can be in really simple moments as well. Twenty Four was me expressing that in a musical way.”
One could consider Jonathan’s discography as a set of playful, idyllic depictions of when the beauty and sacredness of the gospel meets the everyday. When it comes to his melodies, inspiration could strike in tickling ways. “I’ve found some weird combinations of sounds. The other day, I heard the end piece of this advert on TV, and I think it was the microwave beep, or the washing machine. The way they happened just after each other, I was like, That made a really cool chord,” he laughed. “I’m just trying to get to that childlike point of creativity. I know if I feel kind of nervous about something, then it’s probably good.”
While ten years of a career makes for a seasoned artist in his craft, Jonathan admitted it was a gradual build, rather than an explosion of success. “It’s been a very slow journey, and I think that’s been a good thing,” he said. “I don’t think I would’ve been able to do it if we were one of those bands that release an album and it blows up.”
During the length of our conversation, the way Jonathan speaks of his journey retains a simple cadence; one could sense the ease of an artist who refuses to take himself too seriously, but instead naturally attributes his inventiveness to a divinity greater than he. “That creative process has always been my favourite part — where you just sit and craft a song, and come up with ways to put words and melodies to the things you feel God speaking to you about,” he said.
For muse, Jonathan looks to Scripture, placing priority in the listening, the dwelling. “I was reading the story about Mary and Martha; how Martha was running around trying to do all this stuff. And I realise she was trying to do things for Jesus, but was missing what He was actually saying,” he shared. “Mary was just sat there, listening to Him. And you trace that onto Mary’s response of pouring out a jar of perfume — that was a beautiful act done for Jesus, but it came after sitting and listening.”
When the band came home for Christmas after a line of tours back in 2018, he remembers how close they came to burnout. “I just realised we got a bit more Martha, I think, kind of running around, doing things, and thinking, This is still good right? Because it’s for Jesus.”
He mentioned a book by John Mark Comer, The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry. “I think that was a similar moment of just learning to live the way Jesus lived: where there would be busy times, but also times to withdraw.”
When we spoke, Jonathan shared about the countercultural decision to slow down during his work on Set Sail. Even though they focused on digital content, when faced with a lockdown, the organisation took an unorthodox move by deciding, instead, to pause.
“Even though we’re like an online ministry and put out a lot of stuff, we actually didn’t release anything at that time,” he said. “We just took it as this moment of, okay I know there’s a lot of opportunity to put out content, but let’s take time to be aware of this moment, and what God is saying.” The verse James 1:19 also prompted Jonathan’s awareness: Know this, my beloved brothers: let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger. What has since emerged from that is Set Sail changing form into Jonathan’s newest venture, Magnify Studio.
Co-founded with friend and fellow musician Philip Shibata, the project is streamlined as a creative studio that provides training, workshops, and resources for Christian artists. While it might seem like the closing of a chapter and the start of another, Jonathan’s call in empowering fellow artists to create for a Kingdom purpose, has been reflected throughout his career.
“I think, not just in music — there’s a creative wave happening of artists realising they can communicate the Gospel and be creative, and diverse, and worship,” he said. Alongside many others, both his music and community take part in the new tide of Christian art that’s been emerging.
In comparison to how the Christian music industry looked when he first started, Jonathan tells me, “The thing I’m most excited about is, I feel like genre is a bit meaningless these days, in a good way.
“We were so obsessed with labels 10 years ago, like is this a folk album or a rock project or an indie thing? Now, I think people are way more open to hear so many different things. We’re headed to a point that’s a lot more diverse, and it won’t just be one sound, but so many genres and sounds that are hard to define. Like in Set Sail, we do different playlists of Christian artists, and you can make a whole playlist where every song sounds like a different genre — that’s just not the case 10 years ago. I think that’s really cool and I’m excited by it.”
At the time that we spoke in December last year, Jonathan was still hinting: “I think I’m maybe making like a lockdown EP, or something.” Early February, he has since released that EP, and titled it Songs From Home.
“I’ve taken it as an opportunity to write wider than I would normally do,” he said, “because if I ever write songs with somebody it would normally be with someone in the UK, or someone I met traveling. Now I’m figuring out how to achieve that over Zoom and online calls instead, and collaborating with people outside of my usual sphere.”
In his latest music video, Alright, Jonathan sings about hope. Beneath the video, he writes, “Even in the middle of the darkest times, hope breaks in. ‘It’s gonna be alright’ is not an empty phrase or just a nice thing to say. It’s the tangible hope of people who know how the story ends.”
And what is his hope? “I’m hopeful for the church, globally, to be an example of what love looks like for the rest of the world,” he answered.
“I think we’re in a time where there’s so much division and anger and all kinds of craziness going on — even a lot of that towards the church and at the church. But I believe the church is God’s plan for the world,” Jonathan said. “We can pray for a lot of issues and say, ‘Fix this thing over here,’ but God’s like, ‘The church is my answer to that.’ We’re His hands and feet. So I’m excited about seeing the church become that: bearing unity and showing what real love looks like.”
At the heart of this unity he calls for, is also the enactment of more diverse creativity within realms of worship and the church. “”Art and creativity is a whole part of that too,” he continued, “that we wouldn’t just be people who are imitating what’s happening in the world and ‘doing the Christian version’, but that the world would see the church, see how creative, diverse, expressive it is, and that would be an example of the best art & creativity in the world. Because it would be communicating that love, and communicating who Jesus is.”
Joanne Amarisa
Writer & Photographer
http://www.joanneamarisa.blog/
Photography provided by Jonathan Ogden