speaker-0: Faith Baptist Church in Taylor Week in the

speaker-1: presents this

speaker-0: Well, welcome back again to This Week in the Word at FBC Taylors. Once again, you can find us literally anywhere you look for your regular podcasts. And of course we're also online with the video format through YouTube or our Facebook channels. And today I'm again joined by our illustrious music pastor. I need to get a more clever introduction every time I introduce you with some kind of fun. You can work Well,

speaker-1: That's all right.

speaker-0: I've already said that our old u music pastor who's been here forever. And now I can say illustrious. Thank

speaker-1: Okay, I'll take that.

speaker-0: you. We're we're getting in a better direction in our introductions. But we are actually going to deal with music again. And we've had two other such podcasts already on the topic of music. And during our conversations, we have often ended our podcast by encouraging folks to send in emails and help us continue the conversation with you by asking questions. And we actually got one. Or you got one.

speaker-1: Yeah, a a a friend, I'll call him George, from many, many years ago. I met him when he was out at a Bible college out in the Midwest. he is now in the South at a at another Bible college. Curious. I'll call him George. Curious George. Curious George, yes, very good. And he wrote he has been very supportive listening to the first two podcasts. And after the last one, he said, Tim, would you consider d addressing a few of these things that I hear about from people? And I shared with you and we j we both thought these are excellent points that we could cover that we could all

speaker-0: Very much so. Very much so. And really we put them under the heading. We've already, of course, before we get to the listeners and give them some of the content to the email, really it comes down to in it music itself. And we've called this podcast why we won't change our music to grow our church. Right. Does reaching people justify changing our music? And and he's brought up some of those, even culturally, when it comes to that.

speaker-1: Yeah, and one of the first points he gave us, and I have a copy of his of his email and I want to make sure I get it right. And number three on his list was the cultural argument. I have heard a colleague said that would pound on this with impressionable students. People in other countries or other cultures within our country are just doing their cultural thing, therefore it is not wrong for them. Who are we to tell them that their music is wrong? So if we would judge any foreign nation or any foreign culture, and I've heard this many times as well. I think it's a good question. And the question is, is culch is culture neutral? Right. And that is a great discussion to have. And so I want to share just a couple thoughts, if I could, and ask you to comment on them. when we talk about the word culture, I I found the best definition I could ever find was written by a 19th-century anthropologist. In fact, this guy's this guy's definition is kind of the gold standard is written in 1871. Not a Christian. He was he was an evolutionist. But here's what he said. And he defining culture, the complex whole, which includes knowledge, belief, arts, morals, law, custom, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society. So whatever man produces is What we would call culture. Now, then we get to a theological question. Who invented culture? Some people say, well, God invented culture, which I would agree and disagree with. When God created, he created in six days. He created the physical universe. As far as I know, the Bible never tells us about physical creation after the first six days. It talks about spiritual creation. We are We are a new creature. That is a miracle. That is a new creation by Christ when we are saved. But God, after six days, gave man everything man needed to work with his hands and create the world in which he lives. Adam took the perfect culture, the only perfect culture that has ever been in the world, the Garden of Eden, and corrupted it because of sin. Therefore, when I say the word culture, generally we are not talking about what man has or God has created. We're talking about what man has taken from God's creation and has put together in order to communicate whatever man wants to communicate. And whatever man is it safe to say that whatever man has made is tainted by sin?

speaker-0: I think it's more than just safe, it's theologically correct.

speaker-1: Right. And so so we as Christians, I don't believe that all cultures are neutral. I believe that all hear me carefully, all cultures are suspect because they were created by sinful man for a specific activity.

speaker-0: Well let's start individual to the group. You you've explained the group, but would you say you were born neutral to sin individually?

speaker-1: No, I was born in sin. Okay. Yeah.

speaker-0: Yes, then when I collectively with my group of individuals born not neutral to sin, create something that is culturally relevant or accepted, of course I'm gonna be suspect, just because I would be as much as I'd be suspect of my own heart.

