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Kelsey McGinnis on the Worship Industry and the Future of Church Music · Future Christian

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  Loren Richmond Jr (00:42) Welcome to the Future Christian Podcast. Today, Loren Richmond Jr. is in conversation with Kelsey McGinnis. Kelsey is the worship correspondent for Christianity Today. She holds a PhD in musicology and teaches music and theology at Grandview University in Iowa and writes broadly on Christian music and the intersection of American Christianity and popular culture. Kelsey is a co-author of the book, The Myth of Good Christian Parenting.
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  and the author of a forthcoming book about Christian diet and wellness culture. She lives in central Iowa with her husband and three children. A reminder before we start today's conversation, please take a moment to subscribe to the podcast, leave a review and share Future Christian with a friend. Connect with Loren, Martha and Future Christian on Instagram. Shoot us an email at lauren at resonatemediapro.com.
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  with comments, questions, or ideas for future episodes. We appreciate your voice and how we faithfully discern the future of the Church.
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  Loren Richmond Jr (01:51) Welcome to the Future Christian Podcast. My name is Loren Richmond Jr. and today I'm pleased to be welcoming Kelsey McGinnis to the show. Hello, and thanks for being here.
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  Kelsey (02:00) Hello, thank you for having me.
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  Loren Richmond Jr (02:02) Yeah, looking forward to this conversation. Anything else you want our listeners to know about you?
• 0:24
  Kelsey (02:08) Nothing comes to mind, I'm just excited to be here and talk with you.
• 0:28
  Loren Richmond Jr (02:11) Good, good, am too. Share if you would, kind of about your faith background, your journey, what that's looked like in the past and what that looks like today.
• 0:32
  Kelsey (02:17) Sure, ⁓ I often say I grew up a very normie evangelical, what I consider normie evangelical in the 90s and 2000s. My parents were on staff with Campus Crusade for Christ for much of my childhood and so I grew up first in California, then more in North Carolina with two parents who were on staff. ⁓
• 0:36
  Loren Richmond Jr (02:27) Mm-hmm.
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  Kelsey (02:44) quite involved in leadership. were with something called the communication center in Raleigh, North Carolina, where my dad was involved in things like planning of the national staff convention every summer. And so we were very involved. My mom is a worship leader, incredible virtuoso musician. So grew up with parents who were both involved in music ministry my whole life.
• 0:44
  grandparents as well. So I come from a long line of music ministry folks in varying traditions. But grew up seeing that play out in kind of the Southern Baptist megachurch world. And then when I was in, you know, middle school, we moved to Iowa and joined a smaller than we had been at before a smaller evangelical free church, which I don't know how familiar you are with the evangelical free church of America, but
• 0:48
  Loren Richmond Jr (03:23) Sure.
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  Little bit, little bit.
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  Kelsey (03:40) ⁓ Lots of them here in Iowa where I am in the Midwest, know, lots of Swedish and Norwegian folks in that tradition. ⁓ Conservative in many of the ways that SBC is conservative, but a much smaller institutional structure. So culturally it was quite similar, just a slightly different flavor. ⁓ Because when we moved, the church we joined was just...
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  trying to make the transition toward a more contemporary music setup and was kind of transitioning the flavor of things like its youth group, but still had like a strong ABF culture, still had an organ and an organist, still had a music minister who was very committed to singing from a hymnal. This would have been in like the early 2000s. And ⁓ so, you know, my memories of faith formation are very much in those
• 1:04
  Loren Richmond Jr (04:12) Okay.
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  Kelsey (04:36) Cultural waters ⁓ Was very much a youth group kid those were the formative years of my life that of my spiritual life anyway ⁓ I consider myself very fortunate that I had parents who are not particularly extreme so I feel like as I look back I ⁓ I write quite a lot about evangelical subculture now I had a book come out last year about the history of Christian parenting literature and teaching
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  Loren Richmond Jr (04:38) Mm-hmm.
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  Yeah, yeah.
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  hehe
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  Kelsey (05:04) And as I worked on some of that broader cultural writing, I've considered myself very lucky that I had two parents who I think probably just by luck and also just their own maturity, their own journeys, I escaped some of the more extreme elements of evangelical youth subculture. Maybe saw them, but wasn't ⁓ steeped in them.
• 1:28
  Loren Richmond Jr (05:23) Right.
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  Kelsey (05:28) like in like the purity culture balls and stuff like that. That was not part of my experience, though I heard about them later, you know? ⁓ But very much grew up in a youth group that put a high emphasis on, as evangelicals do, on evangelism. So lots of mission trips, lots of learning how to share the four spiritual laws and evangelize people at the mall, those kinds of things. ⁓ But I was also very involved in music ministry and
• 1:36
  Loren Richmond Jr (05:31) Yeah. Yeah.
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  Mm-hmm.
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  Kelsey (05:57) A big part of my personal identity was someone who does music in church. That was like a big part of how I saw myself and my faith. I was very interested in leading in that capacity and being an administrator in that capacity and writing and singing and in playing. And so I think the way that I saw myself in Christian community was in that role. ⁓ And, you know,
• 1:48
  Loren Richmond Jr (06:01) Hmm. Mm-hmm.
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  Kelsey (06:27) We can talk more about all of the of, you know, the ways that that has gotten more complicated later in life. But I mean, in general, I would say I was kind of a ⁓ fortunate person in terms of like, I think there was a lot of good that I absorb from the evangelical waters I was swimming in and have continued to see more complication in hindsight there.
• 1:56
  Loren Richmond Jr (06:44) Mm-hmm.
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  Yeah.
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  Kelsey (06:56) but have still held really strongly to some of the pieces of that, particularly around music and art that I grew up seeing as a really important part of my faith practice and what role I'm supposed to play in the Christian community as I'm in. Sorry, that was a very long rambling answer.
• 2:08
  Loren Richmond Jr (07:16) Yeah, yeah, thanks. No, thanks for
• 2:12
  sharing all that. I want to respond. I know we're not going to talk about Christian parenting per se in this conversation. Certainly you wrote a book about that, but I was sort of flummoxed. I think I had this in a conversation with Michelle Van Loon, if you're of her work. But I think we talked about this, but certainly this has flummoxed me when I discovered like Bill Gothard, who my parents weren't like steeped in Bill Gothard stuff, but like
• 2:16
  Kelsey (07:32) Yes, yes, yes.
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  Loren Richmond Jr (07:44) I was shocked to read like he, he, he wasn't even married and had kids. And, ⁓ I'm sure you, you talk about stuff like that in your book. So I guess that's the tease, right? For your book. But I mean, that's a whole other conversation. ⁓ share if you would any kind of spiritual practices that are meaningful for you that you're willing to talk about.
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  Kelsey (07:47) Nope. Nope.
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  Yeah.
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  Hmm.
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  I think for my family since the pandemic has rediscovered the spiritual practice of going to church, why that's important to us, you ⁓ know, growing up in the SBC, especially in the South, which North Carolina is the South in my mind anyway, know, church attendance and the time you spend at church.
• 2:40
  Loren Richmond Jr (08:20) Hmm. Mm-hmm.
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  Yeah.
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  Kelsey (08:39) at least at the time I was there, it was just sort of a given, partly because of having parents who are very involved. I mean, most pastors' kids, I think, would say this is the case for them as well. Church was just a place that you spent a lot of time. And I think there ⁓ were a lot of really good things that came out of that for me. we talk about the importance of belonging in church. I never had a question of my belonging.
• 2:52
  Loren Richmond Jr (08:48) Mm-hmm.
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  Yeah.
