Latest / The UNWavering Podcast / Music with a Mission | Tim Sawyer – Professor of Music and Director of Choral Activities

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Music with a Mission | Tim Sawyer – Professor of Music and Director of Choral Activities · The UNWavering Podcast

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_02: We never know who's listening to us.
• 0:02
  SPEAKER_02: We never know what stories are being needing to be finished in the places where we sing.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_02: So we just have to go there with our voices and our bodies as tired as they are and our hearts as weary as they can be.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_02: And sing into that darkness and sing some light and truth and joy in back into this very confused world.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_00: Join as we highlight the people, the purpose, and the pulse of Northwestern.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_00: This is the Unwavering Podcast.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_03: Hey everyone, Monty here, and today on the Unwavering Podcast, I get to talk with Tim Sawyer, Director of Choral Activities and Professor of Music at Northwestern.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_03: I can't wait to hear more about his passion for community and his purpose in leading the choir program.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_03: Let's go.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_03: Tisaw, thank you so much for joining us for the Unwavering podcast.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_03: Man, we truly get a legend, and I am so excited to have you here today.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_02: Hey, it's great to be here.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_03: So do you enjoy talking to people about Northwestern at all?
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_03: Like, is that a thing for you?
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_03: Now and then, yeah, actually.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_02: No, I really do.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_02: I love, I don't really think there's ever a time when I don't want to talk about what's happening at Northwestern.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_02: Uh it's yeah, it's just an exciting place to be.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_03: Well, I've only ever known you here as Teesaw.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and I have no idea what else to call you or what everybody else calls you.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_03: Do you have something that people prefer to call you?
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, there's a whole variety of things.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, the you know, most of the guys who are in football sometimes call me Coach Bald Eagle, Coach T saw, um the men's course guys will often call me T saw.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_02: It's rare that someone will actually call me Professor Sawyer.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_02: They'll either call me Sawyer, Tsaw, um, or maybe Mr.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_02: Sawyer.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_03: So Teesaw, the bald eagle, Sawyer.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_03: Um, so how did you end up at Northwestern?
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_02: Wow, that's a good question.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_02: So uh back in the late 80s, I was teaching at North Central and at Bethel.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_02: I was a part-time voice teacher, and I would taught at all three places, and I would just bring my little bag of you know, music and materials and traveling music man snake oil, whatever I was selling, right?
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_02: You know, yeah, exactly.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_02: And like Harold Hill, going from town to town, and and I would just teach at all those places.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but Northwestern was the the third one to snag me.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_02: They said, Can you just come and teach for one day a week?
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_02: Because what they needed was a male voice teacher.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_02: So that's kind of how I started.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_02: It was one day a week.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_02: Shortly after that, they came to me and said, By the way, would you like to add a choir to your, you know, to your responsibilities?
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_02: So that was a huge step up.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_02: So I said, Well, this is awesome.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_02: So I did that for about five years.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_02: And then uh at that point I was working with Dr.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_02: Dennis Port, who was the choir director at the time, and a lot of people know that name.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_02: And anyway, so then he left here and went to Bethel.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_02: So the music department said, Well, let's just give you a one-year interim position with choir, and then while we're yeah, we'll figure out what we're gonna do, and then we'll do a national search.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_02: And that was the year, uh, academic year ninety-five-96.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_02: So I told them, I said, I'm not gonna act like an entr an interim.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_02: I'm going for it.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_02: And um, they just were like, oh, okay.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_03: And 31 years later, or what is what has it been like?
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_02: It's now the uh, I'm starting year 31 of the one-year interim contracts.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_02: It's been quite a journey, but I'm really glad that this is kind of how it turned out.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_03: Well, I'm really glad that you came here.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_03: I know you're not officially an alum, but you're definitely an eagle.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, or as you call yourself, a royal eagle coming from Bethleton, Northwestern.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_03: Now you've been here for 31 years.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_02: Uh when well, actually, I've been here for 36 years, because only 31 with Northwestern Choir.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_03: Ah, that's right.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_03: Okay.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_02: Actually, 30, because this is my 30th year with the Northwestern Choir.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so we'll have a little uh, you know, celebration this year of that anniversary, but it will be the beginning of my 37th year teaching here.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, let's go.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_02: I know, right?