speaker-1: Yes, and listen to what God says. In Genesis 6, verses 5 and 6. The Lord saw the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And the Bible says the Lord regretted that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart. Of course, ultimately, he had to destroy it in the flood. But when God saw what man had been producing, that was his culture. It grieved him. I find it interesting that at the end of the Bible, in Revelation 18, verses 21 and 22, the right John says, So will Babylon, the great city, be thrown down with violence. And of course, Babylon represents the evil, the work of the evil one. And and and and will be and and down with violence and will be found no more, and the sound of the harpists and musicians. Flute players and trumpeters will be heard in you no more, and a craftsman of any craft will be found in you no more, the sound of the men mill will be heard in you no more. God not only judges Babylon, he judges Babylon's culture. Right. So culture cannot be neutral. God judges it. in 1 Deuteronomy chapter 12, Israel was instructed not to worship in the same style as pagan nations around them. They were not only told not to worship false gods, they were also told not to worship the true God in the style of the nations around them. That's the culture. So God has a lot to say about culture. And I think for Christians, you say, okay, what's the positive? Does God give us a positive? The best thing I can find is Philippians 4, 8. Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, honest, ju it doesn't say Christian. Right. It says within your culture, whatsoever things are true, honest, just, pure, lovely, virtuous, if there be good report, if there be any praise, think on these things.

speaker-0: Right. It's not it sounds like often that kind of conversation as it was posed from your friend who's really quoting how others are teaching it, almost becomes a missional conversation, right? Which may be a reactionary thing to someone from an American setting church basically going to another church culturally and just putting on the trappings of an American church and then that's what they view. That's not what we're talking about here though. Correct. I I would be just as against that as I think you would be if you just said, all right, like that's how it is. Like we're in Greenville, South Carolina, for example. Take for example. When I preach on Sunday, I don't normally wear a bolo tie or stitched suits, you know, like and cowboy boots. But I would imagine that if I was in the western parts of the US, perhaps so. That might be culturally pure and honest and just. There's nothing morally bankrupt about what we just described. But there are elements of culture that are very obviously morally bent towards evil. I don't know how we can deny that. And I think the only people denying that are people within our arguments or camps, seemingly.

speaker-1: I would say the Lord has given me opportunity during my lifetime to preach. I I tried to figure it out somewhere around seventeen foreign countries about music. sometimes through a translator, sometimes they speak English. But wherever I have gone and preached the simple principles of God's word, the battle between the flesh and the spirit, the desire to be Christli what we do, the Philippians four, Philippians four eight principles. I find that even though I may not understand that culture that I'm in and preaching to, but when they hear God's word and they hear the applications, they understand.

speaker-0: What we're talking about is people need to have a more foundational philosophy in their own hearts concerning the nature of worship, which we've spent now this is our third podcast on communication. Communication is an element of what you're trying do, beauty, culture, and ultimately just discernment, just genuine discernment. And the Bible does have much to teach about all of those factors.

speaker-1: Yeah, I had a I had a pastor I'll never forget in the Dominican Republic when I preached about four days came up to me and said, Tim, let me let me do just a little experience experiment with you. And he got a radio that he had and turned it to a station. And he said, What does that sound like to you? And I said, It just sounds like Dominican music. And then he went to another station and played it, and he said, What does that sound like to you? And I said, It sounds pretty much the same. He said To you it does. To our people, one of these is very acceptable folk music. The other one is very unacceptable immoral music. He said, as long as you keep your preaching within the scriptural parameters, we know where to draw the line. And I thought, that's fascinating.

speaker-0: Now and that's where this conversation is going because we could talk about and continue to talk about, we will, culture, but often when people hear us talk about music, you and I and just faith Baptists and Taylors, we are pretty conservative. In fact, we are conservative. We we had a podcast about that. We're we're we're unapologetically so. And today we're really going to talk about why we won't change our music to grow our church, because there have been movements that have been pushing exactly that. basically an attempt to bring cultural elements into the church an intentional choice and build their their movement around that.

speaker-1: I that didn't prepare myself to bring quotes, but my goodness, I I read I've read every issue of Contemporary Christian Music Magazine, which is the spokes opportunity for the the other side, for the Christian pop, Christian rock movement. And they made it very clear in the early parts of theirs that w the of their existence that we are trying to bring people and use the music to attract them. Bring them into the church and then we're gonna preach the gospel to them and then this music is going to bring them in and get them saved. Right.

speaker-0: Well one of the famous examples you sent me some quotes about would be Willow Creek. Right. And there was an example of a guy that we're gonna bring up here named Marva Don.

