Podcast Transcript
Welcome to the Church Collective Podcast. In this episode, I had the opportunity
to welcome once again,
Kristian Stanfill to the podcast. It was a
fantastic conversation. We talked about the new album. We talked about their new songs. We talked about where the church is going and the importance of actually setting aside our own desires when we’re trying to get into worship ministry and just trusting that God is going to take us where he wants us to go.
So here we go with the Church Collective Podcast. We wrote this song with Sean and I with Jesse early. And Jeff Soka and we wrote it at one of our songwriting camps leading up to passion. And actually it started when we were all in the room together, like a bunch of songwriters all in a room together and just praying before we started writing songs.
And we I actually was sharing around. How David prioritized the presence of God and he prioritized bringing the arc of the covenant back. And we were just talking about just that, that beauty of, reading that in scripture. How David prioritized that. And so that word priority kind of got in our got in our heads.
Yeah. And we I went in, from that big prayer group, went into the room with Jeff and Sean and Jesse and we started talking about that word priority and what happens to our priorities when Jesus comes into view. And everything just refocuses and reframes and everything gets put in its right place.
and so we, the song kind of came out of the conversation about that idea. And and, I, passionate and most committed to his glory.
ever since Passion started, this has been a song that we have sung in some form or another. Passion from the very beginning has been all about the glory of God. How the idea that we are the truth that we are created by God for God, but also that God is most
And so in some form or another, we’ve we’ve been singing this song, it’s All About You for a long time, but really all of Heaven has been singing it. All of creation has been singing it , right? It is, it’s the truest reality that we live in, that is the truth. The realest thing happening right now is that God’s story in God’s kingdom is all around us and unfolding all around us, and This song I became very attached and committed to this song because it was like ringing a bell and going, Hey, this is why we’re here.
This is the whole reason we exist and we have breath whether we know it or not. This is what in him, we live, we move, we have our being. The reason we exist is to bring this kind of appra and glory to God. Every second, every, I even say this in the live recording every second, every breath, every day, every moment is saturated in this truth that it’s all about Jesus.
And so this song really felt like again, just ringing a bell and going clapping your hands and going, Hey, this is what it’s all about. And not just for the students, but for us as songwriters, worship leaders, musicians, all that kind of stuff. So I love that. This song kicks the record off too, cuz it’s It’s just a call to what’s really going on.
Yeah. And yeah, so it’s a blast to leave, man. That’s cool.
What I, this song could be a good reminder, but like you, you said like we have to like constantly line ourselves back in. Could you maybe speak to you personally, like how do you, is, just like a worship leader or just in life, like how do you keep the main thing when we’re so easily shifted towards other things?
Such a great question. I think relationship is built on the foundation of pursuit. Yeah. So if I want a relationship with Jesus, if I want a relationship with my father, then there’s a pursuit involved. So that means committing time to it and carving out space and a place to meet with God.
And for me, you know that happens. I’ve got four kids. Married to my wife Carrie. Our life is very, it moves very fast. There’s a lot going on. As every word too. I talk totally. All right. So you say Amen and all the parents out there say amen. My kids leave every day for school around seven 30 and from about seven 30.
10:00 AM I’ve carved out that window of time to be still, to pray, to read. Sometimes I go on a run or go on a walk and just fellowship with God. Just be with God. That’s what you do with your people, with your friends, with the people that you love. And so I think it takes very it takes intentionality.
Yeah I don’t do that perfectly every. There are some days where that can’t happen just because of the nature of life. And on those days maybe I just find these little pockets of time throughout the day where I’m just having a conversation with God. But again, going back to what we were saying earlier about all about you, it’s the understanding.
That God is with us everywhere we go, he’s all around us. Everywhere we go and engaging in that reality it grounds me in the truth. So I don’t get, I don’t get like you said, it’s so easy to just, to get distracted or detracted from that truth. There’s so many things trying to, voices and distractions pulling us away from that.
But if I can plug. The God reality all around me throughout my day. Yeah. Then I think that’s a positive. Again, we don’t do that perfectly all the time, but sure. Yeah. Yeah.
I’d love to hear just as some kind of encouragement, like we always have our phones right next to us, like in that intentional time with the Lord.
