Does God Care About My Spotify Playlist? w/ Sidney Rushing

Episode 02: Does God Care About My Spotify Playlist? w/ Sidney Rushing 

Music is an incredibly powerful tool for worship, but what if the music we listen to is encouraging us to worship the wrong things? Today, we welcome our very first guest to Hot Takes and Holy Things, Sidney Rushing. Sidney is a four-time NBA champion who leads worship at Family Church Tequesta, and he is here to discuss today’s hot take. In this episode, we begin with a new segment called Word of the Day, where we guess the meaning of a new word (or words) in every episode. We then delve into our hot take of the day: all music is worship music! Sidney tells us all about what it means to actually worship something and why we need to realign our identities to our true purpose, to worship God. He goes on to explain the power of music in shaping our thoughts and feelings, and as a tool of worship, before we help students get practical in assessing the type of music they’re exposing themselves to. Finally, listeners will be challenged to participate in a ‘playlist purge’ in order to figure out what the music we listen to is pointing our hearts towards. Thanks for tuning in! 

Key Points From This Episode: 

•    Welcoming Sidney Rushing to the show. 

•    Today’s Word of the Day: ‘City Boy’. 

•    A shout-out to Crew Edwards from Family Church Tequesta. 

•    Today’s hot take: all music is worship music. 

•    What it means to actually worship something.

•    The importance of redirecting worship back to God. 

•    Why music is particularly powerful in our lives and worship. 

•    Asking yourself if the music you listen to aligns with God’s truth and design.

•    Today’s challenge: the playlist purge. 

Quotes:

 “Worshiping something is ascribing it value, either rightly or wrongly, and then responding in that manner.” — Sidney Rushing [0:10:06]

“I think all of us are made to worship – God, but because of the fall, we don’t know who or what to worship.” — Sidney Rushing [0:10:33]

“Both in life and in the Bible, there’s a trend that music has a way of connecting to us emotionally. It connects to our minds and our hearts and bridges them together.” — Sidney Rushing [0:13:00]

“It is wise to notice what messages you’re constantly feeding your mind and your soul because, over time, what you listen to will shape what you think about. And what you think about – shapes what you love.” — Sidney Rushing [0:16:49]

Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode:

Romans 12:1

Philippians 4:8

Luke 6:45

Family Church Students on Instagram

Family Church Students Linktree

Family Church

Family Church on Instagram

Transcript

SPEAKER_06 0:07

Welcome to Hot Takes and Holy Things. This is the podcast for the students of Family Church in South Florida. We're tackling the real questions students are asking and bringing you hot takes backed by God's Word. This is Hot Takes and Holy Things.

SPEAKER_00 0:28

What's up, students? My name is Jarvis Koyate, and I'm here with the best co-host any man can ask for.

SPEAKER_06 0:35

What's going on, guys? This is Cole Beardon, and I'm excited to be here for episode two of Hot Takes and Holy Things.

SPEAKER_03 0:41

What's up, everybody? Jake Kimbrell. Super pumped to be here for episode two of Hot Takes and Holy Things.

SPEAKER_00 0:47

Well, hey, I'm excited for this episode. Episode number two. Gentlemen, we have our first ever guest. Come on. Yeah. All right. So let me introduce this guest. What I did was I had ChatGBT. I said, Chat, here's my guests. I need you to come up with a little bio for him so I can read it out loud so our people can get to know our guests. All right. So this is what Chat gets. Are we allowed to use AI? I think so. Okay, let's cool it. I'm cool with it. All right, cool. All right, here we go. All right, so this is what Chat came up with. All right, so our guest was born December 30th in Akron, Ohio. Number one overall pick in the 2003 NBA draft. Oh my gosh. Four-time NBA champion, four-time NBA Finals MVP. Come on. 20-time NBA All-Star and NBA rookie of the year back in 04.

SPEAKER_06 1:29

Oh my gosh. Dog, bro. We got a guest.

SPEAKER_00 1:32

And on the side, he leads worship at Family Church Sequesta. And uh it is free time. He's uh he's in our residency program at Family Church. So, ladies and gentlemen, give it up for Mr. Sidney Rushing. Yeah, come on. Excited to be here. Do we give him three?

SPEAKER_01 1:52

Hey, let's give him three. Let's give him three. Oh, thank you guys. Thank you guys. Yeah, no, back in 2004, three years old, playing some ball, then just you wanted to settle down. Wanted to live the quiet life. That's right. Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 2:06

Get married, start a family.

