Choosing the Right Worship Songs

[MUSIC] Welcome to the worship server podcast. It's good to have you guys here today, good to be together. We always appreciate you tuning in. If this is your first time, appreciate you checking this out. My name is Blaze Nelson and I'm with my co-host, Travis Swan. Travis, how are you doing today? I am okay. I'm doing good. We're in prepping for the Christmas season right now. I don't know when this podcast episode is going to drop, but it's right before Christmas. And the life of a worship leader, the life of a pastor, is very full around Christmas time. So, but here we are. We're doing this. Cool, sweet. Well, I'm excited about our topic today. I think we're going to cover some good ground here. But before we jump into it, let's just do some housekeeping. Travis and I are not super interested in just building an audience. We would love to have conversations with you. We'd love to continue the conversation that we're having today or any of the conversations on our podcasts and more. So, we are trying to build community over on the platform called Discord. If you'd love to jump in, if you're listening regularly, please jump in. We'd love to meet you and engage with you there. You can jump in. There's going to be a link in the show notes below or the worshipserver.com/discord. It'll pop you right in there. And just a quick disclaimer before we get too far down the road is that Travis and I are just two guys that love worship, love the local church, love music. And we don't have all the answers. We're just interested in having conversations like the one we're going to have today and talking about it and really trying to sharpen each other's skills. But yeah, please don't hear us as experts telling you what to do. We're just two guys that are engaging in what the Lord has called us to as worship leaders and pastors in that world. So, with all that said and out of the way, Travis, what's our topic today? We're going to talk about song selection. So, we have probably more song options in today's world than ever before. With the internet, with YouTube, when we could go back to hymnoles, get some old songs, you've got new stuff, you've got the big mega churches that are putting out songs all the time. You have the option of writing your own songs. So in one sense, it's a good problem to have that there's too many songs to choose from. But it's hard to keep up. And it's hard to know exactly how to pick. And obviously, not every song that's out there that's been recorded and written deserves a place in your set list. So we're going to talk today about how do you decide? Like, how do you make a selection of a good song? Do you have a grid, some sort of gatekeeping? So hopefully, as we talk today, we'll have a comprehensive framework for evaluating your worship songs. So we'll talk about theological depth, probably. There's practicals associated with music, pastoral sensitivity to your congregation. Yeah, that's where we're going to go. Song selection. I think even just the season, when I think about song selection, Christmas season and the songs that you play at Christmas time, is like one of the most practical spots to do that. So are you doing, Mary? Did you know this year? Is one more year? Man, just kidding. I think when I was a teenager, our church did that song back in the 90s. Nice. It's a rhetorical question. Of course, well, I don't know. She sort of knew, but she didn't know. Yeah. Yep. So that was a journey for sure. Cool. Well, there's so many places we can start on this topic. We were just trying to figure out an outline of where we wanted to go. Right before we hit record. And I think both of us just have a lot of thoughts on maybe music in general and how we're listening and engaging in songs. So maybe a good place to start is when you start to look for worship songs, how are you approaching that? What's your process, I guess, when you start to think about, I'd like to add some songs over the new year or like the beef up or set list a little bit. What's what's kind of that process look like for you? Yeah. I mean, honestly, it's it's a difficult one because there is so much to wade through. I'll confess that I don't tend to find a lot on the top 40 list that I like. You know, so if you bounce this back from congregational music to just music in general, I kind of listen to whole songs. Like I listen to the package of the song. I love drums. I love guitars. But I don't necessarily when I'm first listening to a song or just enjoying a song. Think about getting into each individual little nuance piece of it. I'm more interested in how the whole package of the song feels. So I'm very much an emotional listener. Some people I think are lyrics first and I'm not lyrics first, but the lyrics matter a lot to me. It's like I'm not listening and going, oh, I don't know what they're saying. I usually do, but it's not necessarily the first thing I'm looking for. I'm usually looking for the, is there a melodic hook? Does the rhythm match that in a good way? And then to me, does the lyric actually, is it honestly communicating a similar feel to what the music is communicating? And some people will flip the order on all of that. But like I do think that a lot of people, especially in the church, are looking at lyrics first. And I think that that's wise. I think that maybe one of the things we should look at first, because I'll dismiss a song even if it's musically great if for some reason the lyrics are just not working. But as I always say, not necessarily the first thing I'm listening for. So just in music in general, that's where I start. Is this a good song? And I'll have my own criteria for what that is. But then you take it and put it into the church context. And then I start thinking about other things. Like does it fit our context? Is it singable? You know, is it theologically sound? And there's a lot of things we should go into on that. But yeah, the first thing I'm looking for is, is it a good song? And those are tough to find. Those are tough to find. I find myself doing deep dives every once in a while. And I'm like, okay, I'm just going to spend the day and find new songs. And then I will teach, I have playlists trying to find them. Often I have suggestions from congregation members that I need to look through. So every once in a while I'll set aside time to do that. More often than not, those are better songs anyway because they're coming from someone in the congregation who's already thought about it and it's meant to. A lot to it. Yeah. But honestly, it's kind of a haphazard sort of poke around, you know, trial and error process almost every single time. And I weed through a lot before I actually find a song. And I'm like, oh, yeah, I think this one's possible. Yeah. Interesting. So where do you start? What's your, what's your process on that? Yeah, I think I do. There's a couple of different processes that I'll take. The primary one I'll, I'll have is just as I'm listening to music. And I tend to, I don't remember exactly when this happened, but like 10 years ago, 15 years ago, I really wanted to try to find good Christian music to, and specifically, it was for my younger brothers, just like, hey, this is some, some cool music put up by guys that are either believers in an secular band or are in a straight out worship band. And here's kind of what they're doing. And so I started with a playlist that I called Good Stuff and shared that with them. And then from there, I have actually, I primarily, and I'm not saying this is like a badge or like, there's grace in all of this. And that's what's funny about all these conversations is so subjective to you and your context and your personality. And I think there's even a lot of those that come into play here, like specifically personality. But I've primarily listened to Christian music or music by Christians just trying to constantly, and I kind of constantly have a year out for like, oh, okay, this song is really speaking to me or there's something really cool here that's being explored or some, something about the song that captures me. I think in general, when I listen to music often, I'll like go through my ultimate playlist. I'm a pretty bad playlist curator. But if there's