Bridging the Gap: Performance vs. Worship in Church Music

[MUSIC] >> Welcome to the Worship Server Podcast. It's good to have you here, good to be together. My name is Blaze Nelson and I'm with my co-host today, Travis Juan. How you doing today, Travis? >> Doing great. >> Nice. Well, it's been a while since we've hit record on a podcast and gotten together and talked. So we're both excited to be here today, excited to dive into our topic a little bit. Before we get too far into it, just some housekeeping. Travis and I are not interested in building up a massive podcast audience. But we are interested in building up just a community of worship leaders, where these conversations are happening, where we can mutually encourage and lift each other up and spray each other on towards loving good deeds as we are commanded to do. And we're currently trying to do that through the platform called Discord. You can jump in. It's theworshipserver.com/discord. That link will be in the show notes. And then one more just disclaimer that's important to get out is that Travis and I don't have all the answers. We're not pretending to have all the answers. We're just trying to have these conversations to, I think just to spiritually help each other and to form each other. But also just to get the ball rolling on some of these things as I know my life has been blessed by these conversations. And that's, we're not here trying to present ourselves as experts, but just as two guys that are passionate and excited about worship and seeing the glory of God spread. So with all that out of the way, Travis, what are we talking about today? Well, in our last episode, we were going back and forth about song selection. And you said something that stuck with me. You said you would like to play songs that are singable, but hard to play. And you were talking about, you know, you want to play interesting music, music that's compelling. And we've talked a little bit about that. I mean, over previous episodes, you know, referencing David where he says, I will not give to God what cost me nothing. Like I'm going to put some work into this. We're going to talk about performance. I think it's a loaded term in the worship world often gets framed as kind of a binary choice. Like either you play something super, super simple and that is equal to being humble or you're on this side and you're playing something super complicated. You know, it's hard to play and you're showing off. It's prideful. You're, you're performing. So it's kind of this performance versus worship or performance versus heart. And I did a quick Google search on this just to see what the internet was saying. And oh my goodness, people have opinions on this. So it's a lot. So I just was wondering maybe we could start off with blaze. You were talking about that in our last episode. Like songs are single, we're talking about things that we want the church to be able to sing. We don't want them to be distracted. But at the same time, you were making the context like, Hey, if it's, or you're making a case for if it's compelling music, like hard to play music, people might actually want to sing more. Can you just expand on that? And then also in that, like, how do you keep it from becoming like the blaze show? Yeah. It's it, it's interesting because I think art is an interesting medium to express yourself in. You can, you can do it in so many different ways. So I think for me, what I'm looking for and why I said that is I'm looking for a way to express my art, but in a way that's really approachable for the church to come and engage. And I've been thinking about this recently just as, as I sing and as I play guitar, I find that I connect with what I'm singing more. Through the act of of playing music for of me playing music. Like if I'm the one playing guitar, there's something about it that's a little bit different for me than if I'm listening to, if like, I'm a step removed and listening to the radio. And so I think there's this desire for me to get more of me, more of my body engaged in the process of singing. And I think there's also just this thing in art where we appreciate excellent art. We appreciate when we see something that is done well. And I think in the hands of people who are taking that, that attention and serving as windows and pointing people to Jesus, I think that's really powerful and important. And I remember I saw there's his name Adam Neely, the bass player on YouTube. Well, yeah, yeah, yeah, I like that guy. Yeah, he's a great bassist. Interesting videos. Yeah, but he, he did an episode where he was talking about how he was trying to listen to music that he hated and the music that he hated was CCM. I like to say more. He did this whole like 20 minute thing where he was talking about trying to like it and he got into music, which we've talked a lot about on this podcast from Christopher Small. But he played this clip from a worship leader and the worship leader had his banner on him. And he was making the case to not overplay and all the people. They did an example of what it meant to overplay. And what's funny is in the comments of that video of the Adam Neely video, I know I'm like referencing, referencing, referencing. Yeah. In the comments of the Adam Neely video, all these people like, man, with those people overplayed, it made me feel like I was experiencing God. It made me believe in Jesus again. There was like all these sarcastic comments about the people over playing. But I think there's something to that. I think it was kind of done sarcastically, but I think where there's something about us that's wired to believe in artists who's expressing something that's challenging to express. It makes us stop and pay attention. And so for me, when I'm thinking about worship music and I'm thinking about overplaying and being, you know, I think there's a balance there for sure, but I want to be believable in what I'm expressing. And I want to express something that's worth taking attention for people to my ears to give attention to. Yeah. I don't know if that answered your question. Well, I think that makes a lot of sense. So though it still leaves this possibility open that someone might look at that and say, oh, it's the blaze show he's showing off. He's performing, you know, because the word we're talking about is performance. And I think, you know, one of the questions I think we have to ask is like, why is there such a debate about this? I mean, I've heard this commentary on a regular basis for, you know, a couple of decades now. And I think like if you go back and you think back, you know, you're younger than me, I'm a little older. When I very first was on the stage with a professional rock band in a church context, but like doing it the way that a lot of churches do now, I would actually look back and say, we weren't doing it the way that the churches are doing it now. I'll get into that. But the production we were doing at that time, like from what I got to live through and what we got to do in this church that we planted, it was kind of revolutionary. Like in the in the history of the American church, like I had seen bands on stage and I had seen more like rock music in church, but it was this was a different, a whole different level. And there weren't a lot of other churches doing it. And that level of production and excellence was something that was just a massive draw for people. You know, it's this pre-YouTube and the internet generation wasn't a thing yet. And people just flocked to it. You know, it's like, well, come see the best band ever, you know? And flash forward to