By Andrea Bailey Willits
“Let not the needy, O Lord, be forgotten. Nor the hope of the poor be taken.”
In the car or with a congregation, the opening lines of “O, the Love of Jesus” rise to fill the air: clear, steady and communal. This isn’t just another worship song written in a studio. The lyrics and melody represent the collective voice of a diocese learning to sing together.
“O, the Love of Jesus” is the work of a newly-formed group of C4SO songwriters and worship leaders, and the first single from their inaugural project, Christ Is Enough. Written by Ben Kilgore of Cornerstone Tulsa and Greg LaFollette of Christ Church Anglican in Kansas City, “O the Love of Jesus” released September 25, 2025 and marks the official debut of C4SO Music, a creative initiative drawing together worship leaders and songwriters from across the country.
The track does not merely proclaim the love of Jesus; it exhorts the Church to embody that love.
“We wanted these songs to be prayers,” LaFollette says. “Not the kind of music that asks people to watch, but the kind that invites people to join.”
“I love the heart of this song, this prayer to have the loving heart of Jesus, which the world so desperately needs,” Kilgore says.
“Create in us clean hearts, O God.”
The story of C4SO Music began in the rolling hills of Middle Tennessee in September 2024. At the invitation of Bishop Todd Hunter, seven worship leaders gathered at an AirBnb in Nashville’s trendy 12th South neighborhood for the first-ever C4SO Songwriters Retreat, funded by a grant from Creo Arts.
“If the whole person is what is in view in spiritual formation—and it is—then we need the arts,” Bishop Todd says. “We need music that speaks to and interacts with elements of our being in a way that no other mode of communication can.”
Participants came to the retreat with notebooks, guitars and a willingness to see what would happen.
“We honestly didn’t know what the fruit of the retreat would be,” recalls Micah Huebner of Christ Church Anglican in Kansas City, who helped organize the event. “It was an experiment. But by the end, it was clear something had happened—something rooted in both creativity and calling.”
The goal of the retreat was practical as much as spiritual. In a diocese where over half of the worship leaders are part-time or volunteers, finding new songs that fit Anglican liturgy can be daunting.
“Choosing songs for Sundays can be one of the most difficult and time-consuming jobs for a musical worship leader,” Huebner says. “Our hope was to create something that would make that work lighter—songs that are easy to sing, easy to lead and theologically grounded.”
That vision shaped the songwriting process itself. “We weren’t writing for radio,” LaFollette explains. “We were writing for living rooms, for sanctuaries, for voices that might be tired by the end of the week.”
“O, the love of Jesus, give us your heart.”
For Rachel Dabreu, worship leader at Redeemer Community Church in Atlanta, the retreat was a threshold moment.
“I was nervous,” she admits. “I drove up to Nashville thinking, Who am I to be here? These songwriters have written for years. I had some experience, but nothing like that.”
What she found was collaboration instead of competition. “Co-writing turned out to be a beautiful example of the body of Christ working together,” she says. “One person might bring a melody, another a lyric, another a theological thread—and somehow, the Spirit stitches it together.”
Shared vulnerability, she adds, becomes the soil for creativity. “Songwriting requires trust. You rely on your co-writers, and on the Spirit, to show up.”
By the retreat’s final day, Dabreu, LaFollette and Micah Dalton—worship leader at Immanuel Anglican in Atlanta—had written Hope, Peace, Joy, and Love: an upbeat Advent song that, as she recalls, “just felt like a gift.”
“When we played it for the group, everyone started clapping along,” she says. “Bishop Todd said, ‘We have an Advent song!’ That moment felt like true worship.”
“We are surrounded, O Lord, by the broken.”
For Huebner, Christ Is Enough is as much about formation as it is creation.
“Artistry in the Church has often been either romanticized or neglected,” he says. “We wanted to reframe it as something deeply pastoral. Songwriting isn’t just performance—it’s intercession. It’s taking the groans of a community and giving them a melody.”
LaFollette took this conviction into the studio as producer of the record. He made the recordings organic, congregational and unvarnished.
“One of our goals was to make songs that actually work in church,” he says. “We kept arrangements simple, limited instrumentation, even recorded congregants, so that anyone listening could imagine themselves singing along. The sonics reflect the intent.”
“Bless the humble and the lowly… give us grace to be the blessing.”
The humility of that line—lifted from the song’s bridge—captures the ethos of C4SO Music itself. Rather than a brand or industry venture, it’s a liturgical experiment in generosity.
“These songs are for anyone drawn to beauty, to Scripture, to community,” Huebner says. “Our dream is to see a growing network of songwriters who can help the Church sing its own story again.”
In September 2025, exactly one year after the first Songwriters’ Retreat in Nashville, the second annual retreat took place at Christ Church Anglican in Kansas City. Once again, worship leaders and songwriters from around the country gathered to collaborate on fresh, Scripture-based, accessible songs for the Church. The retreat dovetailed with the release of “Speak to Us Now,” the second single from Christ Is Enough, highlighting Kilgore’s soulful vocals.
For Kilgore, one of the highlights of these retreats has been his new friendships within C4SO.
“I now feel connected to these worship leaders and writers from all over the country, sharing in this holy labor,” he says. “I’m grateful to Bishop Todd for calling us artists together for the sake of others. He cast vision and then showed up to join us in the work.”
From this camaraderie has emerged a collective of writers, leaders and musicians who offer their craft as a gift to the diocese and the world. Participation is the heartbeat of C4SO Music: It does not ask the Church to consume. It asks her to sing.
“God is doing something new with the artists and worship leaders in our diocese,” LaFollette says. “And this—this is just the beginning.”
Find C4SO Music’s first release “O, the Love of Jesus” here and their second release, “Speak to Us Now,” here.
The full album, Christ Is Enough, will release later in 2025.