SPEAKER_01 2:08

Little too busy for me. So my name's Sidney Rushing, and I lead worship at our Tequesta campus. I also help out with our college ministry and Thursday night services. I've been married to my wife, Sarah, for almost 10 months. Wow. Let's go. At this point, I'm basically an expert. Right. That's all right. I can't do anything wrong. Uh, I hope Sarah doesn't hear that. And if you do, uh was just kidding. I was just kidding.

SPEAKER_06 2:30

That's good. Well, hey, students, we want this podcast to be for students, but we also want it to be by students. That's right. And so one of the new segments that we're going to introduce to you today is our word of the day segment. Here's how it's going to work. I'm going to present a word to the table that no one knows what it means. Their job is to guess what they think that word means. Closest one to it wins. We'll keep score throughout the season. Now, here's the thing this word is not a word that I'm coming up with or a word that I'm providing. We said that we wanted this podcast to be by students. And so this word is coming from none other than the Hudson Champion hailing from Family Church Village. And so, shout out Hudson for coming through with the word of the day. Gentlemen. I'm so nervous.

SPEAKER_00 3:23

I'm stressing over here.

SPEAKER_06 3:25

I'm nervous. I'm excited. I don't know. All right, gentlemen. Here is today's word of the day. The word of the day is city boy. Oh.

SPEAKER_03 3:34

That's easy. Okay. Why don't you start a city if it's so easy? Well, you know, I just think that obviously you've got country boys who, you know, probably are out in the country. Like, you know, they probably know how to like milk cows and stuff. So I think a city boy is like the opposite of that. Someone who grew up in the city. Okay. Sure. Like, you know, probably wears like quarter zips and stuff like that. Big Q Z guy. Yeah, big Q Z guy. But probably is good at things that don't involve bailing hay and milking cows.

SPEAKER_00 4:06

Sure. All right. That's that's my So that's what you think a city boy is.

SPEAKER_01 4:11

Oh, yeah, absolutely. We're locking it in. Yeah, I think something pretty similar. They're a little soft, not as tough as someone else. I'd say it's probably more of a derogatory term. A little city boy.

SPEAKER_06 4:22

It's an insult to be a city boy.

SPEAKER_01 4:24

Which you know, I get it. I got soft hands. I'm not a blue-collar worker. Sure. I'd probably call myself a city boy. Sure. I hope, if that's the correct definition. But if not, and they have to change my answer.

SPEAKER_00 4:37

That's good. That's good. Lifting up prayers. So when I think of a city boy, I think of someone who lives in a densely populated area.

SPEAKER_03 4:46

In a city, you could call it.

SPEAKER_00 4:47

Yes, a city. Yeah. And they grew up in the city. They didn't grow up in the country. They grew up in a densely populated area, I think where they live has to be densely populated. Okay. I think this is a person where they have to have a public every other corner they turn next to. Where shopping is a pleasure.

SPEAKER_03 5:02

I think there have to be So just someone who grew up in South Florida.

SPEAKER_00 5:05

Yes. Yes, of course. I think the city boy has to be someone who's used to being in the city. So that's my answer.

SPEAKER_03 5:13

So basically, you two just gave different flavors of the same answer that I had.

SPEAKER_00 5:18

Yeah, it's different.

SPEAKER_06 5:21

It's different. All right, Cole. Tell us. All right. A city boy is an independent man who doesn't need romance.

SPEAKER_03 5:31

Wow.

SPEAKER_06 5:32

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_03 5:33

Not at all what I thought that meant. Yeah. So we're thinking like a like a finance guy that lives in like a high rise and he's just content with being single his whole life and just a strong independent man.

SPEAKER_04 5:49

Doesn't need a girlfriend.

SPEAKER_00 5:51

Okay. Okay. So technically one. I think I did. It's a three-way tie.

SPEAKER_03 5:58

I know what I would give it to Jarve.

SPEAKER_00 6:01

We'll give it to Jarve. Yeah. Give me three, baby.

SPEAKER_03 6:06

I'll give you one point and we'll keep track.

SPEAKER_06 6:08

At this point, it's either Jarve or the cat on the table.