maybe 10 years later, I realized that there was a group of worship leaders in my city who were getting right, they were getting together for breakfast once a month. And so I had kind of existed in this little vacuum where we were so the big kids on the block, the first ones who did it, the first ones to bring rock and roll in in our city. And then suddenly a 10 years later, I realized this whole worship culture world had like developed under my nose that I didn't know about. And I remember I sat down at the table and the guy next to me leaned over and he's like, man, when your drummer declines on planning center, am I right? Like, what? I don't, this is like a different language. I don't know what you're talking about. No, I've never had that happen. What do you mean by that? You know, low and behold, they've got this whole like cultural thing like developed where they've got backing tracks and worship directors. And I was like, oh, we just did this rock band thing for 10 years straight without really thinking about what the rest of the worship world was doing. But then social media like happened and suddenly we could like all of us could see what everybody else was doing. And I think the whole worship world, everybody started becoming copies of one another like what was unique back then suddenly wasn't unique anymore. And that coincides with, you know, probably millennials and Gen Z being the most marketed to generations in human history and their completely numb to production. They've seen it all. They've seen the lights, the haze, the, you know, the interesting transitions, the rock shows, the best vocalists ever. They're just not impressed by any of it anymore. Right? And but now everybody's doing it. And so I think there's a valid critique that has come up where maybe back then we were like, we're sort of the new kids on the block doing this. But now everyone is doing this. And there's like a standard of how it's done. And I think people are often showing up at church looking to find God. And I think instead what they're finding is what they see as a musical like production entertainment. Sure. And they don't find God. And I think a lot of people have been really burned by that over the last probably 15 years now that that's when but it's been sort of like the mainstream. And so you get to, you know, the services that just have no meat to them. And then I think on top of that you're getting worship leaders who have no meat to them. And so yes, you're getting, you're getting people who are paper thin. Who are struggling with sin in the background, who are worried about what people think of them who are building their own kingdoms who are, you know, just, just kind of steeped and sin and using it as a platform and putting on a facade instead of being authentic. And so, you know, I think those dynamics. And then we also live in a culture where everybody we're on the social media. Everybody's looking at pictures. everybody is trying to present a version of themselves to the world that ignores the realities of the ugliness of life, the 40 pictures before the perfect one taken of the kids crying and poking each other in the eyes and pulling each other's hair. And we're putting this facade up, our whole culture is doing it, putting this facade up of this is fine, this is perfect. And so then I think that's contributing to this moment of like, we do not want any performance on stage. I think if you're serious about like, I think if you're serious about your church, if you're serious about faith that should hopefully provide produce a little it can you, you know, like, yeah, that's a brutal spot that we're in. Yeah, yeah. I had a guy some years ago now who was complaining about our music on a pretty regular basis and, you know, there's a whole bunch of nuance to the story, but there was one point where I was like, okay, I'm just going to throw him a bone because he's an older guy. I think he likes him. We're going to do an acapella him. You know, so I got my whole band to just put down their instruments for the, for the song. It's kind of the end of a set. And we did like four part harmony, just this beautiful rendition of this him just straight through the him verse after verse after verse. We got done and he, I asked him about it. He hated it. And he goes, it was too beautiful. I couldn't worship. It was too beautiful. You couldn't worship. What does that mean? Like, do you want us to sing off pitch? Would that help you worship? Like, I just, I think my first response was when you go see a sunset and it's just like moves you to tears. Is it too beautiful for you to worship God in that moment? Like this thing that he created for you to enjoy? Like, is it too beautiful? I just, that's why it was this moment where I was like, okay, I don't think the answer to this question of what is performance and how do we walk away from it and step away from it? I don't think it's anti excellence. You know, I just don't think it is, especially in today's world, like, I've, I've talked to people a little bit where I've said, you know what? So everybody is sort of at this level with production and technology all over the place, but in church as well. And it's kind of like when you go pick out a cereal, you know, at the grocery store, you're going to pick the one with the best graphic design on the box, most likely. It's most likely that you will have that influence your decision. And it's kind of like a minimal viable sort of standard for a company to present their product, right? And I'm not saying that the worship set is a product, but I think that while we have a culture that is entirely sort of jaded now to production and not moved by it, they also have a minimal standard you have to achieve for them to even take you seriously. Yep. No, so the answer to this is an anti excellence. I don't think you should just like on principle have bad lighting and bad sound and a terrible band that can't play to a click. Like I just, I don't want to like step back from all of that and like rewind it and erase it. Yeah. It's something else. It's something different than that. The answer isn't like, let's step away from excellence. Do you have any thoughts on that? No, I think that's good. I think it'd be good to kind of name some of the dynamics here because I think there is this real entanglement of all of these factors that we just, you know, we behind the scenes, Travis and I normally talked for about 10 minutes before we hit play and we hadn't talked about any of those things. And so this, it's a hard topic because there's all of these things that are entangled in this idea of performance. Yeah. And so I think it'd be good to start to nail some of these things down of, okay, what are we talking about? What's, what's, and I want to be, even careful to be binary about it, but what's, what's bad about this conversation? What, what are people kind of revolting against? What, what about that experience does he say it's too beautiful? I can't engage with it. Where, where's the line? So, so I think it'd be good to start maybe unpacking some of those dynamics. I don't even know where to begin my, my head's a little. Yeah. We're getting an authentic performance from Blaze right now because it's unpracticed. Yeah. Yeah. Yep. So I think first off, maybe one spin off. So I'm thinking like we have this big bubble of performance, right? And I want to start splitting some of these pieces off the first piece that I want to take out of this performance bucket is musical excellence. I think it'd be good to talk just overall, what are we looking for when we talk about musical excellence? Is that, is there a place for that in the church? I think both of us would say yes, but what is that place? