Singing + Culture with Jim Thompson | Ep. 5

Singing isn't just a response in worship. It's formation and it's obedience.

In this episode, we explore the theology of singing, how worship takes on different expressions across cultures, and what that means for our day to day. 

Different expressions may sound unfamiliar, but they expand how we see and worship God. The way we sing is shaping us, whether we notice it or not.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:03

From the block to the boardroom, from the pulpit to the pew, the CQ podcast exists to help you raise your cultural fluidity by discussing how culture touches everything from a Christian worldview. Just like a fish swims in water, we swim in culture. All right, and today we swindle with uh Pastor Jim Thompson, ladies and gentlemen. Yeah, Pastor Will. Yeah, what's up, man? How you doing? I'm great, man. You doing good, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 0:29

Um, it really is exciting to be with you for the podcast. Appreciate you me on the CQ Initiative pod today. I'm excited. Yeah. Yeah. So um Will Plunk, executive director of the CQ Initiative, Pastor of Great City Church. But uh, Pastor Jim Thompson has been a longtime friend. I first met him in a class where he was teaching Matthew, and I remember your your John 6 illustration, Eat My Body, Drink My Blood. And I was like, dude, this dude teaches the Bible in the most fun way I've ever heard. And uh then he teaches me Greek for a couple years in a very good. Yeah, dude, well, if you're if you're boring when he teaches the Bible, it's definitely your fault, not God's. So, you know, that's a word. I'm gonna take it a bar. Oh and yeah, and then and one of the the things I'm most excited about too is like long-term friendship. I want you to get to introduce yourself to some. But uh in the last year or two, you've written a book uh called Sing Loud Die Happy. And so really we want to have a conversation about uh a theology of singing and culture and what it looks like for people to sing uh in different backgrounds and places, but also how God is ordained singing. So yeah, good conversation. Yeah, and I mean when I used to teach Greek classes, and I might have done this whenever I taught uh Greek with you a bunch of you guys way back in the day, but I will always say that excuse me, like I always say language is the widest interstate into worldview. So language is like the mega eight lane, downtown Atlanta, 85 Gagne, interstate worldview. And you could you could do a similar thing to be like uh the frontage road or I don't know how to do it, but like if you if you replace worldview with culture, singing and how people sing and how that culture responds to singing, or the kind of songs that are imported to a culture, that's one of the quickest avenues to understand the heartbeat of a culture. So it's it's a closely related thing that how a space sings, how they respond to singing, how they want to sing, what they don't sing, um, really does tell a lot about kind of the the water they're swimming in.

