As Bobby and I prepare to take a short break from blogging during the holidays, we want to extend our sincerest appreciation to all of you who have journeyed with us this past year as our family has endured several great trials.
And most recently, you poured out your prayers and generous kindness to us as we have simultaneously celebrated the birth and mourned the death of our precious son, Parker David Gilles, who was born into the arms of Jesus on October 21st. Thank you for believing God with us and for us. Thank you for pointing us to Christ through your prayers and words of encouragement. Thank you for lending your hearts and tears in weeping with us for the brokenness of this laboring world. Thank you for joining your hearts and voices with ours in praising our flawless Maker and King, our Great God who perfectly answered our prayer in saving our son Parker forever.
Throughout Advent and Christmas seasons and the coming year, we invite and encourage you to continue hoping in the Lord with us as we all look forward with great longing for the return of our Savior King Jesus. As we wait, we will surely be confronted time and again with our vanquished foe. Let us remember that he is conquered by the death and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. Let us remember that there is no truth in our enemy. He knows his days are numbered so he seeks to slash and burn as many as he can with his vile, twisted tongue. We pray that God would enable us to disbelieve the false words of our foe, and that He would give us courage and faith to believe the Truth of His never-failing, never-lying Word. Our expectation must be in the Lord alone. We must rely upon Him to give us strength here in the waiting for His sure and blessed return. He WILL come again and save us. Until then, we will not fear but will trust in the Lord and praise Him for what He has promised.
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year from our family to yours—we love and appreciate all of you!
“When I am afraid, I put my trust in You. I praise God for what He has promised.
I trust in God, so why should I be afraid? . . .
You keep track of all my sorrows. You have collected all my tears in Your bottle.
You have recorded each one in Your book.
My enemies will retreat when I call to You for help. This I know: God is on my side!
I praise God for what He has promised; Yes, I praise the Lord for what He has promised. I trust in God, so why should I be afraid?”
Many of you may be more familiar with Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn than Google+. I have been more active on those older networks than G+ myself, but the new Google+ Communities feature intrigued me so much that I decided to give it a shot. I envision this being a place where we can chat, post demos of songs, link to songwriting articles and encourage each other.
The Google+ Christian Songwriters community is open to the public (and, of course, FREE) so check it out and join. Maybe we can even do some live video Google+ Hangouts sometime.
Ambition is a dirty word among many Christians and church leaders, although Paul uses it in Romans 15:20 –
and thus I make it my ambition to preach the gospel, not where Christ has already been named, lest I build on someone else’s foundation,
For Paul, ambition is a good thing when rightly motivated, directed and applied. And for today’s worship leaders, ambition is a good thing when rightly motivated, directed and applied.
Are you ambitious to lead your congregation in worship songs, so they’ll think you’re cool? Bad.
Are you ambitious to lead your congregation in worship songs, for the glory of God? Good.
We see why Paul was ambitious to preach the gospel in the previous two verses:
For I will not venture to speak of anything except what Christ has accomplished through me to bring the Gentiles to obedience—by word and deed, 19 by the power of signs and wonders, by the power of the Spirit of God—so that from Jerusalem and all the way around to Illyricum I have fulfilled the ministry of the gospel of Christ; (Romans 15:18-19)
The only thing Paul wanted people to notice about himself was “what Christ has accomplished through me.”
This weekend as you lead worship, don’t feel bad about being ambitious. Don’t hesitate to pursue excellence. Don’t shirk from choosing the best, most solid worship songs you can find or write. Don’t apologize for insisting that your team members come prepared, that they play to the best of their ability. And don’t hide the fact that one reason you put them on the team is because they possessed that ability.
Be ambitious. Just make sure your ambition is rooted in a desire that Christ be magnified, for the edification of the church, the witness to those now outside the family of God, and the delight of God Himself. This is holy ambition.
Churches, unfortunately, make a lot of mistakes on their websites — particularly the home page: For instance:
Cheesy clip art
Photos of smiling faces … who have never actually been to your church
Sensory overload – every bell and whistle that every staff member could dream of
But one issue flabbergasts me. I can’t tell you how many church websites I’ve visited that had one certain problem. And this isn’t a matter of including the wrong thing on your home page. It’s about what some of you are leaving out:
Your Location And Service Time(s)
Your church website is like your billboard, and like the old Yellow Pages listing. People may be checking out your website for lots of things, but for sure you need them to know where and when you meet. Don’t make them hunt all over your website to find this information.
