It's Christmas week! And we are excited to jump into all of our fun family festivities this Christmas season. But we are also looking forward to hearing the story of the incarnation of Christ over and over again as we awaken our wonder at who Jesus is and what He has done. In this episode, we deep dive into the stories, inspiration, and writing of the 10th and final song on our Advent project, "Tell Me The Story" 

The story of humanity is a story of longing and aching. The Bible documents one big longing echoing throughout all of history. And that all of this longing culminates and finds its fulfillment in Jesus. Join us on this episode as we take a deep dive into the ninth song on our Advent album, "Tell Me The Story."

     
“The real Jesus attracted failures, exiles, rejects, underachievers, weaklings, compromisers, and losers - the scum of the earth. Every kind of defeated, fed-up sinner found a welcome with him.”

That’s a quote from Ray Ortlund that sums up the message of the song, “The Unexpected Ones.” While this is true for the grown-up life of Jesus, it’s also true from the very beginning of his arrival here on the earth - his birth. At this point, we might be so used to our nativity scenes that we forget the significance of what they are telling us. Gathered around this God-child are the poor, the despised, the young and inexperienced - these are not the characters we would expect to be main characters in the birth of a King, much less the King of kings. Seeing the characters gathered around the birth of Christ tells us something about this Christ and about God. It foreshadows the story of Christ as a man - preparing us for the fact that Jesus came to serve, he came to seek and save the lost, and he came for the sick, not the well. 

We’re going to dive deeper into this theme around the song The Unexpected Ones on today’s podcast as we talk about how this song came to life. I hope you’ll join us, and if you do, I hope that it compels you to draw near to Jesus. Let’s dive in. 

Christmas is a hard time of year for so many of us. It’s a time of the year that can feel like salt in the wound of our broken hearts. In our disillusionment and disappointment it’s easy to feel hopeless and depressed - especially when the cheer of Christmas isn’t strong enough to out of the dark places within. Today on the podcast we’re going to talk about the 6th song on our new Christmas album called “This Christmas.” It’s a sad song - or rather a song that reflect the sadness that many of us will face during this Christmas season. I want to talk with you about why I wrote this song and why it mattered to me to make sure and put it in this album.

For show notes visit: 
https://www.jonathanandemilymartin.com/episode53

Today on the podcast we are going to go on a journey through scripture and I hope it leaves you as amazed and overjoyed as I was at the impossible work of salvation that God has achieved and offered to us in the gift of His son Jesus. If you haven’t been following along with us recently. We are in the middle of a series here on the podcast where we take a deep dive into the songs on our brand new Christmas album, “Tell Me the Story.” Today we’re going to talk about the 7th song on our new Christmas album called “The Impossible.” We're going to dive into the song, what inspired it, how it was written, and why Jesus coming into the world for us at Christmastime is truly the most impossibly amazing thing we could ever as for or imagine. 

For show notes visit: 
https://www.jonathanandemilymartin.com/episode54

Hey friends, the first time we uploaded this podcast it only uploaded the first 15 minutes! Sorry about that! This updated version is the FULL podcast episode

Can Christians have fun? Is it frivolous for us to be happy and full of cheer during the Christmas season? A couple of Spurgeon sermons, “Hoping for Happiness” by Barnabas W. Piper, and “Enjoy” by Trillia Newbell were super helpful to me this year in understanding the place for fun and happiness in our lives. For our newly released Christmas album, I wanted a song to help us all receive the fun of Christmas as a gift and as part of our love for Christ and so I wrote the song "Happy Christmas." Today, here on the podcast, we're going to dive into that song, what inspired it, how it was written, and why this topic so meaningful to us that we just had to include it on this album.

For show notes visit: 
https://www.jonathanandemilymartin.com/episode52

Today on the podcast we are going to marvel together at the great and beautiful humility of Christ. If you haven’t been following along with us recently. We are in the middle of a series here on the podcast where we take a deep dive into the songs on our brand new Christmas album, “Tell Me the Story.” Today we’ll talk about the fourth song on the album called “Jesus, the Servant of All.” And I have to tell you, this is one of the songs I’ve been most eager to share about - mostly because in all my writing and studying for this album - this topic was the most surprising and it has has stuck with me the most. Even still, I feel like I can barely get my head around the huge and beautiful truth of Christ’s great humility and willingness to bend so low for us.

Show Notes: 
https://www.jonathanandemilymartin.com/episode51

For Christians, what is the point of Christmas? 

Why do we celebrate it every year? 

Why is it important for us to remember the Christmas story together? 

These are some of the questions we are going to address today as we continue in our behind the song series - in this episode we are going to take look at our new song “Come, Let Us Gather.” If you’re someone who listens to an album from top to bottom, you’ll see that this is the very first song on our new 10 song Christmas album "Tell Me The Story". That’s because this song is meant to help us see why it’s important for us to remember this story. And it’s meant to set the tone and prepare hearts for the other 9 songs on the project.

Show Notes:
https://www.jonathanandemilymartin.com/episode50

Welcome friends!

In Genesis 11, we see all of humanity band together in all their independence and self-sufficiency. They set out to build a tower to the heavens because they believed they reach God on their own. They believed they could be on god’s level if they tried hard enough. If we’re honest with ourselves, at our core, we tend to be like the people of Genesis 11. We’re going to talk about all this along with God’s amazing response to us as we take a deep dive today into the song “God Came Down To Us” from our upcoming Christmas album Tell Me the Story. Thanks for joining us for this conversation. We hope it enhances the listening experience as you play the song in your cars, homes, and churches this Christmas season. 

The full album, "Tell Me the Story," releases on November 5th, 2021. You can presave or preorder by visiting the show notes

For show notes visit: https://www.jonathanandemilymartin.com/episode49

Christmas is coming and we've got 10 brand new Christmas songs releasing on November 5th!

For the next 10 weeks on the podcast, we are going to be zooming in on each of these brand new songs in order to enhance the listening experience for you all. On these episodes we'll share all the things that inspired us to write these songs and we'll take you on a journey through the creative process of releasing them into the world. 

Today, Emily shares her heart behind our first single "The Light Has Come."  

Make sure to check out our show notes in order to have access to any of the resources and gifts mentioned in this episode by visiting www.jonathanandemilymartin.com/episode48