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, Psalm, Psalm 33, three, it says place skillfully on the strings. You know, with loud shouts. So there's your answer to your volume complaints right there because loud shouts are loud. But skillfully, like that word, they're skillful is, it's like a, it's a performance. You have to, you have to consider that as part of performance. Playing skillfully is a command to do your job worship leader, play skillfully, do not play halfway. Playing skillfully is something that grabs people's attention. And I think that in this sense, it's required. It's like, you know, you get a performance review at work. The performance is not seen as a bad thing. Like you better do your job. Yeah. Yeah. Carry out was required, right? Yeah. And actually, I think that is really the root meaning of the word performance. It's, let's carry out what's required of us. At some point that has said something split off of it that says something that's inauthentic or it's fake or it's, you know, it's hypocritical. And I do think that maybe that's what people are thinking about when they think, oh, we shouldn't perform because I don't think it's let go of skill. It's just, it's just not that the Bible clearly states that. I mean, there's a whole, a whole passage in chronicles where David is setting up musicians, ASAP and his family. And there's hundreds of them playing skillfully and developing their craft. I mean, it's amazing what God desired for it to happen. You know, so maybe that's the first thing. Performance is not remove skill. And I think there's something in that where excellence is near and dear to the heart of God. I think so looking at, you know, we're we restarted the the Bible in a year. So we're in the middle of Exodus currently. And just we're going to be going into the tabernacle. And is it Beniah? Beniah is the first. I'm going to go with Beniah. You can click me in the shun. It's leave a comment below if I'm wrong. But Beniah is he's the first person as being recorded as having been gifted by the spirit of God. And what he's gifted in is not what we think of as spiritual gifts. He's not a gifted teacher. He's not a gifted spokesperson. He's not a gifted. He doesn't have to gift a mercy. He's gifted in these really practical artful ways. And he's skilled. I don't remember exactly what it says, but I think he's even skilled at like teaching others to do it. And so we have this skilled craftsman who God says I have specifically placed my spirit on him for this work. And so I think there's an importance of living up to that calling on our lives of God has given us a specific gifting. And I was reading a book recently and he said, nobody's more interested in you using your God-given gifts than God. Yeah. Yes. God gave him to you for a reason. And so I think if we're disconnecting and saying, oh, man, I want to be authentic. I don't want to put on a show. I don't want to do all this stuff, which I think are good tensions to have in our hearts. But that comes at the cost of musical excellence. There's something that's lost there. And when you think about how God was setting things up in the people of Israel, there were these. There was something about the excellence of what they were doing that I think pointed to the character in the nature of God. Yeah. Right? Yeah. I don't think that's too big of a stretch. But something about God's holiness being expressed in these ways was important. And he wanted it very specific and done intentionally because it was pointing people to the true nature of God. And so when we come together on a Sunday morning, and when we play, you know, there's the line of don't be distracting that I think is really good. And if you're looking for a minimal viable product, if you are picking up guitar for the first time, you're in a small church, your goal should be don't be distracting to what's happening. And then I think beyond that, there's an encouragement to, hey, grow in your skill. Do you see a man skilled in his work? He will not serve before obscure men. And we are we are serving the king of kings. Yes. Yeah. It's like there's nobody else is more worth our time and our talent expressed excellently. I don't think that means perfection. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It kind of reminds me of kind of the classic again, everybody likes to put things in these binary categories. You know, like let's be led by the spirit or let's prepare as if the Holy Spirit can't help you in your preparation. Weeks in advance. That's it's a silly. It's like the word performance has almost got this like taboo status. You know, and it's pitted against all the things of the Holy Spirit. You know, so and I think in the church, we just do this. We just like to create these false dichotomies, you know, secular sacred. You know, I love to say that the Holy Spirit is not a procrastinator. He can work on Tuesday just as much as he can work on Sunday. Right. And in fact, he might put things in your head on Tuesday that then you rehearse in your head so that when he prompts you on Sunday to do something just a little bit different, you're actually prepared for it and can pull it off. And I just think that a performance of some kind has to take place on a Sunday morning with a band. You know, so the question isn't like, are you performing? It's, who are you performing for and why? And how does that then play out? You know, so maybe a question we should bat around a little bit is when you're being accused of performing. What's the actual concern underneath that? Like what are they really saying? Yeah, I would say it has to do with the heart. Yeah, for sure. So going back to the performance bubble, right? We have the actual excellence of of doing what we're doing. But then a huge element of that too is the heart. And I just got finished reading if you haven't gotten the chance for ministry leaders and pastors, dangerous calling by ball David trip. It's an amazing book on just how prone we are to try to build our own kingdoms, how prone we are to be spiritually blind to our own weaknesses, how prone we are to shove down concerns and to put ourselves in bad spots. Everybody's prone to do it. But specifically ministry leaders, worship leaders, pastors, I think there's a real danger to what we're doing. And so to really take a step back, I think when those conversations come up and those accusations come up to take a step back and evaluate, okay, where is my heart? And for me, I don't know your experience. I'm curious to hear, but for me, I find that often my heart is a whole crock pot of different motivations and things that are causing me to do the things I do. And I think, I think in general, most of those are good, but I also have the simple nature still living in me that I'm still trying to try to put to death every day and to give up to Christ. And so it is kind of a complicated question because I have played a solo on stage before in a worship service. And I thought, yeah, he crowds going to love this. And that that's that needs to be watched. You know, that needs to be very carefully engaged within your soul. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I like the crock pot. There's so much going on in the heart. And it's complicated. Like Roman seven actually is fairly encouraging to me. You know, when Paul's like, I said out to do this thing, I ended up doing that thing. I hate this thing. I don't want to know why I do this. What who will rescue me from this body of death? Like, it's not like it gives us permission to sin. But it's like, wow, when we are affected by the complicated nature of what's in my heart, there's grace for that. So for me, I think when I think of like if I'm going to redefine performance into what I think people are actually trying to say, I don't think of a skilled musician when I think of performance. I actually think of the Pharisees. Yeah. Yeah. I think they were the performers of Jesus' day. And honestly, I mean, Jesus had his harshest words reserved for them, right? Matthew 15, he's like, you hypocrites as they have prophesied about you and he was right. Like these people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me and they worship me in vain. And I think that is the category that I'd stick that in. There's something that's empty going on in the heart. You know, and it doesn't really have a whole lot to do with like the outward expression of that, you know, because he says like, you know, your, your outside is nice Pharisees, but inside you're filthy with dead man's bones, right? And so it's not like they weren't even like doing religious things. They were doing all the religious things, but their hearts just really weren't in it. And the inside didn't match what was coming out, right? And yeah. So I think performance, when I think of performance, that's what I think of is you're not outside displaying what's actually on the inside. So then what are hallmarks that you're looking for when somebody's actually being hypocritical, hypocritically performing? Maybe that's the term we can throw on it. If somebody's hypocritically performing, what are you looking for or what are you seeing? Yeah. And you know, it's, it's going to be hard for us to tell from the audience. Honestly, I think it will be. I have made judgments about people who I saw on stage that when I finally got to know that person, I had a repent of that judgment. You know, so I honestly, that, that's a hard one. Unless someone's in your living room and you actually know them, like, I'm not going to try to judge people like someone's on YouTube. And I'm watching them. I'm like, like, I'm just going to whatever enters my mind that judgment about who they are. I don't know. I have no idea. Yeah. But if you're in a large church and you never really have any interaction with the worship leader, you could be in the same position. You know, let's you know somebody who knows them. Right. So I think as a whole lot more to do with like, I've said for a long time, worship leaders, you have to think like pastors. And the reason you have to do that is because you can't just stay on the stage. You actually have to get in people's living rooms and get in their lives. So you know who you're leading and that they know you and they know your heart. Right. So it's like knowing someone's character, you can't know that until you actually know them, you know, unless it's like really, really obvious. So there's that. And then I don't know. I mean, the third first thing that popped in my head when you said that was one of a very technically skilled musician that I played with one time years ago. And a different church. I was a guest guitar player. And I remember just actually being like completely shocked in one moment. Like there's like the offatory moment in their church and we'd played a couple of songs and that somebody got up and gave some announcements. And there's this sort of quiet moment. But everybody's like just kind of, I guess me, I don't remember, but it's like people are talking. And this worship leader turned around and made a joke at me. And he referenced, this was a long time ago. So MTV had this really gross show called Jackass. And he referenced that like he was watching that the night before and he said something kind of crass from it and then turned right back around and started saying something spiritual into the microphone. And I just got this icky feeling inside. Like I don't never want to be that, you know, and I know that there's sometimes I'm on stage and what's in my heart isn't necessarily what's like obviously coming out. I want to get into that a little bit because I don't think we can always be 100% authentic. It's not always even constructive to the moment. But that was a moment for me where I was like, I think there's a huge misalignment with what's going on inside this guy right now and what he's actually leading the church into. Yeah. I think it's from Bob Coughlin's book, "Worship Matters," but your worship is not defined by your singing. It's defined by your life. And so when I think about worship leaders living double lives, you know, I think of pride, I think of arrogance, I think of self promotion, not being known, hiding. I mean, we're going through something right now in our church where all of this sin is being brought to light in this person's life. It's sobering because I see those same dynamics at play in my own heart, my own desire to hide, my own desire to not be honest, my own desire to not be known. And so I think there's a huge pressure and a huge need for worship leaders to make sure that they're being known. And when you're known by your church, when you're known by your pastor, when you're known by your spouse, and you're not hiding, I think that can be a huge safeguard for anything that happens on stage. I've also heard recently that the stage is such an easy place to fake, fake everything, you know, it's a poor indicator of how somebody's doing. So if you're only interaction with the worship leader is on Sunday or worship leader, if you're only interaction with your church's Sunday morning, you're in a really dangerous spot and change. Do something else. Flee, you know. Yeah. Yeah. I think there's another, I think you're right. There's another facet to it too, because I think that there could be people who, generally speaking their life is in order and they had a position. And I think a performance could be sort of like what the, you know, Jesus talked about in Matthew 6, you know, he's in the sermon on the mountain. He says, you know, be careful not to practice your righteousness in front of others to be seen by them. So when you pray, don't be like the hypocrites who stand out in the street corners to be seen by everybody else. He says, that's all the reward they'll ever get, which really isn't that it's not that they're like visible to everybody else. You can do things within, you know, being seen by people. It's that they were doing it in order to be seen. Right. And so I think one way that you could perform and it could be really bad is because what's it going on in your heart is you're actually doing it for the approval of people. Yep. Right. Yeah. Yeah. And that, that is an indication of MS within your heart as well. Yeah, for sure. And that may be one of the primary things that musicians get caught up in is I want the approval of people. I want their adoration. I want them to look at me and see that I'm cool. You know, and so if you're going to get accused of being performance oriented, it may be you need to check your heart on that is are you doing these things to be seen by others? Yeah. And if you are, you might be doing that from a real need in your heart to be yeah, totally accepted and to be loved. You know, I don't think it's always from this bad spot of, oh, I'm a people pleaser and I'm going to beat myself up because of my people pleaser. And I think this is important and all of this conversation is we need to be speaking the gospel to ourselves. Like if you are trying to find your affirmation, on stage, if you're trying to find