songs that have something in it that stick out to me or jump out to me, I'll throw it in a playlist. And it's some cool hook, some cool sound, some cool rhythm, some cool vocal thing. And it'll just go in a playlist. So it's kind of interesting because I'm looking for something that's already speaking to me before I'll start to think about doing it for the church. So that's kind of one process. And that's very, very much an artistic versus kind of pastoral take on this of like, okay, I want to only do music that, and I used to think this way and still kind of think this way and I'm struggling with this. But I only want to do music that I've had an experience with or that speaks to me. And I think that's a little too narrow for what the Lord has for congregational singing in a church body. And then the other primary way I'll do it is I'll go find like Christian artists that I'm excited about. And I'll, I'm kind of weird. I'll go buy their album. And when I buy their album, it forces me to sit with it and listen to it. And then I'll just listen to it a bunch. And if there starts to be songs that speak to me through that process or that are, again, something that's capturing about them, then I'll normally throw them on a list. So, it kinda depends. There's also, you know, hands that I'll try to throw in. I think about, I don't remember if I mentioned this last time, but I was at a conference and I heard Charlie Hall give a talk. I do think I mentioned this, but, yeah, you talked about song categories, and those four categories of like, is this a legacy song? So, like a song that we used to sing way back in the day, 20 years ago, is this a, him, is this something that somebody's written, or I don't remember the other one, scripture, something like that. So, try to think about, is there, is there, is the song fitting in one of those categories to you? Yeah, I don't know if that answers your question. So, you, you and I are different in that, you're always listening to Christian music, or at least a lot of the time, and keeping an ear out. I am not. I don't know if that makes me more of an exception in this worship leading world or not, but I never really have found congregational songs, interesting to listen to, just on my own, when I'm just listening for enjoyment or edification. You know, it used to be that more of like, what we've talked about is like Christian lifestyle music. I used to find more compelling, and then I think there was a moment when the industry switched from that to almost everything being sort of positioned as if it was going to be able to be congregational. So, like, I guess worship in a sort of top 40 CCM idea, and that music, because I think it's geared to be simple, at least on the surface level or at the top level, it isn't all that interesting musically for me to listen to. So, I do tend to just gotta go through, you know, I listen to a lot of discover playlists, new releases, things like that, but it's across all genres, and it's pretty rare that I'll grab a song that's from the Christian market and put it on a playlist for everyday listening. So, we may be a bit different in that. So, I actually, I schedule dedicated time to go looking for songs rather than just having them in my flow into my everyday listening, if that makes sense. - Yeah, interesting. And I'll sit with a word document in front of me open, and I'll take notes. If I like a song, I'll take notes on why that is. I'll have a link to it in there. I'll just copy the YouTube link or whatever I'm listening to. And then I'll actually put in a few notes about what this could be useful for. And I'll even put the date down, like, oh, I found this two years ago, and I haven't done anything with it. I should go back and look at that. - Sure, I'll sort by oldest. - Yeah, so I actually have it. I have a document sorted by, I think it's sorted by newest, but I do have that document, and I will go back and refer to it every once well, then I'll just go like searching around trying to find new stuff. - Interesting. - Yeah, so I think our starting point is a little bit different, but I'm guessing our grid is similar. So one thing I'm curious on, so we were just having this conversation before we hit record of just our stylistic preferences. So I tend to be kind of folk and indie rock. And so when you think about like indie Christian artists, I think that space is pretty well represented. - Mm-hmm, yeah. - Totally. - I think in names like Taylor Armstrong, John Mark McMillan, Josh Garrell's, there's some guys in the space that are really killing it. Citizens, I think, is another good example. Do you think there's a genre split there? - There could be to some degree. I don't know that those guys are all thinking congregationally all the time. - Yeah, yep. - And they, today's, there's a lot of stuff today where people are gravitating to folk music, see no a con, stuff like that. - Although there may be a couple of years ago, I don't know, I think people are still really liking it. And I think that some of these things are generational. But one of the, again, just personality things, I don't gravitate to sort of the indie singer, songwriter, folk thing I never really have from day one. Part of that could just be built in from a generational point of view, 'cause my dad's generation was extremely into that. - Okay, I'm confusing. - Yeah. And it's not like I consciously was choosing to rebel against it. I just never really found anything, all that compelling in it. I came of age, I think the first major rock band I became aware of was Guns and Roses, followed by Metallica. And for me, there was something far more compelling back then in those than his Gordon Lightfoot or whatever it was he was listening to, which was just really, really gentle. And then I never really lost that desire to find the kind of more edgy upbeat. Still with really deep melodic hooks, I've always loved melodic hooks in music. But I love dynamics. I love energy and dynamics. And to me, and I'm not saying anything about whether or not folk music is good or bad, just personality wise, I start getting bored really quick with it. And so I think that a lot of worship music has kind of gravitated into that style more recently. Where I think even just your average beats per minute in a song, of the songs that are available that have come out in the last five years, has dropped probably 15, 20 beats per minute to slower. And again, I just find it like, okay, are we just maybe in a cultural moment where most people are trying to think a little deeper and get a little bit more moody and maybe even create a sort of a sense of calm and introspection because our culture's so crazy. Yeah, could be, could be, I don't know. But what I have a tough time finding is that, almost like hype song, that's like three minutes long, four chords, still really good theological depth but full of joy. That's just like a good first song in a set. You know, those are few and far between. So I struggle to find those. So I think there's a personality thing here 'cause I do think your general beats per minute desire is less than mine. Yeah, for sure. That makes sense. And I'm just, please hear me, I'm not saying anything qualitatively on this. I'm not better, you're not worse, it's not what I'm saying. We're just different. I'm gonna go cry after this, but that's fine. Yeah, I'll be okay. I'll just told you you're wrong, obviously. Yeah, yeah. It's just, it's an interesting dynamic where, like one of the things that this has played out in my life is my dad's one of the pastors and he's told me that I don't have any fast songs. And again, I'm kind of playing stuff that I'm connecting with or engaging with. And it's, I tried to play a fast song and there was a guy that was doing worship in our church and he walked up and he's like, you hated that, didn't you? I was like, no, I didn't hate it. He's like, I could just tell you, you were like not engaged at all. Which is just, it's just interesting. As you're engaging in this conversation and as we're engaging in this conversation as humans and as people and as finite and different graces that we have, that's fascinating that comes out in our congregational singing and how that works. Another thing I just