Latest / Kids Ministry Calling with Jana Magruder / 79. The Power of Music in Kids Ministry: Using Songs to Teach Biblical Truth

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79. The Power of Music in Kids Ministry: Using Songs to Teach Biblical Truth · Kids Ministry Calling with Jana Magruder

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Are you dedicated to working with kids and families in the local church?
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_00: Well, clearly that's more than a career, that's a cumbling.
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_00: I'm Dana Magruder, and this is Kids Ministry Cumbling.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_00: I want you to think back to a song that you learned as a child.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_00: Chances are you can still sing it today.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_00: Because there's something powerful about music.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_00: Long after a lesson is forgotten or a game is over, the truth that we sing has a way of staying with us.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_00: And that's why the songs we teach our kids matter so much.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_00: So, how do we create music that's not only fun and engaging, but also deeply rooted in scripture?
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_00: In today's episode, I'm joined by two songwriters for Lifeway Kids, my friends Paul Marino and Jeremy Johnson.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_00: We discuss the songwriting that goes into kids' ministry, what makes a great worship song for children, and how creativity and symmetology work together to help kids know, love, and remember God's tree.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_00: And of course, we talk about BBM songs through the years and even find out what some of their favorites are.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_00: So whether you're choosing songs for Sunday morning, leading worship, or simply thinking about how kids learn best, this conversation will encourage you to think differently about the lasting impact of music.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_00: So enjoy this conversation with Paul and Jeremy.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_00: Hello, everyone.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_00: Today is gonna be a super fun day because I am joined in the studio with two of our favorite songwriters that we get to work with at Lifeway Kids, uh Paul Marino and Jeremy Johnson.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_00: Uh welcome.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for joining me.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for having us for having us.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_00: You guys are fairly local just down the road in Franklin and Columbia.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_00: Spring Hill.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_00: Is it Franklin or Spring Hill?
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_00: Thompson Station, okay.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_00: Um, all the Tennessee towns that are south of here.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and so thanks for driving up and joining us in studio.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_00: It's always fun to be in person with people.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so audience, listeners, watchers, uh, I know you guys are going to love this episode because we are gonna kind of get a peek under the hood of what it's like to uh be a songwriter for uh kids' ministry, for VBS especially, and how that fits into the intentionality of what we do with discipleship.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_00: So all season we've been talking about discipleship, which is our main calling, right?
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_00: And so, how do we use the power of music to help us in that effort?
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_00: And so I've invited Paul and Jeremy to uh to join us to have that conversation.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_00: So, all right, you guys, before we get started, I just really want to hear your journey.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_00: I've heard bits and pieces, but for our audience, your journey into uh songwriting and into music, kind of what is your, I don't know, your Nashville songwriter story.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_00: If we did a little show on you, everybody's watched these shows about songwriters.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_00: If we did a little show on you, what would that be?
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_00: Paul, do you want to start?
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I started um in Minnesota, grew up there, and uh in high school I took up piano and guitar and and I was we had a basement, and so my dad bought a little spin-up piano when he started hearing me play guitar, and he he kind of wanted me to play piano, so he bought a little spin-up piano, and I started fiddling around on there, and I started actually writing songs.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_02: Just learning how to do it.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_02: I was about 15.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, and uh so I started writing songs, and then in my senior year of high school, my choir director had to leave and not come back for the year, and so they had a substitute teacher who wasn't a choir director, and so they actually made me the choir director at my high school for the year.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_02: Oh wow.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_02: And I had a couple of my own songs, so I asked them if I could teach him the songs, and so our choir did those songs and it kind of sparked my imagination to do more.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_02: And so I went went to college to a small college for music and uh did writing there and got in one of those ministry group teams and wrote the songs for that team over the year, and then that led me into um really um writing Christian music when I I got saved when I was 16, and so I started all my music I ever wrote was really Christian.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_02: And then um, but then for a while there I got into the jingle business, so I was writing commercial jingles.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_04: Oh, interesting.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_02: Twin Cities had a pretty big jingle market, and then I moved to Indiana and started doing that, and then and long story short, um moved back to the Twin Cities, and the group that I traveled with in college, three of us started a group called River, and we traveled for about 25 years doing writing our own music and singing our own songs on the radio and different things.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_02: And uh and when we decided to start to slow down because our kids were getting to the age where being on the road and raising a family was just too much.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_02: We didn't feel like that was the best thing to do.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I made the move to Nashville, and uh we we had been coming here to record anyway, and then I had a few mentors and uh one of the guys that were producing one of our records, um Greg Nelson, said, You really need to be in Nashville if you want to write with other writers, right?
