We had a great chat with Dan and Chelsea from SEU worship with special guest host Jamie Anderson who’s of the VP’s at Southeastern University and a great friend of TCC!
We talk about how SEU worship got started, leading worship in contexts outside of the church, the future of worship music, and a bunch more!
Podcast Transcript
Dan: I’m a worship pastor at Southeastern University and.
That’s what SCU stands for, by the way. And so SCU worship. Yeah. So my job is kinda leading worship, helping drive some of the music and creative and touring stuff that we do at scu. Yeah. And yeah, we’re just excited to talk about HeartCry and the album, what’s Happening and SCU Worship.
If I could just summarize what it is. We are basically a group of staff and students and that write songs and. Music and really what we do is we lead worship for our chapel services. That’s like the [00:01:00] bread and butter of who our group is. And out of that there’s been this overflow of songs and music making 10 years ago.
we while I was a college student, we stepped out in faith to try and start releasing original songs, which a few universities, and colleges had started to knock on that door. But we went full tilt with it. Like we’re gonna do a couple of albums a year, that are just original songs written by the staff and students from our chapel services.
Yeah. And so that’s like the short version of who SE ship is. And then who I am in relat. To that, this is Chelsea.
Chelsea: Yeah, I’m Chelsea. I am, I’ve been a student atcu at the university for five years now. Now I’m getting my masters and so I’m a graduate assistant with su worship and been a part of the team seeing.
Kind of the fruits of the labor of you and of previous pastors for just making that original music come to life and having students involvement and Yeah. But the best part [00:02:00] and our favorite part is definitely the chapel’s week in, week out. It’s our student ministry. Our community.
So yeah, it’s a. I see. Yeah,
Ryan Loche: that’s cool. I’d love to hear, Dan, if you could speak a little bit a college with a worship pastor. I’m sure there’s a bunch of worship leaders, pastors listening to this saying, I didn’t even know that was a field I could look at. Like getting hired at. Can you maybe speak to what was the heart behind like actually having a worship pastor at the chapel for a.
Dan: Oh, sure. Yeah. So a lot of universities have these sort of like chapel experiences, worship experiences, and depending on this, their sort of their culture or the needs of that school, that institution, a lot of times they’ll have a worship director role and that person’s job is to coordinate the worship teams for chapel services and chapel experiences.
Yeah. For me I graduated here and went straight into full-time vocational ministry And then basically got a call back to do curricular work. So I came on as like a professor and doing [00:03:00] some more graduate studies to build a school for what could be for worship students.
That’s initially why I came back to Southeastern, and then over time I just evolved into the worship director role. Yeah. And then it’s always changing season to season, but per need of the university. But yeah, it is funny, like it’s a whole field and for some people it’s academically connected, so some people get into it because it’s like you might be interested in furthering your studies when it comes to worship stuff, but there’s also just the practical need of, we need to.
The context of these worship services in higher ed, and this is really important, we need to keep the context of those worship services based in a contemporary reality. Cause if they start to go a little too traditional or even just a little too academic, then I think we are failing to equip students properly to get.
Out in the field and do the kingdom work. We have promised to do them, the service of providing. So I think like when it comes to scu, Dr. Engel and our leadership team’s been so clear about making sure we’re empowering students. [00:04:00] To go into the world, to discover their divine design and go into the world and be kingdom builders maker, shapers, right?
So for us, we keep it super practical, but I know, like I’ve gotten to know a handful of worship directors and there’s so many different approaches. There’s so many different ways to do it. So I think it’s pretty cool, as a field, as like an area. And I will say if you’re a worship, And you have a little bit of a head knowledge, intellectual or even like academic bent to you.
It’s a great place to be in, to be in the university worship environment. Totally. It’s been really, really rewarding. What’s your take on that? She like the, that role?
Chelsea: Yeah, I think it’s super unique and it’s not obviously the typical context of a church or a local ministry because it’s students of a certain age.
And filtering in and out every four years. There’s a four year turnaround every time. So pastoring is it’s a a different model than totally, than investing in people long [00:05:00] term for the long haul. And obviously that’s still in mind because these people still go on to live lives that you might still be connected to.
But in terms of just learning how to. Invest and be very intentional to say, Okay, these next four years how are we investing into these students and how how is this worship experience going to set them up and shape them for. The next, however many years of ministry, whether that’s vocationally in a church or not.
And so I think it’s a really unique and cool model of worship ministry and even pastoral ministry, I’m sure. Totally. And create a creative outlet with always. Young adults. It’s very unique. It’s very unique. It’s
Dan: a part we have a lot of fun’s. I keep coming back to the metaphor of a river versus a reservoir.
So a church or a traditional organization that would have Or ministry would have this more, almost like a reservoir feel to it. So the water that flows in is [00:06:00] supposed to more or less stay there. Like you want people to be right. Lifers at your church, you want people that start at your church to end up going to your internship program and then maybe coming on staff as your church grows.
If you’re familiar with, growing churches, like this is a dynamic that’s common. And then any of the water that. Flows out, you really want it to be a little bit more intentional or ideally it’s happening, in health. But at atcu, in the higher ed model, the context is much more like a river , right?
Like you never have the water for long. It’s just always intended to be flowing and flowing. Exactly. So the challenge for me and all the leaders here is just to perpetually be in, into that handing off and that giving over and giving the keys too early so that the water can keep flowing.
So for us, the challenge isn’t the running water because the nature of it is that the water’s gonna keep moving. But how do we make the river wider? Like how do we bring more people into it and how do we steward that appropriately? Yeah. In ordering according to what God’s called us and gifted us to do.