SPEAKER_02 2:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:29

That's good. Yeah. Um, I mean, even to kind of jump off that, what are what are some things you feel like you've seen? Because I know like for your book, you were reading different historical people, times, but also cultures, and thinking about what what what the way what's important with how somebody things might reveal something about them. Oh, dude, I gotta do the Bonhoeffer story on this one. So Bonhoeffer, what years he born early night early 1900s, so he's getting his education maybe in the 30s in Germany, and he they're like, Hey, you've reached pinnacle theological divinity education here in Germany. You need to go to New York, and you can get a better education there. So he goes to New York and he just gets totally bummed out with excuse me, bummed out with these, he's like, These churches are boring. Like these people breach the Bible and it's boring. The singing is boring. So the only place he went to church and felt like felt alive was uh a black church in New York City, uh Abyssinium Baptist Church with his uh semin fellow seminarian Frank Agnes, who is a black seminarian, and he was like spelled down, like, what? I've never heard singing like this, never heard preaching like this. Like it made it made him ache to go back home to Germany and like introduce his friends to it. So he leaves his theological education in New York City, buys a bunch of black gospel records, and also you also have to think and consider like ain't a Spotify. And so he family leisure at that time, because it wasn't even really TV, was you had a gramophone, old old school gramophone, and you would put on records in the living room and you would like listen to music and like bop along. And so, not even every family at that time had a gramophone. So he is proud and he's like, I'm gonna go back and I'm gonna show all my friends, I'm gonna become a professor. And part of me being a cool prof is if I'm gonna put on these records if people look at it, like what just happened? So he goes back to Germany, but then you have you know the worst of the worst. He said he goes back to Germany, starts to be a prof, and Hitler is raising the power, and so he does this like a uh black ops seminary, like off the off the beaten path, where it's like him and 25 dudes in the hills in this um in this like house in the middle of nowhere, Germany, and he's trained them to be pastors, and he does several things that are massively influential, and singing is so central. He goes, You wake up at five, we sing through the psalms a cappella out loud together, and they would cover the whole book of Psalms in a month, just singing in the morning, and they would have a singing time at night, and then they would sing in the afternoon, and there were two grand pianos, and they would get together and sing, and they would put on these old gospel records around the gramophone. Um, one of Bonnenhoeff's uh biographers, uh Erbhard Bethke, who was one of the students there, he said, I'll never forget hearing swing lows with carry it from a black choir. Yeah, and like just being so deeply moved and going, What is this? This is transcendent, this is a different culture, a different world. And they're they believe what they're singing more than I've ever believed anything outside. Wow. And so Bonhoeffer took this idea of singing, especially his influence from the slave spirituals. He took that and he used it to shape theological education, which I'm like, these are my people, yeah. Like detailed Bible nerds, but also a passion to think about song and singing and melody and the collective power of that as the people of God, like it and merging those two worlds. And so Bonhoeffer did that so so uh beautifully, and the Gestapo came and shut it all down, yeah. Um, but um he he he was like, dude, if I'm gonna train people, this is gonna be delayed, like it's gonna be melodic, yeah, in its essence. And so that's a powerful one. But man, I just read tons of, I mean, from Paul and Silas in Acts 16 in prison singing to the you know the Psalms center of the Old Testament. Um, and so you you could go a thousand places to see the power of song for any given culture. Yeah, and it's like there's a way in which it it it transforms us singing. And the way where when we're doing it with repetition or in different ways, that that it actually it has this effect on us. Because I think for certain cultures where it's just didactic, just teaching like the supremacy of the word in the right way, what it feels like what can happen sometimes is singing is something you do, but a lot of times the mystery of it can feel how do you say like it it some I I think some folk, it's like I'm gonna check a box. Like we go to church, we're supposed to sing, so we sing we check a box, but there's really there is no real strong value in like heart connection. What is it really gonna do? Does it have an effect? Because when you read like when you read the Bibles, like I have something, I can memorize scripture, I can get a takeaway to go do something. So people who are very action-oriented, hands-oriented, where singing's not like that at all. And it does change us, but it's like reflexive. Yeah, I feel like in in even in your book, one of the things you talked about is the word manipulation. Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah. You know the mouth, yeah. And uh and just how singing changes us and how you know cultures relate to it differently. But I'd love to. Yeah, so on that there's a gal named Jeanette Vicknell. Um, she was prophet, not MYU, it was some fancy New England school, but she wrote a book called A Philosophy of Singing, and she's not coming from a Christian or biblical role beer perspective. And she says one of the fastest ways that you can build social bonds is to sing, sing with the same people regularly. And so you got mainly two options for for that the bar or church, and hopefully it's not the bar. Um, and so there is something happening when the church regularly sings together time and time and time again. There is something uh in the singing that is forming us and shaping us, um, it's unifying us. Yeah, in my book, I have a section where I say I have an um an atheist friend. We were sitting on the porch one night and he was smoking a cigarette, another cigarette. He was he was pretty good at smoking cigarettes. And um well, he was complaining about church, and we was like, dude, worship music is so whiny, it's just so repetitive, and just la that's the same chords, it's not artistic, it's not creative, it's not well done. And you know, I was in my 20s at the time, so I was like, You're kind of right. Like, I was like, Yeah, probably. And um, I realized over time that the answer to him was kind of like, yeah, and that's God's fault. Like, God not only made the emotions, he made them to be stirred, and I think biblically we have enough warrant to say he made them to be stirred by music, yeah. And so the old definition of manipulate is to form or give shape to, like an artist manipulates the clay to give you know, to give me a nice mug or a ceramic piece. And so, song, I think, in God's hands, is intended to shape, mold, and manipulate and transform us as the people of God. And so his whole take was yeah, music's emotionally manipulative. And there at the time I was tired, you know, it was late, there were cigarettes, and so I was like, okay, whatever. And now I go, yes, amen. And there's a redemptive version of that. Yeah, but I think song has that poignancy, that value, that intentionality as we see it in scripture. And uh, yeah, sometimes I think we go just show up, drink your coffee, just mumble through the things, and oh, I like this one, I don't like that one as much. Oh, and then that's just appetizer. We're here for the word. Yeah. And I go, yeah, that's a that's not a great uh set of expectations for the corporate singing of the people of God. Like it's it should have an unbelievable uh value and unifying power and transformative effect. And so we need an expectation shift when we go into that. Um, and that that to me a cultural issue, no matter your denomination or church expression, like the singing um can have a kind of effect, a a of that given culture, it can it can do a shaping kind of thing. And yeah, we should we should uh appreciate it like that before we get involved in it. I think able to up the effect of it. There's the thing about I remember my culture class talking about the idea that we we change culture, but culture changes us, meaning like we clearly we have the ability to affect things and do things differently, but then we also live in it, right? Swims in it, we live in it, and then it add this like inverse inverse effect on us where it should it shapes us. So, what do you in regards to different cultures because there's different genres, even in regards to worship, like you know, you got gospel, you got him, CCM. Do you have any like do you have any takes on those? And like how not not like even not even just a preference, but like how that like how that shapes because there's there's flow, there's stylistic, there's repetition differences, um, all that kind of stuff. Well, I've got a fun story with it, and so this is good. I was 17 or 18, and I just wanted to have like a green mohawk and full sleep tattoos and playing a punk band. That's all I wanted, dude. It's I'm not asking for much in this line. Not much. And four chords, just play it loud, play it fast. That's all I wanted. And um, so I get a call from a guy who was a year ahead of me. So I was going into college, just finished senior in high school. I was going into college, I get a call from this guy who's a freshman at college I go to, his name's Steven Furrick. And he goes, Hey dude, I heard you play guitar.

