SPEAKER_00 0:07

Excited to uh do a little conversation with Cody Patterson as he's getting ready to join us and join our team later this month. Uh he has taken on the role of uh pastor of transformational worship and we'll be starting on uh July 13th, I think. He's about to move across the country. Uh so just as we get going, Cody, I'll let you kind of introduce yourself to our church. I know you've talked to several people in interview processes and gotten to tell the same stories over and over, but uh just help us get to know you, who you are, your your family, things like that.

SPEAKER_01 0:42

Yeah. Well, my wife and I actually grew up in Cleveland, Ohio area. And so we're from the area we're new's in, and uh we currently have five kids, all boys. Uh so like you know, our house is kind of crazy. Especially because of all the energies, like it's all like packed together.

SPEAKER_00 1:02

Yeah, you have five boys, but how old?

SPEAKER_01 1:04

Like from like seven and under. Seven, six, yeah, four, and then two twins that are two.

SPEAKER_00 1:11

Yeah, yeah. Tons of energy.

SPEAKER_01 1:14

Yeah. Um, my wife and I have been uh in church since we were little. I gave my life to Christ when I was five, and I've been involved with church ministry serving since then, really. Um, been a part of creative arts, music, worship, production throughout all of that middle school and high school. I led worship a lot at the church I was at, um, did a little bit of production there, and then um ever since I graduated high school, I've been really in full-time ministry. I've done a few other things on the side, um, but my heart has always been the church. So that's very briefly me.

SPEAKER_00 1:49

How long have you and your wife been married?

SPEAKER_01 1:52

Uh nine years, or it will be nine years this year.

SPEAKER_00 1:55

What's your anniversary?

SPEAKER_01 1:56

Get you some presents. September 10th, one day before uh we we remember it pretty easily because September 11th.

SPEAKER_00 2:06

Well, talk a little bit about uh why worship is important in your life, how it became an important part of your life.

SPEAKER_01 2:13

Yeah. Um I want to come across as not too biased because I'm the worship pastor. Um I I do think worship is extremely important, and um, but kind of going back to the whole church as a whole, I I have so much value on um people being transformed from the inside out. And I think that happens in lots of spaces. Um, but there's something that I find joy in, and that's like when I see someone engage in worshiping Jesus for the first time. And um obviously I do that a lot on the music side because that's a lot of what I do. Worship isn't just music, but music is one form of worship, and I get to oversee that portion. So it always gets me excited when I see people, you know, raise their hands for the first time because it's an act of surrender. It's saying, This isn't about me, this is about you, God, and that's why I'm here. And it's like that, those sort of things, those like transformative moments for people, that gets me excited. And um, I obviously do that in the worship side because that's that's what I've been doing as a career. Um, but I just love seeing people pour their heart heart out for Jesus. Um, and that I mean, that was something that I grew in throughout my whole life. Like when I was five, obviously I was getting to know Jesus. In my middle school years, I went to a church that started raising their hands. I'm like, what is this?

SPEAKER_00 3:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 3:33

And um, and then I learned like what it meant to actually like go deep with Jesus and the Holy Spirit and God and like have a real relationship. And to me, it's like I want to present myself as a living sacrifice, like Romans 12, one. That to me, that's like the ultimate like worship verse, because it's like worship to God is presenting our lives as a sacrifice to Him. And so that's just where I get a lot of my joy and my energy out of it.

SPEAKER_00 3:59

That's great. Talk a little bit, just uh I know you've told this story a couple times, um, you know, how you got involved musically, uh, and how that has always been kind of linked to church ministry, church worship, that kind of stuff too.

SPEAKER_01 4:12

Yeah. When I was four and a half years old, I remember asking my mom, what are these things? And I it was a I didn't know this at the time, but she told me it was first off, it was on a piano and it was sheet music and there was notes. And so I was asking, like, what are these notes essentially? And so she talked me through that, and um, she and she ended up putting me in piano lessons, which I ended up in for 12 years. So um, I actually took piano lessons from uh Steve Oak's dad.

SPEAKER_00 4:38

Oh wow. Steve Oak's playing cello this Sunday.

SPEAKER_01 4:41

Yeah, that's pretty awesome. Um great, dude. So just my my musicianship started at a young age, like my creativity there. Um, but at the same time, five years old is when I gave my life to Jesus. And so at the church I was going to at the time, they sang hymns, but they started introducing a band once a month. And my mom would take me out of kids' service to to big church to see the band because I I was already expressing that interest in the music and that side of things. And so at five, I gave my life to Jesus. At four and a half, I started playing piano. And so it's really like there was like a mix of my faith and the creative side of my life, just got formed, like the formation all started at one place, and it was all within the church. So then growing up, um, went to a new a different church in middle school. And I was like, um, it was a larger church, and so they had a they had a pretty large youth group and they had a full band at their youth group. So it was like a you know, kind of a church service at their youth group, and so they got me involved pretty fast with I was playing guitar there and I'd start singing, and um, that's also the years that I started going deeper in my relationship with Jesus, and it wasn't just a decision, but it was like an intention at that point, and so all throughout my life, it's really been like God stirring up this creative desire inside of me while also forming me spiritually.

