Inside the Wood Drake Sessions
By Huey Keene
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For millennia, Christianity has used music to sing praise to the Trinity, plant and cultivate hope for the oppressed, and bring the gospel to all the nations, as Jesus called us to do. 

Now worship music has developed into its own genre. Kirk Sauers and Paul Ranheim, the duo behind the Wood Drake Sessions, try to push the boundaries of this genre by incorporating influences like Americana and Motown into the mix while exploring topics less common in worship music. 

Ranheim — the church planting pastor at Redeemer Longmont in Longmont, Colorado — grew up in a small PCA church north of Seattle, a region he calls a “very unchurched part of the country.” Sauers, music director at Faith Presbyterian Church in Birmingham, Alabama, joined the PCA in college and was involved in Campus Outreach before moving to Augusta and working at First Presbyterian Augusta.

The pair met while they were both living in Nashville, Tennessee. Ranheim was a pastor at West End Community Church while Sauers was focused on his songwriting career. Eventually the two connected at their friend Eric Ashley’s PCA songwriters retreat and realized how their musical styles paired well together. 

They took their duo’s name from Wendell Berry’s poem “The Peace of Wild Things.” When the poet feels overwhelmed by anxiety and despair, he goes to lie down “where the wood drake rests in his beauty on the water.” 

“We found this poem to be beautiful, Sauers said, “and reflects what we want our music to be: an invitation to come into the peace, grace, and freedom of God’s presence.” 

Growing up, Sauers was exposed to lots of country music and often played bluegrass and “the oldies,” he said. 

“[I] would always listen to Motown, and I always loved the classic folk rock music,” Sauers said, noting influence from specific artists like James Taylor, Rich Mullins, Andrew Peterson, and Tom Petty. 

Ranheim said he shared many of the same musical influences as Sauers, listening to everything from classical music to classic rock, the Beatles to 90s alternative rock, with his favorite piano-playing songwriters being Michael W. Smith and Elton John. 

Ranheim said he and Sauers want their music to incorporate more diverse styles than often found in worship music while also writing songs like “Grace Will Prevail,” which leans heavily into acoustic and folk styles.

Sauers considers “Grace Will Prevail,” – the pair’s most popular song, which features Wendell Kimbrough –  alongside “Oh How Good to Be Together (feat. Sandra McCracken)” and their newest release “Doxology Creed (with Mission House)” to be great initial listens for newcomers to their music or worship leaders searching for new congregational songs. 

The duo tries to bring honesty to their songs, to “bring our rich theological tradition from our head to our heart,” Ranheim said. 

He sees “Grace Will Prevail” as one of those songs. 

Ranheim said Presbyterianism has a beautiful theology of grace, and he wants to bring it to the heart level so believers can feel that truth. “As songwriters Kirk and I both prioritize fighting for lyrics that ring with honesty and authenticity into the depths of our bones,” he said.

Ranheim said the song’s final verse on Jesus’ walking with us and sharing in our pain is “very different from much of the victory mantra” that inhabits modern worship music. He received the final master recording of “Grace Will Prevail” as his father was dying and played it for his father in the hospital. 

“He was unconscious, but I got to play that song for him,” Ranheim said. “When I wrote that song about profound grief and loss for others to sing, I didn’t realize how the Lord was preparing to minister to me through those very lyrics.”

Worship music is rapidly growing in popularity in America amid a wider Christian revival. Ranheim said he believes the moment has arisen because people are longing for “something more rooted, that’s old and ancient” and “capital T” true.

Sauers said he thinks revival “is always a work of the Holy Spirit, and you never know the way the Holy Spirit works,” but there is also a “hunger for something deep, something true, something rooted.” And Christianity offers those things, he said.

“Not only in the history of it, but you feel the way that it works itself out into the authentic lives of other people,” Sauers said. “And I think people long for that. They long for community, they long for what is true. They long for something solid and trusted and rooted, and Christianity is that.” 

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