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  Kelsey (09:09) in my faith community growing up. Like it was a place I belonged and felt comfortable and at home. ⁓ But, you know, we moved to a new city ⁓ just before the pandemic and ⁓ through a whole series of strange events, we ended up joining a church that ended up just shuddering right before the pandemic. And then we're kind of without a church home for a while. And ⁓
• 3:04
  you know, churches went online and we kind of floated for a couple of years, trying different things, going to my parents church, going to my grandparents church here. ⁓ And we only over the past maybe year and a half have really started to re-evaluate as a family what it means to not just
• 3:08
  attend, not just choose based on kind of identity and preference, but become a part of this community again, what that that looks like and how how that matters for us as a spiritual practice as a family. What does it look like to do that without the kind of like guilt inducement of some of the evangelicalism? What does it mean to choose into that and
• 3:12
  Loren Richmond Jr (10:12) huh.
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  Yeah, sure sure
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  Kelsey (10:34) What does it mean to help our children feel that sense of belonging? And is it possible to do that without the use of some of the kind of like classic tools of more conservative evangelicalism around sort of cultivating a sense of urgency? What does it look like to do that, like choosing into a family as opposed to kind of as like a series of hoops you have to jump through?
• 3:24
  Loren Richmond Jr (10:50) Yeah.
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  Yes.
• 3:32
  Kelsey (11:04) And so we have chosen a church where ⁓ just they have a really high, there was really high emphasis on just doing kind of mundane, quiet things together, like ⁓ gathering to read books together, gathering to pray, gathering for family dinners, gathering to, ⁓ you know, have pizza after the service, gathering and having this church be a place of belonging.
• 3:36
  and trying to ⁓ take fear out of that equation, trying to take us versus them out of that equation, what that looks like. And so, I mean, I'm not really sure this is the kind of answer you were looking for, but I think ⁓ my husband and I are both readers, we're both academics, know, meditation and reading and prayer has never been a difficult spiritual practice for us to lean into, but really intentional, loving,
• 3:40
  Loren Richmond Jr (11:42) Mm.
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  Yeah.
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  Kelsey (12:02) community has been a harder one. And I think as kind of someone who grew up in a very conservative form of evangelicalism, learning what that looks like with the fear and the culture war taken out has been, it has felt like a very kind of unmooring process, but a really, really rewarding one.
• 3:52
  Loren Richmond Jr (12:18) Mm-hmm.
• 3:56
  Well, I feel like I need to ask your publisher to send me your book, even if we're not discussing it now, because I'm interested to read. I think, I think this is struggle. Like I'm wrestling with myself as a parent. think about like wanting to pass on the faith to my kids, like wanting it to be important to them, but also being like, I, I have to find different tools. Like I can't use that same kind of guilt and pressure and, ⁓ but also like having spent the last, I don't know, 10, 15 years of my life in the mainline world.
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  And we'll talk, we will talk a little bit about more about that context today. Like I do think in this, what I've seen in the mainline context is sort of like, ⁓ like maybe they'll pick it up by osmosis, you know, like them all decide for themselves. And like, doesn't work. Like it, it doesn't work in my opinion. ⁓ but we're not here to talk about Christian parenting as much as Kelsey has, I'm sure good things to say. What I want to talk to Kelsey about is just her work in, in writing.
• 4:04
  and expertise in the church worship scene. again, many of the listeners today are probably coming from a mainline context. So this, this may or may not make sense to them, but I think it's important, at least I think so, to hear about what's going on in the wider Christian, Christendom, guess, within America. So maybe for those who are unfamiliar, give, you would, just a quick overview of, kind of how this praise and worship movement sort of developed, how it came to be.
• 4:08
  Kelsey (13:54) Yeah, there are multiple versions of that history I could give. ⁓ I'm going to give the version that starts with what I would call commercialized contemporary worship music. know, contemporary worship music, you can trace its roots back like prior to the Jesus people movement of the seventies, right? Like a lot of folks will trace it back to that, to kind of the rise of contemporary Christian music and...
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  Loren Richmond Jr (14:06) Okay.
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  Yeah. Yeah.
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  Kelsey (14:20) ⁓ Even before that we have kind of like integrity writing praise choruses or producing or distributing tapes with praise choruses on them. We've had what you could consider contemporary worship music, meaning like...
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  Loren Richmond Jr (14:34) So it's like the
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  Ruth or Lester Ruthen, I forget the co-author.
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  Kelsey (14:39) Yes, Ruth and Lim. Yeah. Yeah. So you can trace this back multiple ways, kind of along different streams of thought around musical worship. Personally, the story that I tend to tell about where we are now ⁓ starts in the late 90s with what I would call commercialized contemporary worship music, which is
• 4:36
  Loren Richmond Jr (14:41) who trace it back, yeah, who trace it back like to the 50s.
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  care.
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  Kelsey (15:05) In the late 90s, there's this moment where the Christian music industry and the mainstream music industry start to recognize worship music as its own thing within the Christian niche. And it takes on some of its own flavor and identity that is distinct from like old guard CCM. So like you think about the late 90s, you have at the same time, right? Right. Well, you think so.
• 4:48
  Loren Richmond Jr (15:26) Mm-hmm. Yeah, love the late 90s of CCM. ⁓
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  Kelsey (15:35) like a song like I Can Only Imagine, I think came out like 99 or 2000, right? That's also the time when Matt Redmond is becoming really popular. Mercy Me and Matt Redmond are doing two very different things. And the trajectory of those two groups is, think, ⁓ helpful, right? Because Mercy Me is like, you know, it's a soft rock band, you know? And Mercy Me, ⁓ I Can Only Imagine is still one of the most played songs on Christian radio.
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  Loren Richmond Jr (15:37) Right. Right. Right.
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  Yeah.
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  Kelsey (16:04) But that song has a very different purpose, function than like Matt Redmond's Blessed Be Your Name or Paul Balash's Open the Eyes of My Heart. In the late 90s, you have this explosion of contemporary worship music that is driven by these male guy with guitar band leaders. A lot of this early on in the 90s as being exported from the UK through the band like Delirious, Matt Redmond.
• 5:08
  Loren Richmond Jr (16:12) Mm-hmm.
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  Yes. Okay.
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  Kelsey (16:34) ⁓ And in the US it really takes on a life of its own because in American evangelicalism, especially you have like concert culture, youth culture. There is a demand for this kind of contemporary worship music in a moment when there's a lot of talk of youth being bored in church, right? Like this is also the time of the Seeker Sensitive Movement. And what's something that might be really helpful in helping draw
• 5:20
  Loren Richmond Jr (16:54) Yeah.
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  Right, right.
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  Kelsey (17:00) new people, young people to church, make church feel a little bit more exciting. That ends up being contemporary worship music for a lot of churches. And so there's this momentum starts to build in the two, in the early two thousands and that has not stopped. that hadn't the, that has caused contemporary worship music and CCM to kind of diverge and these two different streams in the industry in terms of what they are, what they sound like, who listens to them.
• 5:32
  how they're distributed, have their own little, they're still very much connected. The Christian music niche is, for all the talk of the boom in Christian music over the past year, it's still very small. So this is still all quite connected, but worship music becomes its own thing. And that, you now the big players in that world are groups like Elevation Worship.
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  Loren Richmond Jr (17:40) Mm-hmm.
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  Mm-hmm.
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  Kelsey (17:54) which
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  is based in an elevation church in North Carolina. Steven Furtick is the pastor of that mega church. You have Bethel out of Reading, California, major player in that space. have Passion was an earlier one, still quite influential, but Passion, the Passion Conference that Lou Giglio started brought together every year all of these incredibly influential artists like Chris Tomlin, Matt Redmond, David Crowder. And so
• 5:52
  There's this this whole cohort of artists that are thinking of themselves differently. They're positioning themselves as worship leaders first recording artists second even though That's debatable. Well, you know if that's if that's actually the case, but this is music for use the understanding is this is worship worship music it's not music for radio play first, it's music for use by churches for corporate worship and ⁓
• 5:56
  Loren Richmond Jr (18:37) Sure.
• 6:00
  Yeah, yeah.
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  Kelsey (18:53) I mean, we can talk about the impact that's had on the main line that the impact of this certainly is not ⁓ limited to evangelical churches. is spread through Evan.