wanted to flag here is I do think there's a huge difference and rightfully so of songs that are meant for congregational singing and songs that are not meant for congregational singing. And so I was recently in a conversation and somebody was, you know, I have strong thoughts on things. I don't know if that's been clear ever in episodes here or not. But I was saying something about a worship group or about a worship style, I don't remember exactly. And I could tell that the person I was talking to was a little turned off by what I was saying. And I slowed down and was like, hey, just so you know, I don't think there's anything wrong with listening to that style of music. I don't think there's anything wrong with listening to this grouping. I think as worship leaders, we need to have a higher standard on what we're doing at church and what we're putting in the lips of the bright of Christ. We need to be really careful with that. And I think that standard needs to be really high as we're bringing songs to the church for her to sing to Christ. - Yes. - And so there are songs that I listen to that I really appreciate and that I really love that have been really meaningful to me in very different times that would not be appropriate for a variety of reasons to put into the mouth of the bright of Christ. And there are songs that would be awesome to, for that context that I don't connect with either. And so I remember somebody sending me, I think I've talked about this before, but the, Andrew Peterson's he is. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I tried listening to that in my room by myself while I'm working. I was like, this is not my thing at all. And then I, and you know, some of that's the music. I was in a church that was singing it. And I was like, oh, I get it. I totally had that song music drunk. This is a congregational song. Not me listening to my music. And so I think that's, that's something to take into consideration as you're thinking about your music. And the songs that you're doing is like, what's the purpose and can this be music for the church or is this should this be music for the church? And I don't know how many songs have ignored because I was music him wrong. Yeah. Yeah. Well, that's actually one of the major weaknesses in today's model and the industry and just how we listen to music. You know, for those of you who missed our previous conversation on music, the idea there as positioned by I think Christopher Small was the guy in a secular point of view. But I think it works. Is that music is more of a relationship? It's an action like it's a verb and it's participatory. And so he came up with music, King as a word to describe what you should be doing in music. And that's counter to ingesting music in the way that we've grown to ingest it like as a noun as an object as a thing to consume. So it's like the difference between someone sitting on the bus with their earbuds having a private experience that's just the noun version versus music where you have in my opinion what the church is supposed to be doing with music. And that is it's this relational moment where everyone comes together in love to build the body up together. And music is a tool and moment a relationship thing happening in real time. So I loved that and I think that that may be one of our very first things we're talking about here in how we're evaluating what a good song is. In the process of evaluating you have to get your mindset into this is a relational moment. This is a verb. This is something that is an action that's going to be participatory rather than I'm having my own personal experience, which I'm not necessarily saying you're always going to be a consumer of an, you know, an object in that moment, but that does tend to be how we relate to music now. And I just don't think that necessarily that God intended on that for us. So I'm a nerd so I went into the Hebrew and Greek across the whole Bible the other day and decided to see all the terms that are related to music or making music or you know songs singing. And I decided are these verbs in the original languages or are they nouns? And of course Hebrew is mostly verbs anyway so that I don't know if we can really measure a whole lot but in Greek it's the best words of verbs. Yeah, the vast majority is verbs across the whole Bible music is a participatory relational thing and when in the Greek it actually is talking about like like solmose for instance is a noun. But what it means is to pluck the strings of an instrument so it's a noun that describes an action it's a verb it becomes a verb in terms of how it's being implemented. You know so that's like Ephesians 5, 19 or Colossians 3, 16 where you greet one another and solms hymns and spiritual songs. Making music again a verb it's a verb so as we're considering songs put yourself in a different mindset than just the mindset that you have that normally ingests music as a noun. What's it going to be like when the church gets a hold of it you know so so for me it's like before we even get to the criteria of like is this or the lyrics good is the music good is it. What posture do we need that's actually maybe more important than that and that's I love this body that I'm leading I love these people. You know and I think that love for them is indispensable in terms of thinking about participating with music you know so start there what is it that this church should sing together as a congregation. Yeah that's pretty clarifying across a lot of different genres and styles of music and lyrics. Yeah I mean we've had this conversation a bunch which is one of the things I'm really loving about this is I think we're we're bringing the philosophy of worship that we have into all of these different spaces and okay how are we how are we applying these things you know not just oh this is my philosophy and whatever but how are we like applying these things to the practicals of worship leading yeah yeah and you know if if a song is unsingable then it's not a good worship song. Yeah if the church can't sing it together what we're called to do is to like come together and sing and that's commanded 50 times in scripture you know that's that's the point of what we're doing and so if if you have a song that is unsingable then that's not a worship song and that doesn't mean it's not okay to engage with that does mean it's not okay to listen to it it just means it serves the different function and I think that's an important clarity. I think that's an important clarification is that their songs that serve different functions in the body yeah or just in general and you know the function of a worship song is to to be singable for the congregation to sing together and and lift up or voice as one yeah yeah there was or something I read from CS Lewis years ago which I think is actually a really good check for us as we start thinking about what songs to sing. He said when he first started attending church you know because he was an atheist he he was a convert later in life and he really had this opinion he thought the church hymns back then they were fifth rate poems set to sixth rate music that's what he described. I honestly feel that a lot like in terms of the music that I'm capable of playing and reproducing and the music that I really enjoy listening to you know that might be first rate lyrics set to first rate music. Those might not be the right things for the church so see us Lewis describes he gets into this situation where there's fifth rate poems being set to six sixth rate music you know so he just thinks that they're awful. But then he describes he sees this old saint this old just battered guy singing these songs with this just utmost heartfelt devotion. You know and he this guy's in his old work boots you know there and and then CS Lewis says that he realized he wasn't fit to clean those boots. And I said it got him out of his solitary conceit and he started learning to love these old church hymns that you know really he didn't like going into it and I just think that that's maybe the posture like that's our humility check like where is our church at who are your people. What are they going to sing with genuine devotion. What's what what are they connecting with