Include contact information too — email, office phone number and your major social media accounts.
The Multi-Campus Conundrum
What if you’re a multi-site church? What if it’s not feasible to include the street address and service times for every campus on your home page?
We had this problem at Sojourn Community Church, where I am Director of Communications. Our solution was to create a major tab header called Locations And Service Times. This is one of several main headers that appears on every page of our site, not just the home page. Clicking on our Locations And Service Times tab takes you to a page with complete listings for each of our four campuses, as well as a customized Google map of the entire Louisville/Southern Indiana area, with markers showing each of our campuses.When users click on a marker, they can get directions to that campus from their own address.
If you’re a multi-site church, have you chosen another way to communicate your individual campus service times and locations?
Include Your City
Some church websites list their street address but not their city or even state. The reasoning might be, “People in our town already know what town they’re in. They just need our street address.”
The first problem with this is you’re shooting yourself in the foot with Google and other search engines. For instance, if you’re a church in Boston, you want people to be able to type “Boston churches” into a search engine and find you. Make sure you mention Boston on your website.
The second problem is that we live in a mobile society, where people move often and where they have friends and family in many locations. So let’s say I am looking at a church website — maybe I arrived there from a link on Twitter (a friend posted the link to the most recent sermon by this church’s pastor). The sermon is great and the website leads me to believe this is a good, gospel-centered church.
Then I notice the church is located in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. No way! I was just talking to my cousin on Facebook, who is moving to Cedar Rapids next month and will be looking for a home church. Now I can send her the link to this church website.
But what if “Cedar Rapids” wasn’t listed on the site, or at least wasn’t listed on any main page? What if the only address listing was “123 Main Street”? There is a 123 Main Street everywhere. Now my cousin still doesn’t have a head start on finding a good church in Cedar Rapids.
Matt Boswell is Worship Pastor at Provident Church in Frisco, Texas. He’s led worship and written songs for the better part of two decades, and is a well-known writer of modern hymns. He’s also the founder of Doxology And Theology, which includes DoxologyAndTheology.com, a website that promotes gospel-centered worship and provides articles and resources from worship pastors, leaders and songwriters around North America. As you’ll learn in this interview, the website is merely the beginning.
You’ll also learn more about Matt’s music, including a new EP entitled Messenger Hymns, Volume One, and his role in the upcoming Songs for the Book of Luke project from The Gospel Coalition. I’ve enjoyed conversing with Matt, listening to his music and learning from him, so I’m glad to be able to bring you this My Song In The Night interview:
Bobby Gilles: Last month you hosted the first Doxology And Theology national conference. Did it meet your expectations?
Matt Boswell: I think from the very beginning of the conference there were evidences of grace all around. Our volunteer team at the church worked effortlessly—praise God for them. We had attendees from 29 different states, and two countries (US & Canada). I was blown away by God’s goodness throughout it.
Bobby Gilles: One of the things I noticed about the conference is that you had speakers from several different networks, different denominations — how did you come up with the list of speakers?
Matt Boswell: From the very beginning I tried to plan a worship conference that I would like to come to. So, I contacted friends from around the country, guys that I learn from. Basically if you look at worship renewal and New Calvinism, I wanted to gather all those voices together.
Bobby Gilles: What is your goal in the future? Do you plan on doing a conference every year?
Matt Boswell: We won’t do a conference every year but, Lord willing, bi-annually. So we’ll do it on the even years. It’s very similar to what Bob Kauflin does with his bi-annual WorshipGod conference. I want to do it on the opposite years that Bob does WorshipGod.
Bobby Gilles: Are there any other resources that you’re looking to develop under the Doxology and Theology banner?
Matt Boswell: Yes, it will be threefold. First, we’ll do more conferences—under that would be podcasts, interviews, blogs—so that’s all kind of in the resource part.
Second, we’re starting a record label called Doxology and Theology. I don’t know what that will look like eventually. For now, Stephen Miller is loosely affiliated, his new Hymns record has the D&T button on it — Matt Papa will do the same.
Third, books. The first book, I believe the working title is Doxology and Theology: How The Gospel Forms the Worship Leader — I’m not sure if Lifeway will stick with that title. But I want to do many other book titles, from various authors. So it won’t be all my books. It will be hopefully about ten different guys all writing under the same banner all with the same heart and passion.