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_02: And that'll lead to Jeremy and I because um I moved to Nashville and Lifeway was starting a publishing company and they needed two writers, and Greg was one of the people that was helping Lifeway find two writers they he thought could write for Lifeway and be accessible and write the kind of things Lifeway could use, and and he ended up putting Jeremy and I together.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_02: And so we've been together for about 23 years now.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, doing writing for LifeWay.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_02: So he and I have been writing s ever since, partnering hundreds of songs.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_00: That's amazing.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_00: All right, chime in, Jeremy.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_01: Uh I grew up in Shreveport, Louisiana.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_01: So very far away from Minnesota.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_01: So Paul, I'm the Southern Redneck, Paul's the Northern Redneck.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_02: And he teases me all the time by the accent.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, yeah.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_01: We we have accent teasing all the time.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_01: That's okay.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_01: So similar story.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_01: I grew up in church.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_01: Um, thankful to my mom and dad for uh taking me to church Wednesday nights and Sunday mornings and Sunday nights.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_01: And um I was always interested in music, but um songwriting for me started probably around the seventh or eighth grade when I started writing songs at our little upright piano at home.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_01: First song I ever wrote was a love song for this girl that I liked.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_01: It was called Fill Me With Your Love.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_01: And uh my mom still has the cassette tape.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_01: She's very proud.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_01: She's very proud of that.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_01: And uh my voice was about three octaves higher than it is right now.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_00: And did the girl ever hear the song?
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_01: Uh it didn't work.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_01: No, so songwriting at that point in my life was not fruitful.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_01: So um but I kept writing just because I loved it.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, you know, I loved um, you know, Phil Collins and you know, Richard Marks and like, you know, some of that, you know, really good, just the ballad type, you know, songs are the type of songs that moved me.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_01: And in the 10th, I didn't know that Christian music existed because we did not have a local Christian uh radio station.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_01: Um so my first exposure to CCM was I went to a Stephen Curtis Chapman concert when I was in the 10th grade at the Hirsch Coliseum in Shreveport, Louisiana.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_01: And I went home that night with this fire inside of me that I could not explain, but I knew how it felt, and I knew that I wanted to somehow be part of that industry.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_01: So um, through that concert and through uh a lot of help from mentors in my life at the time, I ended up making the move to Nashville because I got similar advice that if you want to do this, you need to be here.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_01: Went to Belmont University and, you know, in Shreeport, I thought I was the big deal because my band played all the weddings and funerals and you know parties and everything.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_01: And I got to Nashville and realized that there were 500 other people just like me that were doing the same thing in their respective hometowns.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, a little bit of um frustration and discouragement there, but also just sort of a wake-up call to like, you know, this is a competitive town.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so I, you know, kept doing music, but I started doing it just because I loved it and I wasn't really pursuing it as a career as much uh when I graduated Belmont.
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_01: And my wife and I did uh a project together right after we got married.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_01: It was called Choir of Two.
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_01: And I wrote uh all of the songs for that.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_01: And Greg Nelson, the guy that signed me here as a writer, he had heard that project.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_01: And um, we thought we we thought that he was interested in us as an artist, but he was hearing more of the songwriting than anything.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_01: And he he knew what I did uh from a songwriting perspective and what Paul did.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_01: And when he when he set us up to write for the first time, I had never co-written a song in my life.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_01: I had written everything on my own, a couple of things with Mary Beth, but um, so that was a new experience for me.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_01: But that's how I ended up writing for Life Way.
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_01: I had this was never on my bingo card, and it's the greatest joy and and honor and privilege to get to do what I do.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_01: But like I didn't I didn't pursue this specific thing.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_01: I I was pursuing a lot of other things, and God just totally opened the door for me to do this.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for sharing those stories.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_00: We love to talk about calling stories on this podcast, and so usually we have more of a ministry uh calling.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_00: This is a ministry, but I appreciate hearing the the history of just how you got here, how you got to town.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, listeners, you may have a a Paul and Jeremy in your ministry that you start noticing, hey, this child could be a songwriter or a musician or a singer.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_00: Um, always be looking for those things to call out in kids and teenagers.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, because I think that's have you ever gotten to tell Stephen Curtis your your uh story?
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_01: I did.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_01: I told him, I told him briefly when Greg was inducted to the to the Gospel Music Hall of Fame, I found Stephen and told him that's great.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_01: Told him that story.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_00: That's awesome that you could do that.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_00: Well, let's get into our topic.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I want to ask you guys a few questions.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_00: I have questions.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I've told you some of them, um, but we'll just see where the conversation takes us.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_00: So, um, first of all, why do you think uh music is such a powerful tool for spiritual formation?
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_00: It's a big question.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_00: Who would like to take that first?
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_02: Well, he'll answer it better than me, but I'll so I'll start and he can punt at home.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_02: Um well, I think obviously uh music is a heart language.
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_02: It's it's it's it is God's language.
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_02: What you know, one uh one of the things that in art and in uh nature and beauty, music um boy, sound, sound travel, just think about sound, how it travels in the water through whales and different things.
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_02: Music is everywhere.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_02: If you listen for it, you can hear it.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_02: In the mornings, I I get up and have my coffee and and I've been starting to listen to the birds chirping.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_02: And there's like 12 different sounds going, and I it's like a choir out there.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_02: And so I think it's natural that music is just a natural uh uh binder to us in God's God's spirit.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_02: And so I think it is a spiritual thing, and I think it's from God, and and when we uh get in tune with Him, He He pours Himself through that.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_02: And so for me it's it's it's everywhere.