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_02: Jeez, count the rings.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_03: 37 more to go, right, T Saw?
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_03: All right.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_03: Um, well, when people think about Northwestern, and uh Northwestern is such a community place.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_03: Like people think about it, they think about the Christian community, the people that they know.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_03: One of the first people that it's natural for me to list is well, when you think about Northwestern, you think about the people that are there, like T Saw, and like because you are a community person and you've connected with people and invested in people, like where does that come from?
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_03: And why do you care so much about investing in the eagles that have come through here and are here right now?
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_02: It's a really good question.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_02: Because there was a time in my career where I literally was planning to go to Germany and I wanted to sing Johann Sebastian Bach, my favorite composer.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_02: That was my goal.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_02: But God and I had a conversation on a mountaintop in Montana back in 1987, and he he really, you know, and I was single at the time, and literally I was really excited because I just I wanted to have a professional singing career in Europe.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_02: And I met a person who was doing exactly what I wanted to do in Europe that summer, and I was very disappointed to hear what the life was like because traveling from one city to another, staying at hotels, you know, alone, do a concert, 2,000 people clapping for you, going back to your hotel room, you know, wash, rinse, repeat.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_02: And so God just said, you know what, you're not built for that.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_02: You are built for community.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and my you know, my wife knows this story and a few really close friends, but I mean, most people don't even know that, which is what got me started in teaching to begin with.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_03: So you pivoted right there, like it was it was less about that dream for you, like in yourself.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_03: It was like I'm supposed to be in community, like that was like a clarity moment, and you're like, well, okay, let's go get it then.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_02: Absolutely.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_02: When I kind of put my roots down in a community, I really invest deeply, and I I can't, it's just I'm all in.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_02: I just can't not do that.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_03: Well, it's it's clear that Northwestern is not just a job for you that you've done this eight to five thing, like it's a part of your life.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_03: You're just you're in, you get it, you invest in the students, and you'll do what it takes to help them on their journey, and it's always gonna be a part of you.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_02: It's it really is a part of my identity, and I think it always will be.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_03: So your official job title, if I get this right, is director of choral activities.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_03: And then there's a whole bunch of words after that.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_03: Do you have it memorized?
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_02: Not really, because I mean that's really my job description, you know.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_02: So my I'm a professor of music, so that's my my faculty rank, and then my my job really is then described much more with director of choral activities, and then there's like a million things that kind of fall out of that particular title or into it.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_02: It's kind of a catch-all.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_03: What's it like to be a choir director?
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_02: That's a really great question because I mean it's really different on different sides of the conductor.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, what you what you hear, you know, behind me is is the pro the product, you know, but what you see in front of me much more is the process.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_02: Um so conducting is this dynamic art form that where we are we are creating gestures in the air.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_02: Someone the other day said, you know, those I love those Facebook surveys who said badly describe what you do for a living.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_02: And I mine has always been I wave my arms in the air at people while air leaks out of them, you know.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_02: But I think that's essentially what it is.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, it's just that there's these these signals in the air that conductors do that refer back to things we've talked about, practiced, you know, learned, and um, so that in the performance, in the dynamic more mode of performance, um, those things will happen.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_02: So it's a little bit like you know, what umpires do in baseball, right?
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_02: There's like you know, a common language, but each person has their own unique version of that language, right?
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_02: So that's when I watch baseball, I'm like, oh, look at the umpire.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_02: I what I wonder what that gesture means.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, I know what that one means.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_02: You know, I mean it's just clear.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_03: That's cool.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_03: Does that work with anybody else in your life?
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_03: Like, can you talk to people that way?