SPEAKER_03 6:12

The cat off the table. All right, everybody. Well, hey, I love the word of the day segment. I think it's fun. Maybe after the great debate episode last week, maybe Cole wants to keep doing words of the day, but I think it's a lot of fun. Super happy that we got to do that. Thanks, Hudson, for the word. But today we also want to give our students another student shout out. Remember, these are students that are engaged in our ministries. These are students that are the church in here, but also the church out there. Even our guests picked up on that one. And so this student comes to us from Family Church Tequesta.

SPEAKER_01 6:46

Let's go. Come on, makes sense.

SPEAKER_03 6:48

We have two people representing Family Church Sequesta here today, so it makes sense. And so, ladies and gentlemen, I wants to give us a big shout out to the one and the only Crew Edwards.

SPEAKER_00 6:58

W Crew.

SPEAKER_03 6:59

Jarvis, why don't you tell us what Crew is doing over at Family Church to Cuesta?

SPEAKER_00 7:02

Man, Crew is doing some amazing things. And so Crew is on a swim team, and Crew's actually been inviting his swim team to do sunrise Bible studies on the beach. Wow. Wow.

SPEAKER_06 7:13

Yeah, let's go.

SPEAKER_00 7:14

Sunrise is the key word there. Key words. I mean a middle schooler doing a sunrise. And uh I remember he invited me for the first one, and I said You slept through. I said a little early. I said, Crew, I'm the adult. Is there any chance we can move this to a sunset? I tried pulling a little bit of rink there, didn't work. Jarve needs his beauty sleep. So I was there at the sunrise.

SPEAKER_03 7:35

Hey, well, Crew, shout out to you, man. Great job. Keep it up. Hey, gentlemen, why don't we give them three? Jarvis, we're gonna keep working on the tools. Hey, well, ladies and gentlemen, here's the deal. Like every episode, we want to have some fun. We're gonna do some things like the word of the day and stuff like that. But this podcast is called Hot Takes and Holy Things for a Reason. And Jarvis, I believe you have a hot take you want to share with everybody today.

SPEAKER_00 7:59

I have a hot take. This thing is flamin' hot. Okay. This is a hot take.

SPEAKER_06 8:03

We've been cooking this one up for a minute.

SPEAKER_00 8:05

All right, so here's my hot take for today. All music is worship. Okay. All music is worship music. Cool. Let me say it for people in the back.

SPEAKER_03 8:16

Say it again for the people in the back. The sound don't reach back there.

SPEAKER_00 8:19

All music is worship. All right. So when people initially hear that, they kind of think, all right, so maybe you're saying like every song is basically a church song, right? Because I mean, it is worship.

SPEAKER_03 8:29

Yeah, but maybe what you mean is not that every song is like a church song is in like the setting of church, right? Like it's not a Sunday morning, it's it's not a Wednesday night. You're not saying that every song is necessarily worship to God, but you're saying that every song is worshiping something, right? Because every song is really celebrating something. So maybe you're listening to a song that's celebrating love. Maybe it's not, you know, a song about city boys, right? Right. But it's celebrating love or it's celebrating money, celebrating success or relationships, or maybe even power or status, or maybe the way that we have been thinking about worship music, maybe it is celebrating God or it's praising God or affirming God, but every song is pointing our heart towards something that it believes is worthy of our praise. So, Sydney, you're a very talented worship leader, and you do a great job. Very talented.

SPEAKER_06 9:22

Very talented, extremely talented.

SPEAKER_03 9:24

Like no one can lead the prodigal at any of our events like you can. Yeah, thank you.

SPEAKER_00 9:28

Killed it. And so I have a question for you. So, what does it mean to actually worship something?

SPEAKER_01 9:35

How much time do you have?

SPEAKER_00 9:37

Uh, yeah, approximately about 11 minutes. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 9:41

Okay. So pretty long. Worship is is a pretty broad thing, but like a I'd say a basic answer is to ascribe worth to something. So like a nickel is worth five cents, a quarter is worth 25 cents. You're ascribing worth based on what it's what the value is. If you just Google it, it's gonna say as a noun, it is honor given to someone in recognition of their merit. And so worshiping something is ascribing it value either rightly or wrongly, and then responding in that manner. But in a Christian sense, I'd say worship should be the believer's response, personally and corporately, to God because of who he is and what he's done for us. And this is done through our praise, how we live our lives, obedience to his word, and the prioritizing of God to be first in our lives. So it's not just music, but music is one of the more evident ways that we see it. And I think all of us are made to worship. Yeah. We're all made to worship God, but because of the fall, we don't know who or what to worship. And so often in the church, we equate worship with music, but it's not, it's not exclusively that. Our inner being wants to worship something. But when we look at like Romans 12, 1, it says, according to the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, wholly and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship, or some translations say true and proper worship. So we're all actively worshiping something or or someone, could be you know, sports, girlfriend or boyfriend, job, achievement, video games, whatever it is, it's like what holds our attention. But in church, we are actively setting our minds and affections on God by worshiping Him through music.