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_02: It's it's a part of who we are.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that language uh, you know, it's able to express the language of music is able to express what oftentimes we can't say.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, we can't put into words.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_01: And I think about you know, the power of music, like for example, in in film, if you were to watch a scene, uh I think about the scene.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_01: I've seen a documentary on this uh in the movie E.T.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_01: where the bike is taken off of the at the mountain at the end of it.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_01: If that didn't have that musical score underneath it that we can all hear, right?
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_01: If you watch, if you watch that scene, you know, without the music, it it's it's not nearly as meaningful or as powerful.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_01: But if you shut off the if you shut off the picture and you only hear the music, you can see in your mind what's happening.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_01: You know, so totally so music is music is so powerful, there's there's nothing else like it.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_01: And what we love about it too is that it's universal.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it's not tied to any region or any culture.
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, the language of music is like it's this it's like a smile.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_01: You know, a smile is recognizable anywhere in the world.
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_01: I think that music is the same way.
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_02: And that clip, interesting that clip that you're talking about, the ET, uh it's a very fascinating one.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_02: Want to talk more more powerful about that.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_02: Is uh Steven Spielberg hired John Williams to do that score.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_00: The best.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_02: And so he said, do it and John Williams that scene, he was in the studio with the orchestra saying, telling Stephen, I can't make what I wrote for this fit your edited scene already.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_02: And they say in movies, once it's edited, the musician better figure out how to fit it.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_02: And so Stephen took him aside.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_02: He said he said, I will re-edit it.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_02: You do you play it the way you feel and I'll make it work.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_02: And he saw the magic in how beautiful that music was.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_02: That the music was gonna make that scene.
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_02: And it's funny that you said such a powerful scene with music, that even Steve Steven Spielberg said, I'll humble myself and make sure that that music makes that scene come over.
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_02: That's amazing.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_02: So that's pretty cool.
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_00: And so you you brought up that as a memory.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_00: How can we use music in our kids' ministries to make you know, use lyrics to help kids remember biblical truth?
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_02: You know, I love um more and more as we've been doing it, I love uh putting music to scripture.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_02: And it can be a daunting task at times because it depends on the scripture.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_00: You know, some scriptures are just Yes, we through the years of trying to work in scriptures, we're all in your laptop.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_02: And then you're also musically, you want to do some sort of semblance of rhyme.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_02: And we figured out how to weave that by repeating the line twice to get some scient different things like that.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_02: But but there's nothing greater than when you can take uh the living word of God, which is living and breathing.
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_02: You know, I'm I'm the word, the the word is made flesh that that word put to music.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_02: And so our goal is to what is the melody doing to say to try to make that scripture, you know, well, honor it, number one.
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and then also making it come alive in a way that uh puts it in your head and you you you don't forget it.
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_02: It's simple the mel melodic structure of the way the rhythm and the melody goes that it it it gets right into you and it stays there.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_02: And and if scripture's in you, yeah, that's that doesn't go void.
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_02: That's right.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_02: It doesn't return void.
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_02: That's right.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_01: And I I don't understand fully the science behind it, but I think there's a reason that you know when we teach kids ABCs, it's always to a song.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_00: Totally.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_01: You know, because it helps them to remember that.
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_01: Um so yeah, that's you know, I have a horrible memory.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I can't remember a song that I wrote three weeks.
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_01: Like if you asked me the lyrics to the VBS songs, I probably would have to have my phone and look it up.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_01: As many times as I've heard them.
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_01: But but for me, memorizing scripture, these songs have been beneficial for my own discipleship to learn these scriptures and hide them in my heart.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_01: And you were mentioning earlier some of the more difficult ones.
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_01: You know, for me, I think about the first time that we looked at the scripture verse for uh Spark Studios, we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God has, I can't even say it, prepared for us ahead of time for us to do.
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_01: Like we're like, how on earth?
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_01: But like, you know, we approach these things in prayer, um, obviously, and we we ask God, what do you want to say to these kids?
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_01: How do you want them to hear it?
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and it became apparent to us the first thing that we do is we read the scripture because as even as challenging as that scripture was, it still had it has a cadence and a feel when you speak it.
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_01: And when we spoke it, we are his workmanship created.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_01: Like it has this so that helped us to establish the time signature of the song because it was 12.8, which is you know, it's in it's it's four, but it's triplets.
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_01: We are his workmanship, and that is where that song started because we were like, we have to get the scripture part of it right because we're gonna be fitting a square peg into a round hole if we write a different song and then try to retroactively add the scripture to it.
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_01: So I would say that most of the time when we start a VBS theme song, we start by writing the scripture portion of it because that to us is the most important thing that the kids will sing and learn.
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_00: And we're so honored and glad that you do that.
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but I didn't know that little fun fact behind Spark Studios that it defined the whole signature, because that is a mouthful of a scripture.
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_00: It truly is.
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but you guys were up for the challenge.
• 16:55
  unknown: Nice.
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_00: Um, through the years, as we've worked together on different um songs and BBS themes and things like that, it's been so fun getting to um be at the table together, just with the team and you guys, and be able to um uh bring some ideas and thoughts behind what do we want this particular biblical content and and theme to be represented by a musical style.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_00: And you guys have you have such a wide range of um being able to, hey, let's take it more theatrical this year, or let's take it more of a, you know, uh, like I know K-pop is super popular right now for kids, you know.
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_00: Let's let's maybe experiment with some of that sound or vibe.