Definitely unique and keeps us on our toes. We have a lot of fun leading in that
Chelsea: context. It’s a blast. Yeah. Yeah.[00:07:00]
Jamie Anderson: Little quiet moment. I’ll hit that part out. . I was think, I was actually thinking about part of what you just said there, which I think is interesting and I think a lot of churches don’t often understand, or maybe they don’t, I don’t wanna say they don’t understand, they don’t understand the intentionality behind when you, when it’s the river model, it, there’s an end point and there’s an out.
There’s a lot of churches that have people that do that. I think even just my own background, when my wife and I, we were worship pastors for 10 years and we were near a military base, so like literally six months to 18 months, the entire congregation would do like a 50% turnover. Wow. So it shaped our whole perspective on not just leading songs, but also leading people.
Because especially military guys, they come in and they wanna serve right away, and you have to find a space for them. You can’t be like we have a six month waiting program. Then we have a one year like, Get to know church. Church, get to know you. It was like we had to escalate the process. But I think what was interesting just about what you shared was when the desires to teach and to invest into not just next generation, but now generation and then you’re willing to [00:08:00] create systems and room environment for them to have the opportunity early.
I think it actually gives them a better chance to go deeper. And I think there’s an interesting conversation, obviously Ryan, with you guys with Church Collective, just the environment that you’re connecting with different churches and people that are gonna be, watching or listening to this thinking about how could their takeaway be, What can I do to invest into the people?
Let’s not assume you have them for 10 years, or their lifers, let’s maybe say you have them for a season for whatever reason. So how would you give them your best in, in the time that you have with them? And maybe don’t wait till the end. Lead strong at the.
Dan: It’s so good. I’ve, I, that’s a great question.
The first place that my mind goes to is just holding onto everything like loosely. Totally. I think part of, so there’s a, like that scripture that says he, God owns a cattle on a thousand hills, which I love ancient metaphors like that. What does that mean? That’s crazy weird image.
But I. thinking of the God of abundantly more, than we could ask, think or imagine like the God who [00:09:00] just owns everything and has everything and we sometimes. Treat people like he’s not the God of a thousand people on a thousand hills. He’s the God of just like the two or three you have right now, or the 10 or 12 you have right now.
And a lot of us could be so like this with the people and the resources around us. And I just think that there is something true to the stewardship of what God’s given you to say. Actually, I need to hold everything around. With like it’s on lease to me. So I guess what I mean by on lease is like when you lease a car, you still basically drive it like you own it even though you don’t.
Because you wanna return that thing in the best shape possible, unless you’re just like a maniac, I don’t know. But you wanna return that thing in the best shape possible, right? So you don’t have to like, incur any more extra fees or whatever. I think that’s probably a better way for us to think about stewarding the kingdom of God.
Like everything that we have, we’re giving on lease, so we should treat it like we own it, but also know that a day is gonna come. [00:10:00] Where that thing will ultimately be released. So whether that’s people or a position or an area of ministry that you lead, or How about this? Like worship leaders?
Like a style? Yeah, like a style that you’re glued to or that you love. Like a flow. A song. A song. , a song. Yeah. Oh man, I’m thinking of old worship pastors. I had it’s time to hang up some of those songs.
Jamie Anderson: We all heard a song in our head, .
Dan: Yeah. We all know No shade. But we, yeah, I think like that, that principle is so huge.
Yeah. And yeah, so huge and so true. I actually was, I had a convo yesterday, I was thinking about this, that even Christ, like Christ God’s ministry through Christ. Transitional, like Jesus isn’t still walking around on Earth right now. The same way he came like it was for a season, and then the transition was the Holy Spirit, to kind.
Come through and then through us, right? So I think there’s something to that nature of just in the season you have be intentional of what you have, but knowing that it’s, it is that kind of flowing river idea that it’s, we’re supposed to [00:11:00] be loose handed with it. And
Chelsea: yeah, totally. I feel like this context Probably is pretty helpful actually for moving on if staff or students are moving on from here to a vocational ministry role to not be an insecure leader that which I’m sure many people have felt in where they feel like God’s calling them elsewhere, but they wanna be loyal to their church that they’ve been at for 10 years and there’s something to say about longevity, there’s definitely fruitfulness in longevity. Yeah, of course. that’s not what I’m trying to get at. It’s just that e everything that we have. Is again a lease from God, a lending from God, right? And so I think it helps to have that mindset of, okay, I’m gonna invest as much as I’m able to right now, as if, God has everything else for this person.
And I think it’s very helpful to raise maybe more secure leaders in a context where things. Just naturally coming and going I [00:12:00] think it’s helpful for me, who possibly wants to be in a, a vocational ministry role later on in life to not hold preciously to what’s not mine.
And to people that are not mine and to things that are not mine. And to really just hear the voice of God in every season and just be like, I’m going all in. Right now and being super intentional and super diligent to make sure that these people are stewarded right now, and this thing, this ministry, whatever it is stewarded right now. So I think it’s, I think it’s really helpful. Me.
Jamie Anderson: Yeah.
Ryan Loche: I’d love to, to go back a little bit. Like having just a finite amount of time. And Jamie, if you wanna jump in on this too, I’d love to know like what kind of minimum skill level do you have?
What’s your audition process look like? Cause obviously you can’t bring them in, too far one way or the other. There’s gotta be like, but what’s the sweet spot and what do you do with, And what if somebody’s coming in a little under, Do you work with a, Yeah, I’d just love to hear your audition process.
Dan: Yeah. First and foremost you need to have [00:13:00] two to three years of ribbon twirling experience. Of course, natural. You have the flags and ribbons. Flags. Yes.
Ryan Loche: Assemblies of God. College natural has to be part of it.
