The monumental EveryPsalm project is now complete. Nearly three years after they started, Poor Bishop Hooper (Jesse and Leah Roberts) this week released the project’s final song, “Psalm 150” (watch an exclusive premiere video performance below).
Starting in the first week of January 2020, Jesse and Leah recorded and released a song each week, working steadily through all 150 psalms. Now, 150 weeks later, they’ve completed what amounts to one of the most impressive musical achievements ever in contemporary Christian music.
My faith has been so enriched by this collection of songs, which includes one song for each biblical psalm and an entire 22-song album for Psalm 119. If you or your church hasn’t already utilized this rich resource, here are a couple of suggestions for where to start:
Download the EveryPsalm playlist on Spotify and play it in the background as your drive, work, or simply rest in your home. We put the playlist on shuffle in our household occasionally—allowing the beautiful sounds of the Psalter to fill our home (and our children’s developing hearts) with biblical prayers and praise.
Use it as a musical supplement to your daily devotions. If you’re going through a Bible-reading plan where you daily read a psalm, for example, listen to Poor Bishop Hooper’s rendition of the psalm after you read it.
Create smaller playlists of your favorite psalms. As you listen to the full EveryPsalm collection, pull out the ones you like best and add them to your own playlist—perhaps including other Bible-based songs from artists like The Corner Room, Sandra McCracken, Liturgical Folk, Psallos, Verses, and more.
Consider having your church host Poor Bishop Hooper to do an all-psalms concert.
If you’re a musician, let this project inspire you to create your own musical takes on the psalms.
I interviewed Poor Bishop Hooper at the beginning of the project, in the middle (as part of The Gospel Coalition’s Behind the Song podcast series, watch below), and now at the end. Watch their beautiful, brand-new performance video of “Psalm 150” (embedded below) and then check out our new Q&A.
What are your emotions as you complete the EveryPsalm project?
We’re swimming in a whole lot of emotions right now. Primarily gratitude to the Lord for his tremendous mercy, grace, and providence to get us through to the end. But also there’s surprisingly more sadness than we anticipated. EveryPsalm has been such a steady and beautiful part of our family’s rhythm for the past three years, and we certainly feel some sorrow seeing this season pass!
What did you learn about God by doing such a deep dive into Psalms? What did you learn about Psalms?
The importance of the psalms as they pertain to the greater biblical story is astounding. Seeing how they’re written into and out of the specific stories of David, Israel, and others—and how they inspire and connect the New Testament to the Old—is so fascinating. From Jesus quoting Psalms more than any other book and applying them to himself, to then witnessing the prophecies therein fulfilled, it’s such a powerful and important book! Beyond that, one of the key personal takeaways is the importance of being brutally honest with God. Psalms has taught us how to lament well, remember well, cry out well, and praise well amid any of life’s moments and seasons.
If you could make a “highlights” album out of the EveryPsalm collection of songs, which 10–12 songs would you include? Which stand out to you as songs you’re particularly proud of?
This is a super hard question! We each have a bunch of different songs we like, often influenced by personal moments with the Lord. But we’ve done our best to pick a few songs that we think stand out.
Psalm 14 (Wisdom)
Psalm 30 (Praise)
Psalm 56 (Lament)
Psalm 76 (Praise) Jesse’s current favorite . . .
Psalm 78 (Remembrance)
Psalm 94 (Lament)
Psalm 102 (Lament)
Psalm 104 (Praise) Our kids’ favorite!
Psalm 119 – Nun (Wisdom)
Psalm 128 (Wisdom)
Psalm 136 (Thanksgiving)
Psalm 145 (Praise) Leah’s current favorite . . .
Psalm 146 (Praise)
Worth mentioning: Psalm 1 and Psalm 150. Maybe it’s our sentiment, but we feel the Lord gave a special grace for the first and last songs of the project, and we wanted to highlight them!
Do you have plans to share the EveryPsalm songs in a live concert format?
We do, ish . . . We’ve been praying and seeking the Lord’s guidance on how we might share some of the music from EveryPsalm with others in “live” settings. We’ve been blessed to sing the songs with our family, with our home church, and in a few other teaching and community settings along the way. But we’re excited to see how the Lord might have us steward this music unto others. If you have any interest in hosting some sort of EveryPsalm event or want to explore what this might look like along with us, we’d love to hear from you! You can contact us through everypsalm.com or send us an email at poorbishophooper@gmail.com.
How can we thank you for this monumental artistic achievement and devotional treasure trove? Can listeners who are blessed by EveryPsalm support your ministry financially?
We are so grateful for all who’ve prayed and partnered with our ministry along this journey! If you’d like to help us continue stewarding EveryPsalm and create more Scripture-based music (like our other projects Golgotha and Firstborn), we’d appreciate your support. We are overwhelmed by the beautiful testimonies of the music’s impact from around the world, and your gifts will allow us to continue giving all the music, art, and writing away for free. If you have questions or want to check out our other resources, visit poorbishophooper.com.
The Gospel Coalition