SPEAKER_00 6:02

Yeah, that's awesome. I'm excited about that, also just because I know you've invested in kids, youth, uh, and worship ministry as well. And I'm excited to see some of that happening here as well. Talk a little bit about your, you know, kind of professional journey. You've talked about working in churches, um, but you did some things on the side that were always kind of connected to worship and production and church. So just like kind of you can talk about specifically or or even just like overview, like, oh, this kind of church or whatever, and then I'll ask you another question about like what you've enjoyed most.

SPEAKER_01 6:33

Yeah. Um first seven years of my adult career, I would say, I was focused on the worship experience in the church. So I was the worship leader at a church, worship pastor, different different titles along the way, but I was overseeing the worship experience as as the the musician, essentially. Um and so I did that for the first seven years of my life uh in churches. And then I spent four years in kind of like the marketing communications world, but it wasn't at churches. I had done a little bit of that at the churches I was at because they were smaller and I had to do a little bit of everything there, anyways. And so I learned along the way. Um, but then I spent four years as the marketing director for Renewed Vision who makes ProPresenter, which is what we as a church use to put the slides on the screens, put the lyrics on the screens. Um, so when people are watching um and they see lyrics popping up or graphics popping up, that's all coming out of ProPresenter. So I worked for that company and I was their marketing director. And then I also worked for a company called MXU. And MXU's purpose is to create training content for churches to help them train their volunteers and their staff how to do production things, how to do worship things. Like as a worship leader, how do you transition between songs or how do you choose set lists? Like, what's the reason behind the songs you choose and the lyrics and all of that? Or on the production side, how do I run a lighting console or mix on an audio console, or how do I run slides? So they do all that sort of training to help churches who might not have professionals who can do it all. Um, and so both those companies, even though I wasn't like full-time at a church at that point, I was invested deeply in in helping the church. And that's really where my heart has always been is the local church. And so even while I was working for them, I still led worship at churches locally and um wasn't still, right?

SPEAKER_00 8:23

Like new churches.

SPEAKER_01 8:24

Yeah, I planned, I planted a church uh as one of the worst, the worship leader at the church, though I wasn't the lead pastor. I planted made it sound like a um I was a part of a church plant. Yeah. Um yeah, the first church I ever worked at was a church plant as well. And so like they they had already launched by the time I came on board, um, but they weren't massive when I started. And then um, when I was at Renewed Vision, helped plant that church, loved that experience, starting from scratch and building building things. And then um, for the last three and a half years, I've been the production pastor at a church. We're we're a multi-campus church where I oversee um I'm really more of like a pastoral oversight to the production team. And so um I just get to empower them and give vision and help on the technical side, but we have a lot of volunteers who handle the technical things.

SPEAKER_00 9:14

Well, one of the things I mean, we we are passionate about multiplication, church planting, sending. Um, one of the things that was really exciting for us as we got to know you was your desire to raise up leaders, train up teams, uh, and even even in the work that you did outside of church, it's uh focused in that area as well. If you think about like the work you've done over the last 10, 15 years of church ministry and not just church, I guess uh other stuff too. What do you think you're kind of like proudest of uh that you've done yeah?

SPEAKER_01 9:46

Um I wouldn't say it's like one specific thing, it's more so I'm proud of what God's led me to do within my teams. Um, because I I think as a creative person, it could become really easy to just do everything myself. Yeah. And I've I've seen that a lot in people is like as a creative, we want to stay, we want to do the creative things, right? Um, but what uh God has stirred in my heart to do is really to empower others to be creative. And so I still get to be creative within that, you know, that empowering, um, or in vision casting and giving ideas and helping people. But um every church along the way, my my heart, my desire, and and I think the thing that's uh I'm most proud of doing has been supporting other people and helping them grow in in their talent and in their faith and everything like that.

SPEAKER_00 10:37

That's awesome. I love that. So just thinking about coming to Renew, you know, you've known us a little bit through the conversations, and uh, I told people whenever we're talking, like you and I met 10 years ago, moving chairs out of our buildings. I've kind of been aware of Renew. Um but uh when you think about coming into this new role, there's kind of two questions, like two sides of it. One is like, what are you most excited about in this new role? And then concerns maybe not the right word, but like what's the like question mark or whatever? Maybe it's concern as you come into a new role uh here at Renew.

