Tony Cummings reports on the short but powerful ministry of Grammy-nominated ALL SONS & DAUGHTERS

All Sons & Daughters: Tennessee's renowned worship duo call it a day

The announcement that the Grammy and Dove nominated duo All Sons & Daughters (singer/songwriters Leslie Jordan and David Leonard) are going their separate ways brings to an end a short but highly creative contribution to the modern worship movement. All Sons & Daughters songs "All The Poor And Powerless", "Brokenness Aside" and "Great Are You Lord" (the latter being much sung in numerous churches reaching the top 20 of Christian Copyright Licensing International) have received wider church acceptance while the duo's albums for integrity 'Season One' (2012), 'Live' (2013), 'All Sons & Daughters' (2014) and 'Poets And Saints' (2016) have all sold well.

But after a trip to Europe in 2015 where, with Jamie George, the pastor of the duo's church - Brentwood, Tennessee's Journey Church, they were able to trace the lives of giants of the faith such as CS Lewis, Jon Newton, St Teresa, St Francis, William Cowper and others, things began to slow down for the pair. The 'Poets And Saints' album by AS&D and the book by Jamie George inspired by their perspectives of the poets and saints of the past didn't produce, as some might have expected, a Poets And Saints world tour. In fact 2017 saw AS&D take a year off from touring.

On 9th February an update from All Sons & Daughters was published on the band's website. It read:
"Dear friends & family,

As you know, we took last year off the road to rest, pray and dream about what was next for All Sons & Daughters. We spent the first half of the year wrestling through the initial shock of being off the road after seven years, celebrating 'Poets & Saints' at the Grammy's, and diving in to our individual dreams and plans at home. Each time we came together to talk about the future of All Sons & Daughters, we struggled to gain a clear picture. Since the beginning, our music was birthed from and written for our local church. While David is still involved with Journey church, last December Leslie and her husband Thomas felt led out of that community. With that as our reality, we were struggling to find the heartbeat for new music. And while we could continue to write songs for the "global church," we feel that is not true to our original vision for the band.

So, after much prayer and consideration, we have decided that our season as a band has come to an end. This decision was not made in haste or out of any discontentment with one another. We still have the utmost respect for each other and will continue to champion one another into whatever the Lord calls us. Our involvement in music and in one another's lives will not wane; it will just look different from the previous season.

We want to say thank YOU for your unending support of the music and content we have created over the past seven plus years. We didn't anticipate many of the opportunities we were given but just tried to walk in obedience through each open door. Many of those doors led us to your cities, neighbourhoods and churches and we are so grateful to you for welcoming us with open arms! Lastly, in celebration of our season together, our friends at Integrity Music will be releasing a collection of AS&D songs, so be on the lookout for that in March.

We pray that God will continue his beautiful work in the church and we can't wait to see what the next season holds.

With love,
Leslie Jordan & David Leonard" CR

The opinions expressed in this article are not necessarily those held by Cross Rhythms. Any expressed views were accurate at the time of publishing but may or may not reflect the views of the individuals concerned at a later date.