SPEAKER_02 12:04

I was like, Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 12:05

He goes, You want to play in a black gospel band with me? I was like, I don't know what you're saying, but yes. It's like, dude, play in a band with people, yeah, like a freshman in college, you're always trying to fit in. I'm like, yeah, I want to play in a band. And so we get in there and I go, Oh, gospel music? Oh, oh, okay. Like, I know a couple of Kirk Franklin songs, but this is 1999. You playing the acoustic. I was playing a lecture, a really nice lecture, electric guitar, a nice old American-made strap with yeah, I got a really nice old beautiful strap. But um, I had to learn that black gospel music is not the fast four chords of my my punk rock, like that I loved. And I I had to learn music, like I didn't know music, I knew chords. I see, and so that world taught me music. Um, in fact, I don't think I told you this. Um NPR Tiny Desk. You ever watch the Tiny Desk? Yeah, so for Black History Month, they did a Tiny Desk concert. The first Black History Month Tiny Desk for February this year was a guy named John P. Key, and he has a church up in Charlotte, and we went and played at his church. Oh, for real? Yeah, and so I was like, oh dude, I remember this guy 25 years ago. And so I just fell in love with this whole world of music. Um, this black gospel world. And I was raised in Southern Baptist Church, and I loved like part of me loved the theology of the hymns, but it was like the execution of that felt a little uh stodgy and and dusty and kind of stifling. But then I loved my punk rock, which was just loud and fast and fun. And then I had this like I started to fall in love with gospel music, and it was like technical and layered, and like the choirs, the parts and stuff. I was like, what is happening? So I had these three cultures colliding because I had my Southern Baptist hymnal culture, which I was like, I'm indebted to, but I love, and then I had this like punk rock world where it was just like just yell and punch your friends and go to the like 120 people just yelling and crowd surfing, and it was my everything, dude. I still love that stuff, and then I got introduced in this other world, and all three were such distinct cultures, but all three I recognize had a kind of like passion and intensity and beauty and power to them, even though they all three are worlds apart. Yeah, there's no overlapping in between any of those. And so I think now stepping back, I go, Oh, in an enculturated space, this is why it feels and sounds like this here. This is why it feels and sounds like this here, and vice versa. And so those are three of the biggest shaping kind of things for me from a musical perspective. I mean, on a really personal level, my mom uh just kind of freestyles around the house. She'll just sing revival verses, whatever she read, her quiet time. She would just sing around the house on Sunday mornings or Saturday mornings, and like if my brother and I were being dumb, she would just kind of be like, You need to be nice, and like she would be riffing on my brother and I kind of like melodic freestyle. And so a lot of those things made me grateful in different ways for the ways that song and melody and music function in different spaces for people. Um, and it all became just really, really intriguing to me. Uh, that this is like why I'm why I'm writing the book and all that, but it's still such a beautiful, fun thing to me to go. Why do you like those songs? Yeah. Um, and why do you sing those ones and not these ones? And why is the band like this and not like this? Whether it's denominational or uh even international. And do you feel like there's with those decisions, because it is international, denominational, cultural, racial, there's all these different expressions. Like, and sometimes people feel as though there's liberty, but other times feels like it's not. Like this is this is the way it should be. Yeah. Whether it be, I mean, there's theological conviction for psalms only or hymns and this or certain instruments. He will like the speaker at our uh leader retreat we just had was he he was so funny. He was fascinated with the drums the whole time, and he's a Presbyterian guy. I love him. He's a mentor, professor of mine. Some of them still don't know about drums. He was like, he said he grew up in a home, and he was like, Mom, one day when I grow up, I want to be able to play the drums. And his mom's like, that's the devil's instrument. Yeah, like a violin. And so I do think that drums word for the devil, right? For sure, yeah. And so there's definitely a lot of times there is this, and I think in culture in general, right? Like sometimes we don't realize things we're used to, like, and MLK has a good quote, and he's referring to segregation, like things we're used to become normal. What's normal becomes moral, what's moral becomes religious. Like just because we're used to it, we start to think that it's right rather than we think that it's the way, unlike Jesus as the way, but like certain cultural expressions are a way. So I'm curious too, like when you when you think about singing and difference in culture and those expressions, not not asking you if you think one way is right or wrong, but how how beneficial could it be for people to be exposed to other musical styles for their theological nourishment? All right, not just for preferences, yeah, but like would that to your point on folding or molding or like molding us? Yeah, would that like what how would that help not help all that? No man. Um, yeah, yeah, yeah. Getting into the mind, heart, brain, soul, and sensibilities of people who are different than you helps make us love our neighbor, helps make us um empathetic in Jesus' name. You know, obviously we we don't want to do it just to feel good about ourselves. Um and I think a big one on that is is church tradition. Like if you grew up in a blank kind of church and you never experienced the kind of church that's opposite of that when it comes to singing or preaching style, you should go visit that. Like if you grew up uh happy, clappy, slappy, charismatic, dude, awesome, that's great, party on lane, but like you should go, you should go hang with our uh a little bit more somber Anglican friends for a few weeks, yeah, just to you know breed some balance and force and everything, and not just presuppose oh, the way I've always done it is the way. Um I I think one of my pushes would be um there's a gamut of emotions tied to singing in the Bible, and there's a gamut of emotions tied in the Bible, period. And so if you go to a church, if you belong to a church that doesn't give space for all the emotions, not in one Sunday, but like over time, to me, it could be helpful. Like in the Psalms, you got be still and no, and it's sung. You got be still and no, and then you got Psalm 150, which is like keep beating the drums, keep pounding them and dancing and dancing. And so it's like if you go to a church congregation where all it is is still rest, be still and know, or I put my hand on my mouth, Job 42, or Ecclesiastes 5, like just stillness. I go, do it. I'm here for the reverence, tell me where to sign, and we could maybe use a little bit more stillness and reverence with you know the almighty algorithm killing us, right? Yeah. At the same time, if you're just baptizing your personality because you're quiet and you're an introvert, that that's not the way, dude. You have to know that there is a full gamut of emotional expression that God didn't mess up when he made human emotions. So those things are meant to be expressed, and the more you can express them corporately, the healthier the emotions