A really warm welcome to Deep Roots, the podcast
from Oak Hill College. I'm Jonny Reid. I'm a
director of engagement here. I'm also an elder
in a church in Bicester near Oxford. And I'm
really excited because I've got two people with
me here in Oak Hill in a few hours. We've got
an event with Emu Music called Music in the Church.
Three questions we all need to wrestle with.
And I wonder what your questions you think we'd
need to wrestle with about music are. But before
we get to those questions, let's do some introductions.
Philip, first of all, I've given everyone your
name there, but tell us who you are, where you're
normally based, what you spend your time doing.
Yeah, I'm Philip Percival. I'm the Ministry Director
of EMU Music. We are a ministry based in Sydney,
Australia, although we've done a lot of stuff
in the UK. I'm married to Kate and we go to church
in North Sydney. But I spend most of my time
leading the EMU ministry. EMU is about encouraging
the church in biblical, beautiful and transformative
singing. We do that in two ways. One is we run
church music training for church musicians and
church leaders. And we are very interested in
writing and producing new songs for the church
to sing. Great. Alana, why don't you introduce
yourself? Yeah, I'm Alana Glover. I also live
in Sydney, Australia, where I go to church at
St Stephen's Newtown. I'm married to Rowan. We
have three crazy small children. I am the creative
director at EMI Music. I've been doing that for
some time. I was working over in Oxford to begin
with, now back in Sydney. And my role is really
overseeing all of the songwriting and the videos
and all of those resources that we release to
resource the church. with yeah great well we're
thrilled to have you with us we've got this event
looking more deeply at these three questions
and and that fits right in with oak hill we exist
to serve the church you want to see the church
thrive and think deeply um and and then outwork
that into their ministry so i'm excited for this
conversation uh there's loads we could talk about
when it talks about music music ministry of the
church but um you've helped us focus on three
questions which you've highlighted as um some
of the main ones you see in evangelical churches
um So let me ask the question, and then maybe
what we'll do is we'll get you to narrate a little
bit about why you think this is a big question
before we then get to how you might answer it.
So first question, and it'd be great to hear
the heart behind this question. What's sort of
the context of this? Why do you think this is
an important question for us? How can I encourage
the whole congregation to sing with all their
heart? Yeah, I guess we find so often when we
visit churches, there is this comment that pastors,
musicians, even congregations make about why
the singing doesn't feel engaged. What's going
on? Why doesn't our church love to sing? And
there's a whole range of reasons that can be
behind that from theological, spiritual, often
just very practical reasons. So we're very keen
to talk to churches about how to just help that
engagement to start happening. What are some
of the ways you answer that then? If I'm a pastor
sitting here, I am sitting here, and I would
say that's a question we wrestle with in our
church. It's a week -by -week question of are
we singing well? What does it mean to be singing
well? There can be just really obvious practical
things that are... to do with the acoustics of
the building, whether you have a decent PA system,
whether that PA system is being operated well.
But there is some kind of key musical things
that we need to care about. I guess the big thing
that we would like to stress is engaged song
leading leads to engaged singing. And by song
leading, we don't just mean the vocal song leader.
They do have an important role to play. But essentially
anyone who stands at the front of a church, whether
it be the pastor, the service leader, the musical
song leader, they all have this song leading
responsibility. Even the pastor standing in the
front row of the church, the congregation will
have an eye on him to see, are they engaged in
the singing? So I think we've all visited churches
where we look at the singer standing at the front.
And we see them looking down or we see them looking
terrified or completely, apparently disinterested
in what they're singing. And those vibes that
we give off from leading are essentially what
we teach our congregations to give back to us.
I often say the congregation will only give back
what you give them permission to do from the
front. So often it's like you... You see this
happening both directions. The congregation is
looking for engagement from the front. The song
leaders are looking for engagement with the congregation.
But those who are leading a service, those who
are leading the singing, have a special responsibility
to drive that. What would you, though, say to
the congregation? Is there anything you'd say?
I'm with you 100%. I think we've got a great
music team who emphasise this at our church.
We're a very small church. We joke about him
smiling so much, and he does it very deliberately,
and he's just very warm, open, welcome, looking
at us in our eyes as well. While he does it,
it's great. It helps us sing. But is there something
you'd say to the people in the pews, or in our
case, the chairs in a school? What do you think?
I mean, I think it's really important that everyone
in the congregation understands the... the power
of singing with one another. And then they're
not just doing it as a leg stretching exercise,
as a kind of memorisational exercise either.