SPEAKER_01 11:10

Yeah. Um, well, I'm excited first, role-wise, for what I do get to do to empower people. Um, you already have teams who have have over the last six months really have taken the reins and and helped move things forward and and provide provide stability. And I'm excited to come alongside those people and help them continue to grow and get better at what they're doing. Um, but I'm also excited for my family um to be at a church where that there's a a marriage of the mission, like being on mission and caring about the people outside the walls, um, but then also helping people grow within the walls. And so I'm excited about that that mixture and being a part of that myself. Um I don't know that I have fears other than you know, it's this is a I'm new to y'all. So for for you, you you have someone you don't know, and then for me, I don't know any of you. And so it's gonna, you know, my fears like uh I don't know anyone. And I I you know I I can't like fully um give vision and um give a lot of care to the church until I get to know people. And so my my desire is to in these first few months really just to get to know people relationally, um, see who they are, um, see how I can pastor them, care for them, um, see how things are, you know, how things are organized at the church and how I can come alongside that and and help improve those areas if needed, um, but also just be a support in the in that all of that. And so my nerves is more so, hey, I don't know anyone, I'm excited to get to know you, but it takes time. And so uh I'm excited to get started with that that time.

SPEAKER_00 12:48

That's great. Uh, you know, it's good. A question. Uh the next question kind of ties to that is like if uh people don't know you, but they're getting to know you, like what's one thing that you would want people to know about you that would give insight to kind of who you really are?

SPEAKER_01 13:04

Sure. Um I'm a craftsman, I I'm uh like a builder. And a lot of times I have like a vision and idea in my head that I I see the end result before the before you even started. And I know some people it can be hard to picture an end result um when they're just given like basic details of like this is like this is the idea, right? But in my head, like I have a fully I have a full picture of like the end result. And so it's always exciting for me to get to the end and see other people be like, oh, that was awesome. I didn't expect that, yeah, you know. Um, and as a craftsman, that's just kind of like my I don't know. Uh my wife and I have gone through this in the past because like we've talked about renovations at the houses and stuff, and we've gone through multiple renovations, so she's learned like uh when we've talked about here's an idea, and she's like, I don't know, I'm not sure. And then we we try it, and then in the end, she's like, Well, that was a really good idea. Yeah, um, so it's like um for me, people getting to know me is kind of a um Cody's a visionary, he has he has he he actually has a process behind thinking through what something's gonna be looking like in the end. It's not just throwing things out the wall and being like, Oh, try this.

SPEAKER_00 14:21

There's something there, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 14:23

There, yeah. Uh I'm not no, I'm not saying every idea I have is great. Yeah, sure. Um, but there is intention behind it. And um, you know, at the end of the day, we get to decide if if that end result ended up being great or not. Um, but um it's never just hey, let's just try something just for the sake of it. It's more like, hey, let's try something because I think this could actually be good for what we're trying to do.

SPEAKER_00 14:46

Yeah, that's great. My last question then is kind of what do you like to do when you're not like working at your job? Like, what are things that you like to do with your family or individually?

SPEAKER_01 14:56

Yeah. Um, both my wife and I love to get out and be with people. Like, I I say right, we're like unhealthy foodies. So we don't like healthy food, food. It's like give us the greasiest, like let's let's get like burgers locally or barbecue or something that's bad for you. Um, but then work out afterwards, so it ends up being healthy. Um, so we love getting to go get food with people because that's like that's our easiest way to actually build relationships with people. And so it's fun for us because it's like, hey, we get to spend time together, plus we get to spend time with other people and get to know them, um, and we have to try something new. Yeah. Um, love for photos and shooting photos of weddings. And uh, my wife does like family photos and uh portraits and things like that, and so sometimes we'll shoot photos together as a family, and it's just like um I taught her how to use a camera, but she's way better than I am now. And so, like, I love that. Um, and we're also outdoors people, especially me, and I'm I'm hoping my boys will be as they grow up. Um, but like I love camping, love four-wheeling, being out in the lake, boating, jet skiing, all that.

SPEAKER_00 16:09

Yeah, that's awesome. That's great. Well, we're really excited that you're coming. We are excited to have you in the city and working with us. And I know um there's exciting things ahead for us as a church, but we're really pumped to have you on board with us. And yeah, I can't wait. We're praying for you, for your family. We know leaving a place is hard. We know joining a new place is there's uphill there, and we've been praying for you and for what God has in store. And uh you'll be leading worship with us in July. So we're excited that you're coming. It's gonna be awesome.

SPEAKER_01 16:40

Yeah, I'm excited too. I can't wait, Andy. Thank you so much for um allowing me to uh uh be trusted in this process. It's it's been like love beginning to know you, and I'm excited to have you as my pastor.

SPEAKER_00 16:52

Yeah, well, thanks, man. We're excited to have you leading us here too. So all right. Well, that's the interview. We've never done this before, so maybe we'll do more of these, but it was pretty good. So I appreciate it, man. Thanks a lot.