Do you put your technology away? Are you intentional on that or do you, are you full on, no, I got my Bible app and I’m listening to, all that. What’s that look like?
Me? Yeah. So if I’m on a walk or a run, it’s do not disturb. I have my phone with me, but it’s do not disturb.
Yeah. Yeah. If I, if an emergency or if my wife needs to get in touch with me, she can do that. But I’m, every, everybody and everything else is gone. When I’m reading, I intentionally set my phone, like I don’t have my phone with me , I usually have a, the analog, the paper version of my Bible.
Yeah. And and maybe, another book or something, but it’s very like intentional I just don’t trust myself, sure. If I have it close by, there’s always gonna be a reason. Something’s gonna be dinging and going off, and I’m gotta reach for my phone. It’s happened too many times, so I just know.
So yeah, I, I try to disconnect from technology as best I can.
Sure. Just to be able to focus in. Yeah. That’s good. Let to talk a little bit you’ve been involved in passion for so long. what, maybe just give a little bit of, a little bit of your background. Like a lot of our audience is gonna be aware of like where you’ve come from and all that.
But maybe just give us a little bit of your background and just how’s it been , to be a part of passion and we’ll just, yeah, kinda ask questions as we go. I know that’s a broad thing, but Yeah maybe just give us a little bit about, what the Lord’s been doing and it, and like having such a span of seeing so much of what
God’s done through.
Yeah, I was actually telling somebody this the other day, and this is gonna sound like, a fabrication, but it’s not. When I was in high school, when I was in high school, we started to hear rumors about passion and kind of the aftershock of what God was doing at these passion gatherings was starting to make its way to our youth ministry.
And me and Brett Yanker actually who I lead with at Passion, he and I were in the same youth ministry and we started leading passion songs, listening to passion talks, watching the DVDs. So we were aware of passion like in a sophomore year of high school. And I was dating this girl in high school and I remember being at her house one night with her family for dinner and her dad, you.
I have daughters now, so like I understand what he was , but he was like, I’m this musician kid. I just have my guitar all the time and I talk about music and blah, blah. And he’s what? What do you want to do like with your life? What do you want to do? And I kid you not, man. I was sitting at the table that night and I told him, there’s this group of people called Passion, and I don’t know who they are.
I don’t know. I don’t know how to get in touch with them or whatever, but like I, I’m just really drawn to what God is doing through this ministry called Passion. And he was like, I’ve never heard of it, or whatever. But all that to say, . I didn’t really ever do anything to get myself involved with passion, like in, in my, on my own.
I didn’t ever try to like lay the cards outright so that I would meet Louie or do anything like that. But I just say that God was magnetizing my heart to the movement of passion, like from a very young age. And I don’t think it was hype. I don’t think it was like, I’m just a fan of the music.
It was more than that. Something in my spirit was connected to this movement and a very natural series normal, like natural series of events. I met Louie, he was speaking at the student conference. I was one of the worship leaders. Happened very seemingly random, quote unquote. Yeah. We started a friendship and And that led to me leading worship at Passion oh five and in Nashville.
And I, we’ve been a part of it ever since. My wife and I just, we fell in love with the people. We could sense very clearly that God was his hand. Was and still is on it. He was blowing wind into the sails of passion and then when the church started in oh nine, it was a kind of a no-brainer for us.
We were like, we want to be a part of this church. And so we’ve been a part of building Passion City Church for the last 14 years. And it’s been a, it’s been a trip, man. It’s been amazing. And you’re just getting to do life and ministry and music with all these people for so long. There’s a real treasure.
there’s a real treasure in it, and we’re seeing a lot of fruit.
That’s great. So now the next question because like I know there’s gonna be people listening and say I have these aspirations to be in this amazing ministry that I’ve seen or heard about. Like what’s your encouragement for the young?
What? I teach at the belonging co collagen. So there’s a lot of worship leaders Oh, cool. Looking for what they want to do. in the future? What encouragement would you have for the young worship leader that feels called to worship lead, maybe, the day they’ll listen to this and yeah, I can, how do I pray myself into that and, Yeah.