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_00: Um and just it's been you guys have a large vocabulary in terms of music um style and approaches.
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_00: So let's talk about what has been some of your favorite ones.
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_00: I I feel like our audience would love to hear if you if you had to choose one or two favorites that you've done.
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_00: You've done 15 now we were talking about before we hit record.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_00: What do you think?
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_02: Well, one that comes to mind for me, I I just don't know it's submerged.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_02: I just I like the way I don't know, it's just the nautical the underwater and uh just the imagery and stuff was just one of those kind of the themes were was great.
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_02: Um outside of that, I'm trying to think I like them all for different reasons.
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_02: Sure.
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_02: Um you know, number one, Lifeway gives such strong themes and such good content.
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_02: So that part of it's great.
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_02: Then you go, how do you make it musical?
• 18:39
  SPEAKER_02: But um yeah, the yeah, the submerged then I think um I'm actually not to try to promote next year, but I'm really excited about next year.
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_02: It the songs just really flowed up right, and they're just feeling really good.
• 18:53
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, so yes, I like them too.
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_00: I'm super excited.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_02: So I'm excited about that.
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_02: I'm always excited about what I'm working on, what's next?
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_02: You know, like yeah, what's your favorite song you ever wrote?
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_02: My next one.
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_02: Your next one, yeah.
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_01: That kind of thing.
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_00: What about you, Jeremy?
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_01: Uh I would also say submerged.
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_01: Really?
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_00: That's my favorite too.
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_01: Just because I'm there.
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_01: We were so surprised.
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_01: We took a chance on that theme song when we wrote it because we're like, they're basically screaming on pitch.
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_01: And when we recorded the vocals for that, like it was one of the hardest vocals to produce because we wanted them to scream it, but it had to be on pitch.
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_01: At what point do you start to fall off of the pitch, you know?
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_01: But like through the years, we've heard from a lot of churches that that's kind of one of their favorite theme songs.
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_01: But also, I think about that year, uh, we had a lot of fun chasing the like the ABC submarine.
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_01: Uh the A the uh ABC song is always the most challenging and the most fun to write because it's the same lyric every year.
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_01: So, how do we do it again and again?
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, and then for me, the the ballad that year, actually it was the day five song, uh deeper still.
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_01: Like that's that's my testimony, you know.
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_01: When I think about that lyric, um, in the deep, in the deep, your love has breathed new life back into me.
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_01: Now that I know how mercy feels, I want to go deeper still.
• 20:05
  SPEAKER_01: Like, I want to sing that, you know.
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_01: Like that's my that's my testimony.
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_01: My story.
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_01: Um also like yeah, bubble and up.
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, yes, bubble.
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_01: I get teased by all my friends by writing a song called Bubblin'.
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_02: We were literally sitting in a restaurant, lunch, talking about it, and we started both at the almost the same time bubbling up, bubbling up.
• 20:26
  SPEAKER_01: No, they brought our drinks out.
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, yeah.
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_01: And and my I think I got a diet coat, and uh we were sitting there looking at the bubbles, they're like, and I was joking.
• 20:33
  SPEAKER_01: I said to you, we should write a song called Bubblin' Up, and we wrote the chorus there at the restaurant.
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, that's the story behind the song.
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_00: Gotcha.
• 20:41
  SPEAKER_01: Bubbling up, bubbling up.
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_01: And we're like, we know the melody has to keep climbing and climbing up to the surface.
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 20:49
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, I love watching you guys write in real time.
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_00: I've had the privilege of going to their studio a couple of times, and it's just so fun to get to see how you guys work together, how you work with all the different sounds and the instruments and uh rhythms, and it's just fascinating and so fun to watch.
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but I didn't know the bubbling up story that's a lot of people.
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_00: The bubble and up story, yeah.
• 21:12
  SPEAKER_00: Um, has in terms of just teaching kids deep theological truths, um, which I mean every year in VBS we we do that, we go there, we're not afraid to.
• 21:24
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_00: Um, are there some theological um things that have been harder for you to put in a song?
• 21:35
  SPEAKER_01: I think that it's all hard because you want kids to I mean, this is the foundation of their faith.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_01: So we want them to understand, you know, things like uh, you know, grace and mercy, um and you know, like you said, you know, the gospel and things like that that conceptually to us, we talk about those things all the time.
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_01: But like to a a first grader, yeah.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_01: How do you explain that in a way that makes sense to them?
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, Lifeway, as Paul said earlier, is so good about like we don't we don't have to solve all of this in this in a song because they're the teaching is you know supplemental to what we write in the music, but it's um it's very um helpful, like if we're talking about grace and mercy, we talk to kids about you know how to be a friend who forgives other people, you know, how to um um not get angry, you know, things like that.
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_01: And then if we're talking about um, you know, uh holiness, for example, right?
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_01: We just iter reiterate that Jesus was the only person who ever lived a perfect life, and they can understand that.
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_01: You know, they might might not understand the term holiness, but that's what holiness means.
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you know, so um it's it's always challenging, but the greatest blessing for us as songwriters, and we do not um take this for granted, is that every lyric that we write, sometimes it's frustrating to us, but it's always the right thing, is scrutinized by by multiple third parties to make sure that theologically we are being accurate and we are being correct because we do the last thing in the world that we would ever want to do is to be irresponsible with theology and what we're putting into these kids' hearts.