spiritually. You know I've had strong opinions about songs that I just really didn't like only to somehow be convinced to use them and it. Deeply minister to someone else you know and it's just taught me like there's so many preferential things I just need to set aside. As I enter into this. Yeah I think just over all to remember that you're if you're a worship leader in modern day America wherever I you're probably a musician and musicians tend to be very picky people. And so you're going to have a lot of thoughts on things and there's I think there's a really good call to put your preferences and your thoughts on things secondary to what's good for the church or what's a blessing for the church. And to humble and yield yourself to what what is good for the church and to humble and yield your artistic expression to what is what is building up for the church and I think about like you know what I was thinking about just kind of guiding lights in this conversation at in Romans 14. You know Paul is talking about the food that we and whether or not it's okay food sacrifice to idols and he's saying you know if you are a believer with a more mature faith and there's a younger believer who cares about what you're eating then he says I would rather not eat me again then to cause my brother to stumble. I think as worship leaders and as lovers of the church I think that needs to be kind of our posture as we walk into this that kind of needs to be our guiding light is like what what will serve the church and what will serve not my artistic expression but what will serve the church. Yeah. Like the first 10 years of 14 let it be done for building up let it be done for building up. And it might mean we're playing boring music. Well, at least by my preferential status. Yeah. I think there's a cool opportunity there to and I don't know exactly what this looks like but I would love for like if I think about the ideal worship song. I have two ratings in my mind. One is, how singable is it? And it's gotta be pretty singable. It's gotta be like one, one to five, it's gotta be like four or five. I think I've had a couple that are three. Five is leaning simple. Five is like one, is one complicated in this. Jesus loves me. Yeah, one's complicated. Well, because everybody in your congregation, the vast majority of them are amateurs at music. Like they're novices at best. Yep. They cannot give them something complicated. I, I, one morning when I was leading worship, I said, hey guys, we are all singing together. Like, whether you like it or not, whether you think you're a singer, you're singing together. And what singers do is they do vocal warmups. And so let's do a vocal warmup. And we did, we did bubble sirens. Just as the whole church, 'cause I just wanted to get that idea of like, yeah, we're all amateurs, but we're all singers. Like we're all coming in to sing together. So yeah, for your church's singability. Yeah, so singability, but then you were gonna say something else. The second thing is playability. And as a musician, my ideal, now I gotta reverse it. I want like the most singable song, that's the most difficult to play. And if I could get like, find that song, it just, in me, it's like, okay, cool, there's this like, I can express my musician ship in this song without distracting from the church. And as you think about, I mean, you know, there's all kinds of videos out there of worship leaders telling you not to overplay. And don't like serve the song, but I think there's a lot of ways to serve the song that will tickle your musician ship in the right way. Yeah. I wish I wouldn't have used that for you, but that's okay. That will like satisfy that need, you know, like, just will meet. So yeah, as you're thinking about this, you know, maybe there's a song that you are like, man, this would be great for the church, but it's rough. This is like the most boring song ever. Then maybe there's a way that you can music it differently, or, you know, radical ref, too, or add a cool hook, too, you know, that's what it is. Yeah, without doing too much to shift the song. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Okay. What if we, I would say maybe one caveat I'd have on that is knowing your team and can they pull off a difficult song instrumentally, even if it's very easy to sing. So you always need to have that, you know, can you pull it off without sounding like you're trying hard? Yeah. That's distracting. Yeah. For sure. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Don't be distracting in this, I think, is super important. Yeah. So I will, I'll just submit that I think I do have a top criteria that is my first point in a song above even the style or the melody or anything else. And that is what does the song say? Is it theologically right? Is it theologically dense? Is it scripturally sound? Like, how do you evaluate that? Because if it's not, I immediately dismiss it. I don't care how cool the song is. I'm not going to rewrite it. There's probably other songs that are better. That is a immediate disqualifier. This one is not, uh, biblically sound. I'm not going to do it, you know. So it doesn't really matter to me what the music is on that level. Yeah. After that, I will start evaluating the music. And sometimes the music is so bad, I didn't even get to the lyrics to analyze them. And I had already just-- Sure. --so I guess there was the else as well. But that really is, I think-- I mean, disqualifier. Yeah, yeah. But the top disqualifier for me is this one just is not theologically sound. Because like it or not, people will get their theology from your songs. You know, the songs you pick, that's what people's theology, they end up having those lyrics in their head all week long, probably more than the sermon. Yep. So I just think part of the-- Yeah. Yeah. So when you think about lyrics and making sure that something is theologically sound, how do you actually evaluate that? What's your test for that? Yeah. I mean, there's-- I think there's more red flags that I'm looking for versus a litmus test. I have written out a rubric. And we could even potentially make that available in the show notes for people if they wanted it. But I have kind of a rubric of what I'm thinking about when I'm looking at a song. And a lot of it's even optional. So it's not like, OK, if this doesn't pass, if this can pass 4 checks, but there's that fifth one that it's like a 4 on versus a 5, then it's out. But just like kind of things to think about. And so red flags I'm looking for, is it a Christian lifestyle song? Like are we actually worshiping the Lord? Or are we singing about how cool it is to be a Christian and how good it feels all the time? Yeah. Or I'm thinking about as a written to God or as a written about God. I think a lot of our music-- and again, that's not disqualifying-- a lot of our music is written about God. And so I always get a little weird feeling when I walk off stage and it's like, man, we just sing a bunch about God, which I think is appropriate. I don't think every song has to be to God. But there is no personal prayer. If you're thinking about your worship service and this song as a corporate prayer that you're praying together, what are those words? And are you just like, it'd be weird if you and I were sitting here having a conversation. And I was like, well, yeah, Travis is a great guy. And Travis really likes worship music and has guitars. And versus just talking to you. So be thinking about that. I have more like the old Adam, new Adam thing. I think I talked about that recently, but just this idea that, are we-- am I talking about my accomplishments and my devoted heart and my gifts and the things I'm bringing to God, or am I talking about what God's grace has done in my life, again, not disqualifying just something to think about. So that's kind of where I go with. I think about balancing truth and emotion is a song just fully emotional and just like this. Emotional outpouring, or is there like good truth mixed in with it? Yeah. So those are not an exhaustive list, but where my mind kind of immediately goes. OK. OK. Yeah, I think maybe for me, I would say you need to be a student of the word. Yeah. Yep. You know, it's been funny to me when I've shown up