• 6:08
  Loren Richmond Jr (19:02) Yeah, let's go into that because this
• 6:12
  is something that again, as someone grew up more in conservative spaces, found my way into the mainline. Like I found my way into the mainline kind of after those worship or things had happened in the late nineties or 2000. But I think like many mainline churches wrestled with, and I think many have certainly moved on, but like, how did, how did that affect mainline churches from an outside, from your perspective?
• 6:16
  Kelsey (19:30) Well, you know, the term worship wars is a little bit played out at the side. I'm not sure it's a helpful term, but that's kind of the term that we use for the conversations and the debates that took place during the eighties, nineties and two thousands about what kind of music belongs in the worship service. And those debates were not limited to evangelical churches. mean, quite, quite the opposite. think, you know, American evangelicalism is, you know,
• 6:20
  Loren Richmond Jr (19:35) Sure. Sure.
• 6:24
  Yeah
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  Yeah.
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  Kelsey (19:57) is techno-optimistic, I would say, know, has been since the years of Billy Graham, Evangelicals are techno-optimists. They are early, they try, well, not early adopters. They try to be on pace. They try to adopt the technology as they see culture moving in that direction. They want to keep up, right? So I think there are a lot of, ⁓ there were a lot of evangelical churches that were, that had an easier time adopting new music, new tech.
• 6:36
  Loren Richmond Jr (20:00) Yeah, yeah.
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  Kelsey (20:26) new tools, new sounds, because they just saw that as a way of keeping up with the culture. The main line, which has, you know, maybe longer standing roots in tradition in particular liturgies, in particular hymnals, had a bit more of a challenge in terms of figuring out, is there a, do we want to make a place for this kind of music in our churches? Because it wasn't just a question for like, you know, the United Methodist Church, for example, big one, has its own hymnals, right? Its own,
• 6:44
  Loren Richmond Jr (20:47) Right.
• 6:48
  Kelsey (20:56) set of theological distinctives. The decision there is do we want to make room for contemporary worship music, not just aesthetically, but ideologically? How do we go about vetting this? Should we go about vetting this music? Should this just be a thing that churches get to choose for themselves? If we let churches just choose for themselves, is our denomination going to lose some of its distinctiveness, some of the things that make it what it is? And so
• 6:52
  Loren Richmond Jr (21:06) Mm-hmm. Right.
• 6:56
  Right, right.
• 7:00
  Kelsey (21:24) I think for a lot of mainline churches, when you have people, especially parents of younger teenagers who are maybe going to youth group with a friend or maybe the youth group that maybe they're part of a parachurch organization where they're being exposed to this contemporary worship music and they're like, my gosh, the music that I'm experiencing there is so heartfelt. It's so moving. I'm having these mountain top experiences. And then I come to church on a Sunday morning.
• 7:04
  Loren Richmond Jr (21:36) Right.
• 7:08
  Yes. Yes.
• 7:12
  Kelsey (21:53) And there's no attempt to create that. For some young people, that starts to feel like a problem. And some churches are able to address that and say, well, that's not what Sunday worship is for. It's not meant to create these mountaintop experiences. But others say, well, if this feels emotionally dead, maybe that's something we should be taking seriously. And so the worship wars, I guess, in the main line are kind of fought along these lines.
• 7:16
  Loren Richmond Jr (21:56) Right.
• 7:20
  Yeah.
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  Kelsey (22:23) What does it look like to make room for this? Should we make room for it? ⁓ What are we trying to accomplish here? Are we really going to keep young people in the pews if we like add shout to the Lord on a Sunday morning? ⁓ Which I think is a valid question.
• 7:28
  Loren Richmond Jr (22:37) Yeah.
• 7:32
  I'm thinking about, I'm thinking about a whole host of things. So respond to what strikes you here, but like I'm thinking of Robert Shuler. had on Marty and ⁓ Mulder who wrote the biography about Shuler and the Crystal Cathedral, you know, his attempt to make church relevant. Those are my words. Like I'm thinking about how a question I did want to ask is like, how does what we sing like shape us?
• 7:36
  Like theology, cause you, you named the point about mainliners being, mainliners have some concern, if that's right word for like, how is, how is what we're singing fitting in with our broader theology? mean, like, I think this is something that I've appreciated about denominational churches. Like there's a whole host of history of them, like thinking for many, many years about issues and topics and theological matters. And.
• 7:40
  You know, a song that was written two years ago that's trending on the CCLI charts, right? Like there's a, there's a lot there. So talk, talk through anything that strikes you there.
• 7:44
  Kelsey (23:47) Mm hmm.
• 7:48
  Mm hmm. Yeah. Some of the more some of my favorite reporting I've done over the past couple of years about this has been about the vetting projects that mainline denominations are are putting together in order to try to more systematically vet contemporary worship songs along the lines of theological distinctive. So like the United Methodist Church has one. It's like I think it's called this beyond.
• 7:52
  CCLI top 100 and beyond or something I can't remember but their discipleship ministry is put together kind of like a criteria system and even like vet particular songs on the on the CCLI top 100 and kind of say like here's some good things about this song here's some bad things about this song here's here is you know some challenges to incorporating it here are some places that might make sense to ⁓ the UMC has one the
• 7:56
  Loren Richmond Jr (24:23) Mm-hmm.
• 8:00
  Kelsey (24:43) CRC has one and there's a kind of ecumenical Lutheran organization of music ministers that has also put one together. But they are trying to look at a particular song and say like, in this way, this is kind of at odds with our theology or it really helps to underscore these things or.
• 8:04
  Even in some of these vetting projects, say in general, the CCLI Top 100 does not make enough room for songs about the Holy Spirit, but there are a lot of songs that are quite triumphalist. And so I remember the CRC's project, ⁓ they include quite a lot of commentary about the problematic nature of some of like the triumphalist songs coming out of a place like Bethel, right? Bethel as a church, which is quite charismatic, ⁓ has
• 8:08
  Loren Richmond Jr (25:17) Yeah, yeah.
• 8:12
  Mm-hmm. ⁓
• 8:16
  Kelsey (25:38) a very different theology of worship than the CRC does, right? And I think, I think there are, there are folks in the CRC who are wanting to not just help churches like institutionally deal with these, also help listeners help lay people understand the, the grounding for this particular song out of Bethel comes from a belief that the people of God sort of gather and use worship as this like tool for bringing about
• 8:20
  Loren Richmond Jr (25:41) Right. Right.
• 8:24
  Yeah. Yeah.
• 8:28
  Kelsey (26:06) breakthrough. You know, there's a whole theology of worship that lives within these songs. And, you know, I think those are, those are some things that churches are trying to do to help answer some of those questions and preserve the theological distinctiveness of these traditions, because contemporary worship music is incredibly ecumenical in its reach and incredibly ecumenically influential.
• 8:32
  Loren Richmond Jr (26:07) Right, right.
• 8:36
  Yeah, yeah.
• 8:40
  You know, I'm thinking of, as we're recording this, I think you just put out like a little Instagram video, right? About how some of the worship, some of the lyrics and worship music are what sort of battle language ish, right? And how, I mean, certainly, certainly like, I think you, you say this in the video, like there's, there's precedent in scripture for that, but also like right now in our current time, like that's
• 8:44
  Kelsey (26:44) Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah
• 8:48
  Yep. I absolutely I and I've been writing about this for a couple of years now because right after the pandemic there was like a noticeable uptick in the use of songs that used battle language. And so I have this question about, you know, our worship leaders kind of being drawn to these songs on the heels of a pandemic as the culture wars feel very heightened.
• 8:52
  Loren Richmond Jr (27:14) Yeah.
• 8:56
  Right.