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_02: Just like well, I mean, when you think about people who are who are do sign language and and you know, talk to, you know, communicate with deaf people, when you see one of these like uh government press conferences, yeah, you see that all the time where you see somebody talking, but then next to them, you see somebody gesturing and doing all the sign language stuff.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_02: And sometimes that's even more interesting to watch and than the person who's speaking.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_02: But it is an art form that involves the whole body and the eyes and the face, and which is why teaching it to people is really fun and also can be really challenging because it's it's not easy.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_02: You know, it looks easy.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_02: A lot of people make it look super easy, but it's not easy.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_03: Well, it's really fun to watch.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_03: What I see in watching you is I see like you're feeling it, and I can see like this deep satisfaction in you as the sound happens in sync with what you're calling out, and like I know that didn't just happen in one day.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_03: Like, I know you've worked towards that and it's happening, and you can feel it, and it's right, and we all get to experience it out in the audience as well.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_03: So cool.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_03: But what is it like to be in choir with the bald eagle with T Saw?
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_03: Like, what would your students say?
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_02: I'm really not sure that I am qualified to answer that question.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_02: Um, usually because I know, you know, I always say this like the you know, when you think about student evaluations, you know, it's like the Olympics, you know, you've got you've got uh one judge that gives you the really high score, you've got one judge that gives you the absolute lowest score, and you got to throw both of them out because they're probably none neither of them are accurate, and then average all the rest in between.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I know we work really hard.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_02: We I try to really make sure that it's a fun environment.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_02: I think in men's chorus, we you know, I have a penalty flag that I will throw now and then, you know.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_02: I have a rubber chicken because the mouth of the rubber chicken is the perfect shape of the vowel that I want them to do.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_02: And now and then we, you know, squeeze that thing and you know, pass it around the room or whatever.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_02: And we do laugh a lot.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but then there's moments of really white hot intensity where we have to go to that level.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_03: So, kind of methods aside, what's your core mission with Northwestern Choir?
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_02: Oh man, that's a great question.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_02: It's so easy to answer.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_02: And it was actually answered by a German music critic in 1998 when the choir was on tour uh in in Germany.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_02: But this music critic wrote a very long and elaborate description of our concert.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_02: But he he titled the concert Choral Music Direct from the Heart.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_02: And that from that moment on, when I read that thing, I said, that's our motto.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_02: He captured our spirit, our mission statement.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_02: He said, in German, we say if someone is singing from memory, we say it's aus dem Kopf, which means out of the head.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_02: That means singing from memory.
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_02: But he said in English, they don't say it that way.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_02: They say if you're singing something that you don't need music for, it's I know that by heart.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_02: Put the two together and he said this choir does both.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_02: They they sing with great intellectual integrity, but they sing with incredible passion and heart.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_02: And that's really that is that's really it.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_02: It doesn't get more complicated than that, and it really doesn't get any simpler than that.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_03: So you're trying to get them to you're trying to get to the heart through Northwestern Choir.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_02: So there's a dynamic sort of convergence of the intellect and the heart and the body and the mind and the spirit all happening.
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_02: And what I love to say, and students will will remember this if they've they've been through choir that we talk about we want to activate the spiritual resonance in the it even more importantly than the vocal resonance.
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_02: So you have this beautiful sound, but people will say it's not just the sound.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_02: I'm hearing the spirit of this choir through their sound.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_02: And these students are just singing with that resonance in their soul.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_02: That's what we go for every day.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_03: And do you feel that in the choir room?
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_03: Like, is there a moment during a semester or a year when all of a sudden it's like, whoa, there it is.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_02: There are those moments where we'll just stop after a piece and just go, wow.
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_02: And sometimes the best and most beautiful performances are not performances, they're in rehearsal.
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_02: I remember one day, I don't even remember what the piece was, but I said, I can't imagine this piece being any more beautiful than you just made it.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_02: In my mind, the ideal sound, you just locked in with it, and I was gone.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_02: I was just I was lost in it.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_02: And of course, you know, there's a lot of them are too young to really understand what a what a cool thing that is, but eventually they'll remember that.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_02: And a lot of them do understand that because of their theological training, because of the depth of how we teach at Northwestern, and we you know, we pray before every rehearsal, we invoke the spirit all the time in everything, the m mundane stuff, you know.
