WORKSHOP OVERVIEW
What does it look like to engage instrumental music in our everyday lives with God?
Inviting the Holy Spirit and intentionally savoring sound is a spiritual discipline and practice that can lead us into deep fellowship with God. In Engaging Sound, we want to empower you with resources to engage instrumental music. Your heart can learn to speak the language of melody and rhythm, even if you’re not a musician.
COVERED IN THIS WORKSHOP
In this course, Jonathan & Melissa Helser, Molly Skaggs, and Joel Case teach practical tools and share personal stories on being affected by God’s presence in music. This workshop will give you practical resources on emotional health, tension and relief, savoring sound, processing grief, and practicing generosity with others through the pathway of instrumental music.
This workshop includes every song from our new instrumental album, Generosity: The Sound of Cultivate.
Overview of Each Lesson :
- The Head to Heart Journey: Jonathan Helser teaches about honest prayer, engaging music to access your emotions and giving God permission to transform your inner world.
- The Clarity Winter Brings: Melissa Helser unpacks the meaning of “The Clarity Winter Brings” and shares how music is a tool for God to reframe the winter seasons of your life.
- The Father’s Song: Jonathan Helser shares about the joy of becoming a parent and prompts you to engage wonder in God’s creation through music.
- Savoring Sound: Molly Skaggs explores the art of intentional listening, connecting to God’s beauty, and what it means to let your heart have the privilege of enjoying.
- Music is a River: Joel Case leads you through how God can bring relief to the tension in your life through music.
- Generosity: Melissa Helser reveals how music can be a launchpad to let the love of God overflow from your heart into the world.
WHAT YOU'LL GET WHEN YOU ENROLL
- 3+ hours of video content in 6 lessons.
- Access to our new instrumental album, Generosity: The Sound of Cultivate.
- Downloadable PDF of the Engaging Sound prompts.
- Downloadable PDF of The Feeling Wheel (a tool taught in this course).
ENGAGING SOUND WORKBOOK
We have created a leather-bound workbook filled with writings and prompts as a resource to help you build connection with God through instrumental music and listening. When you still your heart to savor a piece of music and tune into the presence of Jesus, it has the potential to radically shift your world. This workbook will lead you through each song on our newest instrumental album, Generosity: The Sound of Cultivate.
This journal can be used as a companion to our Engaging Sound online workshop or worked through on its own.
We believe your process with God is sacred and is worth being housed in a leather book that will stand the test of time. Our hope is that this workbook would help you unpack the lessons explored in Engaging Sound in a deeper way and that it would be a home for your friendship with God as you explore music together.
ENGAGING SOUND CURRICULUM
FEATURED CONTRIBUTORS
Jonathan & Melissa Helser
Jonathan and Melissa Helser are the founders of the Cageless Birds collective and the 18 Inch Journey discipleship schools. For over a decade they have given their hearts to discipleship and empowering sons and daughters of God to walk in the fullness of their identities. For six months of the year, they devote their time to hosting camps, schools, and retreats where they teach on emotional health, friendship with God, and how to walk out sustainability with the Holy Spirit. During the rest of the year, they lead the Cageless Birds collective--a community of artists and leaders devoted to wholehearted living, cultivating the arts, and creating excellent products that inspire others to connect with the Lord. In everything they do, Jonathan and Melissa are passionate about seeing people liberated by the love of God, fully connected to their hearts, and dependent on the Holy Spirit.
Molly Skaggs
Molly Kate Skaggs lives in Sophia, NC and has been playing piano for Jonathan and Melissa since 2010. She is passionate about seeing our students encounter the heart of Jesus in personal ways and enjoys serving the 18 Inch Journey as a school pastor and worship leader. As a music teacher, she loves discipling students in the love of God and in their identity through sound and creativity. Alongside her friends and bandmates, she helps pioneer Cageless Birds’ music through songwriting, composition and collaboration by serving as a co-leader of the Music and Worship Department. In 2017, she released her first solo album entitled Overtaken.
Joel Case
Joel Case lives in Sophia, NC. He manages the Cageless Birds music studio -- producing, engineering and performing on projects -- and drums for Jonathan and Melissa. Joel is passionate about intimacy with God, songwriting and worship. He currently has completed three full length albums : Blow Over Me, Found In Love and The Joy of the Chase. During our 18 Inch Journey schools, Joel enjoys leading young adults and imparting his passion for sound through leading worship and teaching music to our 18 Inch Journey students.
FREQUENTLY ASKED
Engaging Sound is an online workshop designed to empower you to build connection with God through music and listening. Inviting the Holy Spirit and intentionally savoring sound is a spiritual discipline and practice that can lead us into abundant fellowship with the Father.
In this course, Jonathan and Melissa Helser, Molly Skaggs, and Joel Case lead you through prompts to receive God’s perspective, process emotions, find relief, practice generosity and more through the avenue of sound. This workshop is filled with practical tools, personal stories, and will lead you through each song on our new instrumental album, Generosity: The Sound of Cultivate.
- 3+ hours of video content in 6 lessons
- Access to our new instrumental album, Generosity: The Sound of Cultivate
- Downloadable PDF of the Engaging Sound prompts
- Downloadable PDF of The Feeling Wheel
- Free enrollment in "Journaling the Voice of the Lord" course
Yes, our workshops are designed to be self-paced.
You can come back to the lessons as often as you’d like.
No matter who you are or where you’re from, if you desire to experience God deeply through music and want to do the rewarding work of tending to your heart, Engaging Sound is for you.
When we still our hearts to savor a piece of instrumental music and tune into the presence of Jesus, it has the potential to radically shift our world.
Throughout Scripture, we are shown how instrumental music invites a movement of God’s presence. When Elisha was brought in to prophesy before kings, he said, “‘But now bring me a musician.’ And when the musician played, the hand of the Lord came upon him” (II Kings 3:15-16, ESV). Instrumental music opened Elisha up to the movement of the Holy Spirit and led him to prophesy.
Generosity: The Sound of Cultivate is the newest instrumental album from the Cageless Birds. As a community of creatives, we’ve taken the values we explored through written word in our Cultivate books and have captured their unique essence through music. We want to share some of the pillars of our ministry through the power of music and offer it as a meeting place between God’s heart and yours.
1 THE HEAD TO HEART JOURNEY
2 THE CLARITY WINTER BRINGS
3 FLY HIGH BUILD HOME
4 CREATIVITY UNLOCKED
5 THE ART OF CONNECTION
6 GENEROSITY
Though it is recommended to have the workbook, it is not necessary to complete the Engaging Sound online workshop.