For a singer-songwriter, Stephanie Staples isn't much into music.

"I'm not at all obsessed with music. I enjoy it, but it's not what makes me tick," she said. "My relationship with God makes me tick."

The 24-year-old moved to Evans with her family five years ago. In that time, she's released two albums, and has another on the way.

She'll sing Sunday at Augusta's First Presbyterian Church before evening services. It could be one of her last performances in the area.

It was a job at the Medical College of Georgia that brought the family here, Ms. Staples explained, but now that her father has accepted a new position in Boston, the family will follow.

"Boston will be a home base. It'll be a launching pad, and it's great for international travel," Ms. Staples said.

Ms. Staples started singing at 13, and began to write her own music at 15.

In 2001, at age 17, Ms. Staples performed for 20,000 at New Zealand's Parachute Music Festival, joining Third Day's Mac Powell for a duet. She's also traveled through Italy and China.

Her 2007 album, Journey Home , was more about "seeking God's presence" while her latest work, Sing Over Me , set for a spring release, is "more about resting there," she said.

It's a message Ms. Staples says resonates with her as her family prepares to move in December.

"I can always be at home with God wherever I am," she said. "He's never put me in a place long enough where I can say this is my church. It's made it so I can go into any church and share with them."

During performances, Ms. Staples often shares freely from her testimony, describing bouts with an eating disorder and the death of a friend.

"Since I was born it was ingrained in me that eternity is what we live for," she said. "People are looking for reality and truth so I've got to be open with them.

"It's kind of my mission in life to help people make a connection with their creator. In these troubled times people are needing the message that he's the one."

No president, she says, can solve these problems. No song, she says, can either.

"Nothing left to man can solve these problems," Ms. Staples said. "But the God of the universe? He's the answer."