Podcast Transcript
We’ve been working together at Rocky Church for almost nine years which is pretty wild. N Nick hired me and Luke as Young Guns way back in the day in our early Twentie. And now we’re old yeah. Now we’re dads Ri Luke. Absolutely. Actually me and Luke both have newborns right now, which is crazy.
Our first born, so That’s awesome. That’s an adventure in, its in its own right, right now. Rocky Worship was of born just out of our desire to write songs. We liked writing songs. And we liked writing songs for our church. We had no real intention of really taking it anywhere. And then we started writing and we’re like, you know what?
We think these songs are pretty, pretty all right. It, yeah. We think it could be really helpful for. The bigger church than just our local one here in Colorado. we, we chase that down a little bit, but still our ultimate goal is to write for our context here and to serve people through this music.
Yeah, which So we, we write from where we’ve been personally. There’s, writing out of our experience, our hurt, our joy but also writing out of just what God’s doing here at our church. Which is a super cool thing to do,
especially when you write a song and you’re looking out and you can see the people who inspired the song a little bit, if that makes sense, or the situations that inspired the song.
Yeah it’s a really, it’s a really cool thing that we have chased down a little bit here. Yeah.
Nic: Yeah. I’ll go next. Sorry, go ahead. You sure? Yeah, I was
Ryan: gonna say someone else go.
Nic: I’m Nick. And like Dane said we’ve all been working together for a long time. I came about 10 years ago and really quickly was like, I need help.
And so our church, we have two campuses and they’re two permanent campuses and they’re. Equal in, in everything as far as staffing. And there’s not a, like a main campus that’s streamed to the other, both campuses streamed back and forth sometimes on the same Sunday, like for a baptism celebration or something.
And so it was unique. I think we hired Dane. He was fresh outta college and we hired him to do, to help me on Sundays, but also lead worship for both campuses, student ministry, that co that happened at the same time. These campuses are about 25 minutes away, so we, I think when we were hiring him, we were like, Hey, this doesn’t make any sense, but we’re just gonna try to figure it out.
And we figured it out, but pretty quickly it was like, this doesn’t work. So we had to make some adjustments and, but. Luke joined really soon after that. Also fresh outta college. You were still in college? Yeah. Luke still finished stuff up and but we just, as a church, we’ve grown together and what’s really cool about having longevity together is you see a lot of different seasons and you see a lot of different facets of one another.
And it’s difficult to. But there’s a really cool benefit that comes along with that. But yeah,
Ryan: I’d love to hear, you said it didn’t work and then you figured out how to make it work. Like practically, what did, what happened?
Dane: What went wrong? Basically, there was already a conflict because both things happened at the same time.
So it’s I can’t be in two right there. Yeah, exactly. So it’s that doesn’t work. The first practical move was we ended up changing some of our student programming to meet on a different time. So I can’t, it went through several different
Nic: seasons for while you’re doing, like you, one day, one Sunday you’d be at one campus and the next Sunday you’d be at the other
Dane: campus.
Yeah. That’s how it started. And then we moved and one went midweek or something like that. And so I was building bands and teams at two different places which is also a tricky thing to manage and maintain and yeah, do well at a couple places. And so eventually after it split like that though, and there at different times and different days, it was a little bit more manageable.
But yeah, I don’t even think that lasted a year before we ended up hiring some other people to help take that load and spread it around a bit. And I think that’s where Luke entered the scene. Yeah, actually. So yeah.
Nic: Luke? Yes. Griffin said hi
Luke: yet. Hi to everyone. Yeah, I don’t have a ton to add.
I came here when I was, yeah, 22, and that was in 2015. So I’ve been here seven-ish years now, going on eight
Ryan: a life, a lifetime in worship, bleeding jobs,
Nic: unfortunately. Crazy
Luke: man. Yeah, totally. Yeah, it’s, I feel really blessed to still be here, what Nick was saying with longevity is we just get to, we get to grow together and we get to learn together.
