Jess Ray

Singer-songwriter and producer Jess Ray is known for her moving lyrics and her beautiful and soulful vocals. Yet the impact she makes on people is far greater than the quality of her music. She’s released several albums already, but her creative and innovative personality isn’t content with what’s already been done. Instead, she is constantly reaching for the next thing — the next dream God is laying on her heart to impact the world around her.

In this interview, Jess gets honest about her favorite mini-luxuries and Christian resources, her hidden spiritual battles and how God has shifted her view of him in recent years. We think you’ll enjoy the gems Jess has to share.

QUESTION #1: ACQUAINT

There’s much more to a meal than palate and preference. How does your go-to order at your favorite hometown restaurant reveal the true you behind the web bio?

I’d say the most routine meal out that I have is BOGO Sushi from our favorite spot, on Sunday afternoons with my husband Kyle. We live fast, busy lives. We have our hands on a lot of projects and dreams all the time. We haven’t been bored for as long as we can remember, and we love to live that way. And so a big order of take-out sushi, a favorite show and a nap on the couch on a Sunday afternoon can feel like total luxury for the two of us.

QUESTION #2: REVEAL

We’ve all got quirky proclivities and out-of-the-way interests, but we tend to hide them. What do you love doing that might surprise (or shock) people?

Kyle and I spend most of our waking hours on music and creative projects. No exaggeration — every single week, it’s way more than 40 hours for each of us. All hours of the day and night. Chasing ideas and dreams for ourselves, for our friends and our community. We love it. We are young(ish), kid-less and becoming a better and better creative duo as the months go by. It’s been crucial for us to figure out some other outlets that have absolutely nothing to do with music and our creative endeavors.

I absolutely love reading and am always solidly into at least 3-4 books, my current rotation being: “The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry” by John Mark Comer; “1984” by George Orwell; and a book on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. I just wrapped up “On the Road” by Jack Kerouac and “The Beautiful Resistance” by Jon Tyson.

I grew up as the middle kid between two boys. I really love sports and live with this reserve of energy all the time, just waiting to make its way out in a game of frisbee or soccer. Also, hit me up if you’re headed to one of those Top Golf things — I do alright.

We also absolutely love national parks. In September, we went on a big trip around the U.S. to play some backyard concerts. We were able to add Yosemite to our list, and we dropped into Zion again for a few days (one of our very favorites).

QUESTION #3: CONFESS

Every superhero has a weakness. Every human, too. We're just good at faking it. But who are we kidding? We’re broken and in this thing together. So what’s your kryptonite and how do you hide it?

It’s funny how we make certain sins out to be worse than others, thinking “Well, at least I didn’t ...” In the past year or two, I’ve fortunately (or unfortunately) come to the realization that if there’s any sin God hates most, it’s pride. And guess which one I’ve realized I deal with the most. You got it — pride.

Lately, I’ve had to own up to the fact that pride in my life is not bold and loud. It’s sneaky and hidden. I don’t think I come off as a proud or arrogant person. Instead, I have a subtle brand of pride, mostly on the inside and occasionally on the outside, shooting out of me like arrows at the ones I’m closest to.

It looks like me putting enormous expectations on everything and everyone and withholding grace when they don’t match the picture in my mind. It looks like me being inflexible and uninterested in listening to the way someone else sees something. It looks like me just rattling off all my strong feelings without thinking about how they might hurt the person I’m telling, as though I have some right to spew them out just because I have them.

Sorry to quote my own song, but here I go: “I am still so in need of grace and mercy.” Lord, help me.

QUESTION #4: FIRE UP

Tell us about your toil. How are you investing your professional time right now? What’s your obsession? And why should it be ours?

2020 has no doubt been an unexpected year in its challenges. Yet it’s been a notable year for me on a personal and community level. It’s allowed me margin that I desperately needed but didn’t know how to get. That margin has brought a greater level of mental clarity, health, Sabbath and routine to my life as well as allowed us to more intentionally pursue some passions during this season.

One of those passions is producing. Ever since I started recording music 15 years ago, I approached it differently than my friends did. I was never content to just sing on a song. I’ve always cared too much about the full picture musically and sonically — what the drums do, the dynamics, how it’s recorded. I didn’t set out to become a music producer and have struggled to declare that as part of my musical career identity. But for the past 15 years, that’s truly what I’ve been learning to do — I’ve been learning to produce music.

So this year has been significant because I think I’m officially beginning to break free of imposter syndrome and consider myself a music producer. Practically, that looks like Kyle and I now having a small pro studio in our home, producing our own music out of this space and annually taking on 2-3 projects in partnership with artists we believe in.

Teaching is another passion of ours. Over the past 5 years of hosting a weekly worship gathering in our hometown (Raleigh, North Carolina) we have ended up with a close-knit, diverse community of friends here. We had to indefinitely pause that worship gathering because of COVID-19. But we’ve felt a clear call to continue to gather a small group of our friends and dive deeper into spiritual formation, conversation and leadership development.

