Until All Have Heard
Until All Have Heard
The Language of Song (Ep. 302)
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A catchy tune sticks in your mind. Combine that with words that express the truth of God and you have a powerful connection to a person’s heart. In this episode Ed and Wayne will explore this creative connection with Todd Smith from the music group “Selah”. During a recent event, Ed and Todd were able to sit down and talk about the ministry of music, and why it’s part of FEBC’s outreach. We’ll find out more about Todd’s background as a “missionary kid” growing up in Africa and his connections with past FEBC projects. Along the way they’ll talk about the power of a song to speak a person’s “heart language” and how important it is to build this creative bridge… Until All Have Heard
Welcome to Until All Have Heard from the Far East Broadcasting Company. I'm Wayne Shepard with Ed Cannon, as always, who's president of the Far East Broadcasting Company. Ed, something a little different today.
SPEAKER_00We are in Tampa Bay, Florida today. It's a beautiful sunny day. Birds are singing, breezes blowing. It's great to be here. What are we doing here, Wayne?
SPEAKER_01Um, I thought we would sit down and talk with a friend here, someone who's uh been uh ministering to a bunch of our friends for the Far East Broadcasting Company who've come together for something called the Global Partners Weekend. So tell me what Global Partners Weekend is all about.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, well that's a big title for something that's real basic. You know, there's a lot of people that pray for and support the Far East Broadcasting Company. We invite a number of them to come so that we can encourage them about what God is doing around the world. You know, the if you read the uh news lines today, it could be very depressing, all kinds of trouble, although it does point to the fact that Jesus told us this was going to happen. But this weekend we're telling stories about what the Far East Broadcasting Company staff are doing in places like Thailand and Indonesia, Ukraine, and all across Africa, and sharing with them stories of God's good work in these places. But part of that weekend is we want to minister to these friends of FEBC. So we give them a great meal. Uh we have a lot of good fellowship. But this afternoon, we're talking about the fact that we have some extraordinary worship music just to lighten up the people. And uh I'm sure most of you have heard of a group named Sela, right? Todd Smith.
SPEAKER_01I think many have, right?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, a good friend of FEBC. And formerly, Wayne, when you and I were at Moody, Todd was there at Moody doing Founders Week and some other presentations. So I'm gonna kind of quit talking and we're gonna ask Todd what he thinks about this week.
SPEAKER_01Todd Smith of Sayla, welcome. How are you doing, Wayne?
SPEAKER_02How are you doing, Ed? Yeah. It is uh so great to be here. This is actually our second weekend that we've done with uh FEBC, and it's just an amazing way to see what the ministry has been doing. It's in its 80th year, and uh one of my favorite parts is Ed has been doing a QA with people after he finished. I thought you were gonna say when you had him sing in an African language. That was the top, that was the top thing. But uh yeah, I guess to give people a little bit of my background on why I connect so well with FEBC. First of all, Selah worked with FEBC for several years and shared about um the radio program, and we were actually raising funds for people to be able to buy shortwave radios uh several years back. But I grew up in Africa as a missionary kid, and my parents have a Bible college and a radio station, and so so many of the stories that they're sharing, or the there's many nationals who are here who are sharing their testimonies of the incredible work they're doing in Thailand and the Philippines and uh so many other places, and it just relates so much. So it's you resonate with that, don't you? Absolutely. Yeah, like this is true, this is not, this is real, and I know it firsthand.
SPEAKER_01Well, Ed, this makes uh Sailor the perfect fit for ministering to our friends who have gathered here.
SPEAKER_00Absolutely. And you know what, Wayne, they have the unique ability to blend contemporary and traditional music in a way that ministers to all of our people that attend. Um we have quite a few people here who, let's say, are uh senior citizens and they love the hymns.
SPEAKER_01Why is he looking at me, Todd?
SPEAKER_00They love the hymns and so do I. And and Todd and Sela do the hymns in such a great way. It's it's very traditional, but yet it's different. It's encouraging and it's upbeat. And then some of the more contemporary songs that everybody just seemed to enjoy. His style of music fits so well with our audience. Right. So well with the idea of saying, Yeah, we're here for a few light moments so that we can talk about the really important things that God is doing. So we just love having a lot of people.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so tell tell me more about growing up in Africa. How long did you live there? Yeah, I lived there over an eight-year period from the time I was five to thirteen.
