For Jake MacAdam, the story behind Source of Life begins amid sleepless nights, tight finances, and the demands of raising three boys under five with his wife, Megan. The songwriter and worship director speaks candidly about the pressures of supporting a family through full-time ministry-and the searching question that made him reconsider the legacy of his pop-rock music with Irving Ave. Across this three-song EP, those deeply personal concerns become invitations to trust Jesus, find lasting joy in His character, and carry worship into everyday life. In the interview below, Jake opens up about the surprising prayer he brings into difficult seasons, the truths he wants his children to inherit, and the responsibility of writing words that entire congregations will sing.
Q: Jake, your new EP is titled Source of Life. What does that phrase mean to you, and how does it capture the central message running through these songs?
A: I'm so privileged to be a dad to our 3 boys (all under 5 yrs old), and I've been married to my lovely wife Megan for 6 years! As you can imagine, there have been many sleepless nights and long days as we're raising these precious littles. We're also a single-income full-time ministry family and have felt the squeeze & the stress of really tight finances for our entire marriage. I once heard it said that you find out what's really in a sponge by squeezing it. The sponge might look fine unsqueezed, but pressure reveals all sorts of things that you never thought you'd find inside. Something I often pray for is for more of that pressure - more squeezing, more refining, more revealing sin so I can purge it. One thing about a prayer like that is you can 100% of the time expect God will answer that prayer!
But why in the world would we ask for something like that? Well... the point of life is not to have a good life - the point of life is to be more like Jesus and less like ourselves! It's in that place when we're brought to the end of ourselves, and we see our sin for what it is, that we really take on a right posture before the Lord. Apart from Him, we are an absolute mess! We're lost in our sin, weak, broken, needy, and guides to our own downfall. We learn that we were never really that self-sufficient to begin with anyway! It's specifically through trials that the Lord refines us and teaches us to go to HIM for daily bread. If you're reading this, I don't know what you're going through right now, but James 1:2-4 tells us that our trials are DOING something in us. They're PRODUCING something in us that's actually making us more like Jesus and less like ourselves.
I remember Charles Spurgeon said it this way, "I have learned to kiss the wave that throws me against the Rock of Ages" It's a kindness of God to let us walk through seasons that force us back into His presence to sit at His feet! Those are the things that get our eyes off ourselves, off of the world, and fix them solely on the Lord. Now THAT'S what is actually best for us! It's what we truly need, and it's how we shout to the world that we're living for another world! My hope for these songs is that they point you to Jesus - the Fountain of Living Water. I hope these songs help you cast yourself onto His character and find deep, lasting joy in Him! Deeping our joy in God plants a kind of spiritual root system that runs deeper than any hurricane that life could ever throw at us.
Q: You began by writing pop-rock music with Irving Ave before turning your attention toward songs about Jesus. How can listeners hear that musical history-and the changes in your spiritual priorities-throughout Source of Life?
A: Yes! I remember so clearly after my oldest son was just born and I became a dad - everything in my life completely changed! I remember having somewhat of an existential crisis thinking "if i was to die right now, what would my new baby boy have that he could remember me by? He would have some pictures, stories that my wife would tell him, and a bunch of angsty rock songs!" And I remember asking myself, "is that really the legacy of my life that I want to leave behind?" For me the answer was no! I would want, so much more, for him to have all these albums I wrote filled with songs about Who God is and what He's done to save us in Christ!
Now I have 3 boys and I love that they would be able to listen through those and hear these truths about Who God is and what He's done, and just savor every precious promise that He's given us in His Word. I would want my boys to be able to listen and sense that "my dad didn't play church. This was REAL Life to Him. This was the daily oxygen for his soul. This was REAL to Him. Jesus saved my dad's life and He was everything to him." That's why I switched from pop rock music to worship music! I think you can hear that genuine relationship with the Lord and reverent heart of worship in each of these 3 songs. But more than that, I hope these songs help serve every listener by giving them language to join in these songs of whole-hearted praise and also deep earnest prayer. Knowing and following Jesus should infiltrate every corner of our lives, every hour of our day, every task that we set ourselves to. I hope that listeners are inspired toward that posture of whole-life worship.
Q: Worship songs do more than express personal emotions; they also place words about God into the mouths of congregations. How did that responsibility shape the lyrics and theology of Source of Life?
A: I think there are a lot of songs out there about worship. It's much harder to find worship songs that are about GOD. There's absolutely a place for expressing how we feel and crying out to the Lord, I don't want to diminish that. However, I really want to people to see that what our souls really need is God. If you're drowning in anxiety, if you're battling chronic illness yet again, if you're being persecuted for your faith, and whatever else - what you really need is to remind yourself of the sovereignty of God, the boundless strength of the Lord, the peace of Christ that surpasses understanding, the omnipresent God who never leaves us or forsakes us, our Comforter and Friend who is closer than a brother, the unfathomable reality that we've been saved from our sin, the boundless joys of knowing God. It's when we preach rich biblical Truths like these into our hearts that we receive everything we've been longing for. I don't want to just write nice songs for people to listen to that give them a window into how I'm feeling. I want to write songs that help me (personally) cling to the Lord amid whatever I'm going through, preaching the gospel to my own heart, and reminding myself of the greatness and power of our God. That's ultimately what I most need in my life as a follower of Jesus, and I hope that sets a tone or creates an atmosphere for others to join in worship as well.
Q: As both a songwriter and worship director, how do you decide whether a song is merely meaningful to you personally or is something the wider church can genuinely sing together?
A: As a full time worship director at our church, I'm always on the lookout for songs that will help us sing the gospel together, and hide God's Word in our hearts through song. I sort of carry that with me whenever I go to write my own worship songs. I'm always trying to make them both lyrically rich but also really easy and beautiful for people to sing - that's the type of song that I'm always looking for when leading worship at my church. My greatest passion is writing songs for congregations to sing together. That's my number one goal when writing & releasing songs and it's genuinely what brings me the most joy! I write all of my songs from a place of personal, intimate, prayerful worship, but I release them into the world so that they can serve people beyond just me! I hope that my songs help serve worship pastors as they prayerfully determine what songs would serve their churches. But at the same time, the most precious letters I've received are from individuals (rather than worship pastors) who've told me how a song I've written has richly blessed them and deeply encouraged them in a critical season! So I definitely leave the intended audience to the Lord.
Q: What do you hope someone who feels spiritually empty, distracted, or uncertain will discover about Jesus while listening to Source of Life?
A: I hope people listen to this EP and remember that knowing and following Jesus is literally the only thing that matters in life. Nothing else will last. Everything else will let us down, leave us empty, and distract us from the final Goal of our souls. Jesus is the Treasure that never fades, He is King forever, there are boundless joys in knowing Him more and more that we will never get to the end of. He alone satisfies. Knowing Jesus is the single greatest purpose of life, and the single greatest joy of life!