are, and the more you can express them through music, the more healthy they are. So it's like God didn't make a mistake when he created song to move the emotion with people around. And so if you got people who can move and shake a little bit and sway and sing a little bit, and at the same time, you also have those same people who are willing to be still with others, I think that's a healthy gamut. Yeah. And that is, you know, the word became flesh, and Jesus cried with Lazarus, and he also celebrated with his friends. And so, in the same way that Jesus embodied it, we should sing it, the gamut of emotions, like as the as the body of Christ. And so I to your question, expressions of local congregations that have a very narrow uh uh emotional breadth allowed in the worship space. I'm always like, come on, man, right, have a little more fun, brother. Like loosen up, bro. Yeah, so that that's just one of my my thoughts, is just that it's meant to be expressed in different ways. And I think some I'm not pigeonholing denomination, some personalities and some expressions of Christianity uh could be a little more broader than that, I think. Yeah, and that I really appreciate that point because it's it there is to your point, there's the somber, but then there's other traditions that are only joy, and don't recognize that they're the psalms or women's. Yeah, no kidding. And and then that we have these natural orientations, but how beneficial of us, just like first Corinthians 12, like the diversity of the body of Christ and how we need each other. Heck yeah, that there's something to being around people who like they experience more lows, even though you experience more highs. I mean, we might be prone if we're high, they say with the highs, but we actually need the lows because they teach us something about ourselves. We don't learn when we're with them. Exactly. And I think I one of the things I really believe about the scriptures is like our theology comes from the questions we ask of the text. Like if we don't ask a question, if you don't say, what does it mean for God to be plural and unified, you don't have the doctrine of the Trinity, right? Like it comes from the questions we ask. And so if you don't start asking the Bible certain questions, you won't get systematic theologies of particular things. And that probably I think that's really true for singing. Like if we don't sing, like if we just have a way of singing, like one of the things you're making me think about is when you sing in different cultures and with different groups, the same way, like if you're around somebody else who's asked the Bible questions you've not asked, you learn something about your God that you had no. Because you didn't think to ask the same text a different a different question. What's this say about gender? What's to say about race and ethnicity? What's this say about the Godhead? What's this say about salvation? What's it say about, you know, anything? Um, just like the class you were saying, you were teaching the other day. Oh, yeah, yeah. You know what I'm saying? What's it? But but I think that's true with song too. Because when you're around different cultures, it's like there's different emphasis about how they relate to God and the things they'll naturally thinking about the Negro spirituals. So much of it is future-oriented, redemptive because they're in the situation of oppression, going, God, what's future look like? Like, how can I be content now and long for there? So that's why there's so much of that rhythm and that point in those songs. And it's like if we're around people who sing differently or ask different sing different songs, I think we we really get exposed to different aspects of our God. Totally. Totally. And I and I think, no, no, no. I I think like I know some denominations have a little bit, there's like a higher percentage of people with uh higher education degrees, and those people are less expressive in singing because they're they're overanalyzing every phrase and everything, every current phrase. Uh-huh. And the Bible says love the Lord your God without your mind, and so they're doing it. So I want to knock them. But then if they look down the aisle or attend another church and they see somebody being really, really expressive, singing the same thing over and over again, and then they pass judgment on a brother or sister, that's a massive failure. In fact, they might need to learn how to do that thing that is less natural for them. And so it's exactly what you're saying that we need other people's different experiences, not just to balance our own, but to widen the lens with which we see God. Yeah. Because the same God who said, Your love and does forever, your loves and does forever, every other line in Psalm 136 is the same God who said sing a new song. Yeah, I know, and so, and who has the poetry of the Psalms and like the the the Christ hymns in Hebrews 1, Joan 1, and Philippians 2, and Colossians 1, like those are all densely theological hymns about the Christ. And and then you have this repetition in the Psalms. We need the gamut, we need the breath, and you're right, dude. It is that breath helps us see God in a bigger way, which is a huge, huge win. Uh, especially when it's all expressed expressed through songs. So I love it. Okay, do my turn. Yeah. Um just this is just you. And if you're worship king's listening, pay attention. This is just your take. What are your favorite songs to sing with your people at Great City? Blessed Assurance is definitely my one of my top. The oldie? Well, the we we sing with the gospel flair. Okay. And it is Is it like a low like 2086? That's great. It is um, I love it. I love seeing Blessed Assurance. I'd say absolute rager. Yeah, but it's a great real and our couple congregation like lights up, you know. I think because our church is is multi-ethnic, it's it's interesting to me to see too when we sing different songs, how different people come to life. Yeah, and it a lot of times it does speak to background, like based on the background, you'll hear and you'll hear who who grew up with that one. And it's I I kind of love it because I I think sometimes it can be like, oh, I don't know that one. But to your point of like being with brothers and sisters and and how in in singing, like singing together, um there there's something it almost feels like when we sing a different song, I learn uh like I it's almost like I know my brother or sister differently because of how they come to life with that song. It's like that. Why is that song making them like why why do they why do they light up when that song is? Well, it's in their story or in their past, or what kind of pain do they have that makes this thing every time they sing that they cry. Every time they sing that they get loud. Every time it's you know, and it's like, oh, you you learn about the body of Christ, which I love your point about seeing together corporately does. And and uh yes, a blessed assurance definitely one of me saying, And if you don't like, and if you don't like blessed assurance, you are objectively wrong. Is that what you're saying? Facts. Okay, your your salvation is in corporate. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's what you're saying. The uh I I mean Lord Your I do love Lord Your Mighty. We're saying it today. I I like it. I like some repetition now. Yeah, because it what it does for me is I find with a repetition, it like I'm I'm in a place, but it makes me I go deeper. I go deeper, and the truths feel richer to me, almost like I'm digging a hole. And it just kind of keeps it keeps going. So I usually like it, and my wife doesn't rock with it quite as much.