SPEAKER_02But you've retained the language. Oh, yeah. What language is it? Uh it's Kituba. So it's kind of a mutt language, if that makes sense. It borrows from Kikongo, Lingala, French, uh, Portuguese, because the Portuguese were there before the Belgians. Okay. And so it borrows from a bunch of languages. But essentially, the best way to describe it is let's say I'm I live in the state of Tennessee, and we have, I don't know how many counties, but let's pretend each county is your tribe. Uh-huh. Each tribe would have their own language, but then you would know the border tribe's language, and then there would be French, which is the national language, Lingala, which is the legal language, but to trade business-wise in the state of Tennessee, there is this mutt language that I speak called Kituba. So you add a Tennessee accent to the whole thing.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, well, I'm also from Michigan, so I've got that nasal thing going too. See, Wayne, that fits in so well with FABC too, because most of our people here, Wayne, you and I, I can share with this. You and I have one language. We're like lazy Americans. Most of the people that at the Far East Broadcasting Company, you'll ask them, how many languages can you speak? And they'll answer four or five. But then they'll say, Yeah, but you know, I've got a little bit of this language and a little bit of that language, and it's just amazing how uh people who grew up, like Todd did in foreign countries, speak so many different languages. And it's the it's the communication for us of the gospel. Right. The more languages you know, the more people you can share the gospel with.
SPEAKER_01I wish we could have had even more of our FEBC staff from around the world at this event, but we do have uh Victor, who is director of Eurasia for us, so it covers all those countries of the former Soviet Union and beyond. We've got Jonathan here who's responsible for minority ethnic languages, and Tree is a friend of ours who's here. So, what does it mean to you to hear these men from these different places?
SPEAKER_02Well, they've lived it, they've suffered, they've been persecuted, they um, you know, there's uh one of the most powerful things that Jonathan did uh is just one, he as soon as he got up and started thanking people, he just was in tears. But what I loved is he said, thank you for passing the torch. Not just thank you for coming and and doing the work and running the work, but you always want to train people so that they can run things on their own in case there's a coup, in case there's a and that that's a very practical thing with my own my parents' ministry. Uh it's named after my grandpa Laban, it's LeBan Ministries International. They trained the nationals there years ago before that was a common thing. And eventually when the Hutu's and the Tutsies, everything happened in Rwanda, it spilled over into Congo, and we had already, we were already stateside, but so many missionaries had to just leave, and those ministries just stopped. But because it was run by the nationals, the way we had my parents had already set it up, the Bible school continued, the radio station continued, and so to hear Jonathan share um, thank you for passing the torch, thank because now they're the ones leading, and it's just so effective because the average Congolese person speaks five languages. Well, I just speak one, you know, Kituba. But they could go in, and I was sharing the story from uh when we were leading worship. There was one time where uh one of our Bible school graduates was sharing in Kituba, which is the language I speak, but he noticed a lot of the mothers were just kind of lost, and it was his area, it's where he grew up. So he asked my father, hey, can I speak in our tribal language, in my language? And he's like, Of course. And as soon as he did, the mothers just kind of were alert and understood the gospel. And so with Jonathan and all the the nationals in FEBC, they know the culture, they know the people, yeah, they know the news, they they know what's going on culturally, and so they're able to connect in ways we could never do.
SPEAKER_01Well, I'm sure that you will resonate with this too, because it translates to music. Because in many of these places, the there is no worship music in those in that local language. So our staff and those associated with them are creating the worship music. I mean, that's gotta mean something to you.
SPEAKER_02It means a lot, and I'll tell you why. I I work with a um another ministry call that is in person deals with persecuted believers, and the main person that I work with, he says every single person in that he's interviewed over 15 years in in China, Russia, Eastern Europe, you name it, has a heart song. They have a heart song, and so they um so for people to be able to write their own music from their own native languages is so powerful. Yeah, and it teaches us a lot, yeah.
SPEAKER_01It does.
SPEAKER_00Well, it does. And you know how difficult that must be. So you're in countries that the population percentage of Christians is less than one percent. So there's not a lot of Christians there. There's no presence of Christian music in that language because there's no Christians there to write it or sing it. So our staff get very creative about the ways they come up with Christian music. I was sharing with Todd earlier. Matter of fact, I invited him to come to Thailand with us because our staff. Yeah, our staff there said, let's do let's figure out a creative way to come up with some music. So they got a bunch of influencers, Facebook social media influencers, most of which were musicians. They said, Would you partner with us to do a Christian music writing and performance contest? So these influencers who have a lot of sway with the people there would invite our listeners to write the language of a Christian song, and if they want to, they could put music to it and sing it and then perform it. And we gave awards for writing, for music, and for performance for these people. So as a result, FABC Thailand came up with dozens of really high-quality Christian programs. So we think maybe Todd can be the judge of the next contest.
