Recording artist and worship leader Kari Jobe said “hope is back” as she returns to the stage following two years of uncertainty amid the dwindling COVID-19 pandemic.
Later this summer, Jobe and her husband Cody Carnes will embark on a 13-city tour with Elevation Worship. The series of concerts is slated to kick off in Grand Prairie, Texas, on Aug. 5 and will end at Radio City Music Hall in New York City on Aug. 21.
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The tour came together last minute, Jobe recently told CBN’s Faithwire, saying she just received a call from Elevation Worship leader Chris Brown, who asked if she and Carnes would be interested in hitting the road together.
“I’m thankful we can all be together again,” she said of the upcoming tour.
While she’s undoubtedly eager to travel to cities around the country, Jobe acknowledged she and Carnes have had to be intentional in working to balance their marriage and parenting alongside ministry.
Carnes and Jobe — who married in 2014 — share two sons, Canyon and Kingston.
“It’s a daily thing,” Jobe said with a laugh after being asked how she negotiates life’s responsibilities. “We’re so thankful for the Holy Spirit and just thankful for being able to hear the Lord’s voice and just navigating, ‘God, where do we give our yes? Where do we give our no? How do we parent and be married and be artists and serve in our church?'”
Jobe went on to say they have found “such joy” in serving in multiple ways but noted she and Carnes are “learning how to protect family time” amid all the opportunities presented to them.
“I don’t know if we’ll ever have the answer,” she admitted softly, “but we kind of go season-by-season with it.”
The “Revelation Song” singer said she learned from friends and fellow musicians Jonathan David and Melissa Helser to ask God “where His invitation is in something because everything sounds amazing, everything sounds good, but is it a God thing for us in this season or this moment?”
“So Cody and I really adopted that, [asking], ‘Lord, are you inviting us into this tour? Are you inviting us into this event or this album or — you know, is this just a good idea or is this a God idea?’ That’s been really helpful for us to discern, just inviting the Lord into it and having Him tell us.”
Jobe, who was raised in a Christian home and truly embraced her relationship with Jesus at 10 years old, encouraged other believers to “take the strife out of ministry” by valuing rest wherever God has called them.
That bit of wisdom is something she picked up recently from her father, Mark, who was talking with her about the Apostle Paul’s words in Ephesians 2:6, in which Paul wrote, “He also raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavens in Christ Jesus” (CSB).
“We’re seated, and when you’re seated, there’s a posture you have to take of rest and trust in the Lord,” she explained. “Take the strife out of ministry and let the Lord lead and let the Lord do what He wants to do and keep your heart in the right place.”
That message — the call to rely on God — contradicts today’s so-called influencer culture, where people are told they are in charge of their own destinies, successes, and outcomes, and that if they just work hard enough, anything they want is within reach. While there is certainly great value in hard work — Scripture calls us to diligence — it is God who ultimately charts the paths of those who trust in Him.
“This influencer thing in our culture now is like, ‘You build it, you have to do all the work, get back to the grind,’ all these things, and it’s like, ‘Wait, I don’t know that the Lord has wired us to have to do it that way.'”
Anything else?
Jobe is, without a doubt, a powerhouse in the Christian music genre.
She has racked up seven Dove Awards, three Grammy nominations, and, most recently, a Billboard Music Awards nomination for her hit song “The Blessing,” which she co-wrote with Carnes, Brown, and Elevation Church Pastor Steven Furtick.
The Texas native said she had “no idea” the song would resonate with so many people around the world.
“We wrote it two weeks before the whole shut down situation,” Jobe said, referring to the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic response in March 2020. “I just remember being like, ‘Whoa, God, you are definitely up to something with this song of just clinging to promises of the Lord in an uncertain time.'”
“It’s been really beautiful to watch the Lord use that,” she added, later noting worship music has “helped me get through everything,” so she’s grateful for the opportunity to provide that for others.
To those enduring trials of their own, Jobe encouraged them to pursue relationships with Jesus because it is “the most precious thing that anyone could do.”
“It brings a centering, and it brings a firm foundation to stand on in the midst of chaos,” she said. “The Lord never promised we wouldn’t walk through hard things. He actually says when we walk through difficult things, He will be with us, He will not leave us, He will not forsake us. So I would just encourage, if you’re in that season, cling to Jesus and even ask Him to reveal Himself to you in a whole new way because He most definitely will.”
To purchase tickets or learn more about the Elevation Worship Summer Tour, click here.
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