And doing ministry with the same squad is, it really is a blessing, man. I’ve had so many friends just in and out of ministry who have just gone through a lot of really hard things. team chemistry wise and just, and it’s just hard and I just feel really blessed. And yeah, I came here leading worship for students just as an intern.
Just let’s go to camp. Let’s play young and free songs, let’s, and I was all in, and then I got hired to just be one of our worship people. I was music directing and doing, being Ableton and that sort of stuff. And yeah, now I’m one of the worship pastors at one of our campuses and yeah.
I love it. That’s great.
Ryan: Yeah, man. So talk to me a little bit about the album. Like what, what’s going on? How’s that been received? What, how’s that going? Just gimme a little bit of the
Nic: process. It’s definitely been a grassroots type thing. I think any church that says we, Hey, we’ve written these songs, we need a budget towards either buying more equipment or at the very least getting stuff mastered and whatever.
You could go down the, and it’s like there is no budget, so you’re like, okay, so we need shoulder taps, friends. And figure some stuff out on our own. And what’s cool about that is the longer you can do that, you can, I guess get some credibility with church leadership and the people who help make decisions on budgets and they can start to see hey, this is actually building some meme momentum and some identity in the church and people are rallying behind this.
Maybe we can, put a little bit more funds to the side. It’s still just peanuts, but so very grass roots. And but within our church, the biggest thing is seeing people embrace these songs as their own. Dana, Luke, I’d love to hear you guys talk more about that. Yeah,
Dane: It’s really funny and it’s really cool.
People think that, it’s almost like they are a part of writing these songs, which lot of them are in a way. And so they’re people at our. Are almost territorial about these songs in a funny way, but they are, they’re almost the ones who are like, what? Are you gonna release these?
Like,
Nic: how can you release these yet? Where can I find these songs? Yeah.
Dane: I have a couple friends who have figured out how to get into our planning center so they can listen to the songs, which just makes me laugh. They’re like ripping them, from us. And so a lot of us, pushing this album out was like our church pushing us to be like, Hey we’d love to be able to worship with these, not just on Sundays, not just whenever we come to a gathering of, some kind.
And that, and in a lot of ways was the motivation that was like, okay, let’s do this for real. Let’s really chase this thing down.
Nic: Things never go as quick as you want them. That’s, with this kind of stuff, it’s like we wish this, we wish the entire EP was out six months last year.
Yeah, exactly. And it just takes forever. We’ll, getting invited by the
Ryan: time it’s out, you’re like, oh, I need knee by more songs now.
Nic: Exactly. Exactly. That’s why we’re feeling
Dane: what’s in the
Nic: air. Sorry, I was just gonna, I cut you off a minute ago. I was gonna say, did you have
Luke: anything.
I was just gonna say, yeah, we started writing together probably 2017. That’s when we were like, you know what, like I feel like God’s putting some songs. At least for me, it was like, I feel like God’s putting songs on my heart and I just wanna, I want to chase this down, like Dane said, and we started writing, yeah, back in 2017.
And then we recorded. Three songs and we had them completely done and all recorded and blah, blah, blah. And then we waited four years to release ’em. So the first time we ever released anything, going back to what you said, Nick, it says, Hey, are you saying how everything takes forever? We wrote those songs in 20 17, 20 18, released ’em 2021, but yeah we started writing. And one, it was just really awesome for us just as a team dynamically and just chemistry wise to work together on something like this. And it’s just fun like looking back at the times where we’re like mad at each other. It’s dude, let me talk. I, there’s been so many different ties in writing sessions where we’ve just been trying to have to figure each other out.
But yeah, so we started this whole album thing. This is like our first I don’t know, collection of songs that we’ll release, but yeah, it started back in like 2017. We’re like maybe God’s putting this on our heart. And we’ve just been trying to be obedient with what he’s putting in front of us.
And yeah, here we are now. So we’re planning on in the next however long releasing seven total. So that’s
Nic: pretty cool. Yeah. That’s cool. Is there a.
Ryan: Like a typical balance you guys pull in your week to week sets? Are you doing all originals in your services or are you pulling from various bands?