Matt Boswell: Lifeway partnered with us specifically with this conference, and publishing the book. It’s undetermined at this point what that will look like with future music and books.
Bobby Gilles: You’ve got a new EP, Messenger Hymns, and I noticed it’s titled Volume 1 so I assume there will be more to follow?
Matt Boswell: This is the first of a four-part series. Each will be six hymns long and each with the doxology. So I’m writing a series of four doxologies. At Provident Church we sing the doxology every week, like the traditional old one. So I’m trying to incorporate very short trinitarian hymns that would all be patterned after the traditional doxology.
Bobby Gilles: You mentioned trinitarian—I love the trinitarian language in “How Rich A Treasure We Possess,” which you wrote with Matt Papa. It reminds me of the trinitarian song you wrote with Michael Bleecker and John Warren, “O God of Our Salvation.” Why do you think there are so few explicitly trinitarian songs in modern worship music?
Matt Boswell: I think functionally a lot of our corporate congregational worship ends up feeling unitarian. We’re scared of the doctrine of the trinity because it is steeped in mystery. Charles Spurgeon says in his commentary on Psalm 96 that
“The sacred fire of the human flame only burns where the trinity is believed in and beloved.”
I agree. I think the doctrine of the trinity informs all other doctrines. It is the self-disclosure of God. It’s progressive through the text, through the Canon. It’s a foundational doctrine for us, therefore we should be singing about the trinity regularly.
Bobby Gilles: I love the work you’re doing in bringing that back in to the church.
Matt Boswell: Isaac Watts included a whole series of doxologies at the end of his Psalms, Hymns and Spiritual Songs. So basically you take those and move words around and you’ve got new doxologies. They’re very easy to write but I think they’re a kind of forgotten song in the Church today.
Bobby Gilles: I mentioned a couple guys that you’ve written with. You do a lot of co-writing — you also wrote with Jennie Lee Riddle on her new project People and Songs, Opus One. When you’re co-writing, are each of your co-writing relationships different or are you primarily the lyric guy, the melody guy or the hook guy?
Matt Boswell: I’d say historically it’s been across the board. Early on I would write with anybody because I was learning to write. As I’ve gotten older, I only write with a handful of people. What I’ve chosen to do is develop those relationships both theologically and on a friendship level and write primarily with those people.
I just started writing with Stuart Townend — that’s a new relationship for me but we work really well together and are trying to write the same kind of songs. I do feel called to write a specific kind of song and it’s not for everybody, so therefore I can’t just write with anyone. What I’m primarily trying to do in song is teach theology — I’m trying to write sermons in song. Not everyone is writing that way. And also in an extremely congregational fashion — so the hymns I’m writing I want my grandmother to love, and I want my four year old twin daughters to love. So I’m trying to write a very specific kind of a song in all the hymns I write.
Bobby Gilles: So when you’ve got that kind of comfort level with your co-writer, I would imagine it becomes a more organic thing because you’re on the same wavelength.
Matt Boswell: Yeah, so for me, doctrinal unity is the most important thing. So if we have that unity then collaboration comes very easily.
Bobby Gilles: Another thing that you do is revise a lot of old hymns, in addition to writing new songs in hymn meter. And you’ve written in the verse-chorus-verse format before as well. Is this a conscious decision to vary your writing template?
Matt Boswell: Early on—when I first met my wife, her biggest complaint on seeing me lead worship was that I did no hymns. This is nine years ago. I felt like traditional hymns were outdated and I attached the same kind of stigma that many people would attach to them. But I learned to listen to my wife.
So that kind of set me on a venture. Also what really solidified my pursuit of and love for modern hymnody was a guy in my church made an offer to pay for me to record a modern hymn record. I said “No thank you,” but a year later he made the same offer again so I said “Yes,” and did the Vintage record. I really had no idea what I was doing at that point. I just picked hymns that I liked and I wrote a couple in that same genre. I wrote “Endless Mercy of God” and one called “Rise Up and Sing” that I don’t even like at this point.
I wrote those for that project and then the more I did that, I didn’t want to sing other kinds of songs. I started not liking songs with choruses and prechoruses. So I tried writing “verse only”. I think it can be confusing to say that “verses only” is the definitive assessment of what a hymn is, although that is a version of what a hymn is. But other guys are writing in a modern format that is “hymnish.” I’m specifically trying to write in a more traditional format, though.
Bobby Gilles: What are you doing here in Louisville? Tell me about this project.