There's actually something happening as we sing
the word of God to one another. And this will
come up a lot in culture stuff later, but a lot
of us walk in and we're really only thinking
about ourselves. We're not thinking self -sacrificially
about... how we sing to serve those around us.
And in doing that, we actually enable God's word
to then work in our hearts to transform us and
as a collective are giving glory to God in doing
that. So it would be lovely if everyone in our
congregations understood that. That's probably
the role of the pastor really at some point when
they're teaching on Colossians 3. to make a big
deal of that. We spend so much time singing as
a congregation and so little time talking about
why we do it. Yeah. Let's go there because we
may well come back to that question. But the
second question we were going to look at, which
I think is related to some of the study and research
you've been doing, is around how has the contemporary
culture of expressive individualism uh impacted
corporate worship so maybe first let's define
some terms there of yeah um define what the contemporary
culture expressive individualism is yeah is it
particularly a western kind of yeah or the uk
how we just find the west kind of thing or is
it um yeah let's define some terms and then go
from there so how would you yeah well most of
us living in a contemporary western society um
We are contending with this worldview of expressive
individualism. And the heart of that worldview
is that each person has an inner core, an inner
truth. They look inward to find out what that
is. That's the kind of individualism part. And
then they express that to the world around them.
Truth comes from within, but then our society
around us is the place where we perform that
truth to our community. And there is an expectation
that I have a right to perform that to the community
around me and that the community will affirm
me in that truth. And if I'm not in a community
that's going to affirm my inner truth, then I'll
find one that does. And that is really how...
A lot of people are treating churches, they treat
it with this consumerist mindset. I want to find
a church that is a good platform for me to express
myself, but also gives me the things that align
with my inner truth. There's a resistance to
an external truth, which is obviously problematic
for us. So let's drive in there particularly
then. How are we seeing that then play out? Around
corporate worship and how it impacts it. What
are the main impacts it's having? Yeah, there
are a few different ways that we see that. I
mean, what's so hard about expressive individualism
is that it doesn't just play out in one way.
It's a worldview or a framework that can play
out. the way that we see that operating ends
up in totally different places. So it can feel
a little bit intangible at times to see what
is the application here. But I think it affects
the way our songs are written. So our songs are
being written these days by expressive individuals
who are... wanting to express themselves through
the songs and so you know maybe they are trying
to be faithful to gospel truths but at the same
time if they're parsing that through the lens
of well how can I also express myself and have
this be my creative outlet that those truths
are then being warped somehow to satisfy that
person's inner truth. Then it changes the way
we choose our songs. I might only want to choose
songs that say the things that I want to say.
Again, coming back to like aligning it with my
inner truth rather than aligning it with the
gospel. It changes the way our congregation relate
to one another because they're coming wanting
for that singing experience to be their platform
rather than thinking about it as being other
person centered. And yeah. wanting to be moved
by it to satisfy an inner desire rather than
thinking about praising God as being about actually
giving something to God. So it becomes about
us. And so what are some of the ways you've thought
about how you might counter that in a church?
I mean, I think it's just faithful preaching
of the gospel. I think that's what will keep
bringing us back away from wanting to look inward,
keep preaching the truth that God has given us
in the Bible. We like to think of Colossians
3, 16 and 17. That is absolutely the most important
verses for us. Philip, what are they? The word
of Christ. dwell in you richly as you teach and
admonish one another with all wisdom, singing
psalms, hymns and spiritual songs to one another
from your hearts with thankfulness to God. Oh,
that's close to that. Well done. And what we
see in that is essentially that our singing is
a ministry of God's word to his church. It's
a ministry that we are engaged with as we teach
and admonish and encourage one another. God's
word that fuels our praise and thanksgiving.
So there's three things going on, at least three
things going on when we're seeing, viewing that
as a ministry of God's word. And even in just
in those two verses, we see that it's telling
us that the word is coming. It is the word of
God. It is the person of Jesus, not a truth that
we are finding from within ourselves. It's showing
us that we are doing this for one another, that
there's a horizontal aspect to our singing. It's
not just about us having some, you know, spiritual
experience on our own before God and that we
are all doing this as a congregation for the
glory of God with thanksgiving in our heart.