• 9:00
  Kelsey (27:28) ⁓
• 9:04
  some people are feeling quite embattled about the lockdowns and being told to worship virtually and that gathering to worship is kind of being reframed as this subversive countercultural act. I was interested in that. ⁓ and have continued to be since then because the pitch of the culture war has certainly not gone down. We're certainly not seeing, less political polarization than we were five years ago.
• 9:08
  Loren Richmond Jr (27:33) Yeah.
• 9:12
  Right.
• 9:16
  Yeah, no it has not.
• 9:20
  Kelsey (27:59) And so it's been interesting to talk with worship leaders who are trying to reframe this conversation, not such as like we shouldn't be listening to these songs, but is this the time and place? Like, how do I help my congregation think critically about why now might not be the time to be singing a song about
• 9:24
  drowning my enemies is the example I go to. There's a very popular Maverick City music song that has this line, praise is the water my enemies drown in. And my first thought every time I hear that is who are you thinking of as your enemies? Right. And I think leaders are clear eyed about they can't control what people are thinking. So how, how do I faithfully pastorally make decisions that are
• 9:28
  Loren Richmond Jr (28:25) Yeah, yeah.
• 9:32
  Right.
• 9:36
  Right.
• 9:40
  Kelsey (28:54) Helping people to not lean into demonizing neighbors or ⁓ maybe conflating their own kind of spiritual struggles with like broader big picture ⁓ political polarization. And, you know, there's a lot we could say about that.
• 9:44
  Loren Richmond Jr (29:13) Yeah, yeah.
• 9:48
  I'm thinking, I'm thinking too, ⁓ I had a conversation not too long past with Michael Herter, who's a gosh, I'm blanking on name. His book would recommend it hybrid church and worship or something like that. But he really gets into like a theology of worship and especially this idea of what he talks about, like this unmediated idea, this idea that like worship leaders are supposed to be like
• 9:52
  have this sort of unmediated role where they're supposed to like lead people into worship, then also kind of like disappear. ⁓ And I'm thinking like you've you've already kind of hinted around this topic, this idea like many traditions and churches have like different expectations of what worship is meant to be about. Can you talk through that a little bit more?
• 9:56
  Kelsey (29:59) Yeah, well, just to follow up on that sort of like the worship leaders disappearing thing. I hear that a lot and I find that to be just a maybe optimistic way of thinking about what's possible when you have commercialized worship music. You know, for better or worse,
• 10:00
  Loren Richmond Jr (30:20) Yeah. Yeah.
• 10:04
  Kelsey (30:26) a lot of, if you're someone who listens to a lot of worship music, the people who make them are, know, they're, they're a little like many Christian celebrities, right? And the model of contemporary worship music is sort of ⁓ modeled on the rock band, right? Like there's a front man and specifically front man in most cases, this is quite gendered as well. But you know, when you, when you have music that is following pop styles, pop music is so, is so persona centric.
• 10:08
  Loren Richmond Jr (30:35) Right, right.
• 10:12
  Yeah.
• 10:16
  Mm-hmm.
• 10:20
  Kelsey (30:55) I don't
• 10:24
  know that you can expect people to disappear. I don't know that you can expect ⁓ that that is a possibility anyway. So I think that's optimistic as a possibility. so when, especially when like worship artists talk that way, I tend to think like, understand what you're saying, but also the system on which you've built your career kind of requires that that isn't the case.
• 10:28
  Loren Richmond Jr (31:07) Sure, sure.
• 10:32
  Yeah. Yeah.
• 10:36
  Right.
• 10:40
  Kelsey (31:24) ⁓
• 10:44
  So anyway, I don't mean that uncharitably. just mean it's an interesting way of talking about it. ⁓
• 10:48
  Loren Richmond Jr (31:29) Yeah. His point
• 10:52
  is that like this idea that we should, he argues against it. That's basically impossible to be unmediated and disappear. that's perfectly normal and natural.
• 10:56
  Kelsey (31:36) Yeah. Yeah.
• 11:00
  Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'm sorry. What was the second part of that question? I got distracted.
• 11:04
  Loren Richmond Jr (31:41) The idea like that we're all, no,
• 11:08
  it's fine. But the idea that we're many traditions are trying to do something different with worship.
• 11:12
  Kelsey (31:49) There are so many ways of articulating what you think congregational singing is for. And to be clear, it can do a lot of different things. So my academic training is as a musicologist. So I am very comfortable with the idea that corporate singing
• 11:16
  Loren Richmond Jr (31:50) Yeah, yeah.
• 11:20
  Yeah.
• 11:24
  Kelsey (32:06) can do lots of different things. It functions a lot of different ways for communities of people. I do think it's a mistake to think that everyone just kind of knows. Everyone knows, well, we're doing this for God, right? Like we gather together, we sing because God commands it, right? I've talked to many different worship leaders who would say we sing because God commands it. ⁓ We could kind of parse scripture and try to do, does God actually command? Is that like a command?
• 11:28
  like a moral imperative that you must sing. Some would say yes, some would say no. But I teach a class called Worship in the Arts almost every semester now. And we just had this conversation last week about what is it for? Why do we sing? What does it do? And one of my students who's, I don't think particularly religious, but ⁓ very easily understood the concept of worship.
• 11:32
  can be a gift for the people in the room. it's, you know, I sing with you as a gift to you, you sing with me as a gift to me. There is this communal aspect of worship that is sort of like mutually faith strengthening. It builds unity and community cohesion. And I think some Christians are uncomfortable with that because it feels like it's cutting off the spiritual dimension of what's happening. And multiple things can be true.
• 11:36
  there is a faith building aspect to singing with a community of people. Now, if you ask someone from Bethel, why do we get together and sing? Someone from Bethel would be much more comfortable with the language of worship is my weapon. Right? I talk about this sometimes. Worship is my weapon. Praise is my weapon. ⁓ Your weapon against enemies seen and unseen. know, then you have to get into these sort of questions. And for a church like Bethel that, you know, really
• 11:40
  Loren Richmond Jr (33:35) Mm-hmm.
• 11:44
  Right.
• 11:48
  Right, right.
• 11:52
  Right, right.
• 11:56
  Kelsey (34:01) emphasizes spiritual warfare, ⁓ know, kind of ascribes to views like the seven mountain mandate that Christians are in the world fighting kind of to take over as much culturally as we possibly can that we by worshiping are helping facilitate spiritual in breaking. That's a very different view. ⁓ But there certainly are many Christians, especially charismatic Christians who believe that our singing
• 12:00
  Loren Richmond Jr (34:21) Yeah.
• 12:04
  Right.
• 12:08
  Kelsey (34:30) corporately has some very real spiritual agency, then you get into really thorny questions about does our singing move the hand of God? Does our singing, ⁓ what is it, where is the agency in that? And so when people talk about what singing is for, I think as musicologists, it's always an interesting question to ask, what do you think music can do? Like what spiritual power do you think the music itself has? Where are we?
• 12:12
  Loren Richmond Jr (34:39) Yeah.
• 12:16
  Right.
• 12:20
  Mm-hmm.
• 12:24
  Kelsey (34:59) where are we placing that power? And some of it is, I think some people are quite comfortable with it being mysterious. Some people are quite comfortable saying, know, like God hears our prayers, God hears our songs and responds to them. ⁓ What exactly that response means or, ⁓ you know, I think those are different questions, but I think, you know, there are many different ways of articulating it and people run into
• 12:28
  Loren Richmond Jr (35:09) Yeah.
• 12:32
  Mm-hmm.
• 12:36
  Kelsey (35:29) run into, I think, confusion when there's some kind of assumed belief that is actually, I don't know, problematic underneath that. think sometimes worship leaders will realize it's been years and years since my congregation talked about what singing is for, and then they'll ask people on their team, what do think we're doing here? And they're a little bit shocked by the answers. I think, you know, that kind of thing happens often.