at conferences or something and worship leader presents something that's just not theologically OK, at least in our theological circle. Like, do you not-- are you not aware of what you're singing? So I wanted to be accurate to the biblical text, obviously. Sometimes lyrics can be traced back to specific scriptures. And I think that if you can link it to that, that's great. Yeah. If you can get your congregation singing the word, do it. Sing better is one day because it's in the word. Yeah. All the song is. Sing it. Yeah, that's good. Yeah, totally. But you have to watch out for it, because sometimes there's a theological term that's used-- there was a song "Consuming Fire" back in the day that used that phrase. Is that the day? Yeah, I think that was the third day back in the day. But the song "Consuming Fire," the concept, was applied to heart transformation rather than judgment. But the text in Hebrews is just about judgment. Like, "Consuming fire fan into the flame this thing in my heart." I'm like, well, that's not actually accurate to what the "Consuming Fire" idea is. God being "Consuming Fire" is a terrifying judgmental thing. You could put a song. You could write a song like that. But it's not that one. There used to be people in our church that would lead that one. And then at one point, I was like, wait, hold on. I think this is wrong. So that one is just an example of maybe I'm being hyper picky, but I do think it matters. Yeah, yeah. I do think it matters. I don't think I would have cut that. But I think that's a great catch. And I think in that, if you introduce a song and something comes up, then just don't do it. That's OK, too. Yeah, yeah, right. If there's any question, I honestly just toss the song. I don't see a reason to try to somehow spin it to make it OK. Even rewriting the lyrics. People are going to go out and find the song on Spotify or YouTube or whatever, and they're going to be listening to the original lyrics. They're like, oh, I like that song. I want to have it throughout my week. Sorry, you're in a different world now than we used to be back in the day when the only time they heard the song was on Sunday morning. Yep. They'll find it. Don't rewrite it. Just find another one. So it brings to mind the thing you had said from the Worship Initiative guide. is don't be confusing. (laughs) Yeah, yeah. If anything is confusing, just, there's no need to do it. There's probably a better, non-confusing one out there. And there's like thousands of worship songs out there. We could probably feel this out. Yeah, and I do think that if you, if you look at the Psalms, like you had talked about, you know, there's sort of like old Adam versus new Adam, you know, is this song like this is reenforcing like my striving, my performance, my self-effort, I'd associate that with the old Adam versus like new creation in Christ, you know. So not the songs that subtly, you know, communicating them as a work harder and trying harder and you know, I'm digging deeper to pledge whatever, can I actually rest in Christ? Rest in what has already been accomplished for me. Like that is a criteria when I'm thinking about something that's theologically sound. I also want it to be gospel centered, gospel lifestyle. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, so there's a lot of songs that will mention like victory and trials, but they don't explain why and they don't get to the gospel. And I will either completely avoid those songs or like sandwich it between two gospel songs. Yeah. I think that's a good point too. You're not often singing a song in no context. And so to think about how the song would fit in the context of different music that you're doing, I think that can, I mean, just like you said, you could maybe have a song that you wouldn't do otherwise, but you can sandwich it between two good songs. Yeah. You know, this is where I started thinking about like spiritual diet and what, like what as a body of Christ, what are we feeding on? What are we singing? What's what are the words on our mouth? And you know, I think even in that, it's okay to have some songs that are necessarily to meet some potatoes and might be a little bit more, the one that, I mean, really pops in my head. I don't know if you're familiar with it, but the gates by young oceans. And it's kind of this prayer of like, man, I want to do all these things. I want to see you. I just want to be with you. And I want to come through the gates. And it's like, yeah, I don't think it's appropriate to do every single week. But it's good to do every once in a while. Yeah. And please feel free to correct me if I'm wrong. No, it is, it is okay to do every once in a while. And there are those songs where you're like, okay, this in, in accompanied accompanied by these other songs and led well, I think this is a good moment for the church. The one caveat I would give to that though is your youth band may pick up that song. Somebody may pick up that song for their leading in their small group. And they may not pair it with the things that you would pair it with. They may not give the disclaimer that you started with, or the passage that you read. Yeah. So I may still say no to a song like that, just simply because when it stands alone, it might be describing something else and leaving people feeling more weary and striving rather than resting in the gospel. Yeah. Yeah. So again, I don't want to confuse anybody. And if there's any chance that this song will be used and not have a good effect, I just still probably just would not pick it. Yeah. That's good. Yeah. I think another thing. Oh, go ahead. No, please. I was just going to move on lyrically. I'm still thinking lyrically. Songs I will also avoid is if they're talking about something, like, let's say like the song talks about like, I will praise God. I'm going to praise God here. I'm going to praise God there. But the song never actually gets to a point where it's like, in God, I'm praising you. Yeah. Yeah. This way, I may avoid that one, you know, again, I'm not going to be legalistic about these things. And there's probably exceptions to things, but there are very much like me centered like, this is what I'm going to do. Songs. Yeah. That don't ever get around to the point of actually addressing God or actually praising him. Yeah. Rob Robby C said that in general, a lot of the songs from like the 60, 70s, 80s were like, doctrinally thick, who God is. And then like 90s to 2010s were more kind of intimate relation, like, intimate lyrics about God and our relationship with him. And then today's songs are more about us singing to God. Yeah. I think that was a pretty funny. Yeah. We're pretty funny statement or generalization. And I think it's true. I think it's really easy to have songs about the activity of singing or the activity of praising or the activity of whatever. And it's like, no, no, we're in. I again, I think that that's appropriate to have on your playlist at home. But when you're thinking about a song that you're doing for church and you're thinking about, we're in the middle. We're actively praising and worshiping God now. Then just to the song that praises and worships God versus sings about praising or worshiping God. Yeah. Yeah. There's probably one out there that does it better. Yeah. Yeah. So there are, I think there's also a trend today. I don't want to just dog on modern music because there's a lot of really good stuff out there. But I think there's a trend today in maybe presenting God is like useful to me. That makes sense. So the like using God for my comfort, using God for my victory, using God for my blessing, using God to make me feel good. Yeah. You know, so rather than the song being about who God is, it kind of spins it to more of like a, but and then what's in it for me as the main point. Right. It's not like that's not in scripture, though. So I'm careful with it, but I'm not like always disqualifying it. Because if you get to the end of Psalm 16, it says there's pleasures forever more at the right hand of God. Well, that's for me. What's in it for me is pleasures forever more at his right hand. You know, that's eternally going to be true for us. That's a wonderful hope to look forward to. Amen. And I might sing