Yeah. So you guys are slightly sidebar. I think
there'll be some people listening and maybe who
are. um they're writers as well they write songs
they're they're composing how is this for you
guys that you mean music when you reflect on
this how is this affected how you guys write
how you guys write is it both methodologically
are you writing more together because you want
to make sure it's not just one individual's voice
so you what does that look like for you guys
to to reflect on this cultural stress of individualism
and how you guys operate because you are You're
a gift to the church in terms of you write many
songs. That's one of your parts of your ministry,
isn't it? You serve the church with, I'm assuming,
biblical, beautiful and transformative songs.
We see many in our church and they are. So how
have you reflected on your method of writing
as well? It's not that an individual can't write
a great song. We've certainly found in practice
that writing with others, writing in teams, gives
us much better. end product in a song. Just in
the creative process, having multiple voices,
multiple creative ideas, being able to cross
-check music and theology with one another massively
helps the songwriting process. And I'm convinced
that we've written better songs together than
we have as individuals. Absolutely, yeah. You've
hinted at... what we said before and we're chatting
beforehand. In some ways, the final question
is sometimes one of the main punchlines, not
necessarily the most important question, but
where we end up with, which is how should I then
choose what to sing? Maybe unpack why do you
think that's where these questions around singing
with all our heart, expressive engine, why does
it end with that as kind of a key reflection
question? Well, maybe just to... Rewind a little
bit. I think what most of us will think is important
in our church music is the band or the leading
that is happening at the front. That's the message
we're getting from YouTube. It's the message
we get from the big conferences and conventions
that we go to. I think we get the message that
the heart of music ministry happens on the platform.
When we read Colossians 3 and Ephesians 5, we
really, I think, get an opposite message. It's
not the platform where the heart of our music
ministry is. It's in the pews. That's where we're
teaching and admonishing one another with all
wisdom, with the word of Christ. And so it's
a bit of a gear change to take our eyes off what's
happening at the front and turn them onto the
congregation. And we use the phrase, the main
instrument in church music is the congregation's
voice. And that changes everything about the
way how we think bands play and how we lead singing
because we all have this greater principle that
we're actually wanting to support the congregation
in singing God's word. So that's the background
to the bigger question of how do we... enable
the congregation to sing God's word, well, it
comes down to the choices that we're making in
the songs that we're singing. Yeah. Let's go
there then. How do you make good decisions? What's
maybe that? When you're in your churches, I'm
assuming you're both involved in the music ministry
of your churches, what's your decision -making
process? Who's involved? How are you? framing
this in your in the group it may be helpful to
understand a bit of your context of your churches
because i'm assuming people listening in a variety
of churches where we could have some who are
pure psalm singing singers or we could have some
which are more formally liturgical than we sing
in this kind of way in other ways so there'll
be differences based on tradition in some senses
or ecclesiology maybe but but i imagine your
principles would stand across yeah so what are
some of the principles you guys are bringing
to those conversations We're not at the same
church, but the tradition of church that we're
in is similar, which is a fairly contemporary
Anglican evangelicalism. Both in our experience
in England and Australia, I would say our experience
of church is similar. But we do spend a lot of
time running workshops in churches. So we are
constantly going into churches and helping them
with a lot of these issues. And there are kind
of three main problems that we have diagnosed.
One is that they don't have a really clear goal
of what their songs are supposed to achieve.
The second one is that they don't adequately
vet their songs or investigate the songs before
they do them. And they don't have a good criteria
for letting songs in. And they often just, this
is just practical, but it makes such a big difference.
They have too many songs. Their song lists are
in the hundreds. And it's just really undermines
the ability of the congregation to know any songs
very well. So those are three big problems we've
identified. Can we dive into those? So think
of the first one first, the goal of a particular
song. What are some of the options we have? Well,
the goal, that's more of an overarching goal,
and that is the Colossians 3 singing. So we say
we want our songs to accomplish that end goal,
which is to be singing the word, for it to enable
us to teach and rebuke and encourage one another.
it as a whole to lead us to a place of thanksgiving.