your affirmation from people saying what a good job you did afterwards, if that's like where you're getting your affirmation, there's some place so much better in the person in the life of Jesus Christ. And so, you know, all of these things, if you're trying to build up your own kingdom, if you're trying to get affirmation from people, if you're trying to hide, if you're trying to hide your sin, there's nothing that Christ hasn't died for in your life. There's nothing that he hasn't forgiven. There's nothing that he is withholding from you. He loves you. You know, and so it's like if we can, as worship leaders, just be totally centered in our identity as Christians, then when we take the stage, if we're not looking to meet needs on stage, but to meet needs, you know, instead of internally, I'm trying to meet needs here versus externally, man, I'm trying to meet a need here. I think that's a huge element in all of this. Yeah. Yeah. Like you're trying to get your worth from, you know, the praise of others, really. So maybe if we're going to like apply this, it's bad performance isn't playing a difficult chord progression or having a cool lead riff. It's not like not having stage presence. It's not excellence. It's not playing skillfully. It's what it is is when the inside doesn't match the outside, right? Yeah. Yeah. Or it's you're doing your righteousness to be seen by others as Jesus talked about in Matthew 6. It's honoring God with your lips while your hearts are far from him, right? That to me would be, I'd just call it Phariseeism. I don't know if I'd call it performance. Hypocrite. Pharisees of hypocrisy. Yeah. That's how I would define it. Like if there's a problem you're trying to isolate, it's that. Yeah. Yeah. I think that's good. So we have our bucket, right? I think we almost have everything out, but maybe not. So we have the actual performance playing excellence. We have the hypocrisy that's living in each of us. And I think that's the thing too. You could be doing great right right now, right? The second you could not be doing great tomorrow. And so there's there's this constant need for us to keep going back to Jesus, for us to keep going back to the cross and reminding ourselves of who we are because we're not binary. We're not, right? Yes, I'm all the way good or I'm bad. We are on a range. And we want to make sure that we keep nudging ourselves, nudging our faith. What's the verse where he says, works through your your faith with fear and trembling. You know, we want to keep growing. Yeah, we want to keep growing as believers. So excellence, hypocrisy. And then I don't remember what this one over here was. What was it? Doing stuff to like be seen by others, finding your words and others. Yeah. Yeah. So are we getting to the bucket? Is that everything? I think I think so. I really do think so. But I have a question in that is so we want to be authentic, right? So you want the inside to match the outside. But what does that mean? So our world is telling us, be true to yourself. Let your authentic self out. Well, if I truly let my authentic self out on a fairly regular basis, well, I don't even know what my authentic self is. There's part of me that wants to have chiseled abs and muscles and you know, work out. There's another part of me that really, really, really likes cheesecake. Yeah. You know, which one is the true me? I don't know. I'm constantly at war with myself. I can't be true to myself. And so maybe one of the issues with the question of what is authenticity and how do you display that is even like going even further back in that conversation and realizing that authenticity is not what the world says. Like the true nature of our self is somehow found within ourselves. Right? My nature is found in Christ. But what does that? How does that play out practically as I walk out on stage with a worship band? How do I do I be myself on stage? How do I do that? Well, I think also tied into this is just that there's this huge element where artists want to express themselves. That's why we do art is we want to express something in our head and bringing out into the physical world. But there's again, Christ over and over again, turns these things up on its head. And I love what you just said there that true Christian authenticity isn't for me for the sake of me. I'm not the end goal. True Christian authenticity is Christ in me. Yes. Yeah. Everything else is superficial and flaky and flesh into king and good at eye someday. But Christ in me is is where my true value lies. And so then as as a performer or as a musician and again, even performer, I think is a totally inappropriate term. We're talking beforehand about the Old Testament and there's all of these things in the Old Testament where people are called to, I was using them to play act. They're called to go do these symbolic rituals and symbolic things that we're making a difference then like I was thinking about the what was it helped me Travis? Brain fart. Yeah. So the day of atonement. Yeah. Yeah. It's not what I was talking about. Yeah. But there's all these simple things in the day of atonement. Yes. Yeah. Yep. Where the high priest enters the holy place and he takes off his robes and he sanctifies the holy place and he re he deals with all and there's all the symbolism and the scapegoat and all these things that when you look back, when you look forward to Jesus, you're like, wow, Jesus is the high priest who took off his robes and came and shed his own blood for our sake. And he served both of those sacrifices. There was two goats. He served both of them. And there was something about that ritual that's really important. You think about baptism and the immersion, the going into the water and then emerging coming out through life. You're you're joining Christ in his death is what it says symbolically. There's communion where we're reminding ourselves that someday we are going to be eating with Jesus and and like for real, we're going to be with him. So it's interesting in all of this too because we are doing these things on Sunday where even like Revelation 4 through 5, we are speaking and singing, which is what we'll be doing in heaven. And there's something about like we're previewing what's going to be done eternal. Yes. Is that for well, it's not inauthentic. It's it's you're being formed into what you're becoming. Right? So the authenticity there as you know becoming like Christ, it's she wears the passage Ephesians Ephesians 5 be imitators of God like as his beloved children like my kids imitate me, you know, and if they spend a lot of time doing that over the years and watching them, my son is now taller than me and becoming an adult and you know, he's moved from just imitation to actually becoming what he's going to become. You know, and in that he's following, he's imitating, he's been copying, he's been kind of acting, you know, but at the same time it's like it's it's not inauthentic pretending, it's authentic becoming like he's performing. Yeah. Yeah. In a becoming formed, right? performing is there there's a formation in performing, right? I don't know. It's he's not it's not fake, but he's like not there yet. Yeah. And that's where we are right now is already not yet. Yeah. Yeah. The in between. I think interesting. Yeah. I think I keep quoting CS Lewis. I quoted him last episode I think, but he says he said something like don't waste time wondering whether or not you love your number. Nate. Sorry. Don't waste time wondering whether or not you love your neighbor act like you do. Like, okay, is that performing? Is that inauthentic? You know, so I think like we don't have to just feel on in order to actually do it. You know, you have some times, you know, you smile for the sake of maybe feeling joyful. The action of it leads to it proceeds the actual becoming it. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think you I think you hit on something. I just had sparks go out of my off my head. Yeah. Yeah. Totally. Well, and there's psychology studies that like if you smile or if you practice thankfulness, that like those physical steps can actually push you to being in a better mood. And so there is something forming about what we are doing. And there's something forming about even if we're not in, you know, I woke up and I am just filled with the joy of God and I'm going to go and lead this worship set. I think there's a lot of grace in I woke up and the example you're using is my kids have been thrown up all night and my wife's irritated. I have to leave. Yep. I got to stand up in front of everybody and pretend that I'm okay and I'm happy to see them. Well, I think there's an opportunity to be honest about where you're at, but to say like, hey, even my heart needs this. Right. Yeah. Now what we're going to do. Yeah. We're going to sing truth this morning and this truth is going to be spiritually forming for you, but it's also going to be spiritually forming for me. Like we're going to do this thing together. Yeah. Yeah. As I serve as I serve them, you know, it's not inauthentic, you know, remembering like why, why am I here? Why did I just, you know, have to show up here when I don't want to be here? I think I think I'm just following Jesus in this moment. And I'm like, I want to serve these people and I want to love my neighbor and there's so many different things that I'm doing in that moment where I'm facilitating. And I think it's okay to share with everybody, "Hey, I'm struggling a little bit. Would you join me?" Yeah, you know. So I don't want to do happy, crappy Jesus in that moment and pretend. But I do think that authenticity isn't just wallowing in and at that moment either. It's taking on this thing that's even bigger than myself remembering I'm here as a representative of Christ. Yeah. And I've got to represent him and bring him that representation to the congregation in the moment. And none of that is inauthentic. But yeah, I in that moment would authentically just say, "Hey, here's what's going on at home." And I did this actually. My wife stayed home with my son who was sick, you know, like a month ago or something. And I told the church, like, "That's what's happening." Then a little tired. It's okay. You guys can sing. Sing with me. Yeah, totally. You know, so I don't think there's any performance necessarily happening there. And I don't think you necessarily have to be like, "Well, I'm so depressed. I can't get out on stage and I'm so tired I can't do this and just quit or something." Yeah. And still get out there. I think in that one of the things that's flagging in my head is that I think both of us have put on or have put enough work into our craft that when we take the stage and we might have a lot going else on around us. Like last night I led worship and my family stayed home because the kids were sick, you know. So yeah, that's just part of what happens. But there's work that we've done leading up to that moment that doesn't, doesn't cause the whole thing to go off the rails. Right. So we can still come and play excellently. And there might be a mistake or two or, you know, I squeak last night on a high note on a song that I hit when I was at home and I didn't hit on stage and that's how it goes. But, you know, we've put in that work so that when we come on a Sunday, that's not what the focus is. I think in this, it's really important to keep the focus in the right spot and just super clear. Like we are here to sing to Jesus and we can do that excellently. We can do that with guitars and pianos and drums and they can all be clicking and we can all be hitting and that can hopefully, ideally glorify Christ. But if I'm not there, I've still put in the work that I can come in and still sing and still lead with skill, even though my heart might not be right there. But that's not, yes, that's not the focus of what's happening in the moment. It's like, man, I'm here leading these people and I can put the guitar playing aside. I can, I don't have to think about this. I don't have to like have this consume my brain. I can focus on doing what needs to happen right here right now. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So how do we, we're just like as a personal sort of heart check, you're considering going out on stage and playing and you know, whether you're playing a guitar solo or singing a solo or whatever else. Like how do you check your heart? Like am I here for God? Am I here in Christ? What am I expressing? You know, what is what are the what are the metrics? You know, like I could think of Paul in Galatians one, you know, where he says am I now trying to win the approval of man or of God? Because if I'm trying to please people, I wouldn't be a servant of Christ. And I think like that's the first line right there for us is, am I doing this am I playing this to please God or to please people? Yeah, yeah. And I think the thing is in that I can play something super simple to please people and not be humble at all I can play something super complex to please people as well. It's not about the simplicity or the complexity. It's who is my audience? Am I doing this for the people or am I doing this to please God? Right. So maybe that would be just my very first line, my very first heart check. Like what am I doing this for? Who am I doing this for? And I think even just to cut that out at the knees, God's already pleased with you. You know, obviously we want to be doing something for the sake of God and for the sake of like pleasing him. Sorry, I read a lot of books. Listen to a lot of teaching. So I don't remember who said it or where I got it from. But just this idea that like, I yeah, I was listening to his name is Jesse. He wrote how great is our God with Christ. Jesse Reeves and he was talking about his goal is to draw a picture for God every day. And he said when you come to God, when a kid comes to their parent and holds up a picture and says, hey, look, look daddy, look at the picture. I go to you. You can say, what is that? Or you can be like, what is that? That's cool. Like, talk to me. And the whole point of that interaction is not the art itself. It's the interaction. And he was encouraging Jesse was awesome. It was a very funny guy. But he was just encouraging like, man, if it becomes about the picture, you're missing it. You're missing the point of the interaction. The point of the interaction isn't the picture. The point of the interaction is the interaction. And if we start to make it all about this thing, it's like realistically, if we can take a step back and really honestly evaluate ourselves. Nothing we do. No guitar solo I can ever play is going to like blow God socks off or right. You know what I mean? Like, yeah, like really blow his mind and be like, whoa, like I didn't know blaze was that good. I can never impress God by what I do, but I think God can still enjoy and like blazes like down their worshiping and he just ripped a solo with a while and his wall is in the wrong position the whole time, but he's like doing it. And we're having this interaction together. So I think if you can put that focus not on. Okay, here it is. Here's the thing that I'm going to do and I'm going to give this watch. God, I'm going