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_01: That is the most important thing that we do, which is why we we love putting scripture in songs because we know that that's right, you know.
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's God's work, right?
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_01: It's God's work.
• 23:25
  SPEAKER_01: But like when we when we try to we try to like add some cool way to say something, we're like that might sound really cool and and kids might like that, but is that is that right theologically?
• 23:36
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_02: So I um think too is just um when we approach writing, instead of trying to always chase after what's the coolest, and and there's so many styles out there, and you want to get every kid has different things they like, and you know, you grow up, but pop is kind of the basic format to start off.
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_02: Most of the kids are into the pop realm, you know, different things, but um writing writing those um songs with with the intent of how does how does that that drawing the picture the best it can for the lyric we're doing?
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_02: And uh you know uh theology is hard in that you know i if you're just writing a song and you're saying, just write me a song, you can and it's secular, you can do any word you want.
• 24:23
  SPEAKER_02: We this is a mission we're on.
• 24:26
  SPEAKER_02: This is it this is a mission to raise up a kid to know the Lord and to disciple them in the Lord.
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_02: So uh there is a church language, and I think the hardest thing is um is how do you write uh as creatively as you you can, but continue to use the church language because we shouldn't be afraid of the church language.
• 24:45
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, we shouldn't be afraid of mercy, grace, holiness, even though in the world those concepts really are hard to grab onto, but but to really lean into that.
• 24:57
  SPEAKER_02: And I think as a song, we can we can be a little bit more wide with it, especially when you're teaching them that what it all means in a deeper sense.
• 25:08
  SPEAKER_02: So we can just put a memorable point on it.
• 25:11
  SPEAKER_02: But hopefully, um you go back to in the deep, that's why probably that song that was a visual when you're talking about getting deep with the Lord and then going deep in the water, and you go when you when a kid jumps underwater, there's something amazing when you come up to get air and you're going deeper.
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and to connect that to the depth of God's love.
• 25:34
  SPEAKER_02: Um, that's an awesome opportunity to do that.
• 25:37
  SPEAKER_02: So I think if when we can get imagery, but never steer away.
• 25:41
  SPEAKER_02: And I think too the hard thing, sometimes we try to lean towards we may speak it that a kid may not quite understand it, and you guys will correct us on that, which is fine.
• 25:51
  SPEAKER_02: So we sent in a song, knowing that guys, it's a little over their head, possibly.
• 25:57
  SPEAKER_02: But I'd rather lean into the depth and hope.
• 26:01
  SPEAKER_02: I believe kids can grasp more than we think they can.
• 26:05
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and sometimes you don't have the time to get to explain it as much, so you have to kind of figure out what's and you die guys are great at coming back to us and saying, you know, that's a little too much.
• 26:17
  SPEAKER_02: Can you reword that?
• 26:18
  SPEAKER_02: And we try to find a way to soften the stuff.
• 26:20
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's a balance.
• 26:21
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's a it's a balance, but I'd always want to lean towards depth.
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_02: And I think of a story with my kid.
• 26:27
  SPEAKER_02: Eli was about three and a half years old, and we were taking a vacation around Easter time out to California, and we woke up late and we the church was too far away, so we said, let's just go down to the beach and have church there.
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_02: And we went down the beach with our Eli and our kids.
• 26:44
  SPEAKER_02: And Eli asked us, so he we were looking at the ocean, telling that God created the ocean, it's made of water, salt water, and all this.
• 26:51
  SPEAKER_02: And he looks at us and says, Um, did God God made the ocean?
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_02: We said, Yeah, he made the ocean.
• 26:59
  SPEAKER_02: The ocean's made of water, yep, and it's got salt.
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_02: And he goes, God made my tears, didn't he?
• 27:05
  SPEAKER_02: Because we talked about his salt and his tears.
• 27:08
  SPEAKER_02: He remembered about salty tears at another conversation.
• 27:11
  SPEAKER_02: He says, God's bigger than my tears.
• 27:14
  SPEAKER_02: And I thought, you know, here's this depth.
• 27:16
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 27:16
  SPEAKER_02: I said to looked at my wife, I said, Well, there's our sermon for the day.
• 27:21
  SPEAKER_02: God is bigger than our tears.
• 27:23
  SPEAKER_02: And uh, here's this little kid already kind of understanding that God cares about our when we're sad.
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 27:31
  SPEAKER_02: And how how and so the bigness of God, coming down to the intimacy of how He loves us individually.
• 27:39
  SPEAKER_02: And I think you do that well.
• 27:41
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, we've done some themes where it's the bigness of God in the smallest of things.
• 27:47
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I love that we teach kids the bigness that God is the is so big that um that is a wow thing, and we should always be in awe of God.
• 27:59
  SPEAKER_02: And the fact that that wow turns into little wows in me that He does in my life.
• 28:07
  SPEAKER_00: Well, and it's those deep truths that uh, and this speaks to the power of music, that um they remember those songs, they're hiding them in their heart, and then maybe later in their teen years, the Lord brings those songs, those lyrics back to mind, and they start to kind of have an uh see that song, hear that song, or that verse in a whole new light, in a powerful way.
