“Oh give thanks to the LORD, for He is good, For His lovingkindness is everlasting.”
— Psalm 107:1 (NASB 1995)
A Trip to See Petra with Family
I had the wonderful opportunity this weekend to see the Christian rock band Petra live in concert in Milford, Ohio, at a church called House of Restoration.
The nine-hour trip was made with my younger sister and mother on the occasion of my mother’s recent birthday and our shared appreciation for Petra and the way God has used their music in our lives.
This was my very first time seeing the band in concert, and my younger sister’s first introduction to the band and their music.
Spoiler: She loved it! In fact, a new word has been added to her limited vocabulary. She now keeps saying “Petra.” Mission accomplished.
I wanted to mark the occasion and express my thankfulness to the Lord for His wonderful kindness. As the refrain in my favorite Psalm 107 goes:
“Oh give thanks to the LORD, for He is good, For His lovingkindness is everlasting. Let the redeemed of the LORD say so, Whom He has redeemed from the hand of the adversary.”
My mother and sister are two incredible blessings of God to me. My mother has been a steady encourager throughout my life and an example of remarkable perseverance and patience, having raised seven kids. My sister likewise is a blessing, a bundle of continual joy and silliness.
It was such fun to have a weekend together that culminated in an awesome time of worship and rock!
I also feel fortunate that God has blessed me over many years through the music of Petra. I count their music as having made a significant impact on my faith and even as one of the inspirations for this project.
It was wonderful to finally see them in concert after roughly 30 years of listening!
I even got to shake hands with each of the current band members and say thank you as part of a very affordable VIP meet-and-greet package.
I was very nervous.
It was pretty cool! They were all very kind, and I was grateful for the opportunity to express my appreciation.
An Unexpected Blessing: A Question Asked and Answered
A few days before the concert, House of Restoration provided an opportunity for everyone who purchased VIP tickets to submit a question for the band to answer as part of a live recording of a podcast episode.
I would guess there were at least 60 people at the VIP event before the show. The email explained that all submitted questions would be reviewed and that submitting a question was no guarantee it would be asked.
Naturally, I took the opportunity!
Given my project and my appreciation for Petra, I was eager to hear their thoughts on artificial intelligence and AI-generated music, particularly in relation to Christian faith and worship.
I had been thinking about the parallels between some of the objections Christians have raised about AI-generated music and the objections Petra themselves encountered when they began using rock music for Christian ministry.
In fact, Petra’s own website reflects on their history of encountering Christians who said rock music could not be used for the Lord or for worship. I wondered whether their experience might offer some wisdom for thinking through the present discussion.
As it turned out, in an extra blessing, Pastor Brian Shuttleworth of House of Restoration graciously selected my submitted question as part of the interview!
And here is another reason for me to be thankful. I appreciated the simple blessing of having my question considered and discussed by members of one of my favorite bands.
Perhaps in the future I will do the responsible and scholarly thing and carefully break down what was said, when, and by whom, and offer a little written commentary and consideration of my own.
A lot was covered in a short space, with grace and humor, and I am excited to revisit it. I thought they offered some good thoughts, and I look forward to hearing the discussion again.
[Assuming video is posted online, I intend to provide a link to it here in this blog article.]
Update 10/14/2026. Here it is!
Overall, I find the entire topic of AI, music, and faith fascinating.
From my seat as a non-musician, techy sort of guy, I perceive that at this particular moment in history we have two rather unique worlds of Christian creative exploration coming together (some may say colliding!): the music side of the house and the techy side of the house.
This creates some interesting opportunities to explore how God works through people and how we are each wired a little differently for the good works He has prepared for us.
Of course, I don’t expect us all to agree on everything about what is happening right now with AI, the nature of AI itself, or the nature of AI-generated music.
But with love, humility, and a willingness to listen, I think we have a special opportunity to press further into the upward call of God in Christ Jesus and grow together in our knowledge of the Son of God as we mature as His church.
It is my hope that the question and the band’s responses give this discussion a little more room to grow, with some input from folks I know to be thoughtful people.
