Lessons from a Troubadour: A Lifetime of Parables, Prose, and Stories

Master singer-storyteller John Michael Talbot’s concert meditations—heard and appreciated by millions of concert-goers over the last half-century—are now available in this unique volume. This collection of parables and stories reveals Talbot’s mystical, monastic heart and gives him an opportunity to present the Christian faith in holy and ordinary language.

As John Michael Talbot’s music became more popular over the years, he began to immerse himself in the teachings of the contemplatives, mystics, and monastic fathers and mothers of the Christian tradition. In time he began to share some of that teaching with his audiences between songs during concerts and during retreats, parish missions, and diocesan conventions. While on stage, this Grammy-winning contemporary Christian music pioneer is known as much for his stories between songs as he is for his playing and singing.

Fans of Talbot—the founder and spiritual father of an integrated monastic community—will savor his wise reflections on the mystery of the Trinity, the intimate love of Jesus, the Sermon on the Mount as the heart of Christian teaching, and the need to find what he calls our own “inner room” for prayer and contemplation.

Lessons from a Troubadour gathers this material into book form for the first time. Talbot’s words open an important window into understanding the Catholic faith. Both inspiring and practical, you’ll find ways to apply it to your daily life as well.

John Michael Talbot is a prolific Catholic singer-songwriter, speaker, and bestselling author who founded an integrated monastic community, the Brothers and Sisters of Charity.

Talbot began performing at age seventeen with his brother Terry in their country folk-rock band Mason Proffit. He has recorded more than fifty albums and authored thirty books. Recognized as one of Catholic music’s most popular artists and whose work also is widely held by Christians of other denominations. Talbot’s compositions are published in hymnals throughout the world.  He received a Dove Award for Worship Album of the Year, Light Eternal, with producer Phil Perkins, and is one of nine artists to receive the President’s Merit Award (a Grammy) from the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences. In 1988 he was named the number one Christian artist by Billboard magazine.

Born into a Methodist family, Talbot explored fundamentalism, Native American religion, Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism, and the Jesus movement. That’s when he began using his musical talent to express his faith, eventually becoming a pioneer in the contemporary Christian music scene. He studied all Christian denominations, but found Catholicism spoke to his heart. He was inspired after reading about the life of St. Francis of Assisi and began studying patristics, and monasticism at a Franciscan center in Indianapolis, Indiana. He entered the Catholic Church in 1978 and joined the secular Franciscan order. He started a house of prayer called The Little Portion, which he later moved to Arkansas. This developed into the Brothers and Sisters of Charity.

Talbot remains the spiritual father and minister general of the Brothers and Sisters of Charity, which also includes the St. Clare Monastery in Texas and those who live outside the community. His humanitarian efforts have been recognized by the Mercy Corps with the Mother Teresa Award. He created and was host of All Things Are Possiblewith God on The Church Channel.

Talbot lives as a family monastic with his wife at The Little Portion Hermitage, the community he founded in Berryville, Arkansas.