to like open my vault and here's going to be this perfect little thing that I can give you. But here God, I drew a picture and there you go. And for this to be the important thing, I think that's where the heart really needs to be in this conversation as you're thinking about every solo, every moment, every like musically. The purpose of what we're doing is to sing together and then for us to like have that interaction with God and the art might get placed on the wall. It might be put on the ceiling of the system chapel or it might end up in the waistband or memory box or whatever. I might be a bad pen. I shred mine so that there's never any questions about where it went. You know what I mean, but the interaction is what is important there. Yeah, yeah. So really I guess what I mean, we've moved away from like just playing a guitar solo, you know, as in performance and the Bible doesn't pit skill against being spiritual. You know, I think those temple musicians that David appointed in Chronicles, like they're skilled and they're devoted to God. They're inside and they're outside or matching. You know, and I do think I love the idea of being in Christ and the gospel, you know, sorting out even for us like we're not going to do this perfectly, you know, whether it's I'm not living absolutely perfectly or I didn't play that solo, absolutely perfectly. God still looks at me and sees the righteousness of Christ and me sitting in that as my identity in Christ. Authentically, openly, you know, where I'm not on one hand being completely like defeated because it didn't perform well on the stage or I'm not being defeated because you know I'm struggling in this area. It's like the great equalizer. Yeah. I think I think that's I think that's that's actually really really encouraging. Yeah, yeah. I think maybe one one other thing I would say is like if you're considering whether or not your hearts in the right place trying to evaluate that for yourself as a worship leader like watch your reactions. Like if you play something interesting that you like, how do you feel when no one compliments it? Yeah, you know, what's your gut reaction? Honestly, when someone critiques you. You know, I do think those those really do reveal what's going on inside you. You asked me about that. I this past Sunday, I gave the message on worship and then also led worship and I think often in myself, I find this balance or this tension of man, there's this idea that I have for a Sunday service and I want to do something cool. And then it can get the focus can become obelisk wants to do this cool thing versus like just the sake of the thing, you know, and you asked me what I was just mentioning that tension to you and you asked me what my response was if it doesn't go well and it's like, oh yeah, that's I think that's really insightful on. Man, if you're walking off stage and you're disappointed in yourself every single week and you're disappointed about that one note that you missed or you're disappointed about and what's hard is it can be two things one is you could just need to go practice a little bit more and that could be yeah, a blessing in your heart and there are people that need need to hear that. But the flip side of that is like and I try to encourage our bands it's like hey, we we do two practices a week and we do Sunday morning rehearsal, which is a lot. I try to encourage everything up until Sunday morning critique try to get better mess with it and prove on wants Sunday morning hits though it's it's on the altar. We've laid out our thing. We've drawn our picture. And and pencils down, it's turned in. And to just be okay with that outcome, if it's terrible and if it stinks, but we've like faithfully put in the work behind it, then that's totally okay. I think God's totally fine with that. And I'm sure we might go back and like, okay, how can we improve this next week? But the heart should never be, man, I really, really screwed up and what a loser I am, because I think if you're putting in the diamond preparation, I think God's pretty pleased with you. - Yeah, that's pretty pleased with you. - Yeah. - Yeah, and you know, I know, it feels really good, to stand by the drums and have that guitar, or just rip in and the bass guitar feel, I mean, I know that feeling, that's such a good feeling, right, and it's only natural that that would have a danger to it. And I was thinking back to like that worship leader breakfast that I jumped into and I did that fairly regularly for a while. And there's some really, really great worship leaders in there, but there also were some that I would just describe as like, I think you guys worship worship, like, or just music. - Yeah, yep. - Like that seems to be like your God almost, you know, like when they approach it, when they talk about it, it's almost like they're worshiping the experience of the feeling in that moment rather than God. - Yep. - Right, and so I would maybe look at them and accuse them of being performance oriented, but I wouldn't use the word performance necessarily. It's more like idolatry. You know, and I think that may be another thing people are critiquing. Like that person is obviously all about the music. They're all about the feeling, they're chasing an emotional high, yeah, instead of God, you know, and I think that as we think about the Pharisees from back in the day, like they're given the system of how to worship God, but the system became God to them. And that became their ultimate thing and it actually replaced God. And so I think for some people that are really connected in with music, like you could just be chasing the musical high that you get. And instead of utilizing the gift God has given you to please and honor God himself. And I think that that would be a critique I would have someone is like, no, you're just performing, but it's not performing. It's something else. Yeah, yeah. And it's idolatry, I think. I think you can get kind of addicted to the emotional experience of standing by the drum set, you know, I think that's a threat for people like us. And we end up showing up in those moments at practice or Sunday morning chasing the feeling and just out of chasing Jesus. And that's a tough one to sort out as well. You know, maybe the way to like what's the symptom of you probably know if you're caught up in that, you know, but it probably has sort of a let down emptiness feeling when you're done. Yeah. Like most medications. Most things we used to try to medicate. Yeah. And I think even that's a challenge for the congregation too of, oh man, I had this really amazing worship experience. I can think back to when I was a kid and wanting to bring those experiences back home. And that's part of what like got me so hooked on this idea of worship. But you know, for the church to get just hooked on emotional highs and hooked on man, when that pads playing and everybody's clapping or raising their hands and the guitarist has just the right amount of feedback on his delay and just enough shimmer. And you know, and we can get hooked on those things. And it's like, man, are we, are we feeding people Christ? Are we bringing Christ in the front and center of people's minds? And are we worshiping him? Are we worshiping these moments? So I think that's real, real danger as well. As we're wrapping up, I want to go back to our friend who thought that the music was too perfect and he wasn't able to worship. Yes. What's the, I find that just a fascinating little tidbit. What's the, what's the response to him? I don't know him, by the way, I'm just, yeah. The example, okay, I do don't. Yeah, I mean, long