ETBU senior pens original worship song

Hannah Hopkins, a senior at East Texas Baptist University and Texas Baptists’ 2024 Prestidge Endowment Music & Worship Scholarship recipient, transferred to the school in spring 2023 with a passion to lead worship.

She’d heard the original song “New Day” performed by Lampsato, ETBU’s worship band, and wanted to audition to be a part of the group.

Chris Smith, director of Lampsato and professor of worship leadership at ETBU, said Hopkins “impressed us with her audition.” That same day, she was invited to sit in on a Lampsato practice, where she said she “felt really at home.”

Encouraged by her experience at the band’s practice, Hopkins inquired about changing her degree plan from music education to worship. Smith said it was “the Lord’s providence” that Lampsato provided her an opportunity to pursue her passion for worship.

“She [joined Lampsato] the next spring, and she just fit in immediately with our culture, with the friend group,” Smith said. “She’s just an extraordinary student, an extremely talented musician, and so even though she was a transfer student … it feels like she’s always been here.”

Creating “Clothed”

Each academic year, Lampsato works on a recording project, complete with “a couple of covers, maybe an original or two,” that is recorded and released on music streaming platforms in the spring. Smith said the purpose of the recording project is to allow students to exercise their creativity.

“We really encourage students [that] this is a place to write original music, to be creative. When we think about scientists saying the universe is constantly expanding in all directions, I think it’s because being a creator is an attribute of God. He cannot not create, and when we create, we are acting in the image of God,” said Smith.

“So while we certainly don’t shy away from covering other great worship songs at all, I really try to push a creative element into this [project].”

In March, the band started to toss around ideas for an original song to add to their most recent project.

“I just started thinking to myself, ‘Man, I really wish I could write a song.’ I’ve always wanted to do that. And I’ve always prayed that that would be something that the Lord might gift me with, but I’ve just never been able to. So, I just thought to myself, ‘I’d really like to write a song,’” said Hopkins.

She started brainstorming song ideas and remembered one she’d written down previously. This idea would become “Clothed,” the original song she led at Texas Baptists’ 2024 annual meeting in Waco.

“When I got the idea for ‘Clothed,’ I was reading this daily Bible reading plan … and I was in Genesis three, and when I read Genesis 3:21, it said that the Lord took garments of skin and clothed Adam and Eve.

“This was after they sinned in the Garden, and I was like, ‘Man, that’s amazing that God—we turned away from him and we made ourselves enemies to him—and literally the first thing he did was seek out Adam and Eve in the garden and clothe their shame … and gave them that grace that they needed,” said Hopkins.

Hopkins noticed a theme of being clothed throughout Scripture.

“I feel like I hear that a lot in the Bible that God clothed us in different ways, and I started thinking of, you know, he clothed the lilies, and he clothed us in righteousness. And, he clothed us in glory in Revelation. I was thinking through all those things, and I just thought, ‘Man, that would make a good song,’” Hopkins recalled.

She said she had never written a song before, so she “didn’t think anything of it.”

“I heard my friend [who was a songwriter] say one time: ‘If you ever have an idea, just write it down. You might come back to it one day.’ So I did. I wrote it down, and I wrote the Scriptures down that I thought of, and I left it alone for a couple of months until the song kind of came to fruition later,” said Hopkins.

Since “nothing had really come up” for an original song for the recording project, Hopkins decided she was going to try to write “Clothed.”

“I just started typing it out on my notes, trying to figure out the words to this song. I spent that day in class and the next day in class, and I wrote the whole thing in my Notes app on my phone while people were chatting back and forth,” Hopkins explained.

The next week, Hopkins played the drafted song for Smith. He said, “There was so much potential from the very beginning,” and suggested that it be added to the project.

 “It wasn’t long after that we played it for the band, and they were just in love with it, but we had to refine it a little more. So we’re in rehearsal, we got out a big whiteboard, and we’re writing down lyrics. ‘What’s another way we can do this phrase’ or those kinds of things,” explained Smith.

“We spent several weeks just tracking the song in our rehearsals, and then several weeks into the summer creating some final mixes until we felt like we got it just right so we could release it on Spotify and YouTube. Then, we debuted it at our student-led night of worship back in the spring on campus, where all of our worship bands come together.”

A reminder of God’s provision

Lampsato was invited to lead worship at Cliff Temple Baptist Church in Dallas in April, where Hopkins first led “Clothed.”

In February, Tom Tillman, director of Music & Worship at Texas Baptists, had extended the invitation for the band to lead worship at Texas Baptists’ annual meeting in Waco.

Tillman heard “Clothed” at Cliff Temple and spoke highly of the song, so Smith was confident it had to be included in their setlist for annual meeting.

Hopkins said she was “excited and touched by people’s engagement” with her song at the annual meeting.

“I never expected people to enjoy it this much or relate to it this much. You know, you’re your own worst critic, and so I didn’t ever expect it to get the exposure that it got. I just expected it to be Lampsato’s recording song and then move on from there. But people just really grabbed onto it, and I was shocked,” said Hopkins.

Hopkins said she is “so glad that the Spirit is working through that song,” and she’s “impressed with how God is using it,” because it was “the Spirit who gifted [her] with the song.”

“I tell everyone that it was not me who wrote that song. I’ve never written a song before, so I’m pretty convinced that it wasn’t me who pulled this song out. I’m pretty convinced that it was just the Holy Spirit speaking through the Scriptures to me and giving me those words,” said Hopkins.

Tillman said annual meeting attendees were “obviously really moved by the song,” as he received positive feedback after Hopkins led the song.

“It was a proud moment for me, since this was the year Hannah had received the Prestidge music scholarship that helps worship studies majors at Baptist universities prepare for leading in the church,” said Tillman.

Smith said the reception and feedback from attendees who connected with “Clothed” is “one of the highlights of [the song’s] existence.”

“We heard so much positive feedback,” both in person and on social media, Smith said. The song has been streamed more than 1,000 times on YouTube and Spotify.

Hopkins’ hope is that “Clothed” would serve as a reminder of “God’s provision for us and how he keeps his promises from the very beginning.”

“He’s going to provide for our spiritual needs, and he has since the beginning of time. He hasn’t failed to do that yet, and he won’t,” Hopkins said.

Smith said he hopes the song communicates the “unbelievable message of the gospel” and shows that “God is still inspiring creative people.”

“You know, the Scriptures say sing a new song. So, to let people know that God is still inspiring people of all ages, of all genders, to write for his glory, I would love for people to take that away,” Smith said.

He said the song’s creation shows the fruit of Texas Baptists’ investment in the worship program at ETBU. Smith hopes Texas Baptists recognize students “are learning the gospel, and it is being proclaimed through our program.”

Hopkins said her Lampsato bandmates were a “very integral part of making this song” and of her “journey as a worship leader.”

“If I had to [summarize] what Lampsato is into one sentence, it’s really just a family of believers with a common goal of leading God’s people into worship, and I think that it’s a really special thing to be a part of,” Hopkins said. “To get to do that is such a privilege.”