Sarah Monson has many side projects. Not only is the a wife and mother, but the Minnesota native is the worship minister at New Day Covenant Church, a 5-year-old church plant in Rochester. She also teaches local jail inmates creative writing, and, oh yeah, has parlayed her experiences into her first album, Dragonflies, which released last September.

We get to know Monson and talk about the thread that is woven throughout this emerging worship artist's various side projects.

We're excited to get to know you, Sarah, and what you do. Give us an introduction to you, sort of your story, when it comes to kind of how you found yourself here as a worship leader and doing what you do. 

I have been involved in worship leadership even since I was 8 years old. My first role as a piano student, as a musician, was to accompany our congregation, growing up playing hymns. So I have really been doing it since then, but really did not feel this passionate call to ministry until my 20s. And God kind of got ahold of my life and got hold of me after kind of a decade of sort of wandering. 

And so I started leading worship more as a sort of profession back in 2004, and didn't actually start songwriting, writing music, until 2011. And I kind of dabbled in it at some point, but never really felt compelled to write, or anything like that, and really the song that kind of got it all started was Easter in 2011 I couldn't find the song I was looking for for our congregation. So I went to my hymnal and kind of fell in love with the words of the hymn "I Know That My Redeemer Lives," and reworked it, which of course is on the album Dragonflies, and reworked it for the congregation. 

And it just sort of kind of exploded from there in finding this passion and love for writing. Not only for myself, but writing for the community of faith that I get the privilege of being with every week. 

And what community is that?

New Day Covenant Church. And we're part of the larger Covenant denomination. And our church in particular, we're a 5 year old church plant, and I was a part of the planting of that church. So it's really been an amazing journey, but full of these incredible ups and these incredible downs and everything in between. So that's kind of what got me started I guess in writing anyway.
 
Are you the worship leader at this church?

Yes. I'm actually a minister, so I serve more of a-- not just a worship leader but also sort of a pastoral role in terms of ministering to people, shaping kind of that part of our life together, and feeling sort of overwhelmed by that very often. 

Sure. I'm sure the music is the easy part sometimes.

Right, for sure.

So you're in Minnesota. Have you lived there all your life?

No, I was actually born and raised in this little, tiny town that is in one of the most remote places in the country, you know, outside of Alaska, perhaps. If you look at a map of the state of Minnesota, my hometown is like literally at the bottom of the chimney, about two miles from Canada. It's incredibly isolated. We didn't have an FM radio station until I was 11 or 12. And you know, the nearest shopping mall is I think 3 hours away. People can now brag that there is a McDonald's within an hour's drive, you know? It only takes 50 minutes to get to McDonald's if you want McDonald's, not that I would go there. And the town is called Warroad. Yeah, it's a great place to be from, and I love visiting, but it's kind of nice to be in civilization. 

How do you feel that growing up in that town and starting to lead worship, shaped you today?

You know, I think that as in any person, where you come from shapes you. Either it's that you want to be something because of it, or you want to be something in spite of it. I don't necessarily want to seek fame, and I think part of that is a result of where I came from. Because where I come from, people are just people. And they care for one another, they're passionately committed to each other. They had to be. Community is so strong. And I think that deep sense of community is what drives me. 

So I don't know if it's necessarily affected me in terms of music, but it affected me in terms of how I think, how I act. So music, for me, is an extension of how I fit in with this world, figuring out how I can best use what I do in terms of people and community, if that makes any sense.
 
Absolutely, and speaking of community, tell us about your family.

Yeah, I moved to this area, to Rochester, in 2003, but not really until 2004, which is when I sort of committed to the area. I was a single person when I moved here, and it was sort of a strange place. It's home to Mayo Clinic, so you have a lot of professionals. It's also home to IBM. So you have a lot of very intelligent, very introverted people, and I am extremely extroverted. And there weren't a lot of people in their 20s when I moved here. So it was kind of difficult.

So I actually imported my husband from Northern Minnesota, and he moved down here to Southern Minnesota. And we've been married since 2006. And we have two boys, ages 5 and 2. And they are fantastic little boys who drive me crazy every now and then. Motherhood kind of came hard for me, but I've grown to love it.

I'm sure every mom out there gets that to some extent.

I didn't think motherhood would ever be a part of my life, actually. Up until my late 20s even, I sort of determined I would avoid motherhood. Then I met my husband who is amazing and I knew would be a fantastic father, which he is, and that made that decision easier.

I'm sure. Speaking of things that you've given birth to--

Besides my children?

Yeah. You like that segue? 

That was great!

Dragonflies released in September. And of course, that's your debut album. You said some of it was inspired by hymns, and sort of your experience in the church and whatnot. But yeah, what made you decide it's time to record an album, and kind of all that went into that?

Well as you said, some of these songs are written primarily for worship. So I think as I was seeing the response from our congregation, it was sort of overwhelming at first, that God has used the words and this music that He's put on my heart to sort of bless and to lead others. And that was truly just a profound moment for me. And as word got out that I was writing, and friends were listening, there was enthusiastic support and encouragement for me to record some of these. 

And to backtrack a little bit, for nearly a decade I actually coordinated a music series for the Mayo Clinic here in Rochester. And through that, I think we produced about 75 musical events per year. So I was constantly sort of in touch with some really great and fantastic musicians and songwriters, and learned a lot about songwriting just from the people I would hire, the people I would encounter and talk about doing music. So I approached a couple people who I trusted in terms of songwriting and shared with them what I was doing, and had support in terms of their affirmation of what I was doing. And so I just decided that it was better late than never.

