"So many songs we were writing and singing in church were full of lyrics describing the different aspects of Holy Spirit and lifting a hunger for more of Him in our lives. That’s where the title Pneuma came from, as it’s the Greek word for 'wind, breath, spirit, an invisible force.'

This album is full of songs of our need for the Spirit Of God but also songs of vertical praise and worship to The Lord. That’s always been the heart of our house, that we would have life changing encounters with God that would then lead us to lift up a praise that He alone deserves, and we pray this album does that for all who hear it."

- Andrew Holt

Congrats on the new album! This may seem like an obvious first question, but tell us about the title’s name for this project: what it represents and how it became a central theme for The Belonging Co writers.

Absolutely! As a team we never set out to write songs for a specific album, but rather we are focused on writing songs for our local church here in Nashville, TN. So because of that we don’t start out with an album title or theme and then write songs around that title, but rather allow God to highlight a common thread throughout the songs after we’ve chosen a group of songs for an album.

When we started looking at the songs for this particular project it became very obvious that a strong theme was that so many songs highlight the different aspects of The Holy Spirit.

So we decided to call it “Pneuma” which is a word defined as ‘wind,’ ‘breath,’ ‘spirit,’ ‘an invisible force’ in the Greek New Testament.

Some of these songs were written recently, and some were written years ago. Tell us why they all fit into this one particular record.

Yes some of these songs were written over the past year and a couple of them even date back all the way back to the early days of our church almost a decade ago. Which is really incredible to think that although these songs were written over the span of a decade there is still a common thread between them all.

I think ultimately what ties them together as well is that they were all written for and from our church community. Our goal as songwriters is always to be in the flow of what God is speaking and how he’s moving in both our church here locally and also the Church globally and then write songs from that place.

How have these individual and collective encounters with the Spirit spurned on the heart and mission of The Belonging: that these life-changing encounters with God would lead you to lift up a praise that He alone deserves?

It’s been so encouraging to hear how these songs have done exactly that for so many people in our church already as we’ve been singing them week to week.

Two of our main goals as a worship team are one, that we would lead worship in such a way that invites people into deep encounters with The Spirit Of God that would change them from the inside out, but also, more importantly, we would lead them to a place of giving God the praise, honor, and worship that he alone deserves.

I believe when we do, those two things take place the mission and heart of our church is advanced because the people are changed and reminded of who their God is.

“The Dove,” the first single from the project, feels particularly special. The dove is one of the symbols of the spirit. Why was this symbol intentionally chosen for this song?

Yes this song has felt so special since day one!

I actually had the title “The Dove” written in my notes on my phone for a little while and didn’t have anything else other than I knew it would be a song about the Holy Spirit. I had told Cody (Carnes), Kari (Jobes), and Austin (Davis) about the idea and when we got together to write we started reading and referencing the different times throughout scripture that a dove was referenced and how that it actually had a common thread from the beginning of creation all the way to Jesus.

We wanted to paint this beautiful picture that it’s always been God’s plan to give us the Holy Spirit to live within us.

The Spirit of God isn’t a mystical far off thing but rather a person who comforts, convicts, and helps us everyday. Our prayer from day one was that it would tangibly show people the power and gift of the Holy Spirit and lead them to an encounter with that power.

Pneuma was recorded over two nights at you all’s home church. Tell us about your congregation’s responses to these songs and what you hope the response will be now from congregations around the world.

This was actually the first time we’ve intentionally set aside nights to record new songs as the other albums we’ve released were just recorded at our weekly services or conferences, so it felt really special to gather to worship and capture these moments.

You could tangibly feel the expectation in the room on both nights because people had come ready to worship and intentionally taken time out of their lives to be in the presence of God. There were both moments of deep encounter and then moments of high praise, moments of intimate worship and also moments of dancing and shouting.

Our prayer is that these songs would lead other people and congregations into those same expressions of worship, and that God would use them to change and equip the global Church!

The Belonging Co