Christian singer Jobe brings tour to Orlando
Kari Jobe knows life can be painful.
“Sometimes, we can experience such loss that it knocks the wind out of us,” said the Christian singer.
It was during such a period that the Texas native wrote much of what would become “The Garden,” her fifth studio album. The tour for the record. which released in February, will bring her Friday to the Crosslife Church in Orlando (7 p.m., 45 W. Broadway St., $24.95-$74.95, 855-484-1991, premierproductions.com).
While Jobe, 36, was pregnant with her son, her sister had a stillborn birth. “I had all this sadness and anxiety,” Jobe said. “I decided I was just going to go in and write everything I’m feeling. My questions of God, my processing of the whole thing, some days were more difficult than others.”
But at her Nashville residence, Jobe found some comfort in her garden, specifically finding it covered in ivy, which was to be her sister’s child’s middle name. “I just felt seen by God,” she said. “It was like a picture of God’s faithfulness.
“Ivy is a very resilient plant. It grows through really harsh situations, but it always grows up and toward the light.”
Jobe, a pastor at Gateway Church in Texas, released her self-titled debut album in 2009. In the past eight years, she has won three Dove Awards from the Gospel Music Association (for “Le Canto” and “Glory Revealed II” in 2010 and “Majestic” in 2014). She was nominated for a Grammy in 2013, which she said, coming from a secular organization, “meant a lot. It felt like people were saying, ‘We’ve heard your stuff and it connected with us.’ ”
Making a connection could be a summary of Jobe’s goals in music, especially for people experiencing tragedy.
“A lot of the things I end up writing are for people that are walking through really difficult stuff,” she said. “I’ve always had a desire to help people have songs that bring peace and bring life and get them outside of their head.”
Jobe admits that, as a Christian songwriter, her material and that of her contemporaries can often seem repetitive. “With worship writers, we’re always trying to say something new,” she said.
It’s the individual scene that leads to a song that separates them from each other.
“When you’re writing something from an encounter you’ve had, that’s always going to impact people,” she said. “We can connect to any kind of song whether it’s Christian or not.”
The voice behind singles such as “Healer” and “What Love Is This,” Jobe recognizes the extreme circumstances that have led to some of the world’s most classic hymns. She cites Horatio Spafford’s “It Is Well With My Soul,” which was written after the death of all of his children in the 19th century. “Being written on the ocean while this man loses his family, it’s just amazing.”
She doesn’t know if her own work will be collected in the same way, but she hopes it has a similar impact as the works of a hymnal.
“I want to write songs for people that … maybe could put words into their mouths for when they pray,” she said. “That would be the coolest legacy I could see.”