As for the experience itself, I think I was somewhere near what people call cloud nine.
And then came the concert. That was about cloud ten.
And getting to experience all of this alongside two of the coolest people in my life?
I may have reached some kind of simulated third heaven. LOL.
October 11, 2026 — Project Update
I suppose I am due for a bit of a status update on the Augustinus Vox project and the upcoming Monica album.
Monica and More Than She Asked
In case you weren’t already aware, we recently released a simulated live version, or as we like to call it, an ALIVE version, of a song titled More Than She Asked.
The upcoming Monica album will feature the studio version of this song.
The setting for the ALIVE version is our very own Des Moines, Iowa.
For me, Des Moines is my Jerusalem of sorts, my immediate context. I enjoy dedicating my robot music to the place that has so shaped and blessed me. VOX001 and the rest of the robot band seemed to really enjoy it, too.
The song grew out of another question I had been considering: What might have been Monica’s favorite Bible verse?
That question led me back to Augustine’s account of his mother’s joy at his conversion and his reference to God’s ability to do far more than we ask or imagine.
That said, I think we are still some time away from releasing the full Monica album. I am giving it some room to breathe while exploring other sides of the project.
Monica, or Saint Monica as some know her, is a pivotal person in Augustine’s life, and he has much to share about his mother, especially in Book 9 of his Confessions.
As such, I have quite a few songs for this album.
And, as happens with AI tools, things change fast!
The editing tools Suno provides have progressed to the point where I can now make actual word changes to songs without the entire song getting messed up. This is a wonderful development!
I think the newer studio tools will allow me to finalize the remaining tracks and make some decisions about the album’s final selection.
I also wanted to allow more room for different creative angles.
This additional time for consideration has helped me develop five more tracks to explore, including a song about Augustine’s reflections on his mother’s wisdom, drawn from their time at Cassiciacum; one about the elderly servant woman who positively influenced Monica when she was a child; another, called Still at the Fountain, that tries to capture Augustine’s reflections on his mother’s church attendance and devotion, which I think offer a wonderful Christian example; and, of course, More Than She Asked, concerning Monica’s reaction to Augustine’s conversion.
There is also a revisit of what I like to imagine may have been one of her favorite hymns of Ambrose, which we call Creator of All.
Still at the Fountain — A Song in Consideration
Of those songs, Still at the Fountain has been especially on my mind since the Petra concert.
It draws inspiration from Augustine’s reflections on his mother’s devotion and her relationship with Ambrose, the bishop of Milan.
Augustine initially came to hear Ambrose preach largely because he was interested in his skill with words. His attention was first drawn to the eloquence of the speaker rather than the truth being spoken.
Monica, on the other hand, already loved the Lord and eagerly received the teaching of the Church. Augustine tells us of her affection for Ambrose and the role he played in his journey toward faith.
In the song, I wanted to explore something about Monica’s continued hunger for God’s Word. Here was a woman who had walked faithfully with the Lord through many difficulties, yet she was still eager to listen, still learning, and still growing in faith.
She had not reached some point where she no longer needed to be taught.
The chorus puts it this way:
Still at the fountain
Still humble, still made new
The deeper that she walked in faith
The more she thirsted for You
I love that idea. The longer we walk with Christ, the more we might come to recognize just how much we still have to learn and receive from Him.
It is a song about Monica, certainly, but also something of a prayer for all of us.
It remains one of the songs under consideration for the album, but I thought it would be fun to share it here, especially given how this weekend brought it back to mind.
AI Experiments, Studies, and Some Unexpected Discoveries
In other news, I took a full dive into a top-tier AI plan for a couple of months and paired that with the use of some open-source AI tools.
Back in August, I had arrived at an interesting place where I felt I had so many ideas that were continually getting held back by usage limits.
Since I feel like I meet God here in this project, and that He is teaching me through it, I decided a little leap-of-faith experiment was in order.
So I committed some additional disposable cash to exploring the limits of these tools.
The result?
I built out the study app, developed a radio pilot, translated numerous works of Augustine and Ambrose with AI assistance, and generated audiobooks from many of those translations.