Jamie Anderson: You
Dan: understand? Don’t very much necessity. Yes. Yeah We’ll, definitely. This sounds like we’re, sounds like we’re poking fun
Yeah. Actually this sounds crazy. I, it’s funny like how I used to make fun of that stuff when I was younger and now I see it and it blesses my
Chelsea: heart so much. , my church still has a flag ministry love. I love those women. I’m just like, man and men. Yeah. .
Dan: So I think like when it comes to your question about basically the audition process what’s unique about a university is there’s just always.
A huge, we probably say no more often than a church would. Just because we have so many people, we have 150 to 200 per semester audition. Wow. And in reality, there’s eight, 12 maybe, that we move forward in the process. So that gives us the ability to have a really high bar. And then what we do in, So let me talk about the audition process, then [00:14:00] I’ll talk about some principles we have that kind of like.
Protect it a bit. So we actually have a thing we say where we don’t have on team or off team. We just say you’re either rotation, ready or not. So su worship’s a big family and community and if you’re showing up and you’re in our worship choir and you’re cuz the worship choir is basically like a walk on environment.
Come be a part. It’s not too complicated, it’s not too technical. So come be a part like everyone’s on. We’re on the team, on the family. And it doesn’t mean that you’re rotation ready though. So rotation ready means you have to hit a couple of bars of excellence. Yeah. And I’ll talk about the musically and then Chelsea, you can tag the vocal stuff, but musically it’s, Can you play to a click track?
Sure. What’s funny about. I’ll do the first, Can you play to click track and are you comfortable using in your monitors? And what’s funny about those two things is those are almost the click track. One is slightly skill related, but they’re really more technologically related. Like most of the time you’ll get a student that’s really talented and you realize they’ve actually just never played to a click track, like never played [00:15:00] with in ears in.
So all they need is a little bit of time doing that, and then they get a chance to be a part of the. And the next iteration of it, if that makes sense. So it’s those two technical things. And then the skill thing would be being able to memorize the lyrics. I’m sorry, not the lyrics, although that’s important too.
Memorize the music and the chords and the arrangements. Yeah. So those are the three bars people have to clear. Can you play to a click track? Are you comfortable using in ears? Are can you navigate it? Can you hear yourself? And then the third thing is, Do you have, are you able to play the songs without chord sheets in front of you?
And just from memory, including the lead parts, all of that, right? So those are the three musical things to clear. And what we’ve found is that those first two are really more technical oriented. Around like the technology piece. And all it takes is for us to do a few events. To get people kind of the resources they need.
Yeah. And so we’ll do these culture nights, team nights throughout the year that kind of just, they’re all calls for everybody. Hey, come be a part, you auditioned for guitar last year. I want you to show up. Come play your guitar with our other [00:16:00] guitar players, with maybe one of our staff MDs or whatever.
And let’s see if we can get you learning how to play to a click track. Let’s see if we get you comfortable with any ears. So that’s the bar. And then the steps we have to get somebody. Rotation ready to not, but you should touch on vocals. Yeah. And
Chelsea: then vocally we’ll have just different rooms of people with staff members and then a student worship leader and then a, an instrumental, either an acoustic guitar or a piano.
We give students four, five songs to choose from. We ask them about themselves first and just try and get to know them cuz that’s the culture we wanna set. You guys are people that we care about first. And so we’ll chat with them, get to know them and then they’ll start singing a whatever song that they choose from the 5 cent.
Things that we’re. Mostly looking for is definitely preparation is a huge one. So people can be really talented singers really talented vocalists. And then have to pull up the lyrics for a song or maybe not come in on time, [00:17:00] things like that. Just like an excellence. Matters.
That’s like a culture that we wanna set as well, like preparation matters no matter how talented you are. We look at preparation, obviously just vocal skill, stuff like that. And and then like how we felt like meeting you. What were you like how can we see you involved on a team?
And the nice thing about. The I keep saying culture, but the culture we’re setting lately is that it’s not a year on or you’re off type of mentality. It’s actually, Hey, here’s how you can get involved. Maybe you’re not rotation ready this semester, but here’s how we see you progressing.
Start, start here. You’re gonna, for some people it’s You need to be on the worship choir, cuz you are definitely going to be an asset to this team. For some people it’s hey, we want you meeting with some of our worship pastors in these coming semesters mm-hmm. so that we can get you growing and on to rotation with, within the following, however long is seen fit.
And for some people it’s on [00:18:00] rotation right away. And that’s on chapels and tours and. I think that’s a really cool thing about se worship is that again, like everyone’s part of the fam, everyone’s part of the team and there’s always ways to grow. If you want to grow musically, there’s space for that.
If you want to grow individually, pastorally, there’s space for that. So yeah. Yeah. There, there’s space for that growth.
Dan: And I’ll add this to you guys, like a technical piece. So A, after all that is said and done, the rotation ready, there’s like a another layer deeper, we would call like a student leadership opportunity.
Which you have to go through an interview process and that’s a scholarship position. So I think we have I think the number’s 30 of those. Yeah. 30 I think. Yeah. So there’s 30 of those students. So those would be like, our best drummer is a student leader scholarship, but not only do they play well in their spirits they show leadership skills cause they have to lead.
Drummers, other musicians. And then also like the academic piece is big on that front as well. Yeah. So all those things kinda have to be in the right standing to get into that scholarship spot, so it’s tiered that way, if that makes sense. [00:19:00] Yeah.
I have a question.
Jamie Anderson: Yeah, no, I was thinking about, Cause I think what I love about just su as a whole is this internal wiring for, you mentioned discovering your divine design, and then the other part of that is developing. And so we have the discoverers, we have the developers. And I think when you find the synergy of both, so in this mix, you’ve got people that are coming in, they’re in this process of still discovering, but then they’re also helping others to develop.