story on that one, but we eventually were like, hey, you need to share your theological understandings of these things because it feels like your conscience is getting pricked all the time by our music. And he shared and we actually recorded his sharing and then transcribed it. I wanted to do due diligence with it. And then we just went to scripture and refuted each one of his points with scripture and basically just said, hey, if you want to stay here, you're going to have to be okay with this, but we feel like your conscience is getting pricked so there might be another church that's better for you. That was a really hard conversation to have. But that was like the long, the long answer, short answer. We just basically said, hey, beauty isn't something that is anti-worship. I think you're actually falling for probably philosophies. Like Paul is cautioning against in Colossians. These are rituals. These are self-flagulation, the stoicism or asceticism. These are not rituals that are actually good for you. If you can only worship God because when you're feeling in pain, the logical end of that is plywood seats, no air conditioning, no heat, I mean, that's not biblical. It's not what God is all about. It's not. It's just another way of prioritizing self over God. It's putting yourself at the center. - Yeah, yep. And I think we're wired to appreciate beauty. - Yeah. - One of us hasn't stopped and gazed at a sunset. By wife and I were listening to, I don't remember what the context was, but we were listening to just a bunch of different singers. It wasn't a singing show, but it's something like that. And as this guy sang four notes, and it wasn't like amazing high notes, but both of us were like, wow, he's a good singer. And there's just something about like, we just appreciate that. We appreciate things done well. And the trick is, and again, even with Thanksgiving, I've talked recently that the point of Thanksgiving is to point our eyes back to the giver and if we stop at the gifts, we're losing it. And I think the point with beauty is that beauty should point our hearts to God. It should be the one, the creation should point us to the creator. So yeah. I think that's, yeah, that's really good. - Yeah, and that, you know, in the end there, you've been given a role. That is a, it really is a role that's kind of bigger than you. You know, God's wanting to work through you and it doesn't depend on you. You know, so your desire for playing excellently, it's not inherently sinful. God actually commands skillful playing. You know, I love, I love the thing that you've brought up where David refused to offer that which cost him nothing. Like you're going to need to practice and then perform, right? And I think the difference between like, what we're categorizing here as a binary, where worship is on one side and performance is on the other side of it. I think the difference between those two things is nothing to do with the music that's being played and everything to do with the posture of your heart. Yeah, and then is yourself at the center on the throne or is God? And are you loving God and loving neighbor and doing this for the sake of God and for the sake of the congregation? - Yeah. Perfect. I think that's a great spot to land. I think that's the takeaway here is just, you know, it's a posture, it's a heart posture, like all these things. You can have the exact same services I totally believe, they could look exactly the same and the posture of the heart could be different and one could be God honoring and one could be not God honoring. And so it comes down to like, yeah, what? What are the motivations in your heart that you're working on and that's where the battle is. So. - Yeah, cool. Yeah. - Perfect. Yeah. - Well, that's probably a good spot to close off your anything you've been reading in the word recently that's been particularly encouraging to you. - Yeah, I mean, I think encouraging. I was reading Galatians 6 and it says that, you know, don't be deceived, God cannot be mocked. I mean, Reap's what he says, whoever says to please their flesh from the flesh will reap destruction but whoever says to please the spirit. From the spirit will reap eternal life and then it says, let us not grow weary and doing good for the proper time will reap a harvest. And just thinking about that harvest, like you sow and then there's a long time between sowing and then a harvest. And I think it can become pretty easy to just forget that whatever you put in ultimately is going to come to fruition. You know, so don't grow weary. If even it seems like the fruit, if you're sowing to please the spirit, it seems like that fruit is not coming. Don't grow weary, don't grow weary. You know, do good. - Amen. So I just, I feel more like convicted by that, I think, just the stage in my life, like there are things that are coming to fruition, things I've invested in both good and bad. And I just think that we should not grow weary and doing good because it actually is a thing that will happen. You will reap what you sow. You know, and I pray that there'd be more spirit and more eternal life there and thanks be to Jesus. who will rescue me from this body of death, which is so in the end that is very encouraging. But in the meantime, yeah, we're called to live a certain way. And I just want to learn more about that. What does it look like to so to please the spirit? - Yeah, that's good. - Yeah. So you said you guys started a new year reading, so you're an exodus now? - Yeah, yeah. I think for me what's been really sticking out, just kind of this time around, I feel like every time I go through the Bible, there's kind of these themes that really jump at me. And this year is just that God is really, and I know, you know, this is one of those first things you learn when you're a Christian, but God uses broken people and vessels to accomplish His purpose. And even as worship leaders were broken and complicated people in crackbox, broken crack pots. But you know, it's like the Israelites had no interest in being part of God's plan at all, even in the worst of their slavery. And they just had no interest in being saved by God. And they were constantly already complaining to Moses, you're making it way worse. And we now stink to the Egyptians and why are we here? And then God does this amazing thing, and they loot their Egyptian neighbors, and they leave before even the Red Sea happens. They're like, well, we should have just gone back to Egypt. And we know this story, we're all familiar with it, but God chose this family. And despite their total and complete lack of interest in being part of His story, He's still was faithful to include them in His story and to use them as critical pieces in His story. And that gives me a lot of hope. I'm not a critical part of God's story, but He has chosen and used me and is using me and for you worship leader. He has chosen and He's using you. And you might not be super interested in doing it all the time, but He still is determined to bring about His purpose in your life. So, yeah, it's been kind of what's been on my head. Yeah, it's good. It's good. Cool. Well, as always, we appreciate you guys tuning in. Thanks for coming along for the ride. And I think there's some good stuff there. I definitely took some good stuff out of that. So, I appreciate you guys. Again, we'd love to see in the discord. If you have more thoughts on this, we'd love to hear from you or just even if you're looking for somebody to share some of that burden with, we're around. So with that, we will see you soon on another episode down the road. See ya.