speaker-1: It's a lady. A lady. I think it's Lady Marvadon in in 1993.

speaker-0: Nine five, actually.

speaker-1: Yeah. Wrote a book which a number of people read at the time, Reaching Out Without Dumbing Down. And it's interesting that she makes this prediction. Let's read the quote. Here's what she said.

speaker-0: This is this is before any formal study was done on the end results of the Willow Creek movement.

speaker-1: That's exactly right. Yeah. She makes this statement. Worship practices that only evoke good feelings and thereby foster a character that seeks instant gratification might be enormously successful at first. And we've seen that to be true. We can admit that. Yeah. Okay. Might be enormously successful.

speaker-0: Yeah. Success means numbers. Exactly. Right.

speaker-1: But the costs, though not immediately obvious, may be high.

speaker-0: Mm-hmm.

speaker-1: And then the next, the very methods that attract crowds might also prevent the development of habits of reflection and learning. A focus on self and feelings limits the nurturing of a godly and outreaching character. Now that's an interesting statement.

speaker-0: Very good

speaker-1: Interesting. But now let's go thirteen years into the future. Right. And a study that was done, and probably most people haven't heard about this because it didn't get a lot of press in the Christian news.

speaker-0: Right now before we get to it, we're talking about the Willow Creek movement that that really did intentionally seek to adopt cultural phenomena into their church. I think he even was going well we know, I don't think, he was going and asking, Bill Heibels was asking people, polling people, what do you want in a church? How can we help you have that in your church? And then we will give it to

speaker-1: It was really the first significant seeker friendly trick.

speaker-0: Right. And there was a study, go back to what you were saying.

speaker-1: Yes, so this study was was produced in two, I think 2008. And it's called A Shocking Confession from Willow Creek Community Leaders. And a gentleman did a study, Bob Burney, and who was working with two of the assistant pastors underneath Heibels. Heibels didn't specifically, my understanding is Heibels did not want to read the study until it was complete. So he said, prepare the study and then I want to read it. So here is Bernie's part of his the article that he wrote about it. It's kind of a long quote, but follow along. Right. The size of the crowd rather than the depth of the heart determined success. If the crowd was large, then surely God was blessing the ministry. Churches were built by demographic studies, professional strategists, marketing research, meeting felt needs, and sermons consistent with these techniques. We were told that preaching was out, relevance was in, doctrine didn't matter nearly as much as innovation. If it wasn't quote unquote cutting edge and consumer friendly, it was doomed. The mention of sin, salvation, and sanctification were taboo and replaced by Starbucks, strategy, and sensitivity.

speaker-0: Yeah.

speaker-1: Thousands of pastors hung on every word. And and if you lived in the early 2000s, you you we know about that. Thousands of pastors hung on every word that emanated from the lips of church growth experts. Satellite seminars were packed with hungry church leaders learning the latest way to do church. The promise was clear. Thousands of people and millions of dollars couldn't be wrong. Forget what people need. Give them what they want. How can you argue with the numbers? If you dared to challenge the experts, you were immediately labeled as a traditionalist, a throwback to the 50s, a stubborn dinosaur unwilling to change with the times. And then he makes the change. All of that changed recently. Willow Creek has released the results of a multi year study on the effectiveness of their programs in philosophy of ministry. The study's findings are in a new book, a new book. Titled Reveal Where Are You, co-authored by Kaylee Parkinson and Greg Hawkins, executive pastor of Willow Creek Community Church. Heibels himself called the findings groundbreaking, earthshaking, and mind-blowing. And no wonder, it seems that the experts were wrong. Now, this is still being written by the man, it's still part of an article. It's not my comments or your comments. The report reveals that most of what they had been doing for these many years and what they have taught millions of others to do is not producing solid disciples of Jesus Christ. Numbers, yes, but not disciples. It gets worse. Heibels laments some of the stuff that we have put millions of dollars into thinking it would really help our people grow and develop spiritually. When the data actually came back, it wasn't helping people that much. Other things that we didn't put in much money into and didn't put much staff against is stuff that our people are crying out for. If you simply want a crowd, the seeker-sensitive model produces results. If you want a solid, sincere, mature followers of Christ, it's a bust. And then he says the final statement in this article, in a shocking confession, Heibel states, we made a mistake. What we should have done when people crossed the line of faith and became Christians, we should have started telling people and s and teaching people that they had to take responsibility to become self-feeders. We should have gotten people, taught people how to read their Bible between services, how to do spiritual practices much more aggressively on their own. Wow. That's that's that's amazing.