And I know the heart behind it just because obviously being a part of SCU is how Chapel was birthed out of this kind of almost like it wasn’t some clever plan. It wasn’t like, Oh, we’re gonna build a worship movement. We’re gonna make this thing happen in 10 years from now. We’ll be able to be celebrating these accolades and awards It.
It was like this deep heart thing to just worship the Lord. And I forget what the small chapel that’s in the other building. Just some of the history. But I think what I love at this juncture for me to be involved too, is hearing how it started with this desire, just for the presence of the Lord and harder [00:20:00] worship.
Now it’s evolved into something that’s training, teaching, equipping, giving students opportunities. You guys have put framework in place to do that, but there’s still that heart piece. And it was a phrase that I heard back in April or May, was this idea that the experiences from the chapel to the classroom, so how it starts in the presence with the Lord, and then it works its way out into the rest of it.
But I just talk a little bit about how you guys maybe steward or even the idea of a students are coming in and they’re be, they’re being trained and taught on biblical literacy even for. How the emphasis is on learning or being deep in the word before they actually learn the words of the song.
Talk about just the whole process for that.
Dan: So you the questions about biblical literacy with songwriting, you’re saying the,
Jamie Anderson: maybe the process of like students, there’s, cuz you know, they’re going deeper with Jesus and then they’re also going deeper in their skill. But how you guys have created the environment where you have all the technic.
And raise the bar, but also there’s the spiritual [00:21:00] investment so that their lives are going deeper into the
Dan: Yeah. You know what’s, And it’s, I’m glad you brought that up because I was thinking that sometimes we feel a pressure, as we raise the technical bar, are we, what does that mean for the spiritual climate?
Sure. And I will say, what we’ve discovered is when you raise the technical bar, what you’re really doing is you’re inviting people. Closer into relationship with you and closer into kind of those coaching conversations. And whenever that starts to happen, you get a better look into someone’s character.
And in raising the technical bar, we’ve actually been able to have, it opens up way more pastoral opportunities, which is something that I would’ve thought as like non-related, but I have found in. My worship leadership, my worship pastoring, that’s actually related that. And somehow in raising the technical bar, it opens up a opportunity for me to have a lot more pastoral conversations and coaching moments and, telling people how I can help them and coaching people and how I can help them improve.
And for us the spiritual piece is really, [00:22:00] it really comes down to like just authenticity. , Yes. Like we have a lot of wiggle room. For people when it comes to their spiritual walk and that grace we can give them. So long as we can sense and know within our context of knowing them, relationship to them.
Are you authentically seeking the presence of God? Are you authentically depending on him to speak to your life, give you direction for the future? And again, the only real way you can vet that stuff is by knowing people. Very true. We spend a lot of time getting to know our students, like our office.
We’ve, it’s been remarked upon about our office, about just how social it is, but it’s because we create an environment for students just to come in and hang out and be around. Yeah. And and what better way to get to know people’s heart and what they’re after how that translates into the songwriting?
Or anything you wanna add on that? Tell before I,
Chelsea: Yeah. No, I think you hit it like, get just getting to know students. I think it’s so helpful for this age range of people too. . Yeah, because it’s not it’s maybe [00:23:00] less, it’s more of an insecurity, but finding security and wanting to be vulnerable, but not knowing how to do that kind of age range of like 18 to 20 something year olds, right?
Yeah. So it’s Hey, that’s okay. Like we’re gonna, we’re gonna foster all of these. With you and to just have an a space for people to be open, to be authentic, to be vulnerable like logistically even we’ll have team leaders do. Do team hangs every week, like every semester, like twice a semester and meet with all of the students on their team and having staff intentionally meet with students, meet with student leaders check-ins, things like that is, is how we relationally invest.
And I think that’s a very important aspect too, especially this age range of people. Is how you get the teaching, which is, I mean everyone, but how are able to Correct. Are able to be [00:24:00] like, this is God’s word, this is what it says. , is by creating that avenue of relationship first.
Yeah.
Dan: Yeah, totally. And then I think songwriting for us just comes outta that stuff. Totally. I was trying to think like we’re, we tend to be really hyper intentional. Oops, sorry. And, We tend to be hyper intentional and hyper systematic about our approach to whatever. And I think like when it comes to songwriting and the biblical part of it, we have more intentionality on the back end of that.
So it’s, it what I did for our Heart Cry record is there’s two or three songs that, if there was a biblical or theological question, I actually sent it to some of our theology faculty and our campus pastor here to let them and land on some changes. And that was ended up being a really healthy way to approach some of the issues that I thought we were coming across.
But that was more a backend thing. I think on the front end, the way that the biblical literacy and theology piece comes into play is just in us talking about what God’s doing in our hearts and in our lives. And then from there we start to sing about it and start to just talk about it. [00:25:00] And. Yeah. It’s it’s almost that simple.
There’s not much more to it. Yeah. So like when you are, again, like if you have a relationship with people and you’re on, like authentically talking about what God’s doing, then it becomes really easy Yes. To write songs with each other. Yes. Cause we’re just talking about, Oh, this is what God does, this is what he wants to do, this is what he’s doing.
A hundred percent. And
Chelsea: Yeah. Yeah. I feel like the best songs and songwriting don’t come when people come into a room and they’re like, I have this great idea and I like, This is gonna be great. It comes when people come in and they feel like themselves. Like they feel like they can throw out ideas and they can be like, This is what I’ve been going through, this is what I’ve been feeling.
And that again, Aspect of songwriting comes through relationship with others. And I think that’s a really unique, cool environment. It’s not just like these people who are like, Yeah, I know what I’m doing and this is a cool idea for a song. Let’s just make it. It’s no, I feel myself around these people and so I can share openly about what I feel like God’s doing, what ideas God’s placing in [00:26:00] my heart, and how I feel like songs can affect our community.