Hard to bottle it all up, and ultimately god’s gonna do what he’s gonna do. But what how can they posture their hearts, I guess would be, not like, how can they force their way into something, but how would you suggest they handle aspiring towards worship
leadership?
Geez. A couple of things come to mind. I think first thing is I would say stoke the fire of your affection for Jesus. Yeah. Spend time in the presence of God. Get yourself under the authority of God’s word. It’s, it all flows from that place that, that private devotion and affection for God and his word and his presence.
Fuels everything we do in life, whether it’s on a stage or in a conversation with a friend. So I would say, first of all, fall in love with Jesus and make that the thing. Yeah. There were so many years that I spent my teenage years, so many days that I spent in my bedroom just with my guitar and my Bible, and it was bef, this is such a gift maybe to my generat.
I didn’t have YouTube, I didn’t have, yeah, any social media. I had no overnight success, quote unquote option. It was like I have to like just get in there and practice my guitar, practice my singing, figure out how to lead myself in worship in my bedroom by myself, and encounter the power of the presence of God.
And all of that started to flow out into like my youth ministry. I’m like, I’m just gonna do what I do in my bedroom on stage now. So I would just say, do that. Go into your bedroom, open your Bible, get your guitar, get your piano, or don’t get any instrument, and just worship God and submit yourself to his authority and his word.
And then, practically, I would say just do what’s right in front of you. Take one step at a time. If some random church calls you in Oklahoma and says, we want you to come lead for our 27. Middle school kids. Yeah. Just you in a guitar. Fly to Oklahoma. Yeah. And figure it out. , right? And do stuff for free.
Just go Where The go, where God leads you. And you just never know. Maybe you’ll end up at the belonging coat. Maybe you’ll, maybe you won’t. Maybe you’ll end up at a church in Texas that no one’s ever heard of. Just go with God and you’ll end up. Where you’re meant to be. For me, like I said, I wasn’t, I didn’t try to get myself to passion, I just was doing the thing that God had made me to do one step at a time. And then one day I met Louie and we became friends. It wa and I wasn’t like, Hey, you want to go hang out? Hey babe. . It was like, it was more like this very natural Friendship. And so I, anyway I just think sometimes we want it to look like something.
We want it to be what we want it to be, and God’s idea for our life is different than we want it to be. Yeah. And in, in one of the psalms that says, delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you a desires of your heart. And I’ve always thought, my man, that verse is so awesome. But the f you have to do the first part.
Delight yourself in the Lord. Then our desires change too. When we delight ourselves in the, when I delight myself Yeah. We jump to
desires like, oh, I’m making, look, you’re like,
you delight yourself in the Lord and all of a sudden your desires align with his desires and his heart. And so that, that’s what, that would be my encouragement to people.
Yeah. How I would love to riff a little bit too. , you said I say this often with younger worship leaders too. Like I didn’t have the access to YouTube and social media to, would, who would’ve crunched me 20 years ago getting into worship ministry and like what any
thoughts on that
My thought is that I’m just so glad I didn’t have it. . I know, man. . Oh my gosh, man. I feel like. I have a 16 year old us. My oldest is 16 and my daughter is 13, and then we have a 10 and an eight year old. But I’m seeing it now, especially my 16 and 13 year old. Yeah. Just and they’re not really even on social media, but you’re just having a phone and access to their friends and text messages.
It’s, there’s a pressure cooker and attention that. Feel and anxiety that rises just having this, all this access to people and stuff. And it’s God, I’m just so glad I didn’t have that. But ba back to, what we were saying earlier, there is a discipline in shutting it down, turning it off, putting it on do not disturb.
There’s a clarifying, thing. And I, I will also say it’s not the end of the world if you’re not on Instagram. It’s not the end of the world if you’re not like, You’re gonna be a more peaceful person. Yeah. You’re gonna be a more productive person, . You’re gonna be a more focused person.
I know I am. When I cut that out, In season. So anyway, I just think, again, you gotta do what you gotta do. Make the real thing the most important thing.
Yeah, that’s great. You mentioned too, like the fruit of longevity. And I know, like I think the statistic before Covid was worship leaders tend to jump jobs maybe every two, two and a half years.