about that. But I do think more songs lean that direction, more subtly positioning God as the means to our ends. And so it becomes sort of a selfish pursuit almost sometimes. So I watch out for that. You know, does the song really make much of God as being worthy in and of himself? Yep. Versus what I can get. Yeah. Yeah. Yes. You could just put a high sort of a here's the label on that. Is it man centered or is it God centered? Yeah. For sure. You know, and again, I don't want to dismiss all of them. There are many songs that are I me. I I will do this. I'm going to do this. There are many songs that are, you know, I seek comfort, pleasure, healing, help, blessing. And I think those things are biblical. They just aren't the main event. But I think today's worship tends to make it the main event. So people are coming to a worship service more for therapy than they are maybe looking for God himself. Yeah. And then that's good. Okay. The other thing I would say about lyrics is, if you know your congregation, are there, are there things that they're, they're going to go in one ear out the other. So like the word, alleluia, what does it mean? What does it mean? Well, yes, I know that. But does everybody know that? And when you repeat it over and over again in your lyric, is that what they're getting? Or is the brain turning off? And do you have to give a teaching every time you do the song? You know, and then also there's lyrics that are maybe a little more heady than what the average person will be comfortable with. So I was like, there's that one King's kaleidoscope song. It's great song. But he says, the solace in your suffering is my strength. I'm like, I don't even know what that means. I just stop and think about it. I could get to a meaning in it. But by the time I'm actually thinking about that, like they're onto the chorus and I'm way past it. You know, so I'm not necessarily saying you should dumb your songs down. But is it so artistic or poetic that it's just inaccessible to 90% of the people? Yeah. Yep. Yeah. And like the song, I've had a song that Josh Garrel just came out with a version of O Love that will not let me go. Oh, I heard that. And I love that song. That's such a good song. It's very folksy. But and I so wanted to do it at church, but I'm struggling because I think that can, you know, those lyrics are so rich. But it's like you have to be sitting there reading him over and over again or grabbing your guitar and just playing it over. And over again. And so I'm thinking about like the context of, you know, especially if there's people that are, yes, all in the room or, you know, there's all kinds of considerations to take. You know, is there a way to catch this song? And I think there's a value to it just even from being an old him of being a song that's. The sustain the church, the body of Christ for 200 years at this point. Yes. Yeah. 400. I can't remember when it came out. Anyway, just this idea of like, how do I then engage with it? Do I, and I actually am thinking about, I have a sermon in a month, I'm actually thinking about just kind of, and we have a lot of new believers in our congregation. So just going through like beyond the three circles or like the gospel, but just a little bit more in depth, and just using that song as like stopping points as I go through it. And then playing it at the end. - You know, so I think there are ways, I think you can be really creative in this. There are ways that you can introduce songs that I think will be really meaningful. I think knowing your congregation, like the stuff that will go in and out of the ears, but also being aware of cultural moments in your congregation, and songs that will speak to the cultural moments in your congregation. So if your congregation is going through a hard moment, and you sing a song about God's faithfulness, we had one of those moments, and we did Lord have mercy by Brady Toops, and how great is your faithfulness? There's all kinds of songs we could have done with how great is your faithfulness, but that was a moment, and our church felt it, and our church still feels it when we sing that song. And so just to be aware of like, okay, what's the spirit doing here? And there might be a vision for the song beyond what even I have for it, that the Lord wants to use for this moment, and getting it goes back to the preference thing, but maybe there's something that the Lord has for this beyond just. - Ooh, this is some cool, cool electric guitar and some cool lyrics. (laughing) Maybe there's something powerful here. - Yeah, yeah. Yeah, and I don't wanna say that, you know, deeply poetic language that actually is meaty to process and take some time. I'm not saying that's bad. - No, yep. - You gotta know your moment, know the song, know your congregation. Be careful. - Be careful. - Yeah, yeah. You just like that song 'cause it's got the word blaze in it, don't you? (laughing) - I don't have much with blaze on it. I gotta take what I can. I've never had a mug, so you gotta hit one of those times. - Then the nice sunshine blaze its day. - Yep. - May brighter, fair be. - Yeah, so good. (laughing) Okay, so I feel like we hit lyrics pretty good. What are some things you're thinking about just musically as you're engaging with a song? So I'll let you kick it off and then I'll jump in. - Well, let me just ask you a question then. So you said preferably easily singable, but difficult to play. - Yeah. - So why that? - I think I want to play interesting music that's compelling. - Okay. - And I think it's a good idea to use a quality of it is important to you. - Yeah, for sure. And I don't want to regurgitate. I don't want to do boring things. I want to do something that's engaging for me on a mental level. And I think there's, I think on one hand, you could look at that and say, wow, like you have your priorities all wrong. And I think there are guys that could be in my shoes that do have priorities wrong. I think there's another version of that where, you know, I think it's honoring to God that I, going back to the David's Heart thing at the end of the second Samuel, I will not give to God, will cost me nothing. And, you know, I, I want to play hard chords that are difficult. I want to master a piece. I want to get the stop on the fore and not the fore and wait for a beat. And I think some of that's just musicianship, but I think there's also a real element of like, this is my offering to God. And can you do it without all of that? Absolutely. For sure. You don't have to hit the fore end, you know, you can hit the fore, it's fine. And if you're like, please don't hear it. Like if you're in a struggling worship team, don't hear that you have to be musically amazing. I think that's a step beyond, that's sugar on top, you know? That's frosting, frosting on the cake. Get the cake, get the good stuff, get good singing, good music, good words, flowing through your church, get your church singing. And then start to think about all this stuff. But I'm at the spot where I want to be playing interesting things and compelling things, even in maybe uncompelling songs or uncompelling environments, because I think that serves the church too. So how do you balance in that, the critique I think that I could see coming at you is, hey, you're just showing off? Yeah, and I think this is, in my experience, hey, I haven't gotten that much, which is encouraging. I have gotten, there was a comment about the blaze show at one point. And it's helpful to have really good, really good relationship with your pastors, really good relationship with your bandmates to be living a brother approach, to being known in your church body, to loving your church. 