The gospel artist and pastor opens up about his meticulous songwriting process, the importance of focus groups, and how humility shaped his 24 number one hits.
Charles Jenkins, known to many as Dr. Chuck, is a gospel artist, pastor, and songwriter whose work has reached hundreds of millions of listeners worldwide. With 24 combined number one hits across albums and year-end singles on Billboard and Media base charts, Jenkins has mastered the delicate balance between artistic vision and audience connection.
His approach to music is methodical yet inspired, grounded in faith and refined through feedback. In this conversation, he opens up about his creative process, from the rush of inspiration to the discipline of focus grouping.
Walk us through the process of making a record from start to finish. How does it work? Do you write first? Do you listen to the sound first?
I think that each writer writes differently. My approach is very interesting because there are moments when I can sit down, I’m inspired, I get an idea, and I can sit down and start writing. There are other moments where it’s all like a, I would call it Niagara Falls, rushing waters down on me all at once. I can’t write fast enough. I hear the music. I hear the lyrics. I see the crowd singing it, imaging all in my head at the same time. It’s overwhelming, it’s exhilarating, it’s overpowering. And for me, I hear melody and lyric every time, all together at the same time.
Music, instrumentation, you know, I have the difference of pianos in my head, whether that’s an upright, or a grand piano or a Rhodes piano. I hear everything all at the same time. And I write. I get it out, and then I go to a voice recorder, and I record it. And then, right behind the lyrics, I record, I hum the music, musical direction into my phone.
And many times, I create all of the musical parts, whether it’s horns, whether it’s guitar, whether it’s strings, whether it’s whatever the instrumentation, whether it’s the drums, if it’s other instruments, shakers, or whatever it is, I get it all down, and then I connect with one of my producer friends. And I might sing it over the phone.
And it’s so funny, I’m blessed to work with many of the greatest producers in the world. And they will detect what I detect, and feel good about the idea, and they’re like, come to my house, meet me at the studio, let’s go! And in the studio, I’m very heavy-handed working with a producer vision-wise, and so I will hum out chords. There have been times where I need to drop my hand down on the piano and help cord out the direction. This way, not that way, this not that, let’s do this.
And there was one, I did a song, I remade Stephanie Mills’ Never Knew Love Like This Before. And super blessed that it was number one for the year, I think it was 2023, on Billboard. And I had the bass played three times by the legend that played the bass. Each time he played the bass, I was like, no, that’s not it. Second time, no, that’s not it.
Finally was like, come to my house and tell me exactly, give me the direction. And I went and hummed it out. I ended up talking to one of the members of Stephanie Mills’ team. She’s like, we’re gonna add your baseline to our show. And I was just like, what? Like, oh my god! Because, you know, if you mess up a song like that, you can ruin your life. So if you get it right, you want to celebrate, but I think it’s, for me, it’s attention to detail.
Do you expect your songs to have mass appeal?
For me, songwriting is about, and again, it’s different for different people. I get the idea, but I’m always prayerful. You know, God, what do you want the people to have? And so people often ask me, many of the songs that I’ve written over time that have had mass appeal, did you expect for My God is Awesome to have that kind of reach? Did you expect, I can go down the line. Winning, or whatever, War, He’ll Make it All Right, Grace.
And I’m like, I hope so. Like, who prays, plans, thinks, strategizes, organizes, and then expect to fail? Like you hope, right? My grandmother never baked a cake and hoped we liked it. She tasted the batter. She added a little more of this, a little more of this.
I think when I make music, you know, especially songwriting, I try to say what people already say but they don’t know they want to say it, or I say what people wanna say but they don’t know how to say it. And my goal is always to make it relatable. My approach is simple. Aspects might be clever, but the goal is to make it to where people can instantly feel like it’s their story and not just mine, because I want people to sing in mass.
How do you test your music before releasing it?
And then the other thing is I don’t release anything without focus grouping it. And my theory is if you’re gonna release something to the masses, you know, there’s never a 100% guarantee, but you can minimize the guesswork. So you can know out of the gate, when you release something, who you are gonna get and also, who you’re not gonna get. So you can target who you know you could potentially get.
And there are restaurants like, you know, McDonald’s and Chick-fil-A and other, they don’t put anything on the menu guessing. If they put it on the menu, they’ve already allowed people to taste it, experience it, they’ve gotten feedback, they’ve gotten perspectives, opinions, they’ve either refined it or not refined it, but they put it on the menu with a clear hypothesis and education with data, knowing who the potential target audience is.