I also added some rather silly pages to the website.
I believe I now have enough translated content to keep me exploring for a few years, and I hope the study tool will help with that exploration.
It is kind of wild to think about everything that has come together in such a short period of time.
These tools really do augment creative ideas.
I even went down a little textual rabbit hole, exploring how to display the provenance of ancient texts so I could trace my own AI-assisted translations backward to actual Latin sources, and potentially further back to surviving manuscript witnesses.
There is always another door to open.
Check out Against the Academics in the study app to see more of what I mean.
That particular rabbit hole also led me to an intriguing discovery: there is a manuscript containing what some scholars have suggested may actually be surviving handwriting from Augustine himself!
It is a fascinating possibility, though not something we can claim with certainty. I added a note about this possible Augustine autograph near the top of the Support page.
I love these kinds of unexpected detours. You begin working on one thing and suddenly find yourself learning about ancient manuscripts, the transmission of texts, and how scholars try to determine what someone actually wrote more than 1,600 years ago.
Augustine, the Catholic Church, and a New Album Experiment
I also began working ahead into Augustine’s On the Morals of the Catholic Church and generated a draft album inspired by the work that I really enjoyed.
It is a fascinating treatise Augustine wrote after his mother’s death, as he was examining his former religious convictions in light of his newfound faith in Christ.
The work is commonly paired with another treatise called On the Morals of the Manichaeans.
Manichaeism was the religious system Augustine had followed before his conversion to Christianity.
One of the major aims of these works, as I understand them, is to contrast the Christian moral life with the teachings of Manichaeism. What especially stands out to me in On the Morals of the Catholic Church is Augustine’s emphasis on living a life of love in Jesus Christ.
And yes, he is also correcting some of his old religious buddies along the way!
I did have to pause for a moment over the word Catholic in the title.
I am aware that those of us from Protestant backgrounds can sometimes get hung up on that word to the point that we never engage with works like this.
I think that can be a modern Protestant problem stemming, at least in part, from a lack of familiarity with our own history.
Augustine was writing long before the Reformation, and understanding what he meant by the Catholic Church requires entering his own historical and theological setting.
So, if that title caught you off guard, perhaps it is a good occasion for a little education!
The ALIVE Experiments
Additionally, I keep tinkering with simulated live albums.
To me, these are a really fun way to learn and engage with the material beyond the music itself. The tools continue to improve, making these experiments more and more possible.
My idea is to provide multiple ways for people to engage with the material, depending on what suits them best.
Augustine can be a bit of a challenge to read and understand, so I think it is helpful to provide different entry points.
I have been imagining something of a progression: someone encounters a song, visits the song page to learn about its meaning and inspiration, perhaps reads a study article, and then eventually explores the audiobook or original text to dig a little deeper.
The ALIVE versions are something of a fusion of these different experiences.
They bring together music, storytelling, historical context, humor, and reflection in a way that I find especially enjoyable.
I really do think of these versions as something like peak Augustinus Vox.
Below is a sample of my most recent experiment in this vein. I thought it turned out rather well though with some areas for further improvement.
ALIVE EXPERIMENTAgainst the SkepticsALIVE in Des Moines · Draft 6Listen on Suno
And Then There Is Minecraft…
In sillier news, we have also started exploring how to bring our robot experiment into other media.
You may have noticed the game section on the website.
Well, I sort of went off the deep end there.
I created what amounts to an Augustinus Vox and Augustine-themed amusement park inside Minecraft.
What began as a friend’s request for a Minecraft server for some youth in our church youth group somehow turned into a full-blown, silly adventure involving amusement park rides inspired by the project and the life of Augustine, at least up to the point we have explored so far.
The world comes complete with little “Mini Vox” robots, as I call them, who wander around saying lines from our songs.
They even swim in the ocean.
There are rides, themed attractions, a giant Vox statue, and an even bigger glowing cross.
I also included a small, touching tribute to my late friend, whom we called The General.