Matt Boswell: As a student of Southern Seminary and at the invitation of Mike Cosper, I’m here in Louisville to work on The Gospel Coalition record The Songs Of Luke. Many songwriters are a part of this project, from many different streams of evangelicalism. We all wrote hymns responding to the Gospel of Luke. I wrote two hymns — Luke 15 with Matt Papa, and Luke 24 with Don Carson. Both of those are on the project and I’m excited about the Church hearing them.
Bobby Gilles: So is this D.A. Carson’s first song?
Matt Boswell: No, Don has written before; just not on a project with this visibility.
Bobby Gilles: Well, that sounds good — so you’re sort of bringing him into the world of writing hymns.
Matt Boswell: Yeah, I do feel a passion to try to get the guys that I read — to pull them into writing songs for the church. I think the greatest hymnwriters could be Dever, Packer, Piper, Carson. I do hope that those guys would take what the Lord’s given them in commentary and in theological aptitude, and put it into poetry.
Bobby Gilles: Just like many of the old hymnwriters like Isaac Watts — pastors who write poetry?
Matt Boswell: That’s really all I’m trying to do. I’m trying to communicate, in song, the truths of God and man as revealed in Scripture, so that all those doctrines resonate in the hearts of the people.
God calls believers to live in peace with one another. His Word charges us to make every effort to keep ourselves united in the Spirit, bound together with peace. No matter what our roles of service are as members of Christ’s body, this effort is part of our striving to lead a life worthy of our calling by God and His gospel.
The members of a worship team often have many different preferences and musical palates. Sometimes we worship leaders impose our preferences upon other team members and congregations. Or, we may be put out because our lead pastor has imposed his preferences upon us and we feel hampered in our ability to lead with the songs and musical styles we prefer.
There may also be times when we or one of our team members are full of pride or envy, or are doing a sloppy job singing or playing our instruments, or are consistently failing to show up to rehearsals and services on time. These faults can be difficult to forgive. However, according to God’s Spirit in Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, we are commanded to
“Always be humble and gentle. Be patient with each other, making allowance for each other’s faults because of your love.” (Ephesians 4:2)
This statement immediately precedes the directive for us to make every effort to be united in the Spirit and bound together with peace, and it highlights explicit ways that we can make this effort:
We must always be humble and gentle.
We must be patient with each other and make allowances for each other’s faults.
Why? Because of our love for one another which flows out of our love for Christ in response to His great love for us.
If we struggle to keep peace with our brothers and sisters (regardless of the nature of our servant leadership role), we need to remember how God has loved us first and that His love compelled Him to make peace with us despite our faults and preferences. While we were still sinners, enemies of God with our sinful natures at war with His perfect, sinless nature, Christ died for us and made peace with us through His blood shed on the cross for our sins (Romans 5:1, 8; Col. 1:19-22). This is amazing! We are no longer God’s enemies because HE chose to be punished for our sins so that we might be reconciled to Him and have peace with our Maker.
Consider also this charge from Paul in his letter to the Colossians:
Let the peace that comes from Christ rule in your hearts. For as members of one body you are called to live in peace. And always be thankful (Col. 3:15).
We must let the gospel rule our hearts. We cannot afford to forget the good news of the peace that we now have from Christ, because of God’s great love which compelled Him to humble Himself to the point of dying on a cross for our sins. Christ has humbled Himself and been gentle and lowly among us. Our Father has been immeasurably patient with us. And He’s given us His Word and His very life lived among us as our example to follow as we persevere in leading lives worthy of our calling. Let’s make every effort to walk worthy of our calling by letting the peace of Christ rule in our hearts and our worship teams.
Therefore I [Paul], a prisoner for serving the Lord, beg you to lead a life worthy of your calling, for you have been called by God. Always be humble and gentle. Be patient with each other, making allowance for each other’s faults because of your love. Make every effort to keep yourselves united in the Spirit, binding yourselves together with peace. For there is one body and one Spirit, just as you have been called to one glorious hope for the future. There is one Lord, one faith, one baptism, and one God and Father, who is over all and in all and living through all. – Ephesians 4:1-6
If you haven’t heard of Michael Bleecker, you may have heard of a song he wrote called “Glorious Day,” which received a Dove award nomination and was crowned the 2012 ASCAP Christian Song of the Year. You should also know – as many of you do – that Michael Bleecker is the Worship Pastor at The Village Church, a multi-campus church in the Dallas, TX region that has produced several worship albums and is led by Matt Chandler, who is also president of the Acts 29 Network.