That’s my approach once I create music. I have a kitchen cabinet of ears or I might randomly play it for some people in places where I’m comfortable to say what you think. I think the mistake that a lot of songwriters and artists make is I’ve had people hit me the day before they’re putting it out. What you think? And it’s like, okay, I think you should tweak this, change this. Oh, no, it drops tomorrow. Oh, you didn’t want to know what I thought, you wanted me to listen. You just wanted me to hear it and congratulate you. Say that! Don’t say you want to know what I think.
What role does humility play in your success?
I think personally, I’m blessed to be a combined albums, year-end singles, 24 number ones. Later, Billboard and Media base. I don’t know, eight or nine number one singles. I think all that happens with the humility of education and learning in your process and being willing to be humble enough to listen to what somebody else thinks, because at the end of the day, it’s for the consumer, and it’s not just for you.
So I think being able to make adjustments, being able to make changes, before I drop My God is Awesome, I don’t know, it’s hundreds of millions of streams and views, I played it for people, and they said stuff. And I made adjustments and tweaks. You know, shout out to the producer, my brother, Rick Robinson. Once he was done, and we were done, I played for people and people said stuff, and I said, huh. Okay, let me take a look at that. Huh. That makes sense, alright? And I think, and everybody doesn’t do that, right? This is how I do it, this is my advice, how I think, how I’ve been able to do pretty well.
I got friends that say I just make it, and you’re gonna like it. And so I think that has its strengths. I think it has, all of it is risk, all of it is risk. I like to approach it with a more calculated approach.
Do you always take feedback?
But let me say this, though, I might not agree with the feedback, and I might be clear about what I want. A lot of times I make adjustments, but there are times when, I remember there was an executive, I did a song called Keep the Faith. And I’m crying on it. And this executive said, you know, it’s an amazing song, except for when you start whining and crying. Delete, mute that. Take that off. And I was just like, I’m not. That was honest.
I felt the weight of people who are desperately trying to make it through a season or situation. I felt the people’s pain at that moment when I was on stage. And I crashed. I cried my eyes out. And I left it on the record. Keep the Faith! Hang up there! Like, I’m literally, I was like, no, I’m not taking it off. What comes from the heart reaches the heart. That was an honest moment. People will feel the honesty.
And fortunately, I was right. And there were people who have said to me, other executives, as one really big music executive says, I cry with you every time you get to that point. My eyes fill up with water, and I’m crying with you. And the song did well, so I think you gotta, vision-wise, you gotta understand your why as it pertains to your what, right? And make your decisions based on your why and your what. So when people say stuff, you’re either open or closed. Only you know your final result and your final intended goal.
When you’re in the studio creating music, how does that process differ from preparing a sermon or leading worship?
So I think it’s definitely three different things. In my mind, it could be one and the same. I think the good news is that God is in all three. Right. For me, I believe in, I believe in God, and I believe that God is the ultimate creative. And that if God can put color in crayons, put water in the ocean, he created animals. I mean, like, if he’s the ultimate creative, he put cold in the snowflake and hot in fire. Like, who wouldn’t want help from that being, right?
So you know, of course, when you’re preparing a sermon, and you’re looking at the scriptures, you want to say what God is saying or what God wants to be said. So when studying the scriptures, exegesis, a big theological word, means to exit out of the scriptures. The goal is to say what God wants, what God wants said.
Leading worship, you know, God is the audience. We are all on stage, whether you’re on a physical stage or people are in a physical audience, theoretically, God is the audience of one, and so the goal is, in my mind, according to Scripture, glorify God and edify the people, which means to build up. Right? Lift up God’s name, and build up the people who are in the audience. Empower, inspire, encourage, uplift. So it’s both a picture of the cross. Vertical and horizontal. Glory up, edification, building up goes out. So it’s both and in your own personality and your style.
Writing a song in the studio, working in the studio, think about that like you would think about being at whatever your job is, being, doing what you’re, what you do as journalist, an interviewer, a content creator, a filmmaker, whatever a person’s work life is. Whether you’re a teacher, a secretary, or an administrative assistant, an entrepreneur in any varying field, an investor. When you go to work, you enter into your workplace to meet your objectives, or to build, or to create, or if you’re a chef in the kitchen, you’re starting with ingredients to get to the final product. That’s being in the studio.
As you say, you start with an idea with the end goal of having a fully baked concept that you intend to serve the world. And so, for me, that’s how I would kind of line those up. But for me, I need God’s help in all three, and I just feel like it’s like AI right now.
The world is getting to know AI. Many people have mastered AI. I just started an AI class myself, so I can, staying relevant, in my understanding and education. AI is like a Superman cape. Right? It makes you smarter, it makes you better, it makes you more effective. Why would I not invite God to help me. He’s AI before AI at the highest level, so that’s kind of how I view all three.