SPEAKER_00 26:38

She doesn't like the repetition, but like I'll just be on, she'd be like, yo, like, can we stop? Not so much in corporate worship, but a song that I can listen to. Like, she's like, look, can we please change it? Because I'll it'll just go.

SPEAKER_01 26:48

You know, somebody's off, they will like for you know six minutes. We're kind of all the same thing. But it does something to me where by heart, it's like my mind knows things are true, but the repetition helps my heart to believe it. I emotionally, I'm not saying everybody does, but for me, I emotionally get to a place where I'm like, man, he really is mighty. And his mic means, like in some ways, saying the same things to me, my brain actually can work differently too, because my heart's there, but my brain goes, what does his mightiness mean? Whereas if I say it and I'm on to the next line, I might not really consider that. But if I think about his mightiness means protection for me in whatever circumstance I found myself in, where I feel like there's this unbreakable or immovable, and I don't really know what to do, but his mightiness means I can be secure. I kind of need, and maybe it's my own like limitedness, but I need that repetition. No, I do. And I think the the greater need is the balance between God moves in mysterious ways, his wonders to perform, he plants his footsteps on the sea and rides upon the storm. Like Wood Cooper, like, dude was brilliant, and you know, our intelligent friends are gonna muse on those lyrics, and we also need to say that sing the same things over and over so that they'll just seep into our hearts. Like, and so there's not one need that's greater. Yeah, and I that's another thing why I just I want to encourage people to balance. Like, okay, what do you like to sing? You're a worship team member, you get to choose some songs. What do you like to sing? Rib 'em, go for it, because it'll come really naturally for you. Now, what's one that you know people find accessible that's not in your wheelhouse? And then like, so just knowing that balance helps unify the people of God, it helps call forth singing from all different kinds of personality types, and so yeah, just the call for balancer, I think, is wise. And what about singing songs you don't like? Like, is there benefit to that? Like for the congregation, because one of the things we think about sometimes again, it's diverse too. Like, we one of the things we say is we want people to be equally uncomfortable. Okay, let's do meaning, like, we don't the I I think I and I I do have thoughts because but I do want to hear yours. But to me, it's like there I love I love the Bible, but there are times in which I have read the Bible and been very frustrated with it. I mean, I remember when I was a new Christian, I read Romans 9. I'm like, this is terrible. Like, let's look, I was like, what do you mean? You are done. I was like, how can you say? And again, I was newer Christian, but I'm like, this doesn't seem right. But then in the argument of Romans 9, he goes like, but who are you, mere man, to question God? And I remember again, I'm like fresh into my faith. And the fact that he hit me with my legit objection, I was like, okay, well, this is real, but I don't like this. What am I gonna do? And there is this moment of submission for me that was was very meaningful to go, okay, I believe you're my savior. I've been saved maybe a year and a half, two years. And I go, you being Lord means I trust you, even if I don't like it right now. And I found there have been moments like that with the word of God to where I love it, and but there, but sometimes I have to learn to love it. Like it takes time to love it. I don't start off loving it. Like there can be something that just feels hard or frustrating or refusing. Uh, do you think any of that with singing? Like, is any of that applicable with let's say I grew up in one way and I love, you know, I got me my I'm hymns only, or you know, I see I brought with some CCM I've read and saying gospel or like black focus. Like, I sing gospel these CCM. They ain't got no rhythm, they ain't got no flair, they all just sit in there, frozen chose. Like, like, is there a benefit to like again? We said learn different things basically, but there being something that I actually don't like that that I have to work through in singing, yeah. I mean, don't like is a broad category. Okay, I think you should have a theological grid up. Yeah, and so if you're you're sus on the lyric where you're like, that makes God seem weird, I think that's a fair what's a click before objection. I think that's a fair hesitancy. Yeah, yeah. Okay. Uh if it's like theological qualms. Now, if you're the kind of nut jobs who's like, you're finding a theological qualm with every fourth song song, it's like, hey, loosen up over there. You know, because some some of her friends can get like that. But it if if there's a sincere theological pause with a lyric, I think you're allowed to maybe not just you know gun the ho on the song. Um so people can here's like some objections are it's not deep enough. Okay, that's you know, it's not necessarily that I disagree. Yeah, those people should shut up. Yeah, okay. Well, I mean, it's just like who made you the arbiter of death? Like, open your Bible. It his love endures forever. He made the heavens, his love endures forever, he created all things, his love endures forever, he's the God of God. Is that not is that not deep enough for you? Oh I'm sorry, that's inspired scripture. Like, just uh in Jesus' name, I love you so much, just zip it. Like, yeah, that so if that's the kind of thing, um now to be uh to argue for the balance again, if every song is nine minutes and it's a very narrow uh breadth of words sung, it could be helpful, but that balance in my mind is going to be the thing that is most helpful. Uh but those kinds of people to me that just forgive me, in my experience, uh those people think that they have to sing like in King James, yeah. And I just go, dude, I'm a bigger hymns fan than anybody you'll ever meet. So if you want to roll with that, like I'll fight you, that'll win. Because I love the hymnas. But these other ways to express their song are also just as much a gift, and you you should learn to embrace them in that way. Yeah. You said, Is it ever okay to say I don't like it? I'm trying to think of another how somebody else would get to saying that the theological hesitancy, oh cultural cultural styles repetition, okay would definitely be one of just like there's not