Somehow, I have stumbled into writing the content and teaching for our weekly meetings. We are talking about turning these teachings into a book, a culture document for leaders longing to live a thoughtful Christian life in a post-Christian culture. This has been an unexpected new path in my journey as a writer, and I mean it when I say this — I feel like I am doing something I was made to do, very similar to how I feel when making music.

QUESTION #5: BOOST

Cashiers, CEOs, contractors or customer service reps, we all need grace flowing into us and back out into the world. How does the Holy Spirit invigorate your work? And how do you know it's God when it happens?

One of the best ways I’ve shifted in my spiritual life in recent years is to seek less of the extraordinary “mountaintop” moments with God. To stop expecting it to be fireworks and writing-on-the-wall signs all the time and, instead, try to foster a pattern of welcoming him into my everyday routine. To get really good at shooting up a one-sentence prayer when I’m about to take a phone call I’m anxious about or before I step into a casual hang time with a friend or as I pull into the parking lot of a venue for a gig.

Now that I’ve tried to live that way for a few years, I can sincerely say I see him all the time in everything. He comes through for me all the time, more than I could ever count or list. He has filled my life with peace and joy. When it comes to my work, sometimes I pray out loud, sometimes in my heart. Sometimes I'm working on worship music and sometimes I’m working on mainstream pop music. I invite him into all of it the same. He gives me the same strength and energy to do both. I see him equally in every avenue.

I’ve found it to be true that he comes where he is invited, and if he doesn’t seem present in something (“Christian” or not), I’m learning to ask, “Did he feel welcome?”

QUESTION #6: inspire

Some people divide things sacred and things secular. But you know, God can surprise us in unlikely places. How do you find spiritual renewal in so-called “nonspiritual” activities?

I actually dug into this a little bit in my previous answer, and I’ll happily say it again: I see God in everything. A few years ago, I had a switch in my mentality about God that I haven’t forgotten. It still very much influences the lens I look through. This is it — I used to subconsciously think that since most of the world was made before mankind, God must have thought of us last. But there’s loads of evidence in scripture that he had us in mind all along and all creation was actually leading up to us. And if that’s true, maybe all creation was actually made for us. Maybe all creation was made to help us know him as a message to us of who he is. Maybe he is so complex, so beautiful, so expansive, so endless, that he made an entire world to help us understand who he is.

We cannot even begin to comprehend him, and so he shows us who he is as a fire, a river, a mountain, a lion, a lamb, a Father, a Mother, a Husband, a friend — and on and on. But here’s the key: he is not like those things; they are like him. He is the real thing, and they are the picture. So yeah, I see God in everything. Everything is a window into who he is.

QUESTION #7: FOCUS

Our email subscribers get free ebooks featuring our favorite resources — lots of things that have truly impacted our faith. But you know about some really great stuff too. What are three of your favorite resources?

If you look too closely at my writing, you might notice that I’ve basically plagiarized Brennan Manning left and right. I’m kind of kidding, but I unashamedly claim I have had no greater influence on my writing than that man. And I would always recommend reading any of his work. (“The Furious Longing” is quick and easy. “Ragamuffin Gospel” is classic. “Ruthless Trust” is my favorite.)

We ate up the Abstract series on Netflix and consume a good amount of other content in the vein of great design in various fields as well as YouTube videos on user experience and STEM (thanks to my Enneagram 5 husband).

We also are pretty big fans of the Bible Project and have found their resources hugely helpful in recent years.

We all have things we cling to in order to survive (or thrive) in tough times. Name one resource you’ve found indispensable in this current season — and tell us what it's done for you.

I cannot express how grateful I am for the “This Cultural Moment” podcast for offering a hand-up to Christians trying to navigate the complex social and political days we are in. They have so concisely and precisely dissected the cultural moment we are experiencing (and that is coming to a head) currently in the West.

QUESTION #8: dream

God is continually stirring new things in each of us. So give us the scoop! What’s beginning to stir in you but not yet fully awakened? What can we expect from you in the future?

I am a type 4 on the Enneagram. (Sorry to bring up the E-word twice in this). I always have about 10 different side projects, inventions, resources and dreams swirling around in my mind and an elaborate mental picture of how they all should come to be. I could probably put a handful of them in the same pile, though, and I would call it “creative community.”

My biggest, most persistent dream these days is to continue to bring innovation and resources to my community in Raleigh. To continue to dive into writing songs and books and putting them out. To create a music festival on family farmland. To own a creative studio and resourcing center for co-working and video/photo shoots and collaboration between artists and creative gatherings and workshops. I want to create a place where streams can converge, where hidden gifts can be uncovered and voices can be discovered. We’ve got a long way to go, but I know we are on the way. And in some ways, we are already experiencing the edges of this even now. I’m filled with anticipation.

Experiencing God in the day-to-day isn’t something that happens on accident. It takes real intention, as Jess mentioned earlier in this interview. The amazing thing is when we proactively seek God in the everyday — whether at our job, filing our taxes, dealing with our kids’ tantrums or dreaming about our next big project — he shows up in the big things, too. Our hope for you is that you take time today and every day to invite Jesus into the minute details of your life so he can feel welcome in the big picture, too.