SPEAKER_03 11:18

I think that's good. So we kind of really need to remove ourself from thinking about worship only happening in the pews on Sunday morning, and we really have to align our hearts with the way that God made us to be. We have to first understand that our identity primarily is a worshiper.

SPEAKER_02 11:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 11:34

And we are going to worship something. And I love that you mentioned that that because of the fall, I mean, there's all sorts of things that our culture wants us to worship, that our heart wants to worship, but we were designed and created to worship God, even if that's not our natural inclination, right, Jarvis?

SPEAKER_00 11:52

Yeah, absolutely. And I think another thing too about worship has nothing to do about where we are physically, but actually has a lot to do about where our heart is centered at.

SPEAKER_03 12:02

That's good. I have another question for you, Sydney. So I'm someone, truthfully, okay, I'll confess this to the pod. I don't really listen to a lot of music. Like I, you know, and I listen to more music now because my kids are in the car.

SPEAKER_02 12:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 12:16

And my kids love listening to music. I know that. And so sometimes it's the wheels on the bus. And I'm like, I'm like worshiping with the rest of them, right?

SPEAKER_06 12:24

I'm like, bang your head against the window because they won't stop. This is wheels on the bus for the 17th time.

SPEAKER_03 12:28

In my sleep, I'm like, the wheels on the bus go around enough. You know, so sometimes I'm worshiping like that. But then also when I don't have my kids in the car, a lot of times I'm someone who listens to podcasts. I like listening to audiobooks. And so sometimes I struggle as a Christian. I want to worship. Am I missing out on something because I'm not listening to more music in the car? Like, why is music so powerful for us? Like, for a lot of our students who are only listening to podcasts or audiobooks, what would you say to them when it comes to the idea of worshiping?

SPEAKER_01 12:59

Yeah, I think both just in life and in the Bible, there's a trend that music has a way of connecting to us emotionally. It connects to our minds and our hearts and bridges them together. So it's not just knowledge and it's not just feelings. It's it's both, it stirs our affections. It stirs the pot, if you will. That's why when we're sad, we listen to sad songs, or when we want to get hype, we listen to hype songs like goofy goober rock. Yeah. And then when we like have a crush, we listen to a love song. It's like, oh man, me and this girl, we're gonna go a long ways. The songs give us the words to say, like when we don't know, we can't put a label to our feelings. It kind of helps us label that. And songs can bring up things like past memories. Ultimately, music helps shape what we believe and love. It like coaches our souls and it helps like form what we think and value. Especially if we're singing along with, like we're it's not just the artist singing it or saying it, it's us saying it along with. For example, if I don't like chocolate ice cream, but a song that I love from an artist that I love talks about eating chocolate ice cream, then I'm gonna be stirred toward liking chocolate ice cream, even if I realize it or not.

SPEAKER_02 14:15

I'm gonna start listening to more songs about chocolate ice cream. Amen.

SPEAKER_01 14:18

Need more of an excuse. Another is like if I have an artist that I love and they talk about specific habits of like maybe habits of people that they don't like, where it's like they are they're gonna break up and this person did this and this and this, and they weren't necessarily bad things. Now the people who listen to that song are gonna associate those things with being bad. So it forms our views, it forms our thoughts, it forms what we value.