Yes. Yeah.
Jamie Anderson: To go,
Ryan Loche: to jump a little bit in on the album itself. I’m just looking at like the listening to the song Monday Morning. Faith, it seems especially for like younger people it feels like that’s like a continual thought. It’s I want to take this past just the weekend, which I guess, yeah there’s no Christian that would disagree with that, but is there like a.
A sense of an urgency for it as like a younger person. Do you feel, I just basically interested where do you think the church is going and worship and Yeah. Talk a little bit to that.
Chelsea: That’s a really good question. I think for us when we were writing that was a song that originally came with myself and other students and exploring that idea and that was.
A very, that was something that was on all of our hearts that we felt like God wasn’t just like calling the church to, but convicting us about [00:27:00] and calling us to a holy standard. Of course, with grace and with god’s, as the word says, his goodness leads us to repentance. And it’s his goodness that led us there.
But I think. I don’t know. I think this generation maybe has been interpreted as needing a ton of things in order to see a real thing. . Yeah, sure. Needing a bunch of creative elements or a bunch of, intros that are fun and exciting. So that we can pay attention long enough to see the real thing
But in reality, like people our age and younger, like they just want something real. Real. Yeah. Yeah. They literally just want something real. And Monday morning Faith comes out of that of we don’t need, I don’t need to tell you that. I don’t know. I don’t need to tell you an anecdote in order to.
Get you to know that there, you need peace and joy and the goodness of a real God. And that, that comes I think people are ready to be called to [00:28:00] holiness, especially my age. They’re ready to be. To experience how does this become real in my life? And it’s not just on a Sunday, and it’s not just on a worship night, although those things are totally godly and totally amazing to be communally involved.
But yeah I think it’s just I don’t know the misconception of young people. Needing things to get into the presence of God. It’s just no, they just want it. We just want it. It’s so true. And so that, that teaching of it’s every single day, then that’s like a teaching that people want actually that our souls are craving.
Not, it’s not just this stinks. Like this is so annoying. Yeah.
Dan: No, that’s so good. If I was gonna go out on the limb, Just take a total like guess. I think I.
So what’s fun about, like me and Chelsea’s dynamic is I’m a millennial, pastor, worship leader, and then she’s like Gen Z. So we’re all the staff in the office. [00:29:00] Were always talking about like the differences, right? What it was like for me to be coming up as a worship leader. And one of the things we keep.
Kind of, I keep coming back to is just technology. Like it’s, I constantly forget that I have a computer at my disposal, basically in my hand. To, to me a phone is still just for texting and calling. Like I just, I don’t know if you guys struggle. I just perpetually forget that I can make videos with it.
I can do, right? It’s not on the forefront of my mind. Like of course I know. So I’m not like, on Mars . I’m with it, I’m with
Jamie Anderson: it. I was like, Ryan what generation are we, Ryan if we’ve got like millennial gens Z I don’t even know what I. I know, I’m like,
Ryan Loche: I’m the fringe of a millennial.
A, I was gonna say, you guys should Gen X millennial. Yeah. Before
Jamie Anderson: I’m 47. I dunno what that means. All I know is you’re like Gen X feel, I feel encouraged by this moment cuz I’m like, I know my phone is for more than like texting phone calls and I’ve done a couple of videos and I’ve even created some like ideas and like songs and stuff there that are all there.
There you go. Then there’s days where I’m like, can I just throw the scene out the window and go back to the [00:30:00] flip? Exactly.
Dan: I missed my flip phone, I to the flip phone . But I guess the point I’m trying to make is for Gen Z there’s this sense of Oh, the technology doesn’t have to be at a computer.
It’s actually like always available like my com. I don’t have to go get a camera to make something. It’s just right here and there. Yeah. Like literally outta nowhere. I’ll just be writing an email and I’ll look up and my office is full of people with cameras out. It’s just like editing up.
They can make something. And if you translate that to like our spirituality, I do think there is this propensity generationally for us to be like when we come together as a church or just in general, this is the propensity of the church. And when we come together as a church, that’s the holy time.
That’s the sacred time. Yes. And for Gen Z to say like, why I, could you make anything whenever I want and create anything whenever. So why can’t we also just see God move whenever we want? Totally. Like I, that might be a bit of a leap, but I just think there’s this sort of creative energy to them.
It’s no, let’s see God, now let’s go forward and see God move now that I find really, Yeah, don’t wait till Sunday. Yeah. Yeah. I don’t have to wait till Sunday. Yeah. And it’s really energizing and inspiring. And then even in the pastoral conversations, Can you pray for me now? Can we pray for that?
Yes. [00:31:00] Now, can we talk about that now? Like I don’t wanna wait for a, the formal occasion to have that moment, that awakening. Let’s do it right now. And I think yeah, I think that’s something that I’ve observed as well about our college students and younger people that work.
Atcu is there is a There’s an urgency in the presence in the present. There’s an urgency in the present to see God move as opposed to waiting for it for any other
Jamie Anderson: time.
Ryan Loche: Which, there’s a running, there’s a running joke at this point where it’s like, Oh, I’ll pray for you. And it’s no. Pray now.
I’m like, we’ve all seen that meme at some point. Exactly.
Jamie Anderson: What Yeah. Like actually do it, not just say you’re gonna do it. I’d love to hear,
Ryan Loche: what would you say to the pastor that’s listening to this, that really wants his church to have more young. So they wanna be more real, but you got any practical steps towards them?
Maybe they, obviously they don’t need to buy all the lights, but what would you tell that pastor that wants more young people to his church?