It’s probably, I should look it up. It’s probably worse than that now. And that’s just Normal for worship leaders. Could you maybe speak to just how do you encourage someone to not jump at the first struggle
or opposition? Yeah. I think first of all, everybody’s different and every story is different and every situation is different, so that’s good.
I do believe there are times where you need to move on and God leads people to different places. I think that happens and I think that’s great. For us, I can just speak for, about our family, but it has not been easy to stay in the same place. For how long has it been since 2005?
18 years. . Yeah, 18 years. Most of my wife and i’s marriage. It hasn’t been easy to stay in the same place for all those years. We’ve been through some incredibly fruitful seasons where it just, it’s all awesome and we’re experiencing Great. Productivity and everything’s firing in all cylinders.
It just feels gosh, this is so awesome. Look at what God’s doing. And then there have been other times where it really has felt like we are going through hell together. And and so we’ve seen both. But Ryan, both you and I know that is life. That is relationship, that is what relationship looks like, right?
Relationships can’t be lived up on the mountaintop all the time. You Hold on. Did I just go away for a second? I got you. Yeah. Okay, good. Sorry, I Yeah, I can you in part out? No, it’s all good. Okay. It just went to sleep. But you and I both know that relationship is not li lived up on the mountaintop the whole time.
You go through the valley of the shadow. . And I think, this is one thing that we’ve learned is that the roots of relationship grow the deepest when you cry with people, when you go th when you go through sorrow with people you love, you hold people and just say, I’m here for you when it gets really hard.
Or sometimes you have to navigate really tough professional stuff. You have disagreements. Yeah. And like all of that stuff happens, but man, we’ve just learned that like a, there’s no organization where that doesn’t exist. So there is no perfect organization. There’s no perfect church out there.
Yeah. So that is a mirage. I’m not gonna leave passion and go find somewhere that’s like lawless. I guess my encouragement to somebody is I would just say it’s going to be hard. It will not be easy all the time. But I can tell you, after 18 years of being with Louie and Shelly and a lot of the same people leading with the same people the fruit and the treasure we are experiencing in this season, having been together for so long, it is so deep and it is so rich in the ministry that we’re experiencing and we’re getting to, to le to do together now is coming from such a deep place and we would’ve missed it. We would’ve missed it if we have bailed when it got hard, if we had take taken a seemingly like better opportunity.
We would’ve missed all of it. And so I guess that would be my encouragement that it will be hard, but it will also be awesome.
Yeah. And then ironically keep connecting with the Lord and the rest of it seems to become a lesser issue, right? Like we’re not Yeah, sure.
Entirely on the career. Yeah. That’s great.
And that’s right. Yeah.
Talk a little bit like how was this year’s passion? Like maybe give a little broad stroke on what did the Lord do this time as compared to the other times? Or, yeah. What was the big thing,
Passion is really unique and cool in the way that every year we’re talking about a lot of the same stuff.
Your name and your renowned of the desire of our souls. It’s the same verse, the same heartbeat. It has been from the beginning, which is really clarifying and beautiful. Yeah. But the songs change. A lot of the voices and the leadership, our team passion music is growing.
So on this record, you’re gonna hear. New voices and new leadership coming from people on our team, which is really cool. Yeah. A guy named Landon Wolf who’s a worship leader in our house at church, he’s leading a song, Rachel Halleck is a worship leader at one at our church in Washington DC Shema who I think some people probably heard her sing a few songs with us before.
We lead a few songs. Our team is getting. Which feels really cool. The songs have come from a really a deep place. I think in the last few years we’ve all lived a lot of life and we’ve all experienced a lot of stuff. And that’s coming out in the expression of worship and the musical expression of worship, which is really cool.
And, I think one of the reasons I talk so. Excitedly about longevity and staying in one place is that this year in particular, and I don’t know why it was this year, maybe it’s because we have been through the fire together, but specifically this year, I felt the benefit of the depth of friendship in the way that we all led together.
Not just musically, but the way the speakers were. All the, all these words that like God gave to these speakers the way. All these moments were stitched together that onstage, but also offstage. The camaraderie, the friendship offstage was so beautiful. There was an ease and a just an easy we’re just, we’re in the current together with God and we’re just going.