So not that every song is a thanksgiving song,
but that the song list as a whole leads us to
a place where we are more thankful to God for
what he's done for us. I think if you said to
most church musicians and church pastors, do
you want to be singing songs that are biblically
rich, doctrinally broad, musically engaging,
they would all say yes. to that question yet
if you ask them how are they going to achieve
that you'd find that a lot of them don't have
have a plan to to do that like uh how do you
ensure that the songs that you're singing are
reflecting scripture um how are your songs reflecting
the whole of scripture i can give you an example
the church that um that I joined most recently
where I was leading the music there, I struggled
to find songs that could fulfill different liturgical
purposes. I struggled to find songs that would
connect with what was being preached because
the bulk of the songs were biblical songs, but
they were all kind of the same song. They were
all what I would call adoration songs, praise
adoration. So they're all great. biblical songs,
but was it a biblical music ministry? Well, I
kind of think not because we were only singing
part of scripture, part of the gospel. In some
ways, the first, it's a broader point, isn't
it? The thinking of when we sit down as our elders
and we think, what are we preaching? That's one
of our key questions. Are we preaching the full
counsel of God? Are we not just staying in books
which we know are going to say different things?
When are we going to spend time thinking around
lament? When are we going to be listening to
literature? When are we going to be in the full
body? Look at the Psalms. There's different themes
in there as well. But you're preaching. First
of all, in some ways, you need a variety of preaching
in order to then force you to think through,
oh, these songs don't quite work with the tenor
of me preaching Scripture with Scripture's tone.
So hopefully many people are listening. They're
wrestling that, they're trying to preach the
whole council of God and think that through.
But then it comes to then, there's obviously
the pragmatics that isn't there of how do you
on a week by week basis help the music team choose
which songs to choose, how involved. There'll
be differences in churches on that, I'm assuming.
What other themes would, sort of adoration there
as a key, as a key, but often maybe a dominant
one within people's song lists. What are some
of the other ones which you'd say we need more
of? I think we would say there are two categories
that thinking like doctrinal themes, but also
liturgical themes. So doctrinal, we're talking
praise songs, lament songs. Confession. Confession,
salvation, eschatology, the whole picture of
doctrine. Liturgically, we're thinking call to
worship. Thanksgiving, confession, response,
songs about the word. If you're in a tradition
where you're wanting your service to have a gospel
shape to it, then you need to have songs that
reflect the whole of the gospel shape. And even
if you're not in a more explicitly liturgical
church, as in I'm in a... I mean, an FIC church,
we're not a specific church, but we have a liturgy.
Every church has a liturgy of some sort. It may
just be, it's not coming out of the book necessarily,
but we have a flow, we have a rhythm, we have
an aim and a structure we're trying to do. And
for lots of contemporary churches, actually songs
have taken the place of liturgy. Yes. So that
there may never be a spoken creed or a spoken
confession. And so our songs are doing that heavy
lifting. That makes it even more important that
we have those, I like to think of it as colors
on our, you know paint palette to work with otherwise
every service is going to feel the same and it's
teaching the same idea so that there's got vetting
was your kind of second main thing um help us
understand how did how have churches approached
this well which you've been part of or which
you've when you go into workshops and you're
helping teach them what what's it like to vet
songs well Yeah. So if we come up with a criteria,
I mean, a lot of us walk into a church and if
we're given the responsibility of song choice,
we actually inherit a song list, right? So very
few of us are in the position where we can start
from scratch. But if we were going to start from
scratch, what would we be considering? We'd want
the songs to be solid, so biblically faithful,
you know, theologically broad, liturgically functional
to cover all those. But we also want the songs
to be engaging in the the musical nature of the
songs, for there to be a lot of variety. We want
them to be beautiful so that people enjoy singing
them and are actually moved by the music. Not
that they are only moved by the music, but that
the music works in helping people to be moved
by the truths of the gospel and that they're
accessible. So that's when we get really practical
in can your band actually play these songs? Are
they in a key that your congregation can sing?
So every song that we choose on our list has
got to tick those boxes and you end up with something
of a jigsaw puzzle really of, well, I need an
up -tempo song, but I also need a lament song.
but I also need a song that is playable. So there's
a lot actually to consider as we build the list.
And is there any practical tips for the music
teams doing this? Is this on a spreadsheet? Are
you tacking things? How do you access that week
by week? There needs to be some form of spreadsheet.