I caught up with Michael a couple weeks’ ago when he came to my hometown Louisville to record vocals for an upcoming worship album by The Gospel Coalition. Sit back and enjoy this My Song In The Night interview. Michael’s responses to questions about “Glorious Day,” how to pastor musicians, working with other songwriters and being part of a gospel-centered community will bless and inform you, as they did me. And look for the new EP by The Village, Look And See, here on iTunes.
Bobby Gilles: You were nominated for the “Song of the Year” Dove Award this year for “Glorious Day (Living He Loved Me)” along Mark Hall of Casting Crowns. How did that collaboration come about, and what was the relationship like with Casting Crowns?
Michael Bleecker: They were good to work with. The collaboration came with me working with Word Publishing, when I signed a single song agreement with them for “Glorious Day.” A lady from Word heard my song and sent it to Mark Hall, whom she knew from her days at EMI. and it went to his manager. It’s really cool how all this happened—I found this out later: Mark was working on the hymn “One Day” which is where “Glorious Day” comes from. He’s trying to work out the verses–he has some chorus material written which you now hear in “Glorious Day,” but he couldn’t figure out verses — he couldn’t figure out the melody.
So his manager told him there was this young worship leader in Dallas who had rewritten the melody if he wanted to hear it. He listened to it and said he immediately loved it. There were 120 songs that they were trying to work out for one slot on the next Casting Crowns album—everyone had submitted all these songs. He really wanted “One Day” to work but it wasn’t working, and then he heard my version.
He called me after they got out of the studio after recording it. He said although they’d never met, he loved the verses and had written choruses, and wanted to know if we could split it 50/50. I told him sure, yeah! The reach that they have is phenomenal—so it was easy for me to say “As long as you don’t mess with the content of those verses, because that’s the entirety of the gospel from birth to return in future glory.” It was a fun partnership for sure.
Bobby Gilles: And of course you recorded “Glorious Day” for God of Victory, The Village album. And I’d read somewhere I think that you said that album was six years in the making—not necessarily the recording process but just the germination of the songs that you’d been doing in worship services at The Village. Tell me about that process.
Michael Bleecker: I wrote some of the songs literally six years ago. The Village has been such a changing organization as far as growth — constantly more people coming in, which is great. But it means at various times we’ve had to build another campus or buy another campus and expand. So every time I’d budget for our new album, it would get nixed—and for good reason—because we needed to make space for all these people coming in. I was fine with it because I write for the church, so I want what is best for the church.
But I also wanted good recordings for my church. And they kept asking for recordings so I would have to give them board recordings from live services of these six year old songs. So when we finally came to the point of recording God of Victory, I just looked at my guys and said, “Some of these songs are outdated, some we haven’t sung in a long time but I would love to get them recorded well and breathe new life into some of these old songs.”
Bobby Gilles: What does the songwriting process itself look like at The Village? Do you all host songwriting retreats and do a lot of collaboration with each other?
Michael Bleecker: We just started collaborating with the staff—so there’s four worship pastors on staff now and there’s an associate. And we’ve just started writing together—we’re writing for this new Advent season. So that’s sweet. But as far as retreats, we haven’t started that yet. But I am directing my gaze more toward my church. I’m still writing outside, but that was all that I was doing before. So it’s been a shift in having to say “No” to some of the guys that I do love writing with — and I’ll continue it at certain points but I’m putting The Village first, and we’re just now starting to collaborate together. So it’s a brand new season of that.
Bobby Gilles: What’s it like to be a pastor, not only of the congregation, but you’re pastoring musicians directly and all the issues that might go with the artistic temperament. What does it look like for you to pastor fellow songwriters, worship leaders and musicians?
Michael Bleecker: I don’t necessarily look at them as musicians—they’re just members of the Village Church. So when I walk with them it’s not necessarily musically. The volunteers we have at the church are crazy gifted so I don’t need to spend a lot of time with them musically. I expect them to grow musically on their own.
I would really to spend more time with each of them but we have about 40 volunteers, so the time I do get is very pointed. I ask questions like, “How’s your marriage?” “How’s your heart?” “How’s your personal life?” “Are you in love with Jesus and reading the scriptures?” I meet with each of the men individually once per quarter.