• 28:30
  SPEAKER_00: And that's why we make these earworms that are sometimes annoying to you, audience.
• 28:36
  SPEAKER_02: Well, you know, if there's they're hearing these scriptures over their lifetime too, you know.
• 28:41
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, a scripture that's preached once, and then they sing it and they learn it, and then yeah, someday and they're sitting in their college dorm room, exactly, and that scripture comes, they hear it or they read it, or it comes across their path, and that song hits their head, and it just sticks it.
• 28:58
  SPEAKER_02: And sometimes a song can stick in your head for a day.
• 29:01
  SPEAKER_02: You know, I hate that when it happens sometimes when I can't get a song out of my head, but that's what the power of it is.
• 29:07
  SPEAKER_00: But with those deep spiritual truths, nothing better.
• 29:11
  SPEAKER_00: So I have another question for you guys.
• 29:13
  SPEAKER_00: Let's talk about this.
• 29:14
  SPEAKER_00: What role should music play in a church's overall discipleship strategy?
• 29:19
  SPEAKER_00: So we we've talked a lot about VBS.
• 29:22
  SPEAKER_00: We're talking about kids' ministry, but music overall, how can that shape, help shape a church-wide discipleship strategy?
• 29:32
  SPEAKER_01: I think it's super important um for the pastor and worship pastor to be on the same page with the vision, mission, and vision of the church.
• 29:40
  SPEAKER_01: Um, for example, you know, I I'm a member at uh Brentwood Baptist Church.
• 29:46
  SPEAKER_01: We go to the Station Hill campus, but um, there's a a a lot of intentionality between what Luke Roman, our worship pastor, uh plans based on what John Joseph, our pastor, is going to be teaching about.
• 29:59
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that those having that cohesion is really important.
• 30:03
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I think that it's important for the congregation to have not necessarily a sound, but like, um, I mean, culturally, every congregation has a different sound.
• 30:13
  SPEAKER_01: You might have a congregation that's, you know, sings mostly hymns, or you might have a congregation that sings, you know, a blended um, you know, modern songs and hymns, which is what our church is.
• 30:24
  SPEAKER_01: And then you might have other congregations that do all modern stuff, all what they write.
• 30:29
  SPEAKER_01: But um, to me, it's important that the theology that you're singing about matches up with the theology that's being taught from the from the pulpit.
• 30:38
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 30:39
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, that's not always the case, but like um, I think that successful, growing, healthy churches do have that in place.
• 30:47
  SPEAKER_01: And that's, I don't think, to be underestimated.
• 30:49
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 30:50
  SPEAKER_00: And that trickles down to your children's ministry.
• 30:53
  SPEAKER_01: Totally.
• 30:54
  SPEAKER_00: Uh are you um aligned with the theology that um that your church and your pastor is um is speaking.
• 31:03
  SPEAKER_00: So that's kind of a little litmus test that you can have.
• 31:08
  SPEAKER_00: Um, do I do what we're choosing to sing in children's ministry, whether that's in choir or your worship time, um, or just using some of these songs?
• 31:16
  SPEAKER_00: It's I like to call them teaching songs.
• 31:18
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 31:19
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I think um, you know, a pastor preaches a 45-minute sermon, and and even as an adult, I sit and go, my goal is what one thing can I pull out of the sermon today?
• 31:30
  SPEAKER_02: Because I can't, my personality doesn't allow me to have three different thoughts.
• 31:35
  SPEAKER_02: They have a three-point sermon, I'm going, okay, I'm gonna figure out which point I'm gonna grab onto for the week.
• 31:40
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 31:42
  SPEAKER_02: The song can be like when you give us uh the uh gist of what you want to say for the day, our our job is to come up with a concise way of finding that point, one point in song as an exclamation point.
• 31:58
  SPEAKER_02: And if the church does that, then at least you can expound on it through the sermon and all those things.
• 32:05
  SPEAKER_02: But when they carry something home that day, they carry maybe a scripture verse and a thought.
• 32:11
  SPEAKER_02: And what's that thought?
• 32:12
  SPEAKER_02: And when I'm leading worship or designing a service and the pastor gives me what he's preaching on, I I'm very intentional on finding what are the songs I'm picking that will focus in on that one thing.
• 32:25
  SPEAKER_02: So I'm not bringing them on to a new subject that takes them off the trail.
• 32:30
  unknown: Right.
• 32:30
  SPEAKER_02: But what what trail can I and you know, as a church plans their schedule, I I'm a total believer that intentional planning or when you have God gives you a theme a year and a half ahead of time, it doesn't mean that you have to be like right that day, okay, God's gonna reveal it.
• 32:46
  SPEAKER_02: No, God reveals through his word what he wants to say to us, and then we work, and then we pray that the Holy Spirit would take over that worship time and put in us what he wants us to hear from what he has given us sometimes long before.
• 33:03
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and so I I'm I really believe in intentional planning the best you can.
• 33:08
  SPEAKER_02: Sometimes you veer off because God says, Hey, I something happened here.