• 12:40
  Loren Richmond Jr (35:57) Yeah. I mean, that would be an interesting question to ask. I mean, I'm just thinking about in, in mainline or more traditional spaces, like I would understand music to be more formational faith, formational, but yeah. I mean, that's your point about spiritual warfare, like having that, that theology or understanding certainly is a different, it makes me think twice about listening to Bethel now, ⁓ broadly speaking.
• 12:44
  And again, to our point about like the songs that we're singing, do they align with the broader theology that we're trying to teach?
• 12:48
  Kelsey (36:34) Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah, I think the question of of formation and listening, I think is an interesting one. Like you said, sort of like, should I be listening to the music of Bethel? That comes up a lot. Or like, should I be listening to the music of Hillsong? And, ⁓ you know, when that question comes up, I I'm usually pretty comfortable saying like, you know, music is formative, but it doesn't act on you against your will. Right. Like music. This is another kind of
• 12:52
  Loren Richmond Jr (36:46) Yeah. Right.
• 12:56
  Hmm.
• 13:00
  Kelsey (37:04) I think a little bit syncretistic way people accidentally start thinking about music when they think this way is like, if I listen to the music of Bethel, is that going to kind of sneak in and make me believe things that I don't actually believe? don't think music works that way. It's not like it's going to sneakily invade your brain.
• 13:04
  Loren Richmond Jr (37:17) Hmm.
• 13:08
  Are you sure? Cause like Rosa, both of us, think over
• 13:12
  the same age where there was a lot of concern about nineties, eighties rock sneaking into our brain.
• 13:16
  Kelsey (37:30) Yep, yep, yep,
• 13:20
  yep. And it's a very, ⁓ I would say superstitious as well. Because, your relationship with music is a conversation, right? Like your response to a song has a lot to do with what you bring to that song. ⁓ So I, you know, I think it is giving music too much credit to say it can kind of
• 13:24
  Loren Richmond Jr (37:40) Yeah, yeah.
• 13:28
  Hmm.
• 13:32
  Hmm.
• 13:36
  Kelsey (37:59) sneak in and change your belief. I also think it's, you know, kind of a weird form of superstition when people talk about secular music to say, well, you know, the people who made it were satanic or the people who made it were doing demonic things in the studio as if that music can then become this like conduit for dark forces into you or something, right? I think that's a very superstitious way to think about this too. That's not to say that music doesn't have real influence and power, but it doesn't work in this like
• 13:40
  Loren Richmond Jr (38:09) Okay.
• 13:44
  Hahaha
• 13:48
  Kelsey (38:29) invasive kind of like body snatchers kind of way, right? Like it's, is much, much more conversational with you as a person. And so when, when I, when I hear people talk about that kind of the potential for music to have really dark influence, ⁓ you know, this is the reason why two people can listen to a song and one person finds it really dark and scary. The other one is like, you know, it's what you, what you bring to it matters quite a lot.
• 13:52
  Loren Richmond Jr (38:30) Mm.
• 13:56
  Yeah.
• 14:00
  Kelsey (38:58) And I think the same can be true for worship music whether you're listening to it or whether you're having your congregation sing it this is the reason why a song like Phil Wickham's battle belongs which for a lot of people is a very kind of just like Unobjectionable song context matters context matters quite a lot, right? I think this is One reason why it was hard to have a conversation about what worship music was doing at the Charlie Kirk Memorial
• 14:04
  Loren Richmond Jr (39:09) Yeah.
• 14:08
  Right. Yeah. Yeah.
• 14:12
  Yeah. Yeah.
• 14:16
  Kelsey (39:23) Context matters, The
• 14:20
  meaning where we, what you bring as a congregation or as a listener, what you bring to that musical moment matters a lot and absolutely gives it meaning.
• 14:24
  Loren Richmond Jr (39:38) Yeah. I mean, I'm, I'm relieved because like, you know, there's some Hillsong, like, ⁓ new wine. I think I don't know the title exactly. Like that hits me. Like when I, when I listen to that, cause that hits me and I'm like, man, I gotta, I'm, I'm trusting like, the crushing and the pressing, like God is bringing new wine. Like it's like that song speaks to me in such a powerful way, but also like, I'm not sure if I buy into like all this stuff, which kind of leads me, ⁓ gosh.
• 14:28
  Kelsey (39:46) Yeah, yep.
• 14:32
  Loren Richmond Jr (40:08) so many things here I want to talk to you about still. A couple things like I'm thinking of this I know has been something that many mainline churches have wrestled with. I think it's David Haas the the hymn writer. So this is a challenge that many mainline churches wrestle with like and they'll say we're not going to sing Hillsong we're not going to sing David Haas because like they're like the the person who formed this music
• 14:36
  Kelsey (40:21) Yeah, yeah.
• 14:40
  Loren Richmond Jr (40:36) I mean, certainly with David Haas, like bad stuff. How do you, how do you even wrestle with that? Like, I don't even know what to do with it myself.
• 14:44
  Kelsey (40:40) Yeah.
• 14:48
  Yeah, yeah, I actually don't think there is a good top down answer to this question, or I don't think there's a good one size fits all answer to this question. I was talking to a music minister from Texas a couple of years ago now, and she leads worship at like a, you know, an Episcopal church, like a smallish Episcopal church. And their church was using the song, What a Beautiful Name, Hillsong. ⁓
• 14:52
  Loren Richmond Jr (40:56) Yeah.
• 14:56
  Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
• 15:00
  Yeah, yeah,
• 15:04
  Kelsey (41:15) Pretty regularly, it was a song that really resonated with their congregation.
• 15:08
  Loren Richmond Jr (41:15) yeah, yeah, I like that song. Yeah.
• 15:12
  Kelsey (41:19) But this is a church where almost no one in this congregation could have told you where that song was from. Hillsong as an institution, it just did not hold any cultural meaning for this group. And this was around the time when those documentaries were coming out about some different abuse and questionable behaviors among leadership there. ⁓
• 15:16
  Loren Richmond Jr (41:25) Yeah.
• 15:20
  Yeah.
• 15:24
  Kelsey (41:43) And she was talking to her friend who was a worship leader at a bigger non-denom church in Texas. And they decided to get rid of all Hillsong because in that church, Hillsong meant some people were aware of who Hillsong was. And they were also aware that by our big church using this song, we are potentially continuing to give them, you know, not only financial support, but just sort of cultural support. And they decided not to. And I think
• 15:28
  Loren Richmond Jr (41:56) Yeah.
• 15:32
  Yeah, money.
• 15:36
  Yeah.
• 15:40
  Kelsey (42:12) both churches can have made a wise decision there. I obviously didn't attend either of those churches, I don't know. But I think there's potential for both of those decisions to be wise for that congregation and to make sense. I think it's helpful to remember that it's a fool's errand to try to pursue
• 15:44
  holiness, goodness, purity by way of whose songs you're singing, whose art you're appreciating. ⁓ But I also think that there is ⁓ wisdom in asking the question, how does it impact the people in my community to keep on singing this song when they know whose song this is? It's a really squishy answer, but that's like, that's the most satisfying answer I've been able to come up with because
• 15:48
  Loren Richmond Jr (42:45) Yeah, right.
• 15:52
  Yeah.
• 15:56
  Kelsey (43:08) Every community is just so different and their relationship with this music is so different. ⁓ There's a book called ⁓ Monsters, a fan's dilemma by Claire Dettor. It's about what we do with art made by monstrous people. And she is dealing more in like R. Kelly, Michael Jackson, Woody Allen kind of stuff. But I find some of that framing to be really helpful because she kind of says, you know, to take on the moral responsibility of vetting the art.
• 16:00
  Loren Richmond Jr (43:12) Yeah.
• 16:04
  Hmm.
• 16:08
  Yeah.
• 16:12
  Sure. Sure.
• 16:16
  Kelsey (43:38) is to, you're taking on responsibility for something that should have been fixed before it got to you, right? Like you're maybe as a consumer trying to solve the problem of something bad in the marketplace. And it's a little bit unfair to put that on you and your church. But I think churches are wise to wrestle with that question. But I do think that there is a lot of freedom in it. I do think that there is a way
• 16:20
  Loren Richmond Jr (43:58) Hmm.
