When the Gospel Music Association announces its Dove Awards in a couple of weeks, Pineville High School graduate Jacob Sooter might hear his name called as a winner, since he has been nominated for 12 Dove Awards.
Sooter, 44, is a husband, father and songwriter/producer who already owns five Dove Awards. He co-wrote three different songs that are nominated for Song of the Year. One of them, “Mighty Name of Jesus” (Hope Darst – artist), also nominated for Worship Recorded Song of the Year, has a verse that pierces my heart:
I will not fear, I will not fear
When the enemy comes near
On the door frame of my life
Is the blood of Jesus Christ
Oh, I will not fear, I will not fear
There’s an army of angels here
I’m protected on all sides
By the blood of Jesus Christ
“That’s one of my favorite songs,” said Sooter in a phone call over the weekend. “There’s a bit of a call back to the Old Testament and Passover, when God told the Israelites on their final night of captivity in Egypt that he would save them if they put blood on their doorposts.” That Old Testament story, he went on, foretells the New Testament story of the saving power of the blood of Jesus Christ in his crucifixion.
“Any time I can write a worship hymn that can touch people with its meaning or even provoke people to wonder about its meaning and go read about it in the Bible,” said Sooter, “I love that. I love making impressions on people’s hearts.”
Jacob is the son of Alexandria attorney Vic Sooter and his wife, Molly, a concert pianist. He and his sister, Katelyn Parks, learned how to pay the piano at an early age. He focused more of his time to tennis while at Pineville High School, where he graduated in 2001.
One of the premier Christian songwriters around is Matt Maher, and Sooter said he met him by happenstance when he was 17.
“I was this Baptist boy asked to help with the (Catholic) Steubenville Youth Conference at the Coliseum,” he said, because he was the only young musician in the area who had a particular piece of equipment they needed, “and I was thrown onto the stage with Matt Maher, which was awesome. He couldn’t have been nicer, and he was my neighbor for 11 years in Nashville.”
His opportunistic situation at the Steubenville Youth Conference was followed by another such situation a few years after he graduated with a bachelor’s degree in music from Millsaps College in Jackson, Miss., in 2005.
He stepped in as a fill-in keyboard player for Jeremy Camp, the contemporary Christian artist who, at that time, had already had 32 number-one hits.
He excelled in the role and ended up staying on as a formal member of Camp’s touring team for two years (2007-08). This major milestone professionally also was huge personally. While on the road with Camp, he met his future wife, CCM artist Meredith Andrews, (also a multiple Dove Award winner) whom he married in 2008.
Not wanting to continue the on-the-road lifestyle of a single man after his marriage, Sooter in ’09 become a full-time music director and worship leader at Harvest Bible Chapel in Chicago, launching his career as a songwriter and producer.
“Meredith is a worship leader, a writer, a speaker, she’s written a book,” he said. “There’s never been any competition with me about writing. She’s been waving my flag.”
Meanwhile, he and Meredith have had three children: Maverick, 16; Remy 13; and Frankie, 11.
“Raising my kids, in this wild and crazy world we’re in, where there’s a lot of fear,” said Sooter, “I want to do right by them in teaching the truth. ‘Do not fear’ is a message that’s in the Bible 365 times – one for each day of the year. I’ve had lyrics pop in my head, such as those to “House of Miracles.”
Jacob co-wrote and produced that song with worship artist Brandon Lake, who released it in 2020. Sooter played the piano, an acoustic guitar and synthesizers during the recording.
“I wanted that to be like our family ‘Coat of Arms’ – what we stood for,” he said. “If you had to have a musical Sooter ‘Coat of Arms,’ it would be what we stand for as a family. The ‘House of Miracles’ song is essentially a prayer for every home and heart to become an atmosphere where God is present and healing happens.
Sooter also thinks of his many co-workers as family.
“My peers, my co-workers, co-producers – everybody is pulling for everybody,” Sooter said. “It’s like (team) sports; it requires everyone to work together. I think of it as a brotherhood and sisterhood. And there are times when you wait and wonder about what to do next, and all of a sudden, God is like, ‘OK, now you are going to do it.’”
Part of that fraternity he said he was privileged to encounter early in his songwriting sessions included Jason Ingram, Paul Baloche and Tom Douglas. Ingram has written a slew of hits, including “You Say” and “Look Up Child” for Louisiana’s soulful singer and songwriter Lauren Daigle of Grammy Award fame. Baloche has written perhaps the most songs that have been performed in worship services across the country, and Douglas is a country music songwriter whose hits include “Grown Men Don’t Cry” by Tim McGraw and “I Run to You” by Lady Antebellum.
“After working with those three, God was like, ‘OK, now you’re a songwriter.’”
He is nominated for Songwriter of the Year (non-artist) and Producer of the Year. He has the second most Dove nominations, and one of the three songs nominated for Song of the Year, “I Know a Name” (Brandon Lake – artist), was nominated for a 2026 Grammy. Joining that and “Mighty Name of Jesus” among those nominated for Song of the Year is “Can’t Steal My Joy” (Brandon Lake – artist).
And the hits just keep right on coming.
(Other Dove nominations: Rock/Contemporary Recorded Song of the Year – Sevens (Brandon Lake); Worship Album of the Year – So Be It (Live) – Elevation Worship; Pop Contemporary Album of Year – King of Hearts (Brandon Lake), Mount Zion (Josiah Queen); Walk Through Fire (Ben Fuller); Spanish Language Album of the Year – Asi Sere (Elevation Espanol).