'Cause I think if people know your heart and then they see you up there playing a solo. And yeah, there is a mix, just like with anything. There's a mix of motivations when I play a solo, there's been times where it's been like, yeah, this is gonna be awesome. And I think there's grace in that. I think that the Lord knows our frame, he knows that we're weak. I think obviously we want to keep working towards playing from a good heart and a good spot, obviously. But, and you know, I think if you're like, you're really struggling, I think there's steps to take. But, I don't know if I answered your question. I would fall back on my pastoral team, I would fall back on my team that knows me, that knows my heart. I would make sure, I would wanna make sure that I'm lead. So I think I have a lot of trust with my congregation. And so, you know, maybe a new person would think that, but I think the core would know, and that's not as hard here. Sure. Yeah. Yeah, I think this is awesome in his own head, but he's also willing to say that he thinks it's awesome. And, you know what I mean? I don't know if that, yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think it's, sometimes it ends up getting presented as a false dichotomy. Like you either play something very, very simple because that's not gonna be distracting or have people focus on you, you know, or you're performing and you're selfish and you're prideful and you're, you know, and I just don't know that that's true. I could back that up biblically, I suppose, because in first Chronicles 15, you know, there was the Ken and I a guy who was the chief of music, basically, and it said that he was in that position because he was skillful at it. He was a gifted musician. You know, and I don't think that means he then dumped himself down for the sake of playing music. I don't think you have to dump yourself down. I just think there's a way to do it without, you know, looking like you're a diva, which I'm not accusing you of. I think I don't think you're doing that. I think there's a good conversation to be had here too. Maybe this is our next one. We tend to fall into our next conversations of performance versus like playing. Yeah, we should talk about that. Yeah, so maybe I'll stop talking, 'cause I have thoughts on these lines. Yeah, let's put that on the shelf and pick that one up for another episode. 'Cause there's a lot in that conversation. Yep, for sure. Yeah. All right, we're coming to a close here and I still have a lot of thoughts to say. Did you have any thoughts just to kind of wrap up the music part, what you're looking for? I mean, I'm just looking for a well-written song, you know, does the composition, the melody, do those actually complement the lyrics? Do they work with the lyrics? You know, is your lyrics a, is this a lament? But your song is triumphant. Like there's something wrong there unless you're purposely going for the juxtaposition for whatever reason. You know, sometimes I have issue with people rewriting an old hymn, but you know, taking a positive lyric and putting it to a sort of a new sad feel. Unless you're doing that with a purpose. A lot of times it just feels jarring, feels wrong. Like for me, there's an honesty in the music fits the lyric, the mood fits the, the lyrical content. And then to me, I think there's just a, is the melody good? Is it a good meaningful melody? Like is it well-written? Is it simple enough to sing, but interesting? You know, does it have a surprising moment in it and then a comeback to the home moment? You know, is it, there's a reason pop music is good? You know, the melody is amazing. Is this a good melody? So I think there's a lot of musical stuff you can think about in that. And a lot of it, it's a little bit more intuitive, but I think you can, you can kind of put it in those categories. Like does this melody work and does it work with the lyrics and is the song musically interesting? You know, and again, that's going to be a very like personality dependent in a lot of things, but a good song is a good song. One thing I've noticed about what I think are poorly crafted songs is when the melody depends on the chord progression being under it. So I will take the melody away from any instrumentation at all and try to sing it. And if it's just sort of my, on a tone, then I realized the interestingness is actually the chord progression. And the two juxtaposed. And I will usually just ignore the song at that point, because I don't I think the melody isn't going to stick in people's heads quite the same. It'll actually be a little bit more difficult to sing probably even, and it's entirely dependent on their being a band. There's a lot of songs like that. Yeah. Yeah, I don't know if I've ever engaged with that. Yeah, I think for me, I'm looking for like, can I do this song with an acoustic guitar and just by myself in a room? Yeah. And is it still engaging or is it like totally fall apart if you don't have drums? You know, I think there's songs that are like that. I prefer, again, this is I think a preference thing, but can you sing this song for three minutes and not repeat something 47 times? Yeah. You know, unless it's that song that I mean his love indoors forever, his love indoors forever, how many times did it repeat? Yeah, you could you could you could. I'm sorry, you're loving. You could just say what it is. Yeah, I think there's a place for that. There's a song that recently came out that I think has like 70 varies or an error. Something ridiculous. So yeah, just think about like, okay, and a lot of that can be preference, like I tend to and to know that about yourself and to be okay with, you know, doing something that's not your preference. I tend to know out like songs that ride the end chord of the pre-chorus into the chorus. It falls a little flat for me every time. I tend to not like unnecessarily repeated words. Good, good. Yeah. There's there's stuff like that that I'm looking for, but it wouldn't be disqualifying necessarily. I think one thing that was really interesting that I'm started to think about now is this came from the the worship pastor from Zach Hicks that book I recently read, but he was saying to try to try to pick out songs that might be from a different part of the world, it might be a different context than yours, to train for the sole purpose of training your church to be able to sing in a multicultural environment. Like heaven is going to be and to give them that, kind of foretaste of like, oh, wow. And I love that idea. I think that's really cool. If there's a song that's like a little stretching or has some funky chords or is a different style, it's like, man, I loved I haven't done it much, but I would love to keep going in that direction and now I have some bubble backing to it too. Yeah, some theology. Longs you can pull it off. Yeah, yeah, totally. Yeah, do it well. Yeah, it's got to be done well. I think that's always a criteria. Yep. And I think closing out one thought I had just as we were thinking about this topic and even talking beforehand. I there was a podcast episode that Malcolm Gladwell did on the differences between country and like old school country, not like new country, but old school country versus rock. Yep. And one of the things that he was saying was that old country was very specific. It had a lot of specificity to what was happening in it. And there were things that could be communicated really quick because for the most part, a lot of country was for poor white people living in rural America and like the 60 70s, whereas like back, you know, rock and roll is way more multicultural way more, you know, somebody in LA could listen to a versus somebody in backwards Alabama. And it had to be a lot more generic. And so I think as you're looking for worship music. And in this, there's we want to have them on at some point. But Jason Howtsma from the worship artistry just released an album. And if you haven't heard it, go listen to it. But and I don't want to steal a sender and tell a story. But that that album has some really cool stuff for his specific church and they, you know, his church was coming together and there's moments in that album that his church really resonated with and they were part of bringing it together and making it come to life. And so just thinking about, you know, this isn't a product that we're putting out. The worship music isn't a product that we're putting out. This is this is something that your church is doing together. And I think that gives a lot of freedom to be more creative with what you're doing. You don't have to do the top 40. You could do something a little bit more. You could you could write your own music. You can do a song a certain way. You can you can create a cultural moment for your church around a song. You