• 16:24
  Yeah.
• 16:28
  Kelsey (44:08) ⁓ that like online spaces make people feel really guilty for continuing to love a song like What a Beautiful Name or New Wine. ⁓ I think people can end up feeling, ⁓ you know, sort of forced into giving up a song that maybe meant something a lot to their congregation. Maybe they'll decide to do it anyway, but I think the tone of the discourse around like, you know,
• 16:32
  Loren Richmond Jr (44:12) Hmm.
• 16:36
  Right, right.
• 16:40
  Right. Yeah.
• 16:44
  Kelsey (44:35) No one should ever do anything this church ever produced ever again. You I think it's just a little bit extreme in an unhelpful way.
• 16:48
  Loren Richmond Jr (44:43) I do want to lean into the question about secular songs and worship because maybe maybe this is my like hobby horse but like the more I've The older I get maybe the more curmarginate I get what I'm just like no like I don't need Secular songs and worship and I I don't even get into this whole like there is evil behind it But for me like I wonder like is it really doing what we wanted to do. So
• 16:52
  Kelsey (44:56) haha
• 16:56
  Loren Richmond Jr (45:09) What are your thoughts on that? think this is something that happens more often in mainline spaces. I'd imagine more than evangelical, but what thoughts come to mind for you?
• 17:00
  Kelsey (45:17) Yeah.
• 17:04
  Yeah. mean, can you give me an example? Because I'll be honest, I have never. Well, no, this isn't true. I have been to churches where there have been secular songs, but I can maybe think of one time when it was for corporate singing.
• 17:08
  Loren Richmond Jr (45:33) Okay. This is, this is,
• 17:12
  this is really going to get me in trouble with my mainline friends. So mainliners, please forgive me. ⁓ I went to one, one service and, ⁓ gosh, Ingrid Michaelson song. Everybody needs to love whatever was sung. ⁓ the choir did a little piece on somebody else. And then like, again, ⁓ forgive me, my church.
• 17:16
  Kelsey (45:39) You
• 17:20
  Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
• 17:24
  Loren Richmond Jr (46:02) I'm not meaning to this to be confessional time. We sing the high woman, ⁓ the table song and part of me hates that song as like an introvert. Like I do not need a big table. Like I cannot sing this authentically. but the more I've sung it, like, is this really like, is this really like theologically aligned with us? So this is certainly, I think more of a mainline trend.
• 17:28
  Kelsey (46:28) Hmm.
• 17:32
  Loren Richmond Jr (46:31) I don't think evangelicals would be like, so yeah, mean, what do you think? This is probably the most controversial ⁓ thing I'm saying here for my mainline listeners, but what comes to mind for you?
• 17:36
  Kelsey (46:31) Mm.
• 17:40
  Mm.
• 17:44
  You know, I think this, I'm fascinated by this actually. And I could probably be convinced of multiple positions on this. But I mean, right now from where I sit, if you are a church that believes that singing is something that cultivates community and you're making space for other songs, for other kinds of songs that are about singing the faith, singing the creeds.
• 17:48
  Loren Richmond Jr (46:56) Yeah.
• 17:52
  Mm-hmm.
• 17:56
  Kelsey (47:16) ⁓ is it the worst thing in the world to have to include a song that is not intended for corporate worship? There's maybe even a commercial song for the purpose of building up community, building up unity. I could be convinced of that. I think, I think this really, really quickly could turn into just like a battle over things like taste and preference.
• 18:00
  Loren Richmond Jr (47:44) Yeah.
• 18:04
  Kelsey (47:44) Because
• 18:08
  what you think is like unifying to sing with people is going to depend on a whole lot of things, right? Like, this is where like the, the hymnal and the traditional, kind of traditional selection does a lot of the words help sidestep those questions. But like, so for example, I could see a church right now choosing to sing like we shall overcome, like the chorus we shall overcome.
• 18:12
  Loren Richmond Jr (48:05) Yeah.
• 18:16
  Yeah.
• 18:20
  Yeah.
• 18:24
  Kelsey (48:15) and including that in corporate worship. I think you could make a strong case that that would be a worthwhile thing to do in corporate worship. Certainly not a worship song, you know, certainly not a hymn. ⁓ But I'm not convinced that's necessarily ill-advised. I'm sure many of my kind of worship studies friends would disagree with me. But I...
• 18:28
  I tend to take a kind of expansive view of what music can be for. I think that's one thing it can be for. ⁓ I don't know. What are your thoughts? I want to hear more of your experiences and thoughts on this. Sure, sure, sure.
• 18:32
  Loren Richmond Jr (48:47) Hmm.
• 18:36
  Mm-hmm.
• 18:40
  Yeah. I mean, I'm trying to tread lightly here. So I get you in trouble, not me in trouble. Like, and
• 18:44
  I spent a lot of time in very progressive spaces. Like we've sung like John Lennon's the imagine song. And I, I sort of like wonder, like, like we're religion here and we're singing about imagining no religion. Like, I feel like that's a little bit awkward. You know, I think, I think.
• 18:48
  Kelsey (49:15) Right, right.
• 18:52
  Yeah.
• 18:56
  Loren Richmond Jr (49:20) I think the important thing you're naming here, so I'm going to lean on this is like, what are we imagining music for? Like theologically, I think in many progressive or liberal mainline spaces, they understand the singing, the congregational singing less as theological and more community building. that's, this is my interpretation. So I may be wrong on that. but I do find it, I do find it fascinating.
• 19:00
  Kelsey (49:26) Mm-hmm.
• 19:04
  Loren Richmond Jr (49:48) just thinking about, as you've discussed, what are we, you know, what is congregational singing for? And I do wonder like, as you've, you've asked, like how many times have we recently asked, have worship leaders or pastors ask the congregation, like, what do you understand, you know, worshiply or singing to be about?
• 19:08
  Kelsey (50:06) Yeah, yeah, and I this is why I'm torn about it because it is it is both for us and Toward God, but you know, I think most even more conservative scholars of worship would say God does not Need our worship right like our you know, even though some of most popular praise choruses We bring a sacrifice of praise right like it's not that God needs the sacrifice. It's not that It
• 19:12
  Loren Richmond Jr (50:17) Right.
• 19:16
  Yeah.
• 19:20
  Right, right, right.
• 19:24
  Kelsey (50:37) serves, you know, we can choose our words carefully here, but sort of like it's not that it provides something that God needs. And the question, you know, is God pleased by our joyful singing together in love? If he is, does it matter what we're singing? I mean, I agree with you that like my response to like John Lennon's, imagine really. But, you know.
• 19:28
  Loren Richmond Jr (50:41) Hahaha
• 19:32
  Yeah.
• 19:36
  Kelsey (51:06) ⁓ I could be persuaded. And I think, again, this is like one of those questions that is so much better answered in the context of a very specific local church. Because what kind of song would accomplish that varies so much. mean, even across age, which, you know, if you're looking at a very multi-generational congregation, ⁓ you'd probably have a hard time.
• 19:40
  Loren Richmond Jr (51:18) Yeah, yeah.
• 19:44
  Kelsey (51:34) finding a song that accomplishes that, you know, like, because it requires that the song itself, something about the melody and something about the song is unifying. But when you're dealing with a hymn, it doesn't matter what the style is. The thing that is unifying is the theology or is the subject. So that does that lift of it needing to be unifying. But when you step outside of songs that are explicitly singing about
• 19:48
  Loren Richmond Jr (51:43) Right. Right.
