A Conversation with Fernando Ortega

by Matt Conner

Fernando Ortega, one of Christian music’s most beloved artists, is known for his heartfelt story songs and timeless hymns. A three-time Dove Award winner with 22 albums, he’s been a faithful voice in the church for over three decades. In this Rabbit Room conversation, Ortega opens up about recent creative struggles, the clichés he avoids, and the challenge of crafting a new album—a difficult but hope-filled journey of rediscovery.

Matt Conner: You’ve told me you have a few singer-songwriter songs in the works, but I’d love a full update there. Where are you at these days musically? What are these songs gearing up for?

Fernando Ortega: That's a good question. I've been in a serious writer's block, which happens a lot. And the older I get, the harder it is to come up with fresh ideas.

I will say, I am writing. I have five songs toward a new record that I hope to have done by the end of this year. And I really like the five that I've written. So, it'll be five singer-songwriter songs and then maybe six or seven devotional songs that kind of make everything weave together.

So I'm in that process. I've been working on a song with Jeremy Casella and Doug McKelvey, who's just a great lyricist and such a great thinker. Yesterday morning, I was making breakfast, and a song popped up—I think it was on Twitter or X—and it was Jon Guerra. Do you know him?

Matt: Oh, yeah.

Fernando: On his new album, Jesus, the first song on there, which is from John 1, I just got so emotional listening to it. It was so, so beautiful. The lyrics were so thoughtful and original.

You know, we tend to, in Christian music, fall on the same old clichés over and over again—you know, "it's your grace," "it's your mercy"—and those make it into every song. Jon Guerra’s music… it was a discovery for me yesterday. I hadn’t listened to him before, but it was so inspiring that it made me really want to sit down and focus on lyric writing. He’s quite a lyricist.

Matt: Can I follow up on something you just said? Christian art can fall into these tropes—these familiar refrains. It sounded like you admired artists who find ways around that or who are thoughtful about avoiding that. Is that true? And if so, is that a goal for you, too?

Fernando: It's always a goal and a challenge to say things that haven’t been said the same way—to not just fall into cliché. That’s the challenge. We have a vernacular that we speak in this current age.

In the '80s, it was a whole different kind of thing, but I was intrigued by looking back at John Donne’s poetry or other writers—even church fathers—who expressed ideas that we're very familiar with but expressed them in a way that we just don’t do now.

That’s always a challenge, but that was what happened yesterday when I found Jon Guerra’s music. “Oh, wow. Those are sentiments we all know, passages we’re all familiar with. But this is said in such a new way.” I want to produce music like that.

This is a general rule I’ve always thought was true: the older a songwriter gets—I’m 68 now—you kind of lose an edge, almost like a fire or passion that gets tamped down with age. There’s a jadedness in me now—with the political climate and some of the climate in the Church—that wears me down. You start to lose your desire to fight for ideas that are golden and true, things that shimmer when you hear them.

Matt: That makes sense.

Fernando: I feel like I’m kind of in that battle. My voice won’t last forever. My voice is still working, and I think I sound okay, but it won’t last a whole lot longer. So now I feel this kind of pressure inside to put out stuff and leave behind some kind of legacy.

Matt: That’s an interesting position to hear you say you're in. You say, "Man, with age, there’s this waning fire that is"—you used the word—"tamped down." Yet also with age, hopefully, comes wisdom to know how to handle certain things. Even as that’s what you're dealing with, what have you learned, practically speaking, about how to protect that fire—how to push back against that tamping you're describing?

Fernando: Well, I haven’t fought back like I need to. But I think one of the main things for me is reading—reading books by people who say things in clever ways. Not only clever, but... when you asked how to approach it, I think the way for me to get the fire back would be to read great writers.

You have to surround yourself with people better than you, and I’ve kind of fallen off that. I’ve become such a political junkie, spending so much time on social media. I find myself feeling empty at the end of the day, fighting with people about politics. It’s just such a rabbit hole.

I feel like there’s this constant admonishing from the Holy Spirit—telling me to pull away from that stuff and seek a more contemplative life than what I’ve been doing these last couple of years.

Matt: You mentioned Jon’s music. It sounds like discovery is an antidote for that.

Fernando: Yeah, I agree. I heard Marilynne Robinson on Ezra Klein’s podcast the other day. She was talking about beauty. I listened to that thing maybe three or four times. It’s like an hour-and-10-minute conversation. There was so much to glean from her—about how she spends her days reading some German theologian from the 1500s. I couldn’t believe all the stuff that was in her mind—so fresh. She could recall and quote all these things.

