Music has always been an integral part of my life and the life of my husband, Devin. Whether we have always been “good” at music is another thing altogether (haha).
Devin grew up in his family church singing in the choir, playing drums, and eventually playing keys and directing that same choir. While I grew up in church, I didn’t initially exhibit the skill or promise necessary to do what we do now. The joke is that I’ve wanted to sing since I was 6 or 7 but I was so bad at it that my pastor-dad would not let me join the choir. We laugh at it now and he always says “boy, was I wrong!” I have been leading worship at our church for 14 years now.
Fast-forward a decade and a half from when we were kids, and a cute little love story unfolds that brings DASH (Devin and Ashley) together. From the beginning of our friendship, we focused on glorifying God through music. We would spend lots of time writing songs and worshiping. Devin would teach me how to play keys (oh what a patient man!). So, the beginning of our existence as DASH was very formative and organic.
WATCH: Devin & Ashley Gray Interview
During these times, while the dream was to eventually record music, we just focused on the love we had for being in His presence and doing what He had given us gifts to do. So, we sang and played with different worship groups at various churches and events, which gave us the opportunity to grow and mature spiritually and musically.
After we were married in 2012, we decided to begin working on releasing worship songs. Much of what we wanted to be released had been written a couple years prior to us going into the studio. We felt pretty confident that the process would be smooth and painless…wrong! Things were not coming together and we quickly realized that it was not yet time for us to travel down that road. It is always better to be in God’s timing than to try to make something happen in our own time frame.
In the same year that we attempted to record the worship music, Devin and I launched Ascension Worship Conference. We both had such a hunger for God’s presence and we loved leading His people in worship. In our travels, we had encountered a lot of teams and individuals who were interested in learning more about worship and needed the tools to serve better in their local churches. This in mind, we began the conference in 2012 and have seen the change it has brought about in so many lives and churches—this year will be our fifth year. To worship God is the reason we exist as humans; any time we get to help facilitate this purpose is a blessing to us.
What is also a blessing to us is that we have been able to release our freshman worship project, God of Wonder.When we released this project last year, it had been such a free-flowing process. God literally breathed on everything that concerned the project and He made it happen. The payoff has been huge, because this compilation of songs is a testament of what happens when you allow God to mature you and make things beautiful in His timing. More than that, just the fact that we have been given the opportunity to use these songs to lead people into such powerful times of worship has been so humbling.
From the upbeat, surrender-theme, Lead the Way, to the glorious chant in the title track “God of Wonder,” this album is Christ-centered. You can listen to lead the way below:
We wouldn’t have had it any other way, because in the end, all of this is about Him, not DASH. We are just thrilled to be a part of what He is doing in the earth through worship and look forward to our conference next summer! We would love to see you there.
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