• 33:12
  SPEAKER_02: But on the most part, you know, we we want to focus and get get our congregation to understand the depth and love, and uh you want to um challenge, encourage one another to live in him and in loving relationships with one another through him.
• 33:31
  SPEAKER_04: Right.
• 33:31
  SPEAKER_02: So we seek the cross together and we learn how to place that cross across our lives and disciple one another.
• 33:38
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and I'm thinking as you're talking about how to contextualize that um as we design ministry for kids, there are different contexts.
• 33:48
  SPEAKER_00: So we may for a Wednesday night uh have one purpose with our music, and then a Sunday morning, maybe inside a classroom, you have a different purpose or worship environments.
• 33:59
  SPEAKER_00: Um and you guys, I want to draw this out too, um, write for a variety of different things that we do at Lifeway.
• 34:07
  SPEAKER_00: Not just we've talked a lot about VBS, but let's talk about some of the other um uh music that y'all write for gospel project, hi-fi, those are different styles and maybe even used for different purposes.
• 34:21
  SPEAKER_00: What would you have to say about that?
• 34:22
  SPEAKER_01: They're all different.
• 34:24
  SPEAKER_01: Um I would say that uh hi-fi is the most probably the the newest thing that we've been working on.
• 34:31
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 34:31
  SPEAKER_01: And it's been um sort of a fresh challenge for us because our marching orders on that product line was like this is not VBS.
• 34:40
  SPEAKER_01: Um, this is not need to necessarily sound friendly to a church, um, to someone who's heard church music before.
• 34:49
  SPEAKER_01: Um, this can sound more like something that you would hear on the radio.
• 34:52
  SPEAKER_01: This we want this to reach kids that, you know, are maybe from different backgrounds that didn't grow up in the church.
• 34:57
  SPEAKER_01: We want this to feel like their music, you know.
• 34:59
  SPEAKER_00: Very accessible.
• 35:00
  SPEAKER_01: We can take some more chances, which we always love as songwriters because, you know, we're always willing to go there and do that and try and try new things.
• 35:08
  SPEAKER_00: You're up for the challenge.
• 35:09
  SPEAKER_01: We get rained back in on a lot of the other product lines because um just for various reasons.
• 35:13
  SPEAKER_01: But you know, hi-fi is um what we what we learned pretty early on is like we would go pretty far, uh we would stretch pretty far stylistically, but at the end of the day, what was important to Lifeway and to us is that we did not compromise on where we went lyrically.
• 35:31
  SPEAKER_04: That's right.
• 35:31
  SPEAKER_01: You know, like so we can still have, you know, a hip-hop song or something that sounds like, you know, I don't know, Drake or whatever, who fill in the blank for whatever secular artist.
• 35:41
  SPEAKER_01: But the words that we're giving these kids are still gonna be, you know, biblical truth.
• 35:46
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 35:46
  SPEAKER_01: So that's been really challenging to figure out how to do that.
• 35:50
  SPEAKER_01: But how to have a church song that doesn't sound like a church song.
• 35:53
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 35:53
  SPEAKER_01: And then uh gospel project we love because it's straight scripture.
• 35:56
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 35:57
  SPEAKER_01: Those are our they are.
• 35:58
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, we like writing all of them, but when we get to write gospel project, those are those are energizing days.
• 36:06
  SPEAKER_01: And they're um we to us when we read the scripture, the words in that scripture almost dictate to us what the song needs to sound like, you know.
• 36:16
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 36:17
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and then, you know, VBS, um, you were talking about earlier how you know sonically will sort of paint a sonic landscape for the whole week.
• 36:27
  SPEAKER_01: And we've always talked about, you know, if you're in a theme park and you walk to a section of the theme park that's called Illumination Station, what what song is playing as you walk through that gate?
• 36:37
  SPEAKER_01: Such a good picture analogy.
• 36:39
  SPEAKER_01: In the wild, what what are we hearing when we walk through that gate?
• 36:42
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, BBS is more of a theme, thematic package that we write where the theme song then informs all the other daily songs.
• 36:50
  SPEAKER_00: Well, it's like an album.
• 36:52
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it is a concept that you keep the song so each year you come up with something that you that you can latch on to.
• 37:00
  SPEAKER_02: It's like putting a little theater production together, almost like a little play musically along with with your themes of the day.
• 37:08
  SPEAKER_01: That's that's a fun time to, you know, they're all and and BSFL is the other product line that we write for, which Bible studies for life.
• 37:15
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, which is a which is a mix.
• 37:16
  SPEAKER_00: It's they know our acronyms.
• 37:18
  SPEAKER_01: It's definitely it's definitely a hybrid.
• 37:20
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but we love and honestly, we like working with all the different teams, you know, because everybody works differently.
• 37:26
  SPEAKER_01: Everybody expects, you know, we laugh all the time.
• 37:28
  SPEAKER_01: We're like, are they the ones that want us to capitalize he or not capitalize he in the lyrics?
• 37:33
  SPEAKER_01: You know, like we're we can we don't remember, but every everybody's got a different way of responding to to working with us, and we like that, it keeps it interesting.
• 37:42
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and and what what wording we can use with each one because there's different goals in the different curriculums.
