What we sing and how we live.

Those things, I think, in some ways, have been really fractured.

So to say, let's make a new hymnal, it's a very faithful Christian practice of saying,

what are the songs we're singing, what are the things that bring us together,

and what are the things that we want to remain,

that we want to keep saying,

and that we want to say for our children and for their children?

Today's episode is part of a short series of interviews

we're calling hymn stories,

where I interview modern songwriters and musicians

about their hymns, all of which are featured in the brand new Sing Himnal, published by Crossway,

in partnership with getting music. Sandra McCracken is a Grammy-nominated, Dove Award-winning

singer-songwriter, hymn writer, and author based in Nashville, Tennessee.

Sandra, thanks so much for joining me today on the CrossFit podcast.

Thanks, Matt. It's good to be with you.

So I'd love just to start by having you share a little bit about where you're from,

where you live right now, your family, and what you spend most of your time doing these days. I am from St. Louis, Missouri,

originally, and I've lived in Nashville, Tennessee for a long time now, more than 20 years. And so I would say the big, you know, the umbrella is I do music in some form or another and writing.

But I started out with songwriting and with an interest in music from a really young age,

keeping a journal and sitting down at the piano a little bit later.

I mean, once we had a piano in our house, you know, I just

like always- Was it a real piano? A real piano, we borrowed from some friends so that I could learn

...