• 19:52
  Kelsey (52:01) God, about the Holy Spirit, about the work of Christ, ⁓ then you need to have something else that's a unifying thing about that song that people like. And that's just harder to do, right? It's just harder to find because then you are simply relying on taste. And it takes either a very specific understanding of what your congregation likes and a buy-in from that group of people. ⁓
• 19:56
  Or, I don't know, for some reason some song is just really important here. You know, an example of this, would say, historically, have been songs like America the Beautiful, Patriotic songs. Patriotic songs have become civic hymns for that reason, because there is a unifying thing there, and it's patriotism instead of Christianity. And that's, I think, increasingly ill-advised to have those part of a worship service. So...
• 20:00
  Loren Richmond Jr (52:38) Yeah, yeah, right.
• 20:04
  Right.
• 20:08
  Kelsey (52:57) That's part of the conversation. What is the unifying thing then that you're looking for in the song and how do you find a song that actually has it?
• 20:12
  Loren Richmond Jr (53:05) This leads me to another question I was going to ask. ⁓
• 20:16
  As I think this is like, think about this practically like it's a lot easier. Again, not a music person at all, but it seems to me at least a lot easier to pull off him singing than it is to pull off like worship genre singing. Like practically speaking, theologically speaking, do you think like some churches would just be better off just to go back to him?
• 20:20
  Kelsey (53:36) what's hard for them about the contemporary songs. think it is true that especially over the past, I'm gonna say 15 years or so, since like 2010, as contemporary worship songs have become, they require more technology to pull them off well, right? ⁓ You know, we always joke that so many of these songs are kind of at this andante tempo.
• 20:24
  Loren Richmond Jr (53:49) Okay.
• 20:28
  Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 20:32
  Kelsey (54:04) that is really hard to energize unless you have synthesizers and like big drums and big washi set. They're just harder to recreate compellingly without doing a lot of really complicated re-orchestration. ⁓ Worship songs of the like late 90s and early 2000s are a little bit easier. Like it is very easy to make Open the Eyes of My Heartlord work with just a guitar, right? Like that's an easy song to make it work.
• 20:36
  Loren Richmond Jr (54:09) Ha
• 20:40
  Sure, yeah.
• 20:44
  Kelsey (54:30) And if you have a congregation that likes and knows and loves that song, that's or like I could sing of your love forever, right? Those songs have a simplicity and a pace and a structure that is very easy to follow, easy to recreate, even easy to sing acapella. A lot of the songs that are popular right now, they would not work acapella. Like you couldn't sing them in the round just with someone kind of maybe.
• 20:48
  Loren Richmond Jr (54:36) Yeah.
• 20:52
  Yeah.
• 20:56
  Kelsey (54:59) conducting or kind of nodding along, right? They're just harder to follow. So I think the question of whether people would be better off going back to hymns, it's sort of like what's making it hard? What's making the contemporary stuff hard? Is it ⁓ access to musicians? Is it access to tech? Or is it just familiarity with the songs? ⁓ Churches where there is still an abiding familiarity with hymnody, I can see how you'd want to go back to it because people like to sing songs they know.
• 21:00
  Loren Richmond Jr (55:11) sure.
• 21:04
  Yeah.
• 21:08
  Yeah.
• 21:12
  Mm.
• 21:16
  Kelsey (55:29) And there, you know, my parents church is a big evangelical church and the older people in that congregation get together on, I think on either Easter Sunday or the Sunday before Easter Sunday. And they have their own little worship gathering where they sing, know, like Christ the Lord has risen today. And just like with a piano, right? Because and I admire
• 21:20
  Loren Richmond Jr (55:51) Love it. Yeah. Yeah.
• 21:24
  Kelsey (55:57) their patience and forbearance, but these are people in their 60s, 70s and 80s who just have accepted, I'm gonna stay at this church. I'm not ever gonna get to sing these songs that were part of my faith journey that are like my heart songs of my spiritual journey. I'm not ever gonna get to sing those on Sunday morning unless people of my generation make space for us to do it elsewhere. And I mourn for those people.
• 21:28
  Loren Richmond Jr (55:59) Mm-hmm.
• 21:32
  Huh. Yeah. Right.
• 21:36
  Right.
• 21:40
  Kelsey (56:24) who don't get to do that. I think that that's a real loss ⁓ that those songs have been cut out of the singing diet of the church. ⁓ But I don't know if the answer is just go back to all hymns. think ⁓ like a little phrase I've been trying to use more often is creative local eclecticism, which.
• 21:44
  Loren Richmond Jr (56:27) Yeah.
• 21:48
  Mm-hmm.
• 21:52
  Right.
• 21:56
  Okay.
• 22:00
  Kelsey (56:50) is just a way of trying to encourage churches to look at the people they have, the musicians they have, and the songs that they love, and be okay if the music, the musical worship at your church looks really weird because it starts from there, because you're looking inward first and then to the extent that there's a popular song that comes out and you're like, wow, this song really resonates, great. If not, you're looking inside your community first.
• 22:04
  Loren Richmond Jr (57:05) Yeah.
• 22:08
  Hmm.
• 22:12
  Kelsey (57:20) I think a lot of communities would be well served by that. But in an era of social media where we have all these models of what hype, high energy, high produced, slick worship can look like, I think it's just becoming harder and harder for churches to feel good about doing that.
• 22:16
  Loren Richmond Jr (57:29) Right, right.
• 22:20
  Yeah. I do think it goes back to something you've made the point, like this, this foundational point, like what is congregational singing? I mean, again, I use the, think about the whole service as a worship service. Like what is that worship service for? You know, I would, I guess if you press me, like I would say it's about giving praise to God and also some amount of formation within us. But yeah. So I think if, if we're asking those foundational questions and like then
• 22:24
  you know, then of course like we do also have the challenges like The church down the street is super trendy and hip and cool and all the kids are going there So we feel like we need to we need to replicate that ⁓ So it is a challenge for sure
• 22:28
  Kelsey (58:23) Yeah, well, and I, know, the all the kids are going there was certainly true 15 years ago. I am curious to know if that's going to still be the case in the next five to 10 years. I don't know. Like.
• 22:32
  Loren Richmond Jr (58:30) Right.
• 22:36
  Well, this is, this
• 22:40
  is, this is something I did want to ask you about is there has been rumblings about like liturgy coming back and high church tradition, even in like, I keep like my cohost and I, Martha Tartaric, we keep hearing even from evangelicals about utilizing the daily office, for instance, like, do you see some trends to move towards a more formal or richer, deeper historical tradition type of worship?
• 22:44
  Kelsey (59:06) Yeah, it's hard to say how widespread they are, but I do think there's some interesting data that points to growing interest. think ⁓ the kind of sustained growth of the ACNA, the Anglican Church of North America, I think the sustained growth of that is potentially an indicator. It's evangelicals, conservatives, looking for something that feels more high church. I think that's an interesting indicator. ⁓
• 22:48
  Loren Richmond Jr (59:18) Okay. Yeah. Yep.
• 22:52
  Right, right, right.
• 22:56
  Kelsey (59:34) I do think, I mean, I've been reporting a bit about churches that are going back to hymnals. think some congregations are looking for a diet of music that feels more stable, that it's not being moved by algorithms and trending songs quite so much. That's an indicator. And I also think it's important that
• 23:00
  Loren Richmond Jr (59:41) Yeah.
• 23:04
  Yeah. Right. Right.
• 23:08
  Kelsey (59:56) you know, contemporary worship music isn't new and rebellious anymore. It's not like new and trendy anymore. For a lot of Gen Z Christians and especially Gen Alpha, it's the norm. If they grew up in church, it's what they will have experienced. And awareness of mega church worship broadly is much higher than it used to be. And so it used to be the assumption that while young people are looking for the new exciting things, so they want to go to the new exciting church downtown that has a rock band, right?