That might be formal church planning software
or it might be an Excel sheet. Yes, you have
this list of songs somewhere. And ideally, if
you have different people choosing songs, they
are choosing them from this list. The worst case
scenario is that you have no list and whatever
music team leader on each week is just choosing
their favorites, in which case you're never going
to get that broad diet of gospel truth. And maybe
some people listening will be smaller churches,
smaller bands, maybe. more limited in terms of
their ability as well. It depends what the Lord's
given you at that time. The particular piece
of advice you give to them in terms of like accessibility,
because some songs I found in my experience,
some songs, depending on who's leading, that
can be a more complex musical song. But if it's
led really well by somebody who's very good,
it can be easy to sing. But actually if it's,
yeah, it's. Yeah, Alana mentioned we should choose
songs that the band can actually play. I would
add that we. need to choose songs that the congregation
can actually sing. So this is a, I mean, it might
sound a strange illustration, but if you learn
the clarinet, you can't play grade five pieces
unless you've done grades one, two, three, and
four first. And congregations are a little bit
like that. Congregations definitely grow in their
ability to sing more complex songs. Try and give
them a grade five song when they're only at grade
one. We'll be very discouraging. How do you do
that? Would you do that just in the normal Sunday
by Sunday? Or would you be going, no, actually,
we're going to do some singing lessons? I think
it starts with self -awareness, which is at the
heart of all good music. Unpack that. Understand
what your congregation sings well. Maybe it's
hymns. Maybe it's the more hymn -like contemporary
songs that they... sing more, are more at ease
with. Once you understand that, then look for
songs that are going to take them a little bit
further than that. But it might mean that you
hear an amazing new song at a conference played
by a really cool band, but they're just not actually
ready to do that yet. Many times have music groups
brought back a cool new song to their church
and it's fallen flat. Because the band and the
congregation can't sing it. Everyone will be
far more encouraged singing the song that they
have the ability to do. Is there a number of
church leaders, pastors, maybe not directly on
the music team listening in? Are there particular
things for you as experienced music leaders in
music ministry would want to say to them? around
this kind of thing of what should their level
of involvement be? How can we do that well? How
can we support their music team as well? In some
ways, if I was to let you loose to say, what
would you really want to say? There's nobody
here in this room, so it's impersonal in that
sense, but is there something you'd really want
us to listen to to be able to support this really
key part of church life really well? I mean,
I have an ideal that that song list... is not
being created by one person. It'll be a combination
of your pastors and your musicians. You want
musicians feeding in in the area that they know
about what are good songs, what are singable
songs for the congregation. You want the pastor
feeding in with what's the theological diet we
want to be singing against. And both those groups
will be kind of cross -checking against each
other. So you won't be getting just purely random
songs that the musicians love doing and you won't
be getting the pastor's favourite songs from
1964 that they love singing at Sunday school.
Having theological insight and musical insight
will come up with a really, I think, more effective
list for the church. Yeah. I just would encourage
pastors to take a really keen interest in the
music ministry, to see it as an incredibly valuable
word ministry that sits alongside their preaching
ministry. So many times we see that balance not
right and just that there's so much potential
that is lost there when they don't see singing
as... valuable word ministry. You know, there's
so much theology that a congregation learned
through the songs. Let's make sure that that's
right. So a keen interest in it, a lot of attention.
given to it the ideal scenario is that when you
are crafting services that you have the kind
of musical expertise in the room as well as the
theological and pastoral oversight working together
to craft those services that's the ideal I know
it's not always capable but even if you're just
having those conversations over emails over texts
however that happens more communication to get
there is always going to end up with a better
result yeah I think The one danger that we all
need to be aware of is that we all get sucked
in by the music. If we hear great music, we all
get tempted to want to do that song. And often
we want to forgive maybe not as perfect lyrics
as they could be because the tune is just so
good. So I would just always keep that as a caution
there. Don't let the music drive it. Yes, we
do want excellent music supporting excellent
lyrics, but it's very easy to let the music get
in the driving seat. That's a good word to finish
on. I'm really excited to listen to more about
this later in a few hours' time and see what
great questions you have from all those people
coming. People listening in, they may have heard
of you, may have not. How can they... hear more
from you what else you're up to anything else
in the uk or places they can find you yeah i
mean we are on all of the regular platforms so
you can follow us on all those places to see
what we're up to. We are constantly releasing
new music as, you know, that's such a big passion
to resource the church with new songs. But, yeah,
we're offering training wherever we can. If people
are interested in having us come and do training,
that's a conversation we always want to have.
So just reaching out to us through our website,
emumusic .com, is a great place to start. We
will be back in the UK soon. We're leading it.
week three at keswick this year um and yeah lots
of different things in the pipeline ahead exciting
well thanks so much for joining us thanks so
much for later thank you um and thank you uh
people on the other side of my microphone listening
to deep roots uh podcast remote keel theological
college it's great to have you with us we'll
see you again soon