Dan: Throw out the skinny jeans. I’m just kidding. do it. Sacri
Jamie Anderson: still rocking my skinny jeans.
Dan: I have a few things I wanna say, [00:32:00] but I’m really curious to hear what else is about to say.
Jamie Anderson: Yeah, come on. Else. Bring us home. Do something awesome.
Chelsea: You need the fog, You need the lights. You need kidding. I’m kidding.
Is that
Jamie Anderson: as in the smoke or the fear of God? Which fog are we talking about here? The kinda glory Or is it you have to have the right merch. You have to have the right clothing
Dan: brand. You need the merch. You need the right haircut. Yep.
Chelsea: Haircut? No. I feel like something that I think brings in young people.
First of all, again, it’s literal. First of all, speaking the word of God, I promise you that will attract people. Like it just will like something real. If you’re really pursuing the presence of Jesus, I’m telling you, we want it like everyone wants it. It’s not like formulaic in that you have to make this message for a young audience in bringing up some Hip phrase or [00:33:00] something, although it might help you stay have to date, but I think first of all, just preaching the word like I, I think is so important.
I think something maybe practically for like your volunteers, the people who wanna get involved in your church just create open space for maybe new positions to, to arise for like creative outlets for, Cuz again, like Dan was saying, there’s so many opportunities for us to create all the time and. Ma just being open that you don’t even have a position yet for what this young person can do in your church.
That you might not even have a role that is correctly labeled out right now, that they could actually fill and be an asset to your church community. So I think like leaving room for creative outlets. Is gonna be so helpful in just making someone feel a part of their community for their authentic selves.
And that, that might look like photography, social [00:34:00] media videography or it could look like, I wanna just as far as raising up young people, like I wanna. Pass pastoring is are, do you have people that are pastoring others through their creative giftings?
And whether that’s worship leadership, pastoral leadership, whether that’s business minded young people, whether that’s creative young people. I think just , just that’s great. Creating space for them to have, They’re creative out, or not even creative outlets, they’re just outlets and passions and things that God has gifted them in are.
That’s great. Can those be stewarded at
Dan: your church? Yeah, exactly. I totally agree. That’s great. I think that’s a great answer. Yeah. Yeah. I would say what we do is we really just give all of our college students the keys too early, . Exactly. But it’s we’re gonna give you this opportunity way too early, and I’m gonna, we’re gonna love on you so hard and just coach you and be available to you.
And this is the thing is even when I’m coaching somebody, though, I don’t I really have learned. Gen Z [00:35:00] specifically, if you wanna create some resonance in their life. I’ve really learned that I’m not gonna coach in with an air of, you need my coaching, I’m gonna do it from an era of you’re doing a great job, just wanna encourage you, and I wanna be a voice of just.
Getting your back, loving on you. And by the way, if you need help, I’m here. Yeah. And that’s been way more effective to let them lead what they need in those coaching moments. The most important thing is just getting them involved. Letting them actually participate, design things. Totally make things, handle the worship leading moments, handle the stage moments, and you can always create safe pockets in a worship set Totally.
To include somebody. And you can always. Safe pockets on your team to get somebody involved, but just getting them. I think we always are trying to have a kind of bar we want cleared before someone can drive our social media or do whatever. But I just think, now it’s like a full circle.
We’re coming back to those conversations started. Just don’t hold that stuff too precious. Just like totally let someone take a crack at it and I think you see a lot of fruit in reaching [00:36:00] the next generation doing that. Yeah. Yeah.
Ryan Loche: I mean that’s biblical, right? Like Paul is telling Timothy, Don’t let people look down on you cuz you’re young.
So there absolutely must have been an element there that he was sending ’em off and Right. Yeah.
Jamie Anderson: That’s awesome. Yeah, exactly. I think the phrase, actually, Dan, that you just used, but we give them the keys way too early. Like legitimately I wish that churches as a whole would adopt that. Yeah. Like just do it before it makes sense before it’s too early.
Because to me it’s and this is just some, the last 20 years is my experience. A lot of times church would hold back on allowing people opportunity cuz they were waiting for spiritual maturity or the like, the evidence of it. I’m like hold on a second. What about spiritual maturity in your leadership?
Are you creating a platform mindset where this is the price to get on this stage? Or are you recognizing that there are stages in people’s lives that you have the ability to lead and to help them grow in their own maturity for themselves? Not because it, It allows them this thing that’s like we herd up here and I just wonder like what it would look like.
And Ryan, you probably know just from. Church collective and just the [00:37:00] span of who you guys get to talk to. This is actually maybe a question for you, Ryan, just to spin the podcast back on you, , what would it look like if the church did that? What if we adopted the mindset of giving the keys too early, knowing that it’s gonna take a little bit, that you can’t, like foolishly but almost lower this whatever the per, I’ve seen it so many times.
You go in, it’s Oh, they get to be on. Right When in reality it’s talent will get you there, but character won’t keep you there. But if characters the thing that’s being developed, whether you’re on it or off of it, doesn’t matter. So question is what would it look like if the church was to be willing to actually give the key sooner, which also means giving it to people that are younger and then create the environment for them to, I always use this principle of fail, fast, fail.
Fail many times, but fail forward so that you’re constantly growing and you’re learning it. And then on the balance of that is this principle of recovery rates. We talk about a lot when we do trainings with like team or staff or peoples, like recovery rate is your ability to get back to where you were in [00:38:00] recovery, to what you just experienced.
So if we preface this idea for church, what would that look? what would it change for our whole context of just Christianity? Ryan, You get to figure out what to do. .
Ryan Loche: Honestly I was thinking like Chelsea was talking about people want real, and I’ve got 20 years of, megachurch, I think what you define it by a thousand people at a church or not.
