We recently shared the news about our band Rivers & Robots taking a hiatus. Of course, this has raised several questions about what that means for Set Sail.
Rivers & Robots has always been a central part of what we have done with Set Sail. As many of you will be aware all the income raised through the band was used to fund: missions trips, tours, outreach projects and creative content for Set Sail.
Each band member made the decision to live as a missionary, fund-raising their own salaries to support living costs throughout the journey. We have been incredibly grateful to all our financial supporters who have given generously and enabled us to sustain the band and ministry work over the last few years.
The more we discussed it as a team, the more we realised that Set Sail was really dependent on the band as the primary project, and we struggled to find a new direction that we all felt passionate about that would also fit the structure of Set Sail and how it was established. Therefore we have made the decision to bring Set Sail to a close and start again from a clean slate.
Moving forwards, we will continue to support the work of missionaries and ministries around the world through the ongoing revenue of Rivers & Robots. Our heart as a band was never to make money through the music but to use our resources to see the Kingdom of God advanced. We will therefore be prayerfully considering projects and ministries to support over the coming years.
Again we really do appreciate all the support you have shown over the years: through prayer, engaging with our content and financial support - the journey would not have been possible without you.
So, what’s next?
After 8 years leading behind the scenes in the band and 5 years running Set Sail, Nathan has decided to take this opportunity to slow down for a season and seek God before jumping into the next thing.
Nathan remains passionate about music and missions, he is very much a visionary, but will be taking this time out to listen for what the Lord is leading him into next.
Caleb is now back home in Malaysia where he is working for his church, HTBB with music production and creative projects. He’s been having a great time there, we still check in with Facetime calls and we hope to meet up again soon once things ease up a bit with travel restrictions.
Magnify Studio
The other two members in our team, Jonathan and Philip, are going on to start a new company called Magnify Studio.
This is going to operate as a creative studio working in 2 main areas:
A multi-disciplinary art studio, creating both self-initiated and commissioned creative projects - they hope to create beautiful art projects to glorify Jesus: everything from music, to short films, prints and designs.
As a teaching platform for christian creatives: they want to offer online workshops and video courses where they can really go in-depth on topics like songwriting, music production, design / branding, marketing and more, all from the perspective of using their art as a vehicle to make Jesus known.
Alongside the income through the online courses and commissioned projects, they will be launching a Patreon platform which will help them fund the company as they get things off the ground and enable them to create more self-initiated projects like YouTube videos, art, music and written pieces.
To be clear, there is not an expectation that because you supported Set Sail, you will continue to support the guys through Magnify Studio. This is, after all, a new company with a new business structure.
However if it does sound like something you’re passionate about and would be interested in helping with, they would love to extend the invitation to anyone who wants to sign-up to their Patreon platform as they launch this new venture. You can also join their mailing list to receive updates on the project through their website.
Thank You
From all of us at Set Sail - thank you once again for your support, prayers and encouragement over the years. We hope the work of Rivers & Robots and Set Sail will continue to be a blessing and that the music, videos and blog posts will continue to be a source of encouragement for many years to come.