In a culture filled with playlists meant for distraction, Every Moment Holy: Prayer Songs (EMH) offers something quieter, slower, and much more intentional. Created from written liturgies that have already shaped the prayer lives of thousands, this project reimagines prayer not just as something read, but as something sung, repeated, and lived.
In this conversation, best-selling author Douglas McKelvey of the Every Moment Holy book series and Jon Lowry, bass player and songwriter from the Christian band Unspoken, reflect on how ancient practices, creative freedom, and a resistance to modern shortcuts came together to create a collection of short, loopable songs meant not for performance but for presence—music made to help ordinary moments become sacred ground.
You’ve described this project as a “new—or perhaps ancient—genre,” drawing from prayers in Every Moment Holy. What was the moment you realized these written liturgies could live as songs, not just texts?
Doug: Every Moment Holy Volume 1 was released in October of 2017. At that point, I already had a vague intuition that a musical expression of these prayers might one day make sense; I just didn’t know what that might be. I tend to work from a paradigm of looking for a real need and a way to meet it, and it took seven years before Jon Lowry and I stumbled backwards into this idea of creating songs intended to facilitate meditative prayer.
I had written what I thought was a song chorus, utilizing a line from one of the prayers in the fourth EMH book (releasing March 1, 2026). Jon and I got together to write a song, and I pitched that chorus as a starting point. We played with it for a few minutes and then came to the surprising conclusion that maybe it didn’t need two verses and a bridge added. Maybe we could just turn it into a minute-long, seamlessly looping track that someone could set on repeat to abide prayerfully in the space of that one heart cry or petition, making it their own.
That same evening, we wrote a second song together, following the same model. The next day, Jon went home and recorded both songs in his studio. We tried playing those on repeat for 10 or 15 minutes and realized that yes, this kind of counterintuitive song form was indeed accomplishing exactly what we had hoped.
From that point, we were off and running. In 10 months, we’ve created around 50 EMH Prayer Songs (many of which are still in process). This initial release includes 20 songs, and we plan to release new batches of 10 songs quarterly.
You and Douglas McKelvey have already collaborated on songs like Unspoken’s “Bury the Workmen,” which resonated deeply with listeners. How did this project stretch or change your creative partnership compared to writing a traditional worship or band song?
Jon: After both becoming burned out from years of trying to write for the very narrow box of radio singles, Doug and I both eventually rediscovered our love of songwriting through our shared writing sessions. Over the past 17 years of friendship, we have gotten together every few months to write whatever we wanted, with no parameters on musical style or subject matter. This has led to quite an eclectic catalog of songs that most people have never heard, except for maybe “Bury The Workmen,” but it has also led to some of our favorite creations like the joyful anthem “Borderlands of Heaven,” and the hopeful lament “How It’s Supposed To Be”.
As a songwriter, this prayer songs project has been incredibly freeing because we abandoned the typical pop song format, verse/chorus/verse/chorus/bridge/chorus, and instead tried to make short songs, sometimes only a minute long, that could be seamlessly looped, allowing a person to sit in a specific moment of prayer as long as they might need or desire. I believe the main change to our creative partnership is that this Every Moment Holy: Prayer Songs project has given it greater purpose. Before, our collaboration was more of an escape, a return to the reason we started writing songs in the first place. We felt the joy of the bird singing its morning song, of the created, creating something to give back to its creator, and through this project, we are finding that others are being swept up in these songs with us.
Doug: Over more than a decade and a half of creating together, Jon and I have learned to trust one another’s instincts and to appreciate the particular strengths the other person brings to the process of co-creation. In that sense, the movement into exploring this new sort of song form together was a natural progression. What’s different about it, and really exciting, is that rather than getting together every so often to write a song (that might or might not ever be heard by anyone else), with the EMH Prayer Songs project, we’re laboring together to build something substantial, something that we hope might truly serve the body of Christ for years to come.
These songs are intentionally short, singable, and theologically rich—more like a modern Doxology than a radio single. What challenges did that format present, and what freedoms did it give you as a songwriter?