SPEAKER_06 14:43

Sydney, I like that you said that it forms our thoughts, our views, our values, because this is something that actually connects directly to a few places in scripture. You see, remember, this is hot takes in holy things, so we want to root these conversations in scripture. And Sydney, you actually started us off a little early with that with Romans 12.1, but I like it. We like the Bible, so we want to hear the Bible more. But this is what Philippians 4 8 says. It says, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. And you see, that's a really good filter for what we should put into our minds about the way that we think about music. If these things are worthy of praise, then we need to think, should I be worshiping these things? If they are not worthy of praise, then maybe I shouldn't be worshiping these things. But I also think about how the Bible talks about the power of what fills our hearts. Like Jesus says in Luke 6, 45, for the mouth speaks what the heart is full of. In other words, whatever fills your heart eventually comes out into your words, into your attitudes, and into your actions and into your thoughts. And so if the music that you constantly listen to is filling your heart with certain ideas, well then it's eventually going to shape how you think and how you live. And so, Sidney, what you're talking about isn't just an idea that we have, this is actually something that is proven in scripture and something that Jesus talks about himself.

SPEAKER_00 16:20

That's really good. So I want to right now, let's help our students get practical. Okay. So so maybe you're our student who's looking at your playlist right now, okay, and you're realizing that you've never really thought about before. What's like a a good question they can ask themselves?

SPEAKER_01 16:35

Yeah, I'd say one is is this song celebrating something that aligns with God's truth? Is it promoting something that the Bible would also promote? But I would say, like, don't panic about every lyric. It is wise to notice what messages you're constantly feeding your mind and your soul. Because over time what you listen to will shape what you think about. And what you think about, as we heard from Cole, shapes what you love.

SPEAKER_03 17:01

Yeah, I think another good question that we really have to ask ourselves is this encouraging the kind of lifestyle that I actually want to live? So, you know, a lot of these students who are listening to this podcast, they attend our church every week. They're in our student ministries, they were serving on advance. You know, these students want to align their lives with God's design. And so the question you have to ask yourself is Am I listening to music that actually encourages my pursuit of God's design? Right? Like I want to listen to music that draws me closer to God, that does not uh suggest things that are outside of God's design. So, for instance, if a song talks about lying to someone, well, God tells us to be truthful because God Himself is truthful, and God has given us the truth of His word. So we want to listen to songs, listen to music that points us to those things.

SPEAKER_06 17:54

Yeah, I think another question that you should also ask yourself is what is this taking my attention off of? Is this music that is gearing your attention away from God, or is this music that's pointing your attention closer to God? Is this guiding your heart towards Him? Because if this is music that's distracting you from God and godly living and God's design, well then maybe you actually shouldn't be listening to this music after all.

SPEAKER_03 18:18

Yeah, I love that because I think for us it starts with maybe even a better understanding of where our hearts go and the things that we naturally lean on, and then kind of taking a step back and going, all right, well, if I'm listening to this kind of music, right, where is my heart actually centered if this is the stuff I'm listening to?

SPEAKER_06 18:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 18:38

And if I want my heart to be centered here, how do I need to shift that? What are the things I need to be pumping into my heart and into my mind? And so here's what we want to do. Like Jarvis mentioned in the last episode, we never want to just talk about these things, but not give our students some practical advice, but then also a challenge to follow that up. And so I've got a challenge for all of our students today, and I'm calling it the playlist purge. Let's go. The playlist purge. No chat GPT necessary. Come on, though. That was fresh off the dome. You're a word playlist. That's right. Word pioneer. So here's the challenge for this week. I want every single one of our students to take a few minutes and actually look through your Spotify playlist because that's the name of this episode. Does God care about my Spotify playlist? And so take a minute, go and look at your playlist. Maybe you're on, if you're on Apple Music, you're not exempt from this either. You should go look through your playlist and take a few minutes and ask this question. What is this music pointing my heart towards? Is it pointing me closer to God or is it pointing me towards something else? And so maybe you look through your playlist and you go, I've got a lot of songs on here that are not pointing my heart closer to God. Maybe you got to delete those songs off the playlist. Maybe you need to create a whole new playlist. But I'm encouraging you, I'm challenging you this week, take a few minutes and let's do the playlist purge.

SPEAKER_00 19:58

That's really good. Well, hey, today has been a great episode. Sydney, thank you so much for joining us. Thank you for your wisdom. And guys, thank you for listening to Hot Takes and Holy Things on behalf of Cole, Jake, and myself. It's been a great episode. So, gentlemen, let's give them three.

SPEAKER_06 20:17

Thanks for tuning in to Hot Takes and Holy Things. To stay up to date on new episodes, follow us on Instagram at GoFC Students. Share this podcast with a friend and send us your questions. We'd love to talk about the stuff you care about. Catch you next time on Hot Takes and Holy Things.