know, so that there's just things that you can do that I think is really I was just telling you John Mark Mcmillan just for posterity sake this year. He had quit doing music full-time. And he was talking about how he wants to be like the sushi chefs in Japan and they focus all on being the best sushi chef in the world. That's a hard word to say sushi sushi chef sushi sushi. That is really hard. Yeah, sushi chef about that. And they work and they live it. They work in these restaurants for and they can feed seven people and no more. And so he's he's really trying to focus one of his goals is to really focus locally. So yeah, like go and see if there's people riding locally in your area that there's maybe there's songs that you want to borrow from there. Maybe there's songs from people that you know that you want to bring in and and share with your church. I think there's a kind of opportunity there if you start to think more about the specificity of your body versus the general movement of what's happening in the church. Yeah, like the Big C church. Yeah, the America. Well, because you know, it's nice having these big publishing companies who can distribute stuff across the world. But it's going to have to be generalized or dumped down enough or watered down enough to apply to everybody everywhere if you're going to sell it. You know, and so if that then is influencing our song selection because that's what we're being fed, you know, like you said, I think we may lack the specificity that our local congregation needs. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. I think the stuff that's being offered to the masses is kind of dumped down. Not all of it, but some of it really is. And so, like if you're thinking about your congregation, you know, and you get you get someone with a really horrible, you know, illness, diagnosis, and they're laying in bed, you know, whatever's going on, they're suffering. What songs do they have? You know, as they're getting attacked by the devil, they're getting attacked by their flesh. Yep. What have you handed them in your song selection that's running through their heads? What do they have to sing about? Does it work? Like, are they armed with the right lyrics? And are these songs that like they've lived through and experienced and musiced with their family? You know, I think these are these are life or death situations that we're dealing with. And that's why I think why we have to care about song selection. We're not just picking music, we're shaping like the language and theology of our congregation's faith, you know. It's really, really important. And it I think is worth it to get ourselves out of just sort of what's generally applicable to the masses out there. And into what are the particular needs of my people? Yep. Yep. That's really good. I've often thought about like, you know, what's the song Jesus sang when he was going to the cross? Around the last supper table, you know? They sang a hymn and then they went out. Yep. And then you think about like Paul and Silas and prison singing hymns. That's like, I think we have the opportunity to arm our people for hard things and for yeah, hard moments. And yeah, are we are we giving them good content? Are we giving them what's easy? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So maybe one criteria to put on this as we're closing out is, does this song have a future that is applicable at somebody's bedside where they're while they're in the hospital dying? They're they going to request that you bring it and sing it to them? Yeah. That's crazy. I've had that thought too. That's been a guiding light of like, if the church gets persecuted and people start getting thrown in jail, whatever want them to be singing, I've had that thought a lot. Yeah. Yeah. And yeah, I think bedside bedside's good too. Yeah. Yeah. Cool. Any other closing thoughts or parting shots? No, I think I think that's I think we we hit a lot of things and there's a lot of more things you can talk about with music and probably lyric analysis and things like that. Insert songs, sing new songs, repeat songs, teach them to the church, but you don't have to insert every single song. There's a lot of junk out there. You know, there's people think, oh, hymns are so much better than the new song. Well, you know, I mean, what was it like Fanny Crosby and Charles Wesley wrote like 10,000 songs between the two of them or something? I don't know how many it was. It was a lot. Yeah. And how many do we sing today like 20 if that? There's a lot of Fluff in there, you know, people realized they weren't good enough to stand the test of time and they threw them out. What songs are we introducing now that are going to stand that test of time and we'll still be singing them in a hundred years? Yeah, for sure. You know, so there's some good good criteria good good good Good things to use for analysis. I think as we're approaching a song. Yeah, absolutely Yeah, I think one this is a very weird thought But I would encourage just because I think we have option paralysis at the wazoo and we have like access to the most amount of TV and the most amount of movies and most amount of YouTube like in the most amount of music and we have unlimited access Buy a worship album and stick it in your car and listen to it for a month and Just just try and see what that does I really For a lot of reasons maybe because I'm a psycho, but I've been working on my music collection and just listening to it and I have found it very like very beneficial to my soul To have that I have unlimited options. It's been good. I still have like an Apple music account But yeah, it's been a cool experience. So just try it for one month. It's good idea unlimited stuff. Yeah cool Anything that you've been reading in scripture that's been encouraging to you recently our family is reading through Hebrews which is dense Hebrews is very dense But in the midst of it and my son asking me questions about You know, what does it mean to have tasted of the heavenly gift and then being unable to be brought to repentance? well I just love Hebrews 416 You know, let us with confidence drawn near to the throne of grace that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need We need God's help and I'm so glad that his throne is the throne of grace It's not the throne of condemnation. It's not the throne of self-striving. It's a throne of grace Yeah, I'm in refreshing yep. Yeah, what about you? I'm also reading in Hebrews. We just started today and The the one that's been the the thing that stuck out to me Just this morning as as as a plan through it and I've been thinking about along these lines And you you harp on this a lot, but just the fact that Jesus came down and sat with us and knows us and You know, we're in the the advent and the Christmas season and all this all this beautiful stuff of the Lord coming in and a dark world to the poor in spirit and That picture of Luke of just you know stinky shepherds and a stinky stinky stable with Teenage mom and you know, it's just it's a crazy It's a wild story that the king of the world came down to sit with us the poor in spirit and Hebrews talks about him doing that so that he knows us and Psalms talks about him knowing our frame and Man, we just have a really good personal God who loves us and What a blessing. Yeah, so that's kind of where I've been at It's a good Christmas moment. Yep It's good Christmas moment and if if anyone out there is considering doing little drummer boy for Christmas Just understand there's no there's no little drummer in scripture. Hey, hey, and I'm sure that Mary, you know, having just given birth and just gotten Jesus asleep and laying there exhausted being approached by this kid who's got a drum Thinking to himself this family needs a drum solo right now. This is it. Yeah. Yeah, this is it. This is the moment. This is my moment It is it is Anyway, sorry. Well, thanks for joining us. We went off the rails there Yeah, we appreciate it as always and if you have any thoughts we'd love to hear him jump into the discord and We'll see you there and until next time Merry Christmas. Happy New Year and enjoy enjoy the season and enjoy the things that got us done for you All right, bye. See you [Music]