enough. I mean ultimately I think it's like uh I say flavor, but really I mean it's just it's like for some cultural groups the rhythm, the beat, all oh yeah, that matters. And I do think you're psychosomatic beings, like we're bodies that that that some I I believe in that. Like there's there's rhythms that help us memorize things, help us embody music. And I know you study a lot, so it's different. We're not just reading lyrics either. It's too it's too music, right? Not that it would be wrong to, but we do have all these instruments and things like that that that are factoring into how we sing. Yeah, that would that would be my other thought, is just a musical thought of like these chords are bland, that melody is mid. Yeah, I can get there because I like to pretend to be a musician. And so sometimes that is distracting for me of like oh worship song, love against never heard these chords before. And so sometimes I can get there. I'm just praying about my attitude. Like, I know that that's me being a musical snob in the moment, yeah. Um, and sometimes it's probably good to overcome that, yes. It is, it is, and I I'm thankful that the dudes that leave music at my church are like they could play jazz at any club and they can shred all that one's on keys, one's on electric or acoustic. I'm thinking of, and so they have musical excellence in their mind when they plan the stuff. Um, but I I have been places where I go, oof, this is a like the musicality is very droning and inaccessible. And it's not the repetition of words or melody, it's just the like, this is this is it's it's struggling for me personally. But that but that's still a hard issue for me. It is, yeah. And I need to get over it. And I think that's where maybe the don't like to, I think, can be beneficial because I do think when you when you have when you have especially don't like to aren't really based on theological accuracy, right? But you some of it might be on stylistic and preferences. I do find having to overcome a preference can be really sanctifying. Preach so hard, dude. Because you go, I don't prefer this, but because of the unity of the body of Christ, I will still sing. Yeah, Paul and I'll start one in Silas in prison. Go, no, that's not my favorite. Well, stupid is that that's hilarious, right? But I, you know, our churches we're multi-thinking, but we're majority white, and I have seen I've seen some of our white folk who are really not used to gospel do that, like kind of go, okay, this is not my preference, but like let me sing. And I would say I've I've really seen a lot of maturity and growth in like a really encouraging way to go, I don't really understand, but let me sing. Okay, and even to go, because sometimes you're it's it can make you feel weird about God, but you but you we still gotta go, okay. Is that because of how I'm used to singing about God? Or is that because of who God really is? Yeah, it's the fish in the waters, the culture definition. It's like fish doesn't know it's wet. Hey, what's it like to be wet? I don't know why you have to get out of that. Um, whether in a in in a singing way, why this song makes me feel this way, and you know, you you because our God is so big, you should be able to get to a place where you go, I get it, I understand. This is why this is beautiful to people who to people that are different than me. Yeah, why it is, and yeah, I think the patience there um can create a really beautiful thing amongst people of God. Uh yeah, for sure. Yeah, it's like fruit of the spirit isn't get isn't born in some ways without the spirit's work, clearly, but like in places where that fruit needs to be born, if that makes sense. It's like we, you know, you pay you bear patience because you have to be patient. Long suffering because you need to long suffer. And and not that we want to make church like this place that's very difficult for anybody to be. Yeah, but there is something to where I I believe it's it is helpful to go, to not go, because people, you know, people often choose churches community teaching and worship. Yeah. People have different emphasis on that kind of thing. And um, but I I said this to the I said this to the our church the other day, just kind of kind of picking but making a point. People don't pick a church because they go, hey, the hospitality team here sucks, and I'm and I need to use my hospitality gift. But you people don't usually, that's why I'm gonna pick the church because they're struggling and I want to help. Uh, but I don't think that would be wrong, you know, because it's I mean it's literally you teach the word, it's biblically sound, things like this. But I think there's something to a struggle, and something feels somewhat uncomfortable to not just go, hey, this isn't my preference. Let me not let me not be here. Yeah, to go, does God have something for me here in a place that's not my preference? And I think singing is a big aspect of that because we have preferences, yeah. Like I don't rot with country like that. Well, but I but I have friends who do. That's because you're a Christian, right? Yeah. That's but I don't really don't. But I have friends who do, I think that they're actually, I found myself there's times where I was like, oh, I still like all right. But then there are times where like I listened to this one and I was like, all right, let me give it a shot. Have you seen Daddy Don't Pray Anymore by Chris Stapleton? Maybe he's like old songs in the law country. Hey, bros, you're out of your mind, dude. Chris, dude, like that song to me, I'm like, okay, this isn't perfectly written song. But oh wait, dude, okay. Uh hit me on another couple songs where you're like, when we sing this at church, you're like, heck yeah, let's go. So I started with Blessed Assurance. And then the mighty song for today. This is the first time I heard it. It was nice. You like it. Um, I um uh He is Able. I like He Is Able. Okay, for that by that's uh Math Richard Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, so I like He Is Able. Um, that is fun to me. And I think that that has been the song recently for our staff, like with all the faith in the room. So I'm I mean I do like Map City. It's like they're supposed to see infusion stuff, and I like all that. So that's fun to me. Um you have the Revelation 19, one one where there's three different parts in Halloween, Salvation and Glory. Oh, yeah, City. Yeah, absolutely. It's a rager. It is good, it's great. Um so I like that. Uh I like a lot of stuff, man. I really like Eddie James and I've been washed.