Also, I’ve chosen three women leaders in my group and then split up the women volunteers among them. My leaders go and meet with them and then email me back things to pray for them. And they really minister to those womens. So that’s been a really sweet process. I’ll do email encouragement to them and have their names written on my whiteboard in my office so I can pray for them. So those are just some of the ways that I can encourage and love on my musicians and volunteers.
Bobby Gilles: I would call you a very trinitarian songwriter — for example the God of Victory song “O God of Our Salvation,” which you wrote with Matt Boswell. The song brings each person of the trinity into focus. Why do you think we have so few strongly trinitarian songs in the church world, among all the contemporary worship songs?
Michael Bleecker: I think it’s because people don’t understand the trinity, so what you don’t understand you don’t write about. I think, as my pastor says, for instance, some people think of the Holy Spirit as that crazy uncle at the family reunion. And so people don’t spend time studying or thinking about who each person of the trinity is. So it was hard work for Boswell and I — although it was really fun work — to make the distinction but remember also that God is One. So, it was a fun challenge and one we took up because there’s so few new trinitarian songs. So, I think it’s just a lack of knowledge of the persons of the trinity.
Bobby Gilles: Earlier this year The Village released its second children’s album, Blessed Is the Man. I interviewed Jeff Caps about that. Talk a little bit about the difference in writing and recording songs like “Walk Like Jesus Did” when you compare them to the “grown-up” songs of God of Victory.
Michael Bleecker: Well, a lot of those were written by our volunteers and Jeff, as you know. But these are guys that walk with our kids and love on our kids and disciple them and teach them. They’re in the trenches with the kids so they know what stirs their affections and gets them excited.
But they also know that some of our younger kids are not believers, and so they must teach them strong biblical truth mixed with a strong melody. That has been a bit of a challenge but also a huge joy. So, for me to entrust Caps with those albums — then to put that album in my car and to (I have three boys) have my two oldest boys singing “blessed is the man, who trusts in the Lord”, they are singing scripture! It couldn’t make a dad happier. There’s nothing that can make a dad happier than to have your 4 and 6 year old singing scripture word-for-word. That’s a huge win. So, we’re going to continue that. I think it is a challenge to write for that age group with those words. But it’s repetition, and once they get that into their heads we just pray that the Holy Spirit one day takes that memory and makes it reality.
Bobby Gilles: You all also released a single on iTunes earlier this year called “Come To Me,” featuring Lauren Chandler. Now Lauren has her own solo EP, The Narrow Place. Will we see more EP’s and singles from The Village Church or individual Village worship leaders in the future?
Michael Bleecker: Yeah, I think so. I kind of get beaten down by the extensive, hard road of doing a full-length 12 song album. It’s time consuming and very costly. I’ve found that just doing five or six of our songs takes a ton of the stress away from myself, my team and my family at home, and allows us to come out with more albums more frequently.
And honestly, this is just me on a personal level, I don’t really listen to full-length albums much anymore. And I know that’s a tragedy, but I think time has demanded that we listen to the things we really want to listen to. And although I’ll buy the whole album on iTunes, I only end up listening to five or six of them regularly. So I want to put our best stuff on one little album. Now we’ll still make full-length albums but I think the majority of our efforts, at least at our campus, is going to be put toward EPs.
In February I believe, Isaac Wimberley (our Dallas campus pastor) is coming out with his new album. It’s going to be a hip hop album called Warrior. It has two to three very corporate worship songs, one called “Warrior,” that we’re going to start leading in a couple months. It’s fantastic. He’s crazy gifted, I mean some of these songs are on the level of Tedashii, LeCrae. So I’m very excited about that. And then a few months after that—I think in the spring—our Denton worship pastor is coming out with his first album and that’s going to feel very “Denton,” very “Austin,” very artsy. It’s going to be sweet. We’re excited about it.
Bobby Gilles: The Village also about to release a live record. Are these songs you’ve been leading in the congregation awhile or are there any new songs?
Michael Bleecker: We’ve been leading these songs for probably two to three months now and so the church is ready for them, which I was excited about. So the congregation knew them and were ready to sing them. We recorded that last Wednesday and we’ll release Thursday, December 6th on iTunes. It will be five songs with a spoken word by Isaac Wimberly, which he wrote specifically for this project.
Bobby Gilles: Is this your first live record?
Michael Bleecker: It is, and I’ve wanted to do it for years. We finally found the window and took advantage of it. I can’t wait.