So I don’t know if that makes sense, but that’s what. That’s what I sensed from this year. Passion.
Yeah. Couple things. Spark in mind there. I love the fact that you guys bring new singers, , new worship leaders on, that’s just been a consistent thing for you guys.
Could you maybe, Talk to the heart behind that a little bit. Encourage worship leaders to, really wish some of that control.
Yeah. I would say it starts with relationship and, commitment to each other. These guys and these girls that I just mentioned, Landon and Rachel and Chima, they’ve been in our house for a while and we spent a lot of time with them.
They’ve been leading. Sorry. Why is my phone ringing on my, sorry. I’m giving you a lot of work to do to Evan. It’s, sorry. It’s part of the game. We’ll clap and right. Yeah. But these worship leaders, that I mentioned earlier, Landon and Chima, Rachel myself, melody Brett, all, we’ve all been a part of Passion City Church for a while.
and we’ve been in relationship with each other and some of these younger worship leaders we’ve spent a lot of time with these guys and these girls. I do wanna point out, our day-to-day worship leader or worship pastor is a guy named Jeff Johnson and his wife Jordan Johnson.
They do an incredible job pastoring and leading these young worship leaders. Working out like what it means to, like all these things we were talking about earlier, this private devotion and affection to God. Also, like just practically how you lead worship or leading worship on stage.
They do an amazing job like walking with people. Pastoring people. So I think it starts with relationship. It’s not just like going, Hey, you have a good voice. You wanna sing it passion, and you wanna link a song . It’s no. Like we, we’ve like really invested. I am and connected with these people and we, they have first of all hearts that are just so full of humility and they wanna serve in.
And then they’re also just incredibly gifted, musically and God’s anointed them to do what they’re doing. For me, the, the way that I, the way that I look at it is we’re looking into the future and we’re looking into, what it, what is next, who is gonna take this baton and run into the, into the next season of passion.
And and so I think I, I’m thinking that way. . But I’m also thinking that, passion City Church is a huge part of what we’re doing at Passion Conference. So like the local church Yeah. Is now like the expression of the local church at Passion City Church is actually fueling and sometimes informing how we are leading at passion.
And so we. . We wanted, we want passion to reflect what’s happening at Passion City Church, which is bringing some of these younger worship leaders in. Yeah. It’s the thing that, that everybody has heard talked about, but it really is so important, . If I never, raised anybody up or gave anybody else an opportunity, then it only goes as far as I go.
You always have to be looking to the next thing. Yeah. I’m committed to that yeah.
Do you have any sense of We’re just with crystal ball at this point, but do you have any hopes or thoughts about where just worship in the church is going after? They keep like leaning on covid after everything we’ve been through as worship leaders, as churches.
You got any thoughts on where, especially with these young ones that you’re working when working with, like where are we going
or we, I think. Yeah. Yeah. Obviously I, this is just what I would say you might, but I think right now, what I’m sensing at Passion City Church and even just as I look out across what’s happening in our country right now, there’s this return to this simple simple patient pursuit of God.
Yeah. This uncomplicated nature of just. I speak for me personally. Sometimes I forget that we don’t have to jump through hoops to get to God, that Jesus went to the cross and did the work so that we could just come through an open door. Into the presence of God and experience the goodness of God.
And I think, that’s what I’m hoping for and praying for right now for myself as a worship leader for our church. That there’s this return to just that simple just heart. Come as you are into the presence of God. Yeah. That, that’s what I’m, that’s what I’m sensing right now. Yeah.
What I’m hoping for. Sure. Yeah.
What is like the like a church service at Passion City Church look like for you guys lately? Maybe just like practically, what are the sets? What kind of, production are you guys doing just to give us a picture.
Yeah. I can on the worship side we have three different locations here in Atlanta. Yeah. So we’ve got three different worship leaders who are really tasked with leading their teams and coming up with prayerfully coming up with a set list and figuring out where they want to go on a Sunday.
They’re not all, they don’t all have to lock in at the same set. Sorry for interrupting. Yeah,
that’s no. It’s all different diff three different sets across Atlanta. Yeah. We do some, we sometimes we do link together and so there has to be, sometimes we say Hey, you can do whatever you want for 22 minutes, but at 22 minutes the host is gonna come up and we’re actually gonna link with the other locations in.