SPEAKER_02Let me speak into that more why that is so important and so critical, what you're doing. We would see people in Congo who they would sing Amazing Grace, they would sing How Great Thou Art, they've been translated into their languages, but the minute they started singing their national songs, songs that were written in their language, it was there was a different way that they sang it. But their county's changed, don't you? Their counters changed, but also people don't forget songs. They remember them. And so while you are able to teach the gospel to the young kids through music, you're able to introduce the gospel to older people. When you internalize those songs, you know, you have so many people who have dementia who don't remember their families. But their families, I I know of a story of a man who was so frustrated. Finally, he's at the nursing home and he starts singing a hymn, and he hears his dad singing the song who didn't know him, didn't know his parents, didn't know his wife, didn't know his grandkids, but they gathered, he gathered the whole family because they were in the cafeteria. He's like, Come here, come here. And for two hours they sang hymns, and the dads sang along with them on every single thing. And so for you guys to be writing music in those languages, that's so powerful.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and you know what? It's not a new idea. I think there's a book in the Bible called The Psalms. I I think maybe we took the idea from those. I've read a couple of those, yeah. They sang the words of of God, they sang verses from the Bible. And just like Todd's saying, when you sing a song and you remember it, there's more to it than just the words. You remember the verse, obviously, and the rhythm, and it sticks in your brain longer than just a paragraph. So we didn't create this idea, we're just copying from King Dave.
SPEAKER_01Well, here's another thing I love about it is that it not only benefits the radio and the programming that we do on radio, but it benefits the church. These songs become part of the church uh music language too.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I mean, every I, you know, I I think I said this earlier, but every person, you've got a song that you go to. You know, there's a song when my wife and I um we lost a child, and I would go to this song called No Weapon every single time. And there's sometimes where we had no words to say to each other. The the pain and the ache was so hard. And what you would I would just play as Fred Hammond, and I'd play him singing No Weapon. And for these people in persecution in China or wherever else, they have a song when they're being arrested, they have a song when they're being kicked out of their homes. And and so music is so powerful, God uses that and the frequencies of that. You know, he he spoke things, he could have thought things into existence, but he spoke things into existence, and so music has such a power. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00You know, uh, Wayne, I I'm gonna do a shameless plug for this until all have heard program. Okay. And um I I've said this so many times, some of you listening might have heard me say this before. But uh if you want to hear an example of some of this self-created music, listen to the Until All Have Heard podcast on Malawi. And Amos and his uh church body there created their own music. I want you to listen to it primarily because I don't want you to think that this is just like second grade or high school level quality music. It's really good stuff. That's right. I say that that song that Amos put on that Malawi podcast, if we'd bring that to a music station here in the United States, it'd be top ten overnight.
SPEAKER_01We'll have to look at that. Yeah, yeah. Hey, let's talk about Selah and your ministry today. You've been doing this how long now? Almost 30 years. Thirty years next year. Has it been that long? Oh my goodness. Yeah. And and how's God using you today?
SPEAKER_02What do you what are you doing? Man, just it's there's always different things that we're doing. You know, so it's there's different concerts, there's obviously events like this, and and for me, it's always special. And we we get called in a lot for any uh for a lot with a lot of nonprofits just because of my background and in ministry. And so um uh, you know, when uh even with uh songwriting, that latest project that we did is called Higher Name, and we one of us or all of us co-wrote nine of the 11 songs, but we all came at it from different angles. So I came at it from an angle of spiritual warfare and wanting to write into that just from growing up in Africa and just kind of seeing what's going on in the United States. And I think the enemy is very active and very loud. And uh sometimes I think we kind of think, well, that happens in Haiti or that happens in Congo. Amy came from a place of foster care, foster care journey that was very difficult. Uh, she eventually adopted her son, but when we were writing these songs, she was about to give him up because uh it didn't look like things were gonna work out. And then Alan had lost about 10 family members and friends since 2020. And so we got with a group of writers and wrote songs related to that. And so between those three topics, it's just really connected with different people depending on where they're at. Yeah, it's kind of unusual. Saylor's been together as a group for a long time now.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I can remember we uh we had them performing at Founders Week in Moody back in the early 2000s, so it's probably almost 25 years ago. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01That's right. Yeah. Well, this has been fun to uh not only have you here, but to get to sit down and talk for a minute, a few minutes about it. I know you've got something else you're gonna need to get off to, but uh we want to say thank you for stopping by. Thank you.
SPEAKER_00You've done an extraordinary job ministering to the uh donors, the supporters, and the good friends of FEBC at this weekend, the last one. And we're looking forward to doing this again in just a couple more weeks.
SPEAKER_01We get to do it three more times. I'm super excited. Wonderful. Thanks. And the whole thing is the 80th anniversary of the Far East Broadcasting Company. That's the whole purpose of this.
SPEAKER_00Right. And we'll continue doing the same thing until all have heard.
SPEAKER_01Hey, I think you just closed the podcast for me. Thank you, Ed. I'm Wayne Shepherd. Thank you, Todd Smith of SALEF. Thank you for being with us today. And thank you for listening. Ed mentioned that program from Malawi. It's it's in the archive, you'll find it easily, and I do urge you to listen to that. So, Joe Carlson's our producer. I'm Wayne Shepherd. Thanks for listening to Until All Have Heard.