Like I’ve got some of that experience. And it does seem there’s this bar where if you wanna be a part of our worship ministry, you have to be musically outta quality. That is like a better product. But I know just personally, I used to name ’em Worship Mulligans, where we would try again, like the times where we were leading worship and made horrible mistakes where we’d fall off the track or something, we would stop.
But we would pick it back up and start singing, and then always the room would be so much more into it and so much more engaged in the worship. So I just, I wonder if this is a dangerous slope to go down but how do you find that level of allowing for more mistakes? I think and being comfortable with more mistakes and being comfortable with people on the stage rather than the quality that they bring, [00:39:00] which, yeah,
Jamie Anderson: dangerous stuff,
Dan: but yeah.
Something that I’ve been thinking about a lot is that one of the primary roles of a worship leader is to be both in charge of creating a transcendent moment with God and being relatable. . Yeah, and it’s like kind of paradoxical that you have to find a way. To relate to people, let them feel warm.
And that’s exactly what you’re talking about, right? Totally. And to me is yeah, hey, how do I find a way without having to like make a mistake and be like, Whoops, we made a mistake. How do I plan the mistake? . Yeah, exactly. . Guys, we’re gonna this week is gonna be a tracks mistake. We’re gonna make song two tracks with days gonna be great.
People are gonna really connect with that. Yeah. .
Jamie Anderson: Awkward, Awkward Transition outta the Quiet Moment to the Purpose where we go into a video announcements.
Dan: I think the point is you gotta find a way to relate to people, and you can only do that by getting authentic. And then that makes the moments of, the transcendent moments of getting people into the presence of God, acknowledging his goodness, acknowledging his presence, and acknowledging him as Lord over the room in our lives [00:40:00] and the world.
It’s just you have to have that relatable piece to get there and make that effective. And then in fact, the Lordship piece makes that part even more dynamic. I don’t know, engaging and grace oriented. So I
Jamie Anderson: figured
Ryan Loche: wish I had the reference, but was it not many of you should think so highly of yourselves, like that passage.
I guess that’s for church leaders, especially like Evangelical American churches. Like I do think we are producing far too much of a show versus just believers coming together and gathering. And I think the more we. Pick at that a little bit, I think would make a big difference too. But
Jamie Anderson: yeah we put a lot of emphasis on our own thoughts being more important than they actually are too.
Yeah. The Bible talks about, God says, My thoughts are not yours. It’s Oh yeah, good point. We think that where we’re out or what we are doing and our thing is the most, or it’s the best or it’s the whatever. And God’s That’s cool. Good starting. He’s also he’s watching Es.
Through that process as well. Ryan, I don’t know what the format normally is for this, but I’m dying to ask a couple of questions like I, I wanna know. Yeah, go for it. I’m gonna ask both. Both Dan [00:41:00] and then Chelsea. Dan, favorite song on heart.
Dan: No, don’t do this to me. Oh my gosh. , my favorite song is just very, it’s very personal.
I wrote this song called People Get Ready and if that sounds familiar, it’s cuz I ripped off an old song, Inspiration of it. We used to sing that song called People Get Ready I think it’s called that. Yeah. Jesus. That’s it. Yep. And and I like woke up one morning and I was thinking about how I got sad that my, I have a two year old that my kid would.
Hear that song and then wouldn’t have that. We just sang so much about Jesus coming back, my church growing up, I up in a small Pentecostal church and so I got really motivated to finish a song idea about this idea of we gotta get ready cuz Jesus is coming. Like when you have guests coming over your house, like you get ready, right?
And we don’t have I don’t know, there’s something about that got me really energized to write that song. And so I love every element of it. I love how it’s, how the it sounds and the writing of it, so it’s. it. That’s probably my favorite song, but it may not be the best song on the record, but it’s my personal favorite.
No, it’s the best. Yeah. Chelsea, how about you?
Chelsea: Okay. [00:42:00] I would have to say either funny, but Pour It Out is, I think my favorite song of the album. I’m with you on that one. Yes. It’s because, the whole song is so great, but literally every time. It’s saying with humble hearts, we turn away from our sin.
, like I, I cry every time I hear it because I’m like, I’ve never heard a song. Say that, and it leads me to repentance every time I’m like, Wow. Oh my gosh. With the repentant heart, I turn away from our, From my sin. Yep. I don’t know why it gets me every time. And I think musically, it’s just so good.
Dylan Dams. Oh my gosh. What a guy. What a guy’s so good. He leads that song and he leads that song, , you know what I mean? . And he leads that song
Jamie Anderson: and he, it leads, Yeah. . That’s so good. . So I question just following up from that and then Ryan, you can either cut me off or eject me out of the whatever you to do Yeah.
For it. There’s two parts. One is do you guys record or track any of it [00:43:00] live throughout the year and then you’re picking up moments? Or do you set aside a time or set time aside to go Okay, we’re gonna go record for the purpose of producing the album. What’s the vibe on that?
Chelsea: Yes, , that’s the answer. Yes.
Jamie Anderson: Yes to both .
Chelsea: Yes. You could
Dan: speak on that. Okay. We’re just now experimenting more and more with. Capturing moments live that we could maybe put out there. But we’ve definitely had a hyper intentionality. We’re a student based ministry, so one of my favorite things to do is when a guest comes into town and wants to come to what we have, and I’m like, Here’s our two staff people and students.
And they’re just like, What? You’re so small. And I’m like, Yeah, we’re just small and mighty , but we’re, we are. A homegrown love Jesus. And so we really have to put intentionality around the recording pieces cuz because we’re so student oriented, we don’t always have that. Everything’s so developmental.