On the album there is a song called "Song for Trevor." And it's a song written for my husband, and you might not get the whole story if you listen to the song. But in 2009 he was in a very serious car accident and broke his neck in four places. And subsequently has a spinal cord injury at C5. And he had a remarkable, miraculous recovery. I thank God that we live in Rochester so we had Mayo Clinic literally in our backyard. He went from being completely paralyzed on his left side to now only having 20 percent paralysis on his left side. So his recovery took two years, but still it was a fantastic and miraculous recovery.

So "Song for Trevor" is about that experience, and really literally the first 24, 48 hours after the accident, and my emotions as his wife: "How are we going to face this? What is this going to mean for him?" And so I say that because as my husband and I were talking about do we do this, we just said, "life is too short." We've learned that life is too short, and we can be taken into the next life at any moment. And God is, I feel God has a call on my life to share what I've been doing, and OK, let's just do it. So we just did it, just jumped in.
 
That's awesome. What has the response been like so far from the album?

I think good? I'm not really a good one to ask on that. I don't know. I think it's been good, I've been really happy with it. I've learned so much about myself and why I want to do this and why I'm going to continue to do this and why I'm going to record another album since it's happened. I think I've learned who I want to be as an artist, as a musician. And really I'm actually looking forward to the next thing, the next album.

So it's been encouraging enough that I want to keep going. How about that?

You said that through this process you've kind of discovered the kind of artist you want to be and what not. Talk about that a little more.

With the album's release, I have expectations but I don't know what they are, and some of those expectations were met, some weren't. How you handle coming down from that experience, I think, is really important. And for me it was a real struggle in coming down off of that mountain-top and saying, "Now what do I do? What next?"

And really I think I spent a good two to three months just in this kind of place, I called it the hollow place. And I blogged through a lot of this experience, so people can read on my blog about what does it mean to pursue, what does it mean to release an album, and then what does it mean if people love it or don't love it? How do I find my identity? Do I find my identity in how well this thing does or how it doesn't do? And ultimately as Christians we need to come to the conclusion that our identity is in Christ and what He has for us.

And so that led me to really realizing about myself that as an artist I want to strive to not just be a voice that's striving to be heard. There are so many voices out there, so much good music, just gobs of it. And most of it is really, really good. And I can either just kind of fight my way in there, or I can literally decide to be a positive presence in people's lives. And that's what I've decided to do. So that sort of mission I've created, or that I think I've been given, is really sort of formulating everything I do.

So the Jailhouse Sessions, these creative writing sessions I've been doing with detainees at our county jail, have been born out of that mission. And to realize that songwriting, music, these things that I'm doing don't have to be for me. They are for others, they are for a greater good, a community. And that's what I'm passionate about doing.

And so really now, recording, all of that, has turned into more of a platform in how I can communicate that sort of mission, and what Christ is doing all over the place. You know? It's sort of great. So that I think is the greatest thing for me that's come out of this experience.
 
For those who have never heard you, how would you describe your music, or your sound? Just give people a taste of what it's like to experience your music.

That would be fantastic if I had one word that could describe that. The first album almost never was a complete album. The producer that I worked with, his name is Matt Patrick. And as we were looking at music that I had available to record, and what we wanted to do and how we wanted to shape this album, we almost broke it into two completely different albums, or kind of a dual release. Because really, if someone listens to this album, they'll hear four songs that are kind of in that singer-songwriter vein, that are songs that really speak about my life experiences, and my life.

And then the other four songs are almost very clearly in that praise and worship, contemporary Christian music vein. So at this point, it's sort of an eclectic thing. And ultimately I decided no, I'm not going to do two separate albums. Because I believe all of life, we are holistic people. And I didn't want to break up sort of what felt like my whole life into these different categories.

And then there's also a little bit of jazz, and some of those, some people have said "oh, we really can tell that you have a background in jazz." So on a couple of the singer-songwriter tunes. So we spent a good long time, Matt I did, in determining what genre would this fit into. And good or bad, we're not sure what it would fit into or what people are calling it. I think Amazon called it folk, which to me seems a bit strange, not sure where they got that. Definitely not folk. But I think people are having a hard time categorizing it. And on the one hand I think that could be good, on the other hand that leaves people wondering what is this?

So it is what it is. I'm pleased with the outcome, and I think the next time around we'll have a little better of an idea of who I am artistically and musically.

So are you currently writing?

Oh definitely. I love writing. So writing for me is an ongoing process, it's sort of become this way I process life, and process the world around me, really. So yeah, definitely.

Is there anything else you'd like to add?

I can't say thank you enough to my publisher Stephen Bock at Fred Bock Music Company. It was sort of an accident that I even connected with him in the first place, but ever since then, he has played a huge role in helping to move this journey forward. So, yeah, I think that's a part of this thing that's probably pretty important to mention!

How can people be praying for you and your family?

I think especially as things develop, and they're sort of rapidly developing with jailhouse sessions, I think wrapped around that, it adds another layer to our lives in terms of schedules and busyness and hecticness, and I think we're also people, my  husband and I are people who value margin in our lives. So I think for us it's finding that healthy God-honoring balance in our lives, and sort of that strength to create those boundaries I think is really important. Just guidance, and all those things that we all need-- guidance, protection, comfort hope.