SPEAKER_00 39:03

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 39:04

I don't just you need to listen to Eddie James. I love his stuff isn't and uh it's he he just has this cyclical deal about being washed, but he's like justified, sanctified once was dead, but now I'm a lot. It's deep, it's gospel, but he he definitely is in some CCM circles. It's gospel, but it's super theologically robust, and it's all about the blood. And like, yeah, a lot of gospel black people. We like to sing about the blood. I mean, my hands are a lot of blood too. CCM stuff, I feel like isn't as much blood. Do you agree? Yeah, here's my confession, and you're you're my priest. This is a Roman Catholic confession booth. I don't like Christian music that much. I don't, man. Kind of a bum. Yeah, I'm like, I'm literally writing a book on why Christians should love it and do it. And it's all it's uh it feels overproduced, so it just feels like soccer mom, radio rock, and it just kind of makes me gag a little bit in my mouth. Like it's so like I gospel music by gospel music, that kind of stuff would be an exception to me. That stuff feels different to me, but like so much worship music and stuff. I love singing it with the people that died on Sunday morning. Love it with my church family, love it, and I don't think I want to go hear that throughout my week. Like that's I I'm such a bum for this. When I find other kinds of music that like I think the work uses it speak to me, yeah. But it is uh so much of this conversation is funny because I wrote a book being like, yo, Christians should sing, here are those reasons, and then Christian music is kind of lame to me most of the time, huh? But um gospel music would be one of those exceptions to the rule. Uh and I try to, yeah, I mean, you know, I get we gotta do with your leadership team, but like me and somebody's have a goal of just going, we're just gonna sing hymns with as loud as we can with as many people as we can in the most underproduced way we can. And I'm like, I jive with that. Just be loud and happy in Jesus' name because it's his fault. Like he made joy, he made joy a command in the Bible, and do I say it again, rejoice. Like it's you exude that man, it's it's so much fun, yeah. Um but I think I I dislike it because it feels like a Nashville machine, like a money-making machine, and so I get kind of anksy and whiny about it. Yeah, but to me that that means pursuing purity in the singing spaces, makes it even more fun, yeah. Because it's not like you know, David didn't write the hits to get a check, and people get lots of checks these days, yeah. And I'm dude, the Lord provides that's cool, but I love the table was just like I'm pouring out my soul, yeah, yeah. Like, and it wasn't a it wasn't uh um like uh uh I'm doing this. Oh, you only got eight songs. We need 10 to release a record. Get that, get in there and be sad as a tubal grave, right? Like it just feels so dumb. Well, you and I think to that point of just like the the reason and the why, all that behind it is gonna definitely affect the outcome. Like the like we what the what the the reason is is gonna affect what the end product for sure. Um well hey to wrap up, tell tell somebody who hasn't read Sing Loud Die Happy. Why should everybody sing loud die happy? Well, I should I love I love it. Oh, yeah, dude. This is Will's favorite word of heresy. It's this uh my opening lines in there are um singing might be the third or fourth most repeated command of the whole Bible. It's right up there with don't fear and believe. But sometimes when you have to believe and have to not fear, you don't know if you're doing it right because it's like, what did I ever learn? Did I get enough sleep? But you know when you're singing, so you don't have to pray about whether or not you're in God's will. If you're opening your mouth and you're singing with the people of God, you're smacked out of the middle of his will. That's fire, and there's probably a little punk joke in there. But it's like you're you're directly standing before God in his will when you're opening mouth your mouth and you're singing with the people of God and the power of the Spirit of God for the glory of the Son of God, you are doing the right thing, and it's one of the Bible's most repeated commands. And also just the subjective thing of like, if you have asked five people who have been in church for a long time, hey, tell me about the three most important worshipful times in your life, just subjectively worshipful, worshipful for you. Most of them are gonna have singing in the mix, maybe all three of them. Maybe I was at a red light, this song came on, my dad had just died, whatever. Maybe a Sunday morning time with the Spirit spoke to them. But the point is, even experientially and subjectively, singing moves us, it transforms us, like we were talking about. It can shape peoples and cultures and churches. And so the overwhelming evidence is that uh God is like winking at us um when singing is on the table because he's up to something in it. And to not explore the mechanics of that feels a little irresponsible. And so I wrote a book about okay, what does the Bible say about singing? How does that relate to our emotional life and our church life? And what is our like duty as Christians when it comes to this gift of song? Uh so it's called Sing Loud Die Happy. Uh and the subtitle is an exploration of how God's gift of song is meant to change us. And it's just this uh kind of story. Uh I I go through the Old Testament, the Psalms and the New Testament, and then I do a chapter on church history, a chapter on the emotions, and a chapter on the church's responsibility today to take the gift of song and to steward it well um as as we seek to be God's people in the world for the world. Um so yeah, and it was funny, right? I cried like researching and writing on it, and um it was a blast. So yeah, go uh go help me, go help me uh feed my kids and send them to school. Goodbye, a copy of it.

SPEAKER_00 44:36

Thanks for being on the pod here, I mean it's so good to be with you for really single die happy. Heck yeah, bro. I know.