Audrey Assad lends her voice to the Porter’s Gate Worship Project

The Porter’s Gate Project is a sacred arts collective created by Isaac Wardell, director of worship at Trinity Presbyterian in Charlottesville, Virginia. They seek to build an ecumenical community which can act as the porters of the church, taking up your burdens so that you can more easily enter into worship. And what better way to relieve burdens of the soul than with music?

In June, 2017, The Porter’s Gate hosted a two-day consortium in New York City, where a group of 60 songwriters, musicians, scholars, pastors, and music industry professionals gathered to speak about worship and vocations. The results of this gathering was a full-length album, Work Songs: The Porter’s Gate Worship Project Vol. 1.

The album features Audrey Assad, Madison Cunningham, Josh Garrels, Aaron Keys, and Paul Zach, to name a few. The music is acoustic and gentle, maintaining an intimate atmosphere, which many of these artists are known for.

Assad’s duet with Paul Zach is really lovely. Their voices are perfectly accompanied by Madison Cunningham’s gentle guitar patterns. Our favorite part of the song is that it does not belabor the point. The song is under 3 minutes and it says what it needs to say with a good hook and leaves you with spare time to listen again. You may also want to hear

Assad really enjoyed working with Porter’s Gate, and we wouldn’t be surprised to find her on Volume 2, whenever that comes out. In an interview with Jesus Freak Hideout, she spoke about the experience:

“The spirit of collaboration, musically and with all our different perspectives, has been so life-giving and enjoyable,” says singer/songwriter Audrey Assad. “The people [on this project] are world class talented, making a live record with no overdubbing, and they sound so incredible and bring so much joy and heart to it. I’ve been inspired by watching musicians who love their craft, being part of something bigger than our own careers.”

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