Mike Slattery: First off, thanks for taking the time to review and look at the project. I appreciate your time and efforts. I started writing songs and leading praise in high school, and even then I wanted the songs to be Scripture-centered. I always felt the need to include the biblical reference behind what I was trying to express in my own words, so people could challenge what I said, or at least see how I was seeing the Scripture.

I guess that groundwork has always been part of my musical expression. I never really felt like lyrics were complete without Scripture behind them, even if it was just one reference. Outside of a few parody-type songs, I have never had much desire to write something that was not Scripture-based or that was only my opinion.

Later, as I became a head pastor and my focus on original language study grew, that same approach carried into my teaching. By that time, I had stepped away from music for many years and was refining how I studied and presented the Word of YHWH on a weekly and biweekly basis.

Then came October 2022, on the first day of the Feast of Tabernacles, when my first grandson was born. I had already been writing music again that year, but that season changed the weight of it for me. I wanted to provide a fuller experience that went beyond entertainment. I did not want songs that were praise songs only, but songs that were doctrinal and sound. At first, I wanted to provide more than lyrics and a Scripture reference. I wanted to present the case I had found in Scripture itself and give people tools to verify it for themselves, whether they agreed with me or not.

I did not quite have it completely in 2022, and I think I mishandled some of the early '22-'23 work in the sense of pursuit and presentation. I believe I have found a solution here in 2026, and I am taking assertive steps to put the structure in place for discipleship and discourse to occur.

Mike: Yes. This is not primarily entertainment, even though I hope some people find it enjoyable. It really is about discipleship and fostering biblical discourse among believers.

I do not want to put barriers in front of people studying the Word. If even one person comes across the music or the study and is challenged to look beyond dogma and directly at the Scripture, whether that confirms something or turns them away from something that is not biblical, then mission accomplished. The goal is not to make people agree with me. The goal is to put the Word in front of them and invite them to search it honestly.

Mike: The song itself was written after I had finalized the music in 2023. It started as a riff in C# minor with rhythmic strumming, and it felt like a fun funk-influenced rock song.

The lyrics came after I heard “Rich Men North of Richmond” in the summer of 2023. What Mr. Anthony said resonated with a lot of folks, and I understood why. My response was, why give government that kind of power over what Scripture directly charges us to do for one another? For me, it became a “Render unto Caesar” moment. It felt like we had offloaded our sacred charge to love our neighbors onto systems, parties, candidates, and government power. I did not want to render that charge to government. I wanted to claim it back for the Ecclesia of Yeshua the Messiah.

The horns were the brainchild of master producer George Hillman of Uniquitous Music. George produced, mixed, and mastered the entire project. I come from the 70s and 80s school of long hair coolness, which taught me, “Thou shalt have guitar, drums, bass, singer, and if necessary, cowbell. And Mike thought it was good.”

George took my original demos, guitars, bass, and vocals, and he produced an amazingly fun song that still carries the mission: edify one another by becoming the people our mothers raised.

“Mother” is twofold in the song. First, no one’s mom raised them to be a complete jerk to the people in their community. Second, there is the formative instruction given to us through YHWH’s Word: hear Him, serve others, and love them beyond the idea of self.

George was more than a producer on this project. He was a creative partner and someone I trusted to remain faithful to the scriptural integrity of the songs.

Mike: The song as a whole speaks to the biblical tenet that we are declared justified, and that justification is not something we can earn. We often fall prey to following what we feel, but feelings can be very deceiving. The question becomes whether we will trust the declaration of YHWH through Yeshua over the internal voices and feelings that may testify otherwise.

Accusation is a tool of the enemy. If we receive the voice of accusation over the declaration of YHWH through Yeshua, we are taking spiritual cyanide. It poisons the logic of Scripture, which says atonement has been made for us, and replaces it with the compromise of trying to take that task back onto ourselves.

That is where the two tokens of crucifixion come in: the crown of thorns and the spear to the side. The line is asking, “Are you going to wear a crown of thorns and take a spear to your side, then?” You can die for your own sins without that struggle already. Justification is about life. The familiar lie is that you can never be justified before the perfect law of Elohim. But the gospel declares something greater than that accusation: if you receive that the Savior died and rose again, you are justified.

Mike: Yes, The Resuwreckers was my attempt at being a four-piece rock band. That was the 2022–2023 material. The mishandling I mentioned earlier was connected to that project. The original five songs were all based on Amos, and I was going to call it the Amos Project. Very original, I know! The songwriting was well-founded in Scripture, but my first return to music after an extended hiatus produced an outburst of songs that were not all thematically connected. There was also a bit of overindulging in the rock side of things. On top of the five Amos songs, there were six unrelated songs, and that became “Tzuwr Sheryim: Rock Songs in the Key of Bible Nerd.”

Looking back, I think instead of waiting on the Spirit, I carried most of it forward in vanity and pushed the whole project through with no other voice but my own. That was one of the key reasons I sought out George Hillman as a producer for this project. I needed to learn how to become a steward of the music, not just a creator or owner of it.

So the 25–26 project, “Conflict, Faith, Responsibility and Worship,” allowed me to stick to a theme and build around it a website where the songs could do more than stream. They could carry the message and prompt a listener to study.

I later went back to the original five Resuwrecker songs for the Amos study, and I think I accomplished much of what YHWH was wanting me to do with it, though the music itself could have been better. I may revisit that music at another time and repair that part of my vanity excursion as well.

Thank you for asking about The Resuwreckers. It was and is an important project to me.

Mike: DeeperInTheRoot.org is where I post deep-dive devotional studies, sermon devotionals, and study material. One current study is a 16-week devotional called “Character Counts: Contrasting Saul and David.” It looks at how two men can receive the same anointing and come to entirely different outcomes. It is about putting on godly character and learning to recognize what that actually is in the language of Scripture. All of that material is free.

Our church is about challenging ourselves in the truth of YHWH’s Word, not only in English, but also through the Hebrew and Greek. Our language carries so much embedded cultural understanding and tradition that it is important to look at the original languages in a Berean-type of way, so that we can examine and challenge what we have inherited.

Our services are on the seventh-day Sabbath, and we do observe the biblical feast days, trusting that Yeshua died once and for all for the remission of sins.

Mike: That at least one person would challenge themselves to dig deeper into His Word.

If one listener hears a song, reads the study, opens the Scriptures, and takes one faithful step toward YHWH, then the project has done what I hoped it would do. Thank you again.