speaker-0: Really is amazing.

speaker-1: And and it's what it it's what many people including the statement by Marvad Don and what many people have been saying for years about this movement, and they confess, yes, it is it is true.

speaker-0: Well, and it it speaks to this church growth movement. Yes. And and their their their emphasis of what they were trying to accomplish. And it didn't work. Well why it didn't work?

speaker-1: Because we were trying for crowds and not for solid disciples.

speaker-0: And often the music element was a big, big part of this. Absolutely. Right? And not often. It it almost became an exclusive thing. That actually you spoke to one of your questions in your in that email kind of brought up, and I want to speak to that because the what that quote just spoke to, and there were there's a lot of different ways we could go off of that quote. One of the things it spoke about was the idea that Really, we were not emphasizing the teaching of the Word of God. It was give the people what they want. And often that is another extreme people can come to in the music issue, where we spend a lot of time now seemingly talking about the teaching of the Word of God, but we're not willing to talk about the music at all. Right. And and your emails that you received kind of asked about that either or or both and scenario.

speaker-1: Yes, yes. I I like I like the the simple theological point that God says, you be faithful and I will build the church. We're not responsible for big crowds. Right. We're not responsible for all of the hype and all of the stuff that comes with what we're trying to do to build these great crowds. Even though we may have a great intention of giving them the gospel. And no one's no one's faulting Heibels for what he did in that regard. He was trying to get the gospel out. But but God says I'm responsible for building my church. You just be faithful. Right.

speaker-0: We can very easily, even in conservative churches, buy into a Bill Heibel's philosophy before we get back to the music conversation. Right. As we can say, Well, I'm not gonna do that, but we can still build our models around giving the people more or less what they want. Yes. And that is just as dangerous. What's the difference between looking to grow a church by giving unreached, unregenerate people what they want and looking to keep people in the church? Who are not walking with God by keeping giving them what they want. That's not our motivation. And it comes get bringing to bring this back to the music issue. That's not the issue when it comes to music either. Yes. And the the scenario that your email perhaps we can speak to now is is that either or or is it both and kind of scenario.

speaker-1: Yeah, I can't remember exactly find find the statement that you made, but about about about it being a priority. Right. okay, okay, yes. One of the first points that that we'll call him Curious George said, he said, I've also heard that the preaching of the word and sound theology are where an organization's focus should be. Right. So time and

speaker-0: Before we go any further we'd say Amen.

speaker-1: That's exactly right. So time and commitment to music is just not something that is prioritized in the grand scheme of things.

speaker-0: What so which we'd say? Wait a second.

speaker-1: Yeah, does it have to be either or? And the simplest way for me to summarize that attitude is simply, for any number of reasons, the leadership has chosen to give music and worship a low priority. Right. And I do not think that's an either-or situation. I when I came on as the music pastor here and was asked to take the music pro program to a different level than it was on several for several different ways, and without getting into specifics, one of the things I said is, Well, I see your budget. And one of the things we want to offer the people is new music. And so if I'm gonna be able to give them good music, I need to be able to give them new music. We can't just use the fifty or sixty anthems that we have all the time. I said a budget is very important. And secondly, time time allocation. can we can we have the time necessary to develop a children's choir, a teen choir, an orchestra, an adult choir. And and it was a priority, but it never took the priority of the preaching of God's word.

speaker-0: No, but but when we get together a worship service, we're gonna sing too. Yeah. I there may be, maybe we can speak to that, because he said for any number of reasons, the church leadership is just not speaking about music and worship. Let's speak to the camp in which we reside. We are a conservative church. We minister with conservative brothers and sisters in Christ from even other churches at times. Perhaps one of the reasons that people of my generation that are that grew up in a conservative church may not wish to speak to conservative music is because frankly they've sat through some conversations defending conservative music that went to some really weird places.

speaker-1: Yes, I that I understand.

speaker-0: And and they look at that and go if they sat through that, they heard the weird arguments. I actually made a slide. AI helped me make this one. There you

speaker-1: Yeah, there we go.