Michael Bleecker: I think it was a dinner that Ben Peays (Executive Director of The Gospel Coalition), Mike Cosper, Matt Boswell and I had with a few other worship pastors. Mike had already been working with Ben on this idea, and he pitched it to us: let’s write songs, let’s sing songs together on one album that will reflect what’s happening with The Gospel Coalition, and will tell the Story as portrayed in the Gospel of Luke. I got really excited about it. And then he called me and said he had a song they wanted me to song on. I’m honored to be here in Louisville—a complete honor to sing today on this project, which I believe will be released in time for the TGC 2013 National Conference.
David Santistevan is Worship Pastor at Pittsburgh’s Allison Park Church. He’s also a well-known blogger at DavidSantistevan.com, recently recognized by the readers of Worship Leader Magazine as one of the “best blogs for worship leaders.” And he’s the author of short, helpful e-books like Beyond Sunday: A Step-By-Step Guide For Creating And Sustaining A Vision For Your Worship Team, and his latest, The Worship Songwriter.
Today David and Allison Park Worship have released their first worship album, a live project called Undying Love. Get it on iTunes or their website (where you can get loops, chord charts and more). First, read this My Song In The Night interview to get insight’s into Allison Park’s songwriting culture and David’s thoughts on music for the church, writing, worship leading and more.
Bobby Gilles: One of the first things I noticed about Allison Park Worship: Undying Love is that you co-wrote songs here with several different writers, and that some of the other songs feature multiple writers besides yourself, working together. Is that kind of collaboration part of the DNA at Allison Park? How do you encourage it?
David Santistevan: It’s a relatively new development at our church. This project began as a songwriting retreat where we did a ton of collaborative songwriting. I had a desire to invest in the young songwriters on my team and this was a great way to do that.
Bobby Gilles: Tell me about the actual songwriting retreat that led to the birth of many of these songs. Was it a tightly structured retreat? Did you put some writers together intentionally, or was it more like “Lets lock all our writers together in a big room and see what happens?”
David Santistevan: The retreat was pretty structured – I grouped people up and sent them off for an hour at a time to co-write. Each of the writing sessions was unique – looking at upcoming sermon series’, writing on a particular theme, just worship and see what happens. Then, we came back together and shared our ideas. The time limit, structure, and accountability really helped us to become more creative and push our ideas.
Bobby Gilles: In several of the songs, like “Belong To You” and “Nothing Compares,” you’ve got that really singable, exciting verse-chorus-bridge format. Then in some of the others – the Wesley hymn “O For A Thousand Tongues To Sing,” for instance, where you contributed a chorus, you delve into the more traditional church song structure that leans heavily on verses. Can you describe some of the various things that each kind of format contributes to the overall experience of the album and the live worship setting?
David Santistevan: Our church loves hymns and we love simple, faith-filled, declarative choruses. “O For A Thousand Tongues” really captures that well. We want our worship experiences to involve the mind, emotions, and will. When our minds encounter truth, we respond with passion and love, choosing to engage in worship. We don’t just want to think, agree and watch. We engage our entire being the worship of God.
Bobby Gilles: Most of the lyrics are very much like a heart’s cry – simple declarations as well as requests to God like “Turn my eyes from what is earthly,” or “Take this open and willing soul.” Did you have to chisel these lyrics down or revise a lot to arrive at that degree of intimacy and simplicity, or was it more like “This lyric was my heart’s first response, so let’s not complicate it too much through revision?”
David Santistevan: I am a firm believer in revisions when it comes to worship songs. My heart’s first response is usually very passionate, but not always theologically sound or worth putting into song. We took the first drafts of these songs and went to work on the lyrics. I wanted to know – Are these songs worth singing about? Are they true? Do they glorify God? Do they lead people to Scripture?
Worship songwriting is a sacred responsibility. We shouldn’t just rely on our initial creativity. We need to be Bible-saturated and work hard to reflect God’s greater story.
Bobby Gilles: In songs like “We Can Not Stay Silent” and “To God Alone” I get a sense of “We’re not going to let the rocks cry out.” And it seems like the congregation is passionately involved as well. Is that pretty indicative of the worship climate at Allison Park? How do you cultivate that?
David Santistevan: Yes! We definitely have our Pentecostal roots ☺ One of our greatest values is engagement. We don’t want people to watch a great band. We want them to declare God’s promises over their life. So we work hard to explain why we raise our hands, sing, shout and participate in worship. I’m always exhorting the congregation that we’re all a part of the worship team, following our true worship leader, the Holy Spirit.
