Poor Bishop Hooper: Music for the Weary Soul

Between songs specifically for congregational use in worship and sacred music created for the concert hall, there exists a space that is perhaps less explored, but equally important: devotional songs to accompany the Christian’s daily pilgrimage. Poor Bishop Hooper, a husband/wife songwriting team from the United States provides such music. Each Wednesday, they release a Psalm-based song, musically-rich Scripture meditations that uplift thousands of listeners around the world. The following is a “behind-the-scenes” conversation about their work. 

JR: Jesse and Leah, over the past 8 years, you’ve developed numerous musical projects. How did this begin?

Leah: Music and ministry have always been a part of our relationship. We first became friends leading worship at a church camp in the boonies of southeastern Kansas and, a few summers later, leading a missions team to Thailand to help women out of the sex industry and into freedom. Though it took Jesse a while, he finally asked me out. We were married not long after, and moved to Kansas City to be a part of a home-church ministry. A few months later our pastor asked us to write a couple of songs based on the parables of Jesus. That request became Foreign Made, our first album as Poor Bishop Hooper.

JR: Your projects have created spaces where the raw emotion and human depth in the texts can be unpacked and experienced. What is it about story and biblical narrative that you find so attractive?

Jesse: I was a creative-writing major in college and focused on the short story form, with no idea that it would have such an influence on my lyric writing. I’ve always been captivated by the power of story. Combine that with Leah’s deep love and knowledge of the Bible, and we find ourselves consistently coming back to singing the beautiful and honest stories of the Scriptures. The Lord has affirmed this “mission” over the years, whether through sharing the crucifixion story with our Golgotha ministry and seeing the impact that narrative has on those who encounter it, or telling the Christmas story through the eyes of the people who took part first-hand, or simply resinging the songs of the Bible with EveryPsalm. 

JR: Another project, called The Golgotha Experience, is shared around the US each year during the Lenten season. How did this come about and what do you hope to accomplish through this liturgically-rooted music?

Jesse: Golgotha came about quite unexpectedly. We’d been asked to take over the Good Friday service for our church, and having always appreciated the stations of the cross, we thought it might be nice to add some sort of musical element to the largely visual tradition. We went away to the woods, and ended up writing all fourteen songs in three days. It was crazy. Kind of like a spiritual download. When we came back, we first shared the music with our own community, but immediately sensed that there was something more to be done with it. Over the past eight years it’s developed into the primary in-person expression of our music. Our personal backgrounds have informed how and where we share it, and we do our best to go to underserved places – prisons, rural communities, etc. We’ve seen the power of the gospel do mighty things in those places and beyond! Often during Lent it’s easy to fly through the suffering part and focus our time and energy on the resurrection. Not that that is bad of course. But we know that when we take a minute, or in Golgotha’s case an hour, to ponder Jesus’ suffering and sacrifice, we find deeper appreciation and gratitude for the gift of grace that is consistently and abundantly ours.

JR: Another fascinating project is Firstborn which includes a surprisingly moving musical exploration of Jesus’ lineage. Apart from Estonian composer Arvo Pärt’s choral setting (“Which was the Son of …”), I’d never heard a musical setting of Jesus’ lineage. I’m wondering, Leah, what drew you to this passage in particular?

Leah: Again, giving a nod to the traditional church calendar, we structured the whole of Firstborn around the common weekly themes of Advent (hope, peace, joy, love). When we came to “Christ,” we couldn’t think of any better way to communicate the power and importance of the birth of Jesus than singing his lineage. Generation after generation of broken and messed up people, yet through it all staggering prophetic fulfilment, beauty, and eventually the very Son of God! Musically it was a bit tricky, mainly figuring out how to take such a long section of Scripture, with no chorus per se, and make it interesting. But one night in the studio it all came together, and ever since has been a meaningful song to many.