Like what, what’s that
Dane: look like? That’s a good question. Oh, sorry, Luke. No. Obvious. We do a big mix, we do obviously originals and it’s a good kind of testing ground for songs too, it’s does this song land or is it just flat? But also, we love other songs that people are writing.
There’s so many good worship songs out there that encourage the church. And we, we love doing other songs and we do plenty of other songs. In fact, I think the next multiple songs we’re introducing we did not write at all. And they’re fantastic songs. Yeah. Also going back to something Luke’s talking about writing together, I think a lot of people I think to write alone because you have creative control and you can dominate this thing.
And I think we’ve found that writing together, while it’s extremely challenging and we will fight, and there’s like some things there, the benefit outweighs all of that. And for us we’ve been together for so long that there’s a lot of trust there now that we. Really lean on each other, but when you’re able to write together as a team, the the song that ends up coming out of that I think is much stronger.
And yes just, just for the fact you have more brains, but also you have just more ideas, more story that’s coming into it. And so I think that’s a huge thing for people if you’re wanting to start riding find some people that you trust and get in the room and, grind it out.
Ryan: What do you got any suggestion for somebody’s listening Worship leader? It’s you know what, I’m gonna bring my team together and we’re gonna write some songs. Like what? What are they? What do they need to
Nic: be aware of as they’re going
Luke: into that? I think something that I struggled with for a long time was what Dane was saying, is I want to write with other people.
I. Really, I just want people to like, listen to this and tell me that it’s good. You know what I mean? That’s
a
Nic: very different distinction there. Yeah. It’s
Luke: yeah. So I think something that we have just been gracious with each other and being like, okay, when we walk into a songwriting session, we walk in with open hands and say Hey this is not my, this is like an act of worship.
This is for God and the fact that he’s even giving us these words as a gift anyway. So let’s just come in with a little bit more humility and let’s put our ego like on the other side of the door and say, God, would you just have your way in this song? And so with that, if I bring a song idea, like Dan will ask, he’ll say, okay, what can stay and what can go, because sometimes it’s like, ah, this verse is of filler.
And some, but when you’re bringing in a lot of people, like if you have a worship team and you have, five or six people, it’s like bringing that many people into a right. There’s gonna be a lot of opinions and a lot of just baggage or what. And you have to come in being like, this is not about me at all.
And we gotta just be, you gotta be honest. Not every idea is a great idea. Yeah. But at the same time, you gotta walk into these things with a heart that’s ready to say, oh, I guess what I brought wasn’t what I thought it was. And that’s cool because I know at the end of this process, it’s gonna be better.
So walk into Melody for sure.
Nic: Yeah, and I think what you mentioned before, Luke, is so important. Recognizing what am I actually wanting to do with this song? I think it’s important to know the distinction of, I want to gather these 2, 3, 4 people and write a song together. That’s I, that’s an if that’s what you wanna do, then make that clear and also be clear.
If you’re just saying, Hey, can I run a song idea by you? Yeah, there’s a difference there cuz I can say, man, I love what you did on that verse. I love that melody. Keep at it man. See you later. And I think so many times I will go into a song, right? And I’m thinking, I just want, like you said, Luke, I just want you guys to affirm this, but it’s confusing.
So you start saying, what if we said this instead? And I’m like, what? No. That’s not what I asked you to, offer any of that. Just to understand where you’re coming from and but knowing this, it’s really important. Whatever you’re saying, I just want your affirmation about, or just know that song might not ever get a as good as it could be.
And maybe for as broad of an audience as it could be. So if you write just by yourself, most likely the audience that it hits is going to be smaller than it would if you let other voices, other ideas, other experiences influence. I’d love to know, is
Ryan: there a tiebreaker. Like when you guys have conflicting it or do you have to call the lead pastor in to make the calls?
Who’s like, how do you
Nic: deal with that? That would be cool, but our lead Pastor Sean is, would just be like, I don’t know when you’re We’ll
Ryan: do that. Yeah.
Luke: Luckily for us, there’s we’ve just been riding with the three of us for Okay. These few years. If it’s tie break, yeah. If it’s two to one, then it’s oh, okay.