I felt the same writing with Audrey Assad a few years back. We worked on a song called “Jesus, Bread of Life”, and I was really surprised at her command of the Church Fathers. She’d say, “Oh, there’s that beautiful poem by...” someone, and she’d quote lines from it. And I’m sitting there like, “Oh, yeah, remember that one episode from Gilligan’s Island?”

Matt: [Laughs] That’s not at all what I expected you to say, by the way.

Fernando: [Laughs] I know. I know. It's only partially true. But I was just amazed by that.

Matt: For the most part, your music has been in this devotional music category, for lack of a better term, but now you have these singer-songwriter-y songs. Is that something you’ve avoided for a while? If so, has that been a purposeful, intentional avoidance?

Fernando: Yeah, that’s a good question. I have a daughter who’s 16. She’s quite the keen-eyed observer of life. She said a couple of years ago, “I’m pretty sure you’re ADHD.” I had never thought of that, but I think it’s true. I mean, I’m not going to go get diagnosed now—I’m old, who cares—but I do think that’s been a hindrance all my life. The ability to sit down and concentrate, to find a kernel of an idea and go after it. I get so distracted.

I remember when I lived in California, I was married back then. There was a guest bedroom where I set up my desk and wrote songs. I wrote a ton of songs in that room. But I noticed that if there was a painting or photograph on the wall, I’d get distracted. Eventually, I put up blackout curtains and took everything off the walls. I think I got that from a Flannery O’Connor essay where she talked about getting rid of all stimuli. She was ferociously disciplined—writing at set times, taking walks, hanging out with her mom.

So, that’s the long way of saying: songwriting has always been a challenge for me because of my inability to focus. I’ve muscled through it all my life. I’ve written many songs I’m proud of, and plenty I’m not. But with age, I’ve lost that stick-to-itiveness to press through whatever’s hindering me.

Just last night, I was sitting on the edge of my bed before I went to sleep, and I started weeping. I said, “Lord, don’t let me lose this gift that you’ve given. Rekindle it in me.” I shed a few tears over it. So here we are and I’m hoping that today will bring something new and exciting in the realm of music.

Matt: Do these new songs represent a level of that rekindling?

Fernando: Oh, yeah. There’s only one I wrote in the ’80s that I kind of revived. Everything else is new. I’ve been working with my songwriting partner in California, Elaine Rubinstein. We wrote a couple songs.

One of them is about my daughter. After I got divorced, I didn’t get to see my kid—she was five then—except for a few days a week. That’s just what happens when you go before a judge. Every time she would leave the house, I’d feel like I didn’t make it count. And then she was gone, and the house felt so empty because her voice was not there. It was a very hard time. There’s a song about that called “Every Time You Leave” that I wrote with Elaine, and I really love it.

There’s another one about the political climate called “The God of Small Things” or maybe just “Small Things”. I’m not sure yet. I think they’re pretty good songs. I just need to push through more.

Matt: Earlier you said, “Even last night, I’m on the edge of my bed, praying to not lose this.” It feels like there is some grief there at this point in your career.

Fernando: There’s anxiety there. I’m 68. A month or two ago, I was on a tour bus with Sandra McCracken and Sara Groves. I used to thrive in that life—we’d drive, talk all night, get up and do a show the next day. Now it’s like, “Oh my gosh, how do I get into this bunk?” Age takes a toll. So yeah, there was that anxiety last night—“Lord, please don’t let me lose what you’ve given me. Don’t let me squander it.” [Laughs] People might hear this conversation and think, “This poor, depressed old man.”

Matt: I don’t think so at all. I think they’re going to appreciate your authenticity and vulnerability. Let me ask you: could that be—for you—a new creative well? The very thing we’re talking about?

Fernando: Oh, I think so. I think songs arise out of surprising places. You set out to write one thing, and a line takes you somewhere else. I do think even this could be a well to draw from. Last night, when I was weeping, I came up with a lyric—can’t remember it now—but it was along the lines of, “Lord, don’t let me live the rest of my life alone.” Meaning alone, apart from God—feeling distant from Him. So yeah, I do think there's stuff that's going to come out of this time I’m going through.

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Fernando Ortega is a singer, pianist, songwriter, arranger, and storyteller. Trained as a classical pianist and inspired by the Presbyterian hymns of his childhood, Ortega has been influential in expanding the range of Christian music. He has devoted considerable attention to creating arrangements of early church music and hymns, infusing them with instrumental and vocal character drawn from classical, folk, and world music. His songs and writing often conjure the expansive landscape of the Southwestern United States.

Matt Conner is a former pastor and church planter turned writer and editor. He’s the founder of Analogue Media and lives in Indianapolis. You can hear more from Matt on The Deepest Cut podcast and The Resistance.

Photo by Juan Encalada on Unsplash