Jon: We stumbled upon the short, loopable format by accident after getting together for a friendly evening board game battle. As we talked before starting our game, Doug picked up a guitar and played me a short chorus he’d taken from a prayer in his upcoming Every Moment Holy book, Rites of Passage. “Lord, preserve my life until the day you would be glorified in my dying.” As we began tossing around verse ideas, we kept playing and singing that chorus and suddenly realized that maybe that was the whole song: “A Daily, Lifelong Prayer.” Excited at this new creative endeavor, we quickly forgot about our board game and began flipping through Doug’s books looking for other prayers that might fit well into this loopable, meditative “prayer song” format, and wrote a second one called “Lead Me Well”. The challenge was that we had never heard of or written anything like this before and had no guidelines to follow.
Doug: But that was also the thrill of it—sailing in uncharted waters. So we were very intentional from the start to give ourselves complete freedom and to approach each song from the standpoint of “What form will best serve this particular prayer?” Just because some of these were emerging as one-line lyrics and maybe a minute in length didn’t mean the next one might not need to contain an entire prayer from the book and run two and a half minutes. The fact that we wanted them all to serve the purpose of meditative prayer didn’t mean that when we suddenly realized one might fit well in the context of a church service, as an offertory or a communion song, for instance, that we might not make another pass to tailor the lyric such that it might serve better in that capacity.
So that “don’t be limited by standard song forms and try to find the best version of each of these musical prayers” approach made us feel like we were 16 again, on this joyful adventure of discovering what it might mean to use songwriting as an expressive form.
Every Moment Holy focuses on sanctifying ordinary, everyday experiences—morning coffee, road trips, and small life rituals. Was there a specific “ordinary moment” song on this project that surprised you with how meaningful it became once it was set to music?
Jon: After we had written the first couple of these short songs together, we began to have a sense that maybe this could be something. Pretty quickly, I was aware of a growing sense that maybe this was one of those “good works” Paul talks about in Ephesians 2:10, “which God prepared in advance for us to do.” In Every Moment Holy Volume 1, Doug has a prayer “For The Writing of Liturgies.” It begins with the line. “How fearful a vocation is the writing of liturgies, O Lord, for it presumes the shaping of words that others will speak to you.” I sat down at my piano with that prayer in front of me, feeling fearful and daunted at the prospect of crafting melodies and fitting words to them that the children of the living God might sing in prayer to him. How fearful a vocation indeed! Much as Doug realized he needed to write a prayer for himself before writing prayers for others, I knew I needed a prayer song for myself before I dared write a melody for anyone else. Out of this came the prayer song “Every Moment Holy,” which has already become an anthem for me before I undertake any creative work.
Doug: As Jon mentioned, the first of these songs that we wrote together was “Lead Me Well”. Ten months later, I can still get easily swept up in and choked up by that one. It emerged as a heartfelt distillation of much of my own struggle, experience, and journey over the decades as a follower of Christ. I sing it in my car as I drive, and I just know it’s true. It’s an affirmation, a reaffirmation, a reorientation amid confusion, chaos, pain, uncertainty, and suffering. It’s an expression of ongoing surrender to the Lordship of Jesus, and a recentering of myself in that place of trust. I will also say that amongst the limited pre-release songs we made available a few months ago on our website, and offered in a couple of live settings last Fall, “Lead Me Well” is the track I continue to get the most feedback from other people on, as it stuck with them even if they only heard it that one time live.
Unspoken fans know you primarily through full-band songs meant for concerts and radio. How do you hope longtime listeners will experience this project differently when they encounter it in their daily lives?
Jon: There is a certain aspect of entertainment to the music written for live concerts and radio, and I don’t mean this in a derogatory sense at all. To give people eternal truths and theology they can remember because it’s set to a catchy melody, while at the same time putting a smile on their face, is indeed a noble goal. However, with this project, we endeavored to create short, loopable psalm-like offerings intended to reorient the heart toward God, establishing a rhythm of thoughtful prayer across the big and small moments of our days and years. So, I think people will more often turn to these EMH Prayer Songs with an intentionality. Their primary purpose is not passive listening, but active re-anchoring of our own hearts and lives in the greater story of redemption that God is telling across all of history.