Bobby Gilles: Has this collection of songs been a part of your worship services for a while or was the live recording one of the first times that the congregation heard them?
David Santistevan: I would say 8 out of the 10 songs have been staples at our church. “God of the Impossible” and “Closer” are more ministry oriented songs (less congregational) so they were more unfamiliar. Our goal was to pick the best songs – the songs that people responded to.
Bobby Gilles: Correct me if I’m wrong but I believe this is your first album. Why begin with a live project rather than a studio release?
David Santistevan: We wanted to do a live project because we didn’t want this to just be about a band or an artist. This is the church. We all own this – from the pastors to the band to the congregation. These are “our” songs. This is “our” prayer. We felt a live recording was the best way to capture that.
Bobby Gilles: Many people are familiar with you through your blog, davidsantistevan.com, “a blog for worship leaders and musicians,” and e-books like The Worship Songwriter and Beyond Sunday. What’s your goal, in terms of the universal church and worship ministries – and how does that coincide with your goal as worship pastor of the local church in Pittsburgh?
David Santistevan: I love the local church and love serving God’s people in worship ministry. If I ever lose that, I have no business writing about it. My plan is to continue to live this out in ministry and create resources for other worship leaders. I have a passion to help the “unknown” worship leaders – those who feel “less than” because they don’t have big teams, big budgets, and loads of talent.
Bobby Gilles: What can we expect out of Allison Park Worship in the future, in terms of songwriting, recording and other endeavors?
David Santistevan: I plan to do another project in the future but am really looking forward to seeing this project live its life and watch God use it. We also look forward to leading worship at our church, at some events, and leading songwriting/worship team workshops.
Week after week, you listen to worship records out of Nashville recordings studios. More and more, you’re also listening to recordings from churches with large, thriving worship ministries. You read album reviews in Worship Leader Magazine, you attend major conferences and you watch the Dove Awards, all while thinking “I’ve got to get our worship team up to that level.”
Then you drive to your church and begin setting up for the weekly practice session. Your volunteer leaders arrive — some eager, some straggling. One of your background vocalists doesn’t actually know how to sing harmony. Your rhythm guitarist only knows a few chords. Your piano player wants sheet music, and can’t transpose. And it looks like (again) you won’t have a drummer this week.
We can learn several things from this scenario:
Your leaders should arrive eagerly, not straggling
The background vocalist needs to practice her harmonies
The rhythm guitarist should take lessons
Your piano player needs to practice playing from chord sheets and training her ear
You need a drummer. A reliable one
But what else? And what if your people do the best they can, and the band still doesn’t sound “excellent”? Or what if God simply does not bring you the people you need to create the sound you’d like to have?
Accept Your Situation
God doesn’t guarantee we will all have professional-quality musicians, top-notch gear or talented songwriters. Nor does your church need these things in order to faithfully declare the gospel. And while your limited means might spell trouble if worship leaders were really supposed to lead God’s people to the throne of grace, the good news for you is that Christ, crucified is the One who does that.
Your call is to be faithful. This certainly involves doing as excellent a job as you can, and training up servants to do likewise. It also involves recognizing that Christ’s strength is made perfect in our weakness, that little is much when God is in it, and that we must decrease so Christ can increase.
Let go of the weight that so easily hinders — the belief that God needs a Top 40 band or a killer vocalist in order to bless His children and save the lost. A few years ago I wrote a modern hymn of confession and repentance called “Lead Us Back,” in which one line says, “We’ve become a talent show.”
This is a sin common to the contemporary Western church. We replace the legitimate striving for excellence with the disastrous goals of perfection and popularity. And when we do, Jesus could easily say to our worship music ministries:
For you say, I am rich, I have prospered, and I need nothing, not realizing that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked. I counsel you to buy from me gold refined by fire, so that you may be rich, and white garments so that you may clothe yourself and the shame of your nakedness may not be seen, and salve to anoint your eyes, so that you may see. Those whom I love, I reprove and discipline, so be zealous and repent. — Revelation 3:17-19
Accept your situation, and remember that the only reason Almighty God accepts your worship is because Christ has purified it with His blood.
As Bobby and I prepare to take a short break from blogging during the holidays, we want to extend our sincerest appreciation to all of you who have journeyed with us this past year as our family has endured several great trials.
Kristen And Bobby Gilles 