speaker-0: go. Some teaching in conserve music has muddied the waters, and I think it has. Yeah. Yeah, I'm sure some of our listeners have heard some of these weird arguments, mice navigating mazes while listening to rock music, playing records backwards, and then how rock music kills plants. And there's some really odd conversations and perhaps as a result of so much weird we haven't spent as much time exegeting the actual passages of scripture to talk about music even as you just did.

speaker-1: I I r my favorite one is the the cows that don't give milk. And th there is a study that shows that cows listen to rock music, they don't give as much milk.

speaker-0: And and I'm not here to tell you if those studies are true or not. I'm I wasn't part of them. I'm also not a scientist. I'm just here to tell you that's not really really meritorious to this conversation, right?

speaker-1: I totally agree. I I often, when I when I pr was out preaching and doing this quite a bit, QA sessions, undoubtedly somebody would bring up one of these scenarios and I would say, you know, I'm not gonna spend a lot of time here. there are a lot of studies that have been done. I've seen them, but I don't I don't necessarily put a lot of stock in them. But let me just say one thing. How many of you have ever read or been exposed to a study where rock music ever benefited the control? Whether they were cows or mice or plants or you know, it it you d you can't find one. So let's move on now to some principles. Right.

speaker-0: But even in the email, he said for whatever reason, there could be numerous reasons. I'm just suggesting one of them, people are unwilling to have conversations about music. Now I don't know of any churches that don't do music. every church I've ever visited or been a part of or known sings or has elements of music in their worship service. So we're all doing it. But no one's talking about it.

speaker-1: And I did touch on this in an earlier podcast, I don't remember which one, but I I think a a significant portion of the blame falls on the pastor or the church leadership who who do not have any theology about worship. You don't have to be a musician to have theology on worship. Right. You just gotta know the Bible. Right. And the Bible has enough s to say for all life and godliness. So it must say something that will keep us right in our worship about music. Right.

speaker-0: Some of the guys that are on the pulpit committee for this church there still will remember my conversation about this because when I was being interviewed to be pastor here first by the pulpit committee, even long before the church that you know, of course, it's a get to know you. And to be honest with you, my heart was still at the church I was at before. And they were, you know, a lot of the what's your favorite color kind of questions, you know. And I not finally I'm like, let's just get to I actually kind of interrupted the flow of thought. And said, can we just go ahead and go where I know we all need to go? And they're like, what do you mean? Well, there's three conversations you want to talk about. I know you want to talk about it. Bible translations, Calvinism, and music. Right. Let's just go there. And they're like, okay, you know, like, let's go there. But I will say, i we could add to that right now. We're talking dispensationalism on Sunday nights. Prophecy would be another one where where guys are just unwilling to have this conversation. For for number n any number of reasons. One of them may be because of the waters have been muddied by those kind of bizarre talking points that people have used for generations on conservative music. And it's it's they're just kind of weird. And so and then be because of that, maybe in that same session, someone did exegete a passage, but but unfortunately rarely so. And so the guys talking about music. Have not been doing what you've already demonstrated to our listeners in today's podcast. You started by saying, here's the passages. Look, I'm defining culture by using the word of God. That's a pretty rare. I appreciate you doing that, but I don't think people are hearing that.

speaker-1: You're probably right. you know, you talk about dispensationalism. I am not a dispensationalist because of what I believe about in times. Right. I believe what I believe about in times because I am convinced that dispensationalism is the right idea. Yeah.

speaker-0: Note adventure Sunday night, yeah.

speaker-1: And and that's that's great. Yeah.

speaker-0: But that's a wonderful point that this guy's Curious George here is bringing out. I I think it's well worth it. He brings out other points though.

speaker-1: Yeah, another similar question, he said, theologians, pastors, professors who believe they know theology and state that books supporting what we would call a biblical conservative position are written by people, A, who are not theologians, and B, do not rightly explain the referenced biblical support. They seem to think if they can prove any one thing wrong, one thing is not correct, they can throw the entire book out and its arguments out the There you go. And and yes, and and I would I would be the first to say, having written a couple of books on music, you know, if I were writing it today versus I think I wrote my first one thirty thirty five years ago, I would have restated some things differently.

speaker-0: As would all of us if we reviewed what we did over the past, hopefully. Right.

