Bullet Holes in the Stained Glass
The Story of Our New ANCHOR HYMNS Album "The Garden (Live)" - Out Today
Two years and a day ago, I was out for a run when I got a frantic text from one of my daughters that there was a school shooter at her younger sister’s school. It turns out the rumors were already flying, and the shooter was actually at the school directly across the street from where our daughter attended.
As thankful as we were that our own kids were okay, six families in our immediate community did not get that same reassurance that morning. Seven, if you count the family of the shooter—which we should.
It’s hard to believe that was two years ago now. Hard to believe we’ve had to move on, that students are back in school, that worshippers are back each Sunday in the halls of the church the school is a part of. Hard to believe that gun violence is the leading cause of death for children in Tennessee while our district’s state representative proudly poses with assault rifles in his family Christmas cards.
None of this is right. Lord, have mercy. Come back soon.
A few months later, I got a text from my friend Tim, who was, at the time the worship director of Covenant Pres. He’d started a small conference there a couple of years prior that had begun to grow—called the Liturgy Collective—and he wanted to know if our Anchor Hymns community could be a part of it that year. It would be the first real public event in that space since the shooting.
It was a huge honor to be invited. I went over to talk through the idea. That was my first time in that building since everything had happened, and it was so strange.
I’d spent a lot of time there over the years. That church has hosted YoungLife Capernaum clubs, I’ve filled in as their worship leader on Sunday mornings, we’ve been to school events… We almost sent our kids there, actually, and had a really amazing meeting with the truly incredible woman who was their head of school before deciding that God was leading our family elsewhere.
She was one of the victims of the attack two years and a day ago, as well.
Anyway, I went up to the building to meet Tim. He had to let me in—which was new—but security was super tight now. We were making the usual friend chatter; he was trying to talk me into going to a Tae Kwan Do class with him. For some reason, he was convinced I would love it. But he was also showing me:
“Here’s where she busted through the doorway.”
“Right here, right next to my office—that’s where the cops snuck behind her and shot her.”
There’s no category for this stuff.
Then we walked into the sanctuary, the room where we would be putting on the concert. At this point, we realized that we would most likely be making an album out of this concert, as well. We needed to record our next batch of songs, and I really wanted to do something in a more “live corporate worship setting”. It just made sense.
Tim pointed up to the stained glass on the back left side of the balcony. A young woman, in so much pain and there to cause so much more, had walked into this stunningly beautiful, almost cathedral-like room and had it all to herself for a moment. She lifted her gun to that stained glass window and took six or seven shots.
When we sang our songs in that room six months later, those bullet holes were still in the window.
Two years before that, the priest of our church—my friend Thomas—was killed in a car accident along with his oldest child. That happened a few months before our very first Anchor Hymns writing camp, which we held in my little church, about four miles from Covenant Pres.
Thomas’s death was heavy in the halls of our church. In a different way, obviously, but our little writing camp was one of the first events that happened in that building since his funeral. It was so wonderful—smelling things cooking in the kitchen, seeing people scurrying around, laughing and singing. New life growing after the winter.
Part of our mission as Anchor Hymns has been to write the songs that the church needs and doesn’t have. That’s why we’ve got songs about evangelism, doubt, and loving your enemies—because churches need those, but not a lot of people are writing them right now.
Thinking about Thomas affected some of the prompts I gave to our writing groups, too. We spent an afternoon writing “songs that could be sung at a funeral.” Weird, but probably useful, right?
Well, sadly, two years later, we now needed those songs. And we had the time and place to share them—and record them.
That album came out today.
It’s called “The Garden (Live).”
Anchor Hymns has done some things I’m really proud of, but this project is special on another level. These are songs about God’s faithfulness WHEN IT ABSOLUTELY MATTERS.
To add to this, we recorded it about three weeks after my wife was diagnosed with the incredibly aggressive cancer that has fundamentally changed our lives ever since. She had just started chemo and was in excruciating pain. This was the first time I was really seeing all my friends since we’d entered that new chapter, and that was heavy.
On top of that, most of these artists were people I had signed to the record label and had worked with incredibly closely for many years. And I also knew that I was going to tell them the next week that I was leaving the company—and thus a chapter of their careers would likely be coming to an end, as well.
