Brunes Charles is already an award-winning artist. The musician, singer and songwriter is nominated for more awards including a Grammy nomination for “Best Gospel performance/song” for his writing on “Church” featuring Tasha Cobbs Leonard and John Legend. Charles shared with CBN News’ Studio 5 the story behind his Grammy-nominated song.
“Who would have known? I don’t consider myself a writer. I had the music side, the producing side. But in terms of like writing a song, I never saw myself as writing a song. And so, one day I just decided to own it. Like, hey, I may not be able to write like you guys, but I can paint a story, and I can give different concepts, and I think by doing it more, I eventually got better. And now I’m nominated for the first time ever as a writer for writing a song that Tasha Cobbs and John Legend are on.”
“I literally could cry just sitting back thinking of how far God has brought me. And I listen to John Legend all the time on the radio, and I play his songs on the piano, and I’m talking to you and I’m like, I wrote a song that he is singing,” he continued.
After finding out about his nomination, Charles wrote a transparent message of reflection on his social media. He wrote that while he didn’t see himself as a songwriter, God did. He said God took every insecurity, every moment of doubt from him, and covered it. He further stated that grace has a way of qualifying you for what you thought was beyond and that he learned to let God be God. He shared with CBN News’ Studio 5 why that resonated with him.
“It was a hard lesson for me to learn because I would say not up until a couple of years ago. I would walk in the room that God would place me in and try to do it myself. The more I surrendered to God, it gave me a better picture of why am I in these rooms? And what’s the assignment in these rooms? When I walk in? Is it to be, is it to come up with the most words? Or is it to just be who I’m supposed to be and let God just shine through me in that? And once I figured that part out, everything else became easier. Like we would come in the rooms, and we would just be like, hey, what are you going through today? And that would be a song, you know? And just like church, we walked into the room, and I was just like, man, how is everybody feeling? And from that conversation, the idea of (the song) ‘Church’ was birthed,” he said.
Charles shared what lines in the song stood out to him the most.
“Teach us how to have church on a Monday because church is easy on Sunday. It is. And the hardest day is Monday when everything goes back, you got to worry about work, life, kids, environment, the world. I think church has a way of it’s almost an escape from reality. Once you leave those four walls, it’s a different story, and you got responsibilities and other things that you have to answer to. And so, we were asking for the same grace that we find and the same peace that we find on Sunday. Like, how do we find that on Monday?”
“Church is really good on Sunday. But what about Monday? What about Tuesday? What about Wednesday when you got to go through the week? And that’s where that’s the life for me. Teach us how to have church on the hardest day. Not when it’s easy,” he told CBN News.
The 2026 Grammy Awards Ceremony airs Sunday, February 1st on CBS.
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