speaker-1: But I I think for someone who has that my my first thought for someone who has that question is are you willing to really read deeply and study and meditate on books on both sides of the argument? The thing that the thing that convinced me, one of the things that convinced me to be a conservative was to read all the books from the other side. And I had read I've read them all at that time, up until that period of time, I read every one of them and was not convinced that the theology was consistent in any of them. I mean, all the things about music, the purpose for music is evangelism. Right. No, the purpose of music is to glorify God. Whether therefore you eat or drink or sing or whatsoever you do to all of the glory of God.

speaker-0: Well, well,

speaker-1: Okay.

speaker-0: all the glory of God there, brother.

speaker-1: But if that's the case then I don't have to you know, I I I well, I I'll I'm I'm gonna leave it there.

speaker-0: I guess you wound up already. We might as well keep going. I mean, th that that is a powerful thing to think in terms of. In fact, you had a quote that you sent me earlier in preparation from a guy named John Blanchard.

speaker-1: John Blanchard was lived in England when pop music was first becoming very popular in England, and he saw the dangers and wrote a book called Pop Goes the Gospel, that I still think is one of the best books I've ever read. Right. And that's the statement

speaker-0: read that.

speaker-1: that he says. Yeah. It has even been suggested to us that to question the rightness of using any particular kind of music in evangelism

speaker-0: And evangelism.

speaker-1: is to deny the lordship of Christ over part of his creation. But exactly the opposite is true. We deny his lordship when we decide that we can make use of any means we choose, then bring him in at the next stage and ask his blessings on it. But the musician's duty is the same as that of any other Christian to begin with scripture and discover exactly what methods and means God has authorized. Show me one verse in Scripture where the Purpose. Now hear me, the purpose of the music was to evangelize the lost. There are none. Now, the possibility for evangelism always exists. Paul and Silas sang at midnight in the prison. And the Bible says they sang glorifying and praising God. Now, while they were singing horizontally to God, the jailer heard them. And he came and he said, What must I do to be saved? They weren't trying to reach the jailer with their song, they were glorifying God. If they didn't change their style, saying, let's bring in the jailer. We we need to give him the gospel. No, they glorify God. The jailer saw their devotion and their love in such a struggle that they were going through and came and said, Boy, I gotta have this. It's not because they were being like the jailer, it is because they were being different than the jailer. The jailer recognized it and says, I want.

speaker-0: I mean, even a generation before Blanchert or was saying that, there there was there was Tozier saying the same thing. Yeah, yeah. And Tozier said this. He said, the c that kind of Christianity, for the sake of fun Christianity, as an entertaining medium, the whole thing is offensive and foul before God Almighty. My brother, the cross of Christ is not fun, and it was never fun. There is such a thing, he says. As the joy of the Lord, which is a strength to the people, there is such a thing as having joy unspeakable and full of glory, but there is also such a thing as dying while we grieve. The idea that Christianity is another form of entertainment is perfectly ridiculous.

speaker-1: Yeah, and I I often say it this way, there is nothing, absolutely nothing that a church can do to outdo what Disney does. You can't you can't outdo the world trying to give you a good time. And if that's your purpose, you're always gonna be and that's why so many people bolt from one church to the other church. They're looking for the church with the biggest this or that, or the most entertaining this or that. And they're gonna keep going and going because they're trying to set up themselves for something that is unattainable and that is an entertaining Christianity. Right. And we can't do that. Right.

speaker-0: Why it's on his face. It doesn't doesn't fit. Which is again why we said in the name of our podcast, why we won't change our music to grow our church. Mm-hmm. Our goal is not numbers in that regard. Our goal is disciples that grow in Christ. Yes. And there's so many other such points that this Curious George is making in and along that through that.

speaker-1: Yeah, I think the final question that that well, no really, we've carried we've we've covered all four. Right. So curious George, you should be happy. You should be happy we covered your

speaker-0: You you got all your the man in we should have worn a yellow hat. But I I and I first of all, I I know this is just chasing this rabbit for just a second, but I so appreciate folks that are willing to email us in this way. Yeah. It it really helps us to to formulate a conversation. As soon as you got this email, you forwarded it to me and immediately we both started to plan for this podcast. Right. but it's also really important for us. I know our listeners were thinking music that's been our conversation. But there are, if if a thinking person really takes the principles that we just applied, of course we've already helped you to apply them to music, but it applies to more than just music. Absolutely. And it applies to a lot of what we're trying to do individually and as a church collectively. What is our goal? That's what it comes down to.