His unexpected death, and my reflection on his life in the midst of grief, were significant catalysts in moving forward with the Augustinus Vox project. I wanted to remember him in this strange little world as well.
One of the amusement park rides even culminates in a full-blown robot concert where Minecraft versions of the band perform one of our ALIVE songs to an audience of anthropomorphic household appliances, CRT monitors, and other robots.
Yes, you read that correctly.
I intend to share the world so folks can join in and explore it themselves.
It is a really silly thing, honestly, but I also think it is educational and, in some places, even touching.
I tested it out with my brother and nephew, and despite a fair number of bugs, they seemed to really enjoy themselves.
At least when they weren’t busy destroying the attractions.
I keep wondering whether there might be something here worth exploring further in terms of creating shared experiences around the project.
Who knows?
Still at the Fountain
As I reflect on this past weekend and everything that has been happening with the project, I keep coming back to that song, Still at the Fountain.
It was watching Petra perform that brought it especially to mind.
Here were these guys, decades into their musical journey, still playing rock music, still singing about Jesus Christ, and still demonstrating such a wonderful enthusiasm for worship.
After all these years, they were still at it!
And what a joy it was to see.
There I was, some 30 years after first listening to their music, enjoying the songs with my mother, watching my younger sister discover Petra for the first time, and feeling something of that same joy I had experienced so many years ago.
It reminded me of what I had been trying to express in the song about Monica.
Here was a woman who had walked with the Lord for many years, endured hardship, prayed persistently for her son, and yet still came eagerly to hear God’s Word.
She had not exhausted the goodness of God. She was still thirsty for more of Him.
The bridge of the song expresses something I hope will be increasingly true of my own life:
O Christ, the spring that cannot fail
The Truth no age outgrows
No faithful soul becomes too full
To drink where mercy flows
Keep me as teachable as she
Still listening at Your feet
I suppose that is part of what I found so encouraging about Petra’s continued enthusiasm. Not simply that they are still making music after all these years, but that there is still a visible joy in what they are doing and in the Lord they are singing about.
And I find myself wanting something of that same spirit.
To keep listening. To keep learning. To keep rejoicing in the goodness of God, even as the years pass and life brings its various joys and sorrows.
I don’t imagine that every new technology or creative experiment is necessarily a good thing. Certainly, there are plenty of questions still to work through when it comes to AI and music. But I am grateful for the opportunities these tools have given me to explore the Scriptures, to engage with Augustine and other Christians who have gone before us, and to share a little of what I am learning along the way.
And I am grateful that God has given us such different gifts, interests, and abilities through which we can encourage one another.
Some of us play guitars. Some of us sing. Some of us write, teach, build things, or tinker with computers.
And some of us apparently build imaginary robot amusement parks.
There is room for quite a variety of people in the household of God!
But whatever our gifts and whatever our tools, I hope we never become so occupied with the things we are making that we lose sight of the One who gives us every good gift.
The fountain isn’t the music. It isn’t the technology. It isn’t even the wonderful people through whom God has encouraged us.
It is Christ Himself, the living source of the truth, mercy, and goodness we are learning to receive.
That brings me back to Psalm 107 and the reason I wanted to write this post in the first place.
I am thankful for my mother and sister, for the kindness of the folks at House of Restoration, for the opportunity to meet and hear Petra, for the music that has encouraged my faith over so many years, and for the unexpected doors God has allowed me to explore through this rather unusual project.
I am thankful for the friends and family who have shaped my life, including those I now remember with both sorrow and gratitude.
And I am thankful that after all these years, there is still more to learn, more to discover, more to enjoy, and more reason to worship.
Perhaps the song’s final communal chorus captures something of my hope for this project, and really for all of us:
We are still at the fountain
Still humble, still made new
The deeper that we walk in faith
The more we thirst for You
So here we are.
Petra is still rocking. My sister is still saying “Petra.” The robots are still singing. And I am still discovering new things to be thankful for.
Still learning.
Still listening.
Still at the fountain.
“Oh give thanks to the LORD, for He is good, For His lovingkindness is everlasting.”
— Psalm 107:1 (NASB 1995)