So we don’t have that high production thing at every juncture, if that makes sense. Sure. So we have to create a lot of intention around those moments. I think the takeaway for like your everyday church [00:44:00] leader is that even in any context, you. You can actually create high intentionality around a captured moment, like whether that’s once a year or once a quarter.
. And so for us right now it is, we’re going project to project what do we wanna record next? But the goal is for us to get into our monthly nights of worship that those are recorded, and then that we could actually use those for albums or what have you as the, as time goes on.
Jamie Anderson: That’s good.
I love that you, you shared that. I, obviously, Ryan and I, we both go to the belonging in Nashville, which is. Because they just record everything all the time. And the quality in the caliber view musicianship that’s there, I’m, I know part of their heart is they just, they take what they’ve already done and they tweak and finish.
And I think what that does is it can set up for other churches, two things. Now they have to try to become something that they’re not, it’s not within their mandate or with the, what God has called them to do. Or they’re like we just wanna tackle it at all. We don’t know how to go there. And I remember like even for us, probably 10 years ago, we were leading worship there.
There was this thing about going away and recording a worship album somewhere else that wasn’t [00:45:00] authentic. And I’m like hang on a second. The purpose of Sunday and the colleagues said worship teams and worship team development is to give people the chance to engage and be a part of something versus you’ve made an elite group of people.
That are like special, right? So for us, like the weekend, the day in, even with the context of scu, it’s like the point is to give people the opportunity to experience more than what they’ve experienced before, to grow in the calling that’s on their life. To discover, to develop all the things that God’s wiring within them.
And then you go and go, Okay, but now for this is the goal, this is the target. And even just as an encouragement to just churches as a whole, like if. Maybe you’re not supposed to be recording or writing and releasing albums. Maybe the call that’s on your house is to take what is happening and to develop people within that.
If it is part of your call then don’t try to don’t take off, don’t. Bottom one, you can chew, right? Start with the most authentic. And if part of it is writing like one song and you go away and you have a little at this point, you can practically do everything on your phone, and creating something that’s outta.
Versus this disingenuous kind of like we [00:46:00] over manufactured, Like we went into a studio, we wrote a song, it was poorly produced, badly mixed . We got a worship song . And you’re like, and it’s really painful to listen to . Yeah, I don’t know if I actually, I don’t had a question that I think I was just chewing on the idea of, Cause I’m talking out loud.
I’m like, Ooh, squirrel . The principle of creating an environment for you to capture. The authentic moments, but also know that you can go into a studio or a space when you’re recording. And that’s also capturing an authentic moment. It’s like spontaneous worship versus prophetic. Sometimes spontaneous is still planned.
It’s still like you have an idea of where you’re going. Prophetic is who knows what’s gonna happen. And yeah, we’re all hanging on for dear life and that one of those does actually require musicianship that can handle the moment. The other can be a moment that you’ve stewarded well and that you’ve developed your.
But I don’t get off a different topic. So second question, which was the first one, and then I promise I’ll stop. . Funniest or awkward moment in recording? Hard cry. Like something that stands out where you all just like almost fell apart laughing. Or you just [00:47:00] had to look at each other and go, We can’t take ourselves seriously anymore.
Dan: We gotta talk about Monday morning. Faith.
Chelsea: Oh yeah. , do you
Dan: wanna talk about that? When we recorded Monday morning? So the, What’s cool about Heart Cry is it is all live. Yes. But whenever we ran into a hiccup where it’s eh, we would just pull something from rehearsals and use that and then so we spent a lot of time in the studio pre establishing what we wanted parts to sound like, all of that.
And it is actually live, which is really fun for us. Cuz we used to do a lot of overdubbing stuff. . But it was important to me on this project, we. Hyper live, so very cool. Nerve-wracking, energizing. Super fun. And one of the fun parts about that is Monday morning faith is literally just piano and vocal youth and vocals for two minutes.
It’s just super simple. And and the, like the verse one, right out of verse one into one, the notes. It was like the wrong note, just so bad. . It was so bad. And [00:48:00] it was, and every, it took every shout out to AKIs
Chelsea: player, We love you Thiago. We
Dan: love you. Thiago, . It took every ounce of Self-discipline not to turn around and just look at him.
But as soon as the song was over, I looked at him and he is just I’m so sick. . And we probably should have re-recorded it, but we ended up just pulling stuff from rehearsals and it, We got it exactly where we needed it to be for that. Cause two second moment. Yeah. But that was pretty funny.
Yeah. Yeah. The price party stuff was super fun too. Just fun. Yeah. Does anything else stand out for you? ?
Chelsea: I’m trying to think. I feel like we are always having a blast. Yeah. So I’m trying to think of specific funny moments. I think you hit it for what I was thinking. Yeah. Was that recording?
It’s tough to beat. Yeah. It is tough
Jamie Anderson: to beat. Love it. .
Ryan Loche: Where is there anywhere are you guys doing any kind of touring or whatever? Like how do people keep up? Oh, are we
Dan: always. We’re not . You gotta go the We do a lot of we’re, we honestly do a lot of touring, but it’s always like one off.
So we don’t do routed [00:49:00] ticketing events as much. Okay. We are working on a few of those. That’ll be cool. If you’re interested in seeing us tour just hang on our Instagram and you’ll see, We’ll post random places. See where you’re at. Yeah. Yeah. Cuz we are, we’re at conferences and especially like youth and young adult stuff.
A lot. A lot. Yeah. Do a lot of that stuff. Yeah.
Jamie Anderson: Cool. And if anybody wants to invite you guys out to come tour or come, you can do that too.
Dan: ? Yeah, you can hit us up on Instagram or just go straight to see worship.com and get the information you need.
Ryan Loche: Yep. Thanks so much for listening to this week’s episode.
As always, just find us wherever you are on social, shoot us at dm. We love connecting with people. See you.