Bio

Common Hymnal is a virtual hymnbook and living library of songs, stories, and ideas from the spiritual underground — work shaped by worship, justice, lament, hope, and the theological imagination of communities often overlooked by religious and cultural systems.

It began as a song library and publishing home, but grew into something wider: a rallying point for conscience-driven writers and artists whose work was often too raw for the religious industrial complex, but deeply needed by people trying to tell the truth, voice dissent, worship honestly, and find hope without looking away from the world as it is.

Common Hymnal is the root of the wider commons now stewarded by Common People, the parent nonprofit. As that work has taken shape, Common Hymnal remains its original song library, publishing home, and theological anchor. Its Christian-facing work continues under the Common Hymnal name.

In a wider era of upheaval and polarization, as shifting religious, political, and cultural currents have pushed many creatives to the margins, Common Hymnal has made room for work centered on life, justice, worship, lament, hope, and underground spirituality.

As the work deepened, Common Hymnal helped give rise to Common Exchange, the label and distribution arm created to carry this growing catalog with greater care. Live invitations followed, and these songs began traveling into rooms, justice spaces, churches, theaters, gatherings, and public life.

The intentionality of the lyrics has always been central, especially the heartbeat for justice. These songs are not trying to escape the world. They carry worship, lament, hope, protest, and a stubborn belief in liberation and human dignity.

Common Hymnal is not merely reacting to the cultural conversation. It is helping reframe it — bringing work born in the margins into shared life, and shaping a movement oriented toward repair, courage, and the common good.

Common Hymnal remains a hymnal in the deepest sense: not a fixed group, not a genre, and not a brand to be consumed, but a living library for songs that carry praise and protest, grief and joy, memory and repair. It exists to make room for work born in the margins and help that work move through the world without losing the integrity of the communities, convictions, and relationships that formed it.

Soundbytes

“Because of its clarity of message and refusal to sanitize truth, Common Hymnal has naturally aligned with the broader justice movement. From racial justice to gender equity, decolonization to ecological awareness, the songs provide a soundtrack for those working to birth a more humane and just world.”

“The image of a ‘spiritual underground’ evokes the early church under Empire, the hush of mystics in the desert, and the creativity of oppressed communities that birthed liberative theologies. This isn’t just a hiding place; it’s a laboratory. A forge where liturgy becomes protest, theology becomes poetry, worship becomes resistance, community becomes revolution.”

“The elephant in the room is White Christian Nationalism. What we’re seeing is not just a distortion of the gospel - it’s a wholesale replacement of Jesus with Caesar. It's the worship of power under the guise of piety. The cross has been weaponized. The flag raised as idol. And yet, that very contrast clarifies the moment: those moving into the underground aren’t opting out of faith - they’re rejecting a counterfeit.”

“The word common runs through our work by design - rooted in the older meaning of the commons: shared ground, collectively stewarded, protected for use rather than owned for extraction. Our work unfolds across multiple entities, each with a specific role, but all held within a single shared commitment - to safeguard creative labor, cultural memory, and moral imagination for the common good.”

Song Sampler

Seasons
[Jan] New Year’s Resolutions No More Wasted Years
[Jan] MLK Day When Will We Overcome, Be Love
[Feb] Black History Month God Of Color, My History Is Black
[Mar] Women’s History Month Get Up, Girl
[Apr] Easter Passover
[May] AAPI Month Big Enough
[Jun] Juneteenth Jubilee
[Jun] Pride Come To The Table
[Jul] Independence Day Stars and Stripes
[Aug] Summer Sunrise2Sunset
[Sep] Gospel Music Heritage Month God Will Prevail
[Sep/Oct] Hispanic Heritage Month Baila
[Nov] Get Out The Vote Rocks
[Dec] Christmas Mothers And Shepherds

Reasons
Caring For A Terminally Ill Loved One For The Time We Have
Celebrating A Win Born A Champion
Gun Violence Prevention T-Shirt Man
Healing From Church Abuse You’re Not Wrong
Healing From Sexual Abuse He Has Time
Processing Hardship No Vacant Thrones
Processing Trouble Our Pride, Do You Feel It, Too?
Responding To Forced Production In Church Services Show Us What’s Real
Responding To Racism The Medicine
Responding To A National Disaster Rise Up
Reflecting On The Sermon On The Mount The Kingdom Is Yours
Sneak Peek Of A Live Show With Tracks Dress Rehearsal for Live Free Tour
Sunday Morning Worship Yahweh Holy, Before We Put Our Trust In Human Kings / Exalted

Genres
Afrobeats Not Gonna Worry
Classical Crossover God Is Not Abusive
Gospel God Will Prevail
Hip Hop Seat At The Table, Emmaus Cypher
Latin Pop Baila
Negro Spirituals Walk With Me (Otis’ Dream)
Reggae Irie (Sound Mind)
Singer-Songwriter Lines
Soul I Wonder
Spoken Word I Don’t Know Justice, America’s Gospel
World Music A Time, Kama Si We