• 23:12
  That doesn't have the same cultural meaning it used to have right that used to signal There's something fresh and exciting happening here. This is a different faith than that of my parents and grandparents, but that's not that's not the case So for me the question is well What's going to be the thing that indicates that there's something new and fresh going on here? ⁓ If and that might have nothing to do with the music it might have to do with other things about the culture of the church It might have to do with I don't know
• 23:16
  things like a higher church feel, maybe the minister wears a collar, maybe something about that will be drawing. But I also think that music that feels radically different, churches that are kind of pushing back against the hyper-polished megachurch worship and doing something that feels more grounded and eclectic, and I hate the word authentic, but I'm going to use that here, that kind of reads that way. I think there's a chance that that starts to be the draw. And you know,
• 23:20
  Loren Richmond Jr (1:00:59) Yeah.
• 23:24
  Yeah.
• 23:28
  Kelsey (1:01:26) We're talking about incredibly diverse population of people. It's not gonna be the same thing for everybody. But I do think it's important to kind of observe the ways this changes in the next 10 years or so because the contemporary setup doesn't mean the same thing for Gen Z and Gen Alpha that it meant for millennials and Gen X and boomers.
• 23:32
  Loren Richmond Jr (1:01:30) Right, right.
• 23:36
  Yeah, yeah.
• 23:40
  Okay, we're running out of time here. got to ask you one more question before we take a break. Thinking about, one of the things I do right now is work with worship leaders and it's nonprofit called Green Room Leaders. We exist to strengthen the creative soul of worship leaders and help them get them off the ministry treadmill. They did pay me to say that. ⁓ Not enough though, not enough.
• 23:44
  Kelsey (1:02:11) Not enough. That is a ministry.
• 23:48
  Loren Richmond Jr (1:02:14) ⁓ thinking about pastoral health and particularly the pastoral health of, of, a worship leader, someone in that role, like, I mean, I think like, like the clergy person, like, like, someone in a pastoral role where I'm most familiar with, they have a unique set of challenges and expectations. What are some of those expectations or, or ways that are most noticeable or, you're having conversations around of late?
• 23:52
  Kelsey (1:02:40) Worship leaders feel so much pressure to make sure the service feels right. I think a lot of senior pastors kind of get to show up and they preach, they deliver the word. Worship pastors, at least at most churches, right? If a church has a full-time worship person, chances are they are also like the de facto. ⁓
• 23:56
  Loren Richmond Jr (1:02:47) ⁓ yeah.
• 24:00
  Right.
• 24:04
  Kelsey (1:03:06) like designer of the service, they're choosing songs, they're probably doing a lot of sound work, they might be putting together the slides, they're assembling the teams if there are teams. know, the like, the burden of getting the aesthetics right falls to the worship leader. And I think that ⁓ that is really wearing, it feels like a high pressure kind of production director role in ways that I know a lot of senior pastors feel this way too.
• 24:08
  Loren Richmond Jr (1:03:08) Yes. Yeah. Yeah.
• 24:12
  Okay.
• 24:16
  Mm-hmm.
• 24:20
  Kelsey (1:03:35) But worship leaders are wearing more hats, I think, at least when it comes to the production of a Sunday morning. And maybe I'm biased because I talk to more worship leaders and I do senior pastors, but it seems to me that worship leaders are shouldering a lot of little burdens that have to do with giving a good impression.
• 24:24
  Loren Richmond Jr (1:03:44) I mean...
• 24:28
  Kelsey (1:03:57) because Sunday morning is when that impression happens and that has to do with aesthetics, making sure things go well, making sure the set flows well, making sure it's exciting or making sure it feels right. There are all these little things and that's really heavy, heavy burden. It sort of feels like they're the salespeople for the church sometimes. And I think that's a little unfair, ⁓ especially around times like Christmas and Easter when it feels like the stakes are high, people are coming, you know.
• 24:32
  Loren Richmond Jr (1:03:57) Yeah.
• 24:36
  Right.
• 24:40
  I'm thinking just like, I don't know if you thought of this, but I thought about how like in many evangelical circles, like the, singing or the worship music in this, the sermon, I think in some sense function is like the two sacraments. So I think, I think what you're saying makes sense. Cause like, if you have a song directly following the sermon that, that, you know, falls flat, like the pastor's not going to be thrilled. Like I would not be thrilled conversely. Like if, if folks come in before the sermon and just like,
• 24:44
  Kelsey (1:04:41) Yes.
• 24:48
  Loren Richmond Jr (1:04:56) flat like it is somewhat I don't this is too too harsh to say like it's somewhat like an opening act for the comedian right or for the I mean I hate to yeah
• 24:52
  Kelsey (1:05:07) It sure can feel that way sometimes.
• 24:56
  Yeah. Yeah. And it's a, it's a heavy burden. think, um, you know, especially at bigger churches, worship pastors also have to be, you know, managers of, of teams of people. Um, you know, the writing of a sermon can be solitary in a way that rehearsing music is not, unless you're the only one at the piano, the only one at the guitar. takes some relational effort running rehearsal is tiring. Um,
• 25:00
  Loren Richmond Jr (1:05:10) Yeah.
• 25:04
  Yeah.
• 25:08
  Hmm.
• 25:12
  Mm-hmm.
• 25:16
  Kelsey (1:05:38) There are a lot of really unique things about music ministry that are creative and I think life-giving for people who love it, but also depending on the scale and the size of your church, ⁓ you can find yourself, I think, feeling ⁓ like the production manager.
• 25:20
  Loren Richmond Jr (1:05:57) Okay. We're running short on time. So let me ask you this as a closing question then. If you are worship ministry Pope for a day.
• 25:24
  Kelsey (1:06:08) you
• 25:28
  Loren Richmond Jr (1:06:10) What are you changing? What are you doing in that day?
• 25:32
  Kelsey (1:06:15) man, mean, gosh, that's a crazy question. But I think probably saying something, giving some kind of address or writing some kind of encyclical about what I said earlier about creative local eclecticism. I want worship leaders to feel like they can shape the musical worship of their church.
• 25:36
  Loren Richmond Jr (1:06:34) Okay.
• 25:40
  Kelsey (1:06:44) congregation first, right? Like specific to their congregation. I want them to talk to anyone and everyone at their church. What instruments do you play? Do you play flute? Do you play oboe? Do you play cello? What do we have here? ⁓ What songs do you like? Let's like rediscover the musical tastes and preferences of our church. Let's forge a musical identity that's ours and
• 25:44
  figure out what it looks like to sing together as the people of God, not using any other kind of model of any other churches, our model of what that should look and sound like. ⁓ That's what I, that's the encouragement I would want to give. I wouldn't hand down any like mandates or anything, but man, I would love to just be able to give that encouragement to worship leaders, church musicians. ⁓
• 25:48
  to pursue that kind of creative local eclecticism.
• 25:52
  Loren Richmond Jr (1:07:50) I think that's really good. And I'm frankly feeling convicted myself as someone has been in the pastoral role thinking about my church's music. Share if you want like your, you know, if anything, you want to say your book, how folks could connect with you, your writing at CT, all that stuff.
• 25:56
  Kelsey (1:08:09) Sure, yeah, you can ⁓ find my writing on Christianity Today's website under my name Kelsey McGinnis. I've got a lot of articles about church life and music, a of kind of practical ministry reported pieces and also some kind of broader cultural think pieces there. I also have a sub stack just under my name. I will sometimes ⁓ post follow ups to my writing that I've done for CT. Sometimes it's other stuff.
• 26:00
  I did have a book come out last year called The Myth of Good Christian Parenting with Brazos Press that you can ⁓ order if that is of interest to you. It's the recent history of Christian parenting teaching focusing on kind of evangelical worlds. So think like James Dobson focus on the family and since then. So if you're someone who was impacted by those, then you can find them.
• 26:04
  I'm on all social media that you can just find me at my name. Any of the platforms, I'm probably there.
• 26:08
  Loren Richmond Jr (1:09:04) Well, thank you so much for your time. really, really appreciate the long extended conversation and I hope this is helpful for our listeners. really, really have appreciated it. We always leave folks with a word of peace. So may God's peace be with you.