I was,
Nic: that’s tough. That is still really tough. And we’ve had moments when I think we all feel like, Hey, I think you keep taking that guy’s side no matter which pairing that is. I think we’ve had conversations like that and it’s Ooh, we had to do the gut check. Maybe you’re right. Maybe there’s some dynamics going on that Luke and I have been.
I don’t know not agreeing a whole lot recently, so I side with Dane or whatever. So e even with three people, there’s still those interesting dynamics you gotta work through. Yeah. I’d
Ryan: love to move the conversation a little bit. Yeah. To like depression and anxiety in the church. I think that is a often, it feels like it’s getting talked about more now than maybe five years ago.
But it’s. I think everybody going to church, you want to come and put a brave face on and God’s good. So everything’s supposed to be good, right? Could you guys just give a little context? What are your thoughts on all of that? Maybe some encouragement for those anxious and depressed worship leaders that are totally listening to this right now?
Luke: Yeah. I’ll start over 2020 and 2021, I was very depressed. Like clinic, like diagnos. You are depressed. And that was something so out of the blue. Pardon me. Yeah for sure. Growing up like that was not a part of my life. I was just always like a happy go-lucky, positive let’s just have fun and just live life.
And then that was probably, yeah, five years into being into ministry as well. And then, 2020 of course was just crazy. But I don’t think it was just covid and like isolation that let sent me into depression. And yeah, it got really dark. It got really dark for me for a couple years.
Nic: Luke, I remember you saying something like you started connecting the dots when you realized.
You had more bad days than good days. Yeah, that’s a great way to say it. Things start to
Luke: flip where you had more bad days than good. Yeah and Nick and I were actually talking about this the other day. It’s not like I just, like one day I was like, oh, I’m depressed now. I was, it was, it felt like a, like an exit ramp.
Like I’ve been on this interstate for a long time and now it just feels like this slow drift onto this new. That I don’t know. And yeah, it, I started noticing things in myself that it’s yeah, I’m having way more bad days than good days. And I’m starting to notice that the worst parts of me are becoming the most of me.
Like I’m impatient, I’m not really quick to forgive. I’m, like those sorts of things. And the depression just got super real. And as I. Leading worship. Like I didn’t stop leading worship. You know what I mean? Yeah. So that was one of those things that was also so disorienting. Like I’m up there every single Sunday singing of just, there’s joy in the house to the Lord today.
And like singing of the goodness of God, not in me. Not in, yeah, not in this. No. But for real, like I was up there and I was, I’ve been thinking about this. It’s like swinging a golf club with your offhand, or like throwing a, like shooting a basketball with your offhand, and it’s it looks pretty normal.
If someone, like people looking at me leading worship, they’re like, yeah, totally. But it feels you’re totally wrong. It’s totally wrong. And so I was up there just. Just feeling very fraudulent, feeling very fake. And because I didn’t feel anything that I was singing and I would just beat myself up, dude, like I would just beat myself up so bad being like, Luke, why do you gotta try this hard to worship God?
Haven’t you given your whole life to this thing? Isn’t this your calling, aren’t you? And I would just, man, just really just beat myself up about it. Because it’s this just doesn’t feel right. You know what I mean? And yeah, I can keep talking, but I don’t wanna, I don’t wanna monologue for 10 minutes here, but yeah, it was really hard.
So what was
Ryan: the, like how did the Lord
Luke: see you through this? Yeah, I think something that I’m so grateful for is, Nick didn’t give up on me as my boss. He, Nick knew all of this, like I wasn’t hiding anything, which is another thing I’m thankful for, that our, the leadership of our church like saw me in this season and they were like, dude, like I see you and I know this sucks for you and I know that this is art and I know that you’re really working through things and honestly you’re not like killing it right now, but I see you and there’s grace for you.
I think that as the foundation of. My ministry. That’s why I’m still in ministry. I, there were so many days, Monday morning after I’m like, there’s, nobody worshiped yesterday. Everything with the bass player. I’m sitting there on Monday, I’m like, I’m done. I can’t tell you how many Mondays.