In an age where music creation is increasingly automated, you made a point to say “no AI was used in the making.” Why was that important to you for a project rooted in prayer, presence, and intentionality?
Jon: I have been in several songwriting sessions where people are querying AI to write songs about things like "write a song about...". And their argument is that we are all borrowing, building on, and being inspired by other people’s work anyway, so what is the difference between us and AI doing it? I think there is definitely a place for using modern technology in the creative process, and I’m certainly not going back to my paperback rhyming dictionary if I’m stuck trying to find a rhyme for “orange,” but at the risk of sounding old-fashioned, I do feel there is a significant line often being crossed when it comes to creativity and AI. I believe there is an aspect of being created in the image of God that gives humans a spark of creativity and inspiration that AI, which is created in our own sinful image, will never have, and the more we simply regurgitate what AI chatbots feed us, the less access we have to that spark of true creativity. The less you exercise a muscle, the weaker it gets. I also have serious reservations about the amount of natural resources AI consumes. These are just arguments for caution in general. In terms of Every Moment Holy: Prayer Songs, I know God can speak through a donkey, but the morality of using AI to write prayers for people to pray to God seems questionable at best.
Doug: I think I can speak for Jon when I say we’re both completely opposed to the loss of humanity in the creation of artifacts. If what we’re offering to others is not the fruit of our own wrestling, then we’re actually losing the point of connection between human beings in that exchange, which is a cataclysmic impoverishment, and we’re also missing out on the process and the struggles inherent in making, which is the place we might be met and changed by the Spirit of God as we seek to exercise our gifts in the redemptive service of others. To unpack all the implications would require the writing of a lengthy book, but suffice it to say that the degree to which we as a culture begin to outsource creation to mindless algorithms, ignoring our call to labor as sub creators, working out in our own creativity what it means to bear the image of a creator God, is the degree to which we have abandoned a significant part of our calling.
With the music releasing mid-January across streaming platforms, how do you envision people actually using these songs—personal devotion, family rhythms, church settings, or something else entirely?
Jon: I think they would be useful in all three of those settings. I have found myself often looping and praying the Ritual for Morning Coffee, Lead Me Well, or A Daily, Lifelong Prayer as I sit in the stillness before the wave of awakening children sweeps me up. My family sings “A Table Blessing” together before dinner at least once a week, and “Father Keep Watch” has become my son's bedtime favorite. We also envision “Sing Through Me (The Royal Accolades)” being used without the chorus in church services leading up to Easter, and then adding the chorus of “Allelujah, All praise to you Lord Christ” on Easter Sunday.
Doug: We wrote the first couple songs with the intention of serving individuals in the context of prayer. But by the time we’d written the first dozen or so, we had happily discovered that some of these, as Jon referenced, would also serve families in their shared, daily lives, or make sense in the context of church services. An Every Moment Holy Live multi-artist, touring event is also in the works for later this year, and it makes great sense to include four or five of these prayer songs in that event as well. We’ve also already had some interest from radio, asking permission to play these, which we didn’t really expect at the outset.
All of that to say, I think part of our excitement in finally releasing these is that we know that we really don’t know where these EMH Prayer Songs will travel, or in what ways they will serve. That was the case with the first Every Moment Holybook as well. It was sent out into the world, and those prayers made their own journeys quite apart from me. Jon and I both have a similar, expectant hope that these songs might find their way into settings and contexts we could never have anticipated or planned. So, from this vantage point, we don’t know with any certainty how these songs will be used over time, but we do feel a great sense of gratitude for the privilege of playing a part in whatever this venture might become.
How can we pray for you?
That God’s purposes, whatever they might be, would be accomplished through this project, and that we would both remain sensitive and responsive to that unfolding narrative, rather than presuming where it needs to go or trying to force it into our own vision or definition of success.
Paul Phillips is a Canadian journalist with 20 years of experience writing and editing digital and print content. He specializes in health, fitness, nutrition, and travel. He loves music, movies, and, of course, living for Jesus. OpenAI's ChatGPT provided some assistance with this article.
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