And that’s really more of Hey, let’s just get kind of everybody in the same room, like big family in the same room a thing. Yeah. But no, it doesn’t have to be the same set. Sometimes, something that we’re trying now, which, there’s some churches out there probably already doing this, but.
We’re trying to just say Hey, here are eight songs that we could pull from, and we’re just gonna just see. We’re just gonna, again, just get in the river with God and see where it goes. And no real set plan, but just go, let’s just see what happens. And again, that comes from relationship with people trusting these worship leaders.
We’re not just saying that to everybody, but we’re some of these worship leaders that we really trust, like going, Hey, we trust you to, take our church on a journey. So I think that’s that’s something we’re doing right now. Yeah. One thing that I do love about Passion City Church is it’s not, the musical worship team and production team and the preacher and then the host.
It’s. . It’s not like siloed, like it’s not all different things, but it’s, we’re all working together to make this gathering feel like a cohesive thing. Like we’re all aiming toward the same goal and the same thing. Yeah. So that, that is one thing that I have always appreciated about Passion City Church.
Yeah. Is there’s not like one department is more important than the other, but we’re. We all really just want people to see Jesus and encounter the power of God, experience the power of God, and how can we do that together? And so that, that takes an open handedness and flexing sometimes on songs or time, but trusting the other people involved in going, I know we all want the same thing.
Yeah. Yeah. That’s
killer. Do you have maybe a chance to wrap it up? Is there like any one or two amazing moments from this last passion that just like really struck you?
Yeah. So I we did two different cities. We were in Fort Worth before the New Year’s, and then we were Atlanta after New Year.
So we did two different gatherings. And in Fort Worth, we had a couple different speakers. David Plat was one of his speakers there. And he got up during his time and he started talking about the power of the word of God. And how, we all stand and we shout, we lift our hands when musical worship is happening, but then the word of God comes and we all get, we all sit down and he was really encouraging us that there could be this expressive nature.
This responsive nature to the word of God. And so he, he said he had us all open our Bibles to Romans one, and then he just proceeded to quote Romans one through eight from memory, just quoted eight chapters of scripture, . And if if you know what I’m saying, I even, hesitate to share this.
Cuz it wasn’t showy, it didn’t feel like, look at me, I’ve memorized all the scripture. It was just more an exhortation, like rejoicing over the text. Like it was like his joy in the word of God was just coming through. And man, what happened in the room? People were weeping, people were shouting, people were standing up with their arms up, people were kneeling.
It was such a beautiful move of God in that moment and. Just so beautiful. And then after David was done, Sean came up and, Sean had just, he had been through a lot with his family at the end of the last year. And he was leading from just such a vulnerable, raw place. And he led this new song called Another Glimpse.
And it was so holy. The chorus of that song says with every lap around the throne, I get another glimpse. You are holy. And it was just holy. Like the moment just felt like that. So yeah, there were so many moments like that where you just, you really sensed this isn’t something we planned out on paper.
This isn’t something that like we thought would be a good idea. This is something God is doing. And and there was, the big, that’s the big production. There’s a lot of lights. The stage was just beautiful. Golly, man, the stage was so beau, our team did such a good job. But at the heart of it, it’s what we were just saying just a second ago, like it at the heart of it was just this simple, just heart to love God and experience.
And just come into the presence of God just as we are. Yeah. And I think that’s God meets you there. You know when you come before him and you come humbly and hungry and and you’re like, I’m not. I don’t, I know I don’t have to do anything to win your approval.
You already approve of me. You already love. I’m already your son. I don’t have to do anything to make you smile over my life. You love me. Just come to him like that and just experience the goodness of God that was what we were sensing, their passion and Yeah, it was a beautiful time, man.
Thank you so much for listening to this episode. As always, head on over and find us on whatever social media platform you got. TikTok Instagram, we are everywhere. Shoot us a dm. We love chatting with you. And the key word this time, if you’ve listened this far, is Millennium Falcon. Go dms, millennium Falcon.
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