speaker-1: And w the the earlier question that he asked, it just came to my mind about about the priority that you have. I think I hope the church, our church should understand, and certainly those that are watching, we want to understand, that when we try to put a worship service together, it's not just me. We meet as a pastoral staff every week and we discuss the services and what's the best way to carry out our theme and our development and how our worship will will move forward. It's it's a priority. And that we all discuss it.

speaker-0: I very much enjoy that process too.

speaker-1: I usually enjoy it. Sometimes sometimes you take away one of my favorite songs, but that's okay.

speaker-0: Okay. But it it is an intentional choice though, regardless. That's your point. It's an intentional choice that we're trying to make. Here's what I want our our folks that are listening to realize I'm okay having these conversations. How about you? Mm-hmm. Did did did conversation and music scare you? Well, in this sense, yes. Because I'm talking about worshiping my God and I think there should be a reverence, it reverential fear. I don't think that's wrong. In in the same way when I'm talking to our when we have our pastoral interns and they say, Well, I'm getting really nervous. I'm prepared to preach. I get nervous when I preach. And I often tell them, Good, I'm glad you're nervous. There should be some nerves. You're preaching the word of God. Like, can you think of anything more important? Well, when it comes to music, I think these are the kind of moments you take your shoes off, you're walking on holy ground. We're talking about worshiping our God. Surely there's a fear about. But my fear does not stop me from talking about it.

speaker-1: Right.

speaker-0: Right. That's different.

speaker-1: And the and frankly, the more that we talk as a staff, the sh more we sharpen each other. Right. And I I think that's I think that's very important. We're we're not perfect, right? But we're trying to head in a good direction. I'm I feel I I will say this, I feel sorry for so many churches where the average music director, who may be a well-meaning layman, just chooses a couple songs that he likes and they get up and sing them, and maybe they'll read a scripture passage. But the service doesn't head in any direction. There's very little opportunity for the congregation to truly develop a heart of worship. And the preacher may be a very good preacher. He may expound the Word of God, but the service is very ragtag. There's no sense to it, there's no movement to it. Not that they have to do it the same way we do, but there's no thought of how are we organizing a service to draw our people into worshiping God.

speaker-0: I'll I'll give you, for instance, when I traveled in evangelism before I was a pastor, I was at a junior camp, and they did a one of the nights, a sp a favorites night for juniors. So the juniors are gonna raise their hand and ask you to pick which song that you're gonna sing. And it was I had to preach after the favorites night with juniors. You want to talk about a hard follow. That was a hard follow. But it also led me to thinking, and I'm glad we don't do it here so I can bring an example. I don't like favorites nights. Yeah. You know why? Because would you ask the preacher to preach that way? Is that how you would come into the service and ask everybody, you know, hey, you read your favorite passage and just kind of play it by ear here? There should be an intentionality to that.

speaker-1: And by the way, that's why many years ago I did away with fake.

speaker-0: I didn't even know that. I know we've never done it before. I agree with your past song.

speaker-1: Yes I feel the same way. That's too haphazard.

speaker-0: Right. And it just takes away from the focus of what we're trying to accomplish. Are we saying we did it perfect?

speaker-1: Nope, nope.

speaker-0: But we're trying our best to serve our God in a way that we believe worships him with all that he is. Thank you again, Curious George.

speaker-1: Hey, I enjoyed it. Thank you, George, for giving us what we needed to to

speaker-0: I hope he actually listens now. I don't know.

speaker-1: I think I'm gonna get an email from him fairly soon.

speaker-0: Okay. And I don't know if they'll appreciate us calling us gears, George. That was on the ha on the spot. We don't even have a plan that, but they but it really does. And and for you that are listening, if you have email questions, please send them in. They definitely help us engage with the conversation. But are we changing our music to grow our church answer? No. No. And and and that is where we're at. Thank you. If this has been a help to you, please feel free to share it with others that it may be a help to them. Thank for joining us today. Baptist Church

speaker-1: For more information about Faith Church, visit us.

speaker-0: at www.fbctailors.org.