And I was just one of the 20 or so people who gathered to make this record. As we sat, caught up, laughed, rehearsed, and prayed together, it was clear that many of us were going through particularly stormy seasons. These songs carried a lot of weight, and we had a lot of weight that needed lifting.
This Anchor Hymns project has also, from the start, been blessed by a spirit of intergenerationality. We’ve always had some older folks and some younger folks with us, and that’s been so, so good. At this event, we were overly blessed to have some special guests with us: Buddy Greene, Ashley Cleveland, and, of course, our faithful friend Paul Baloche, who has been with us since the very beginning.
Ashley prayed over us before we went out that evening, and I’ll just say this—I know that God hears all of us when we pray and that we’re all equal in His eyes—but also, I just kind of think Ashley Cleveland has some sort of Disney World fast pass to the presence of Jesus. Her prayer for us that night was so resonant and profound. I can’t quote it for you, I just know I was a wreck before we even started.
I’m so deeply thankful for the opportunity to have been part of these projects and humbled that it’s been my role to shape and lead this thing. As of today, we’re officially independent—no longer with a record label—and will start the process of transitioning to a non-profit, so we can pursue some new dreams I have of using this community not just to continue creating songs for the church, but also to use group songwriting as a tool for mentorship and spiritual formation.
More on that later. (And if anyone has insight into non-profits, grants, etc., and wants to talk—give me a shout!)
OK. I haven’t even talked about the songs.
We shared some older songs, some hymns, and some new songs. And these new songs are some of the best we’ve ever written.
Where Can I Go That My Maker Won’t Be? - these lyrics are stunning!
Close To Me - I can’t handle this song. As a personal memory, this was a highlight.
Oh, To Be Like You - I’ll lead this song for the rest of my life.
How Precious Your Presence To Me - Sarah Kroger has the literal voice of an angel
Walk With Me - I can’t wait to lead this one, too!
Holy, Holy, Holy - this arrangement gives such new life to a great old hymn
The Garden - maybe the best Anchor Hymns song of all?
We Have Hope - let’s talk about this one…
Ok, let’s talk about this song and then we’ll be done.
Paul Baloche and Brent Milligan (another deer friend and kind of a big brother to me, who has played bass on all of the Anchor Hymns records and is an absolute monster) wrote this song together, for the “songs you can sing at a funeral” prompt.
They wrestled these lyrics to the ground for a month. They worked tirelessly. They sound so simple, but so profound. That is not easy. It’s masterful. And when we learned about the event, Paul and Brent took it to another level. They really wanted to honor that room and the people in it, and to give them a song of hope they could sing in their grieving. A song that points towards the redeeming future we have in Christ.
It’s overwhelming how beautiful this song is. And when you think about all that went into that night, all that was going on in that room. School shootings, car accidents, cancer, old age…
We have hope there is life beyond the grave Jesus Christ, our savior, made a way Raised with him, we will live forevermore We have hope in Jesus Christ, our lord
That’s the song we get to sing. We grieve, but not as those without hope.
I’m so, so thankful for these friends, this opportunity, and this incredible evening. I’m so thankful this album is out in the world. I’m so thankful for YOU—for listening, supporting, and reading this obnoxiously long post about it.
I hope you love it. I hope it serves you and sits with you and that it’s there for you when you need it.
Thank you, friends. Have a wonderful weekend.
With hope,
Andrew
For what it's worth, those bullet holes are still there. The first time I saw them was when Caleb went back into the building to prep for Hallie's funeral. We knew so little about what had happened at that point. Samuel Metzger was practicing an absolute barn-burner arrangement of "A Might Fortress" on the organ, my toddler was dancing to it, and I looked up and saw them. That's when I realized that the shooter made it into the sanctuary that day where my husband had been working minutes before. I make a point of looking at those holes every week, and they've come to represent all the layers of grief and hope to me. I just had to share, because when I saw your title I caught my breath. I love this project. And I would like to plug "A Mighty Fortress" for future projects =)
I’m listening to it now. I’ll have to listen to it again and again to not be sucked in by the awesome organ that this keyboardist—who got her start on organ in 2nd grade—is pleasantly distracted by.