I said to myself, I’m done. But the fact that Nick knew and the fact that our leadership was on my side and just so patient and gracious, that was such a massive thing for me. And yeah, so that, I feel like that’s foundation for how God’s just started to take me out of this season, because without that, I would’ve just been like, all right, peace, I’m done. Like utter. It’s too, it just hurts too much and it just doesn’t make sense to. And so I feel like the turning point was when I was like, you know what? It’s time that I get real help and it’s time that I get on medication and it’s time that I just I’m so over it.
I’m so over, I’ll do anything. And there’s probably just some subconscious pride that’s I don’t need, I don’t need meds, I don’t need counseling. I got Jesus. You know what I mean? That’s a
Ryan: whole, we could do an hour on
Luke: that. Absolutely. It turns out I did need medication and I did need counseling.
As soon as I did that and started taking that seriously everything started to change everything because I knew how to, I could put a name to the pain and I could just start to realize helpful strategies and whatever. And then the medication just takes. For me, it took all the physical side of depression away and then I could just, I don’t know.
I felt like I just got laser focused on, I’m done with this, I have to do something. And that’s where things started to change for me. Wow. I’d
Ryan: love Nick, like maybe you could speak to speak to the lead pastor, worship pastor, executive pastor that is ready to cut ties when they. Have somebody having trouble and it wouldn’t necessarily be just because you’re having trouble, so I want you out, but there’s a general, this is too much for me to handle.
What would you, how did you go through it? How, what would you encourage someone to like, Hey, stick with your team.
Nic: Back ’em up. What kind of encouragement you got there? I think there’s, it’s okay to recognize you don’t have a clue what you. When you see someone on your team that’s struggling, and this is Luke’s story, Dane has his own story with some really dark seasons.
I, I do as well. But everyone, when you’re watching it, someone go through something from the outside, it’s so mysterious. Cause you, you don’t know what they’re thinking and feeling. Even if they try to describe it, you don’t know what they’re thinking and feeling. Yeah. So there’s just immediate sense of, I’m lost and I don’t know, I don’t know how to handle.
And you can start the temptation is this person is like nitroglycerin. I don’t know how to push him. I don’t know how to hold ’em accountable. I dunno how to show grace cuz they might explode. That kind of a sense. But I think with Luke and with Dane and in his story, there’s this sense of you do have to trust that they are going to be a, your biggest connection to.
Towards health and you, so you trust them. You trust what they say. You take their feedback and you don’t try to say and you’re doing great. Look at your, job. You don’t think people are worshiping, people we’re worshiping and you try to them into, you’re wrong. You’re just not seeing things right.
Our lead pastor and our lead team and they’re just very supportive at the church to say, we want our people to be. So even coming alongside all of us at different times, and there’s HR structure that makes us difficult. But say, we wanna help you with the counseling bills, we want to help you.
We don’t want that to be the deterrent because that is, I would say for most people, they would immediately say, I can’t afford counseling. I, me, even if they’re open to it, I can’t afford it. And the reality. You can’t afford not to, right? So you have to figure something out. But I think it is important for churches to say, we are gonna specifically take some funds and there might be seasons where it’s more than others and we wanna come alongside people and get them into counseling.
I think that was a huge help for me to know that the leadership even above me, I could, we could resource Luke, we could resource Dane to say we’re gonna get through. But the things, Luke he paints that picture and you’re saying really kind things about me, Luke, I appreciate that.
But Luke was he was working hard and he was, he had depression, suffering from depression, but he didn’t lose it. His integrity, he didn’t lose his character. It wasn’t like overnight, he was just completely inept. And so there, I think sometimes there’s maybe that stigma that this person is just going to be like a bump on a.
Just not anything. Yeah. Dana and I had to pick up some slack but it wasn’t a deal breaker. And I think when you have that relationship, you’re like, I want my friend to be healthy, and if he’s gonna be here, I want him to be healthy. And if he goes anywhere else, I want him to be healthy.
So there’s just that sense of commitment of. We have got to see this thing through a as a team and as friends.