• 37:49
  SPEAKER_02: So that's sometimes the toughest one is like because Bible studies for life, it's based on the scripture, so we use a scripture, but they can get we can be a little freer.
• 37:57
  SPEAKER_02: And then we need to write what's what the intentions for that particular product line, where that lyric might not, they might say, Can you go back and redo that lyric because we want this a little different?
• 38:11
  SPEAKER_02: And so figuring that out and then working through that.
• 38:14
  SPEAKER_02: But uh yeah, it's fun to it's fun to do it all.
• 38:17
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, it's just a blessing to to write and know that um these words are falling onto these young ears that are soaking things in and finding finding their way along life, and that hopefully those lyrics will hit them.
• 38:32
  SPEAKER_00: Well, you brought up uh hi-fi, and we can close with this.
• 38:35
  SPEAKER_00: Um, one of the goals about um we designed hi-fi around was to create a sense of belonging and um for all kids, whether they've been raised in the church or they're brand new, um, how can we uh create an accessible sense of belonging?
• 38:54
  SPEAKER_00: And I think songs do that, music does that, not just hi-fi, um, but all of our songs can create a sense of belonging for kids who, you know, there's something about learning a song together and all singing it together that creates that sense of belonging.
• 39:10
  SPEAKER_00: Um, or even going as far as doing motions together and things like that.
• 39:14
  SPEAKER_00: Do you all think about that when you're writing?
• 39:19
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, one of the funniest things uh that I will never be filmed and I'll talk about it, but no one will ever see this is when Paul and I are working on the movement song for preschool every year for VBS, because we're literally in my studio like trying to come up with because we don't come up with emotions, we have nothing to do with that, but we're like, is what we are writing going to work for someone to choreograph this.
• 39:42
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 39:43
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, that's uh that's always good.
• 39:45
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so you don't want to see that, trust me.
• 39:47
  SPEAKER_02: And if I and you know if I can do that motion and make it look even half good that anybody can.
• 39:55
  SPEAKER_00: It's Paul tested.
• 39:56
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 39:58
  SPEAKER_00: Well, you guys are multi-talented, but maybe not all the talents.
• 40:02
  SPEAKER_00: You can't have all of them.
• 40:03
  SPEAKER_00: So motions are not in that conversation.
• 40:06
  SPEAKER_01: If if we were responsible for motions, literally every song would just be this.
• 40:09
  SPEAKER_02: You get a lot of you get a lot of people writing in not happy.
• 40:15
  SPEAKER_00: Well, this has been so fun.
• 40:17
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I I love getting to be with you guys and hear all these little um stories behind the songs.
• 40:23
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, I know our listeners love that as well.
• 40:25
  SPEAKER_00: So thanks for sharing.
• 40:26
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for sharing your heart.
• 40:27
  SPEAKER_00: We love um your heart more than anything.
• 40:31
  SPEAKER_00: Um, yes, you're very talented musically and how you write, but um, you complement our teams so well.
• 40:39
  SPEAKER_00: Um and I want to give a shout out.
• 40:40
  SPEAKER_00: You you guys brought it up several times too, our our content teams and editorial teams in VBS and Hi-Fi and Gospel Project and Bible Studies for Life and Explore the Bible.
• 40:51
  SPEAKER_00: All of our teams have such a um, that's where it begins, is with the uh the content that they're developing around the biblical truths that we're teaching kids of all ages.
• 41:03
  SPEAKER_00: And so that partnered with your giftedness um is just something that's very um um we can't take for granted.
• 41:10
  SPEAKER_00: And so we're so thankful and thanks for sharing with us today.
• 41:14
  SPEAKER_00: Will you come back sometime?
• 41:16
  SPEAKER_00: Sure.
• 41:17
  SPEAKER_01: We're I'll just say too, we we are so incredibly thankful for Life Way um being one of the last places that just really takes God's word very seriously and is not going to compromise.
• 41:31
  SPEAKER_01: We yeah, we're so proud to be a part of that.
• 41:33
  SPEAKER_01: Um that's who we are.
• 41:35
  SPEAKER_01: And um, you know, we're we're just I I can't believe I get to do this.
• 41:40
  SPEAKER_01: I really I can't believe that God has written this story for my life, for Paul's life, for our friendship, but then for all the friendships that we have here.
• 41:49
  SPEAKER_01: And just, you know, it's exciting to just get to tell, tell the gospel to these kids and not be ashamed of it and not uh not compromise.
• 41:58
  SPEAKER_01: So we love being a part of it too.
• 42:00
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 42:00
  SPEAKER_00: Well, thanks again, and uh listeners, watchers, thank you for joining us today in the Brentwood studio with our friends.
• 42:08
  SPEAKER_00: And uh, we're gonna be waiting for you in the next episode of Kids Ministry Calling.
• 42:29
  SPEAKER_00: This episode of Kids Ministry Combined Podcast was not too much our amazing team, including executive producer Andy Elkin, producer Nikki Upkin, edited by Trey Garden, and recorded in the Lifeweight Podcast Studio in Brentwood, Tennessee, with Sound Engineer Donnie Gordon, and artwork by Cameron Wilson.
• 42:48
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm your host, Jana McGruder.
• 42:50
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for listening to Kids Ministry Calling.