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_02: There there really is.
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_02: There are some really breathtaking moments.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_03: I've experienced it being like watching whether it's your Conbrio concert in Naz Chapel or it's at Christmas at Northwestern, surrounded by everybody singing Silent Night.
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_03: Um that's that spiritual resonance that describes it.
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_03: It's beautiful.
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_02: Well, you know, there's more famous choirs and there's more famous institutions in the world.
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_02: And the the great thing is that's great.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_02: We don't have to be them, we just have to be us, you know.
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_02: And being us is a really good thing, and it's a beautiful thing.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_02: And the people who really know and appreciate what we do, um, they get it.
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_02: You know, and so we don't we don't feel like we're competing with anyone, we're competing with us.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_02: Are we as good a choir this year as we were last year?
• 15:01
  unknown: Cool.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, is there a song that you would say has become kind of your beloved song that carries the tradition and the spiritual resonance?
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_02: There's only one.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_02: Jesus I adore thee.
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_03: Jesus I adore thee.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_02: We sing it every May for commencement.
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_02: Uh we sing it at the end of our concerts or somewhere in our concerts, always.
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_02: It's always a part of what we do.
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, it's we call it the family song.
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_02: And each choir has kind of their own sort of family song as well.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_02: But Northwestern choir is the one that has taken their family song probably the furthest journey.
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_02: Um, we've sung it, I don't even know, four or five thousand times probably, all over the world, um everywhere.
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_02: And why why that song?
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_02: Or when did that start?
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I was listening to it and I said, you know what, if I ever get a chance to have my own choir and in a in a Christian institution, I want that song to be our theme song.
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_02: And of course, then within the following, within just a few months, my prayer to the Lord was actually answered.
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_02: So that was really cool.
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, that song doesn't get old, it just hits home, sinks down into the heart.
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_02: But these students will learn Jesus, I adore thee, and take their theological understanding of that love for Christ to a deeper level.
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_02: And all these words are by Thomas Aquinas, and they've been sung since the 13th century, you know.
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_02: And then it's based on a beautiful Gregorian chant, which then that means that everywhere we go, especially in when we're singing in cathedrals, they know that.
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_02: They've sung it since they were little.
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_03: And that's the heart of everything that's coming out of Northwestern choir, is just singing from a place of Jesus, I adore thee, and that's the family song.
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_03: Well, I'm gonna take our conversation just a little different angle, and we hinted at this earlier, but Christmas at Northwestern, and I understand that you have the opportunity to lead the team and building the theme each year for Christmas at Northwestern, is that right?
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_02: I do, and I love it.
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_03: And when does that process begin?
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_03: And how do you go about building a theme for Christmas at Northwestern?
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_02: Well, that usually comes right at the end of the semester, which is like in May when we're all exhausted.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but something will spark a creative m thought or whatever.
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_02: And so for me, I was in a student recital, heard a great piece that was written by a student composer, happened to be on a poem by J.R.R.
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_02: Tolkien, okay, which they just discovered like 10 years ago, uh, which was called Noel.
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_02: But this poem is beautiful, and the last stanza of that poem starts with the the words glad is the world.
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_02: And I was like, that's it, I found it.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_03: And light coming into darkness, like like this world's it's it's not always happy right now, but there's good news, and glad is the world because Jesus has come.
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_02: Absolutely, and boy, does the world need it right now.
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_02: It's just on fire and at war.
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_02: And I guess it always has been, but just this year has been horrific.
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_02: So I think people need to come and find some gladness.
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_02: They need to find a little bit of joy, and maybe even just to process you know what it all means.
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_02: But that's why Jesus came for all of it, even the lament of life and and the difficult things of life.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_02: Um we we can still sing and play into those things.
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_03: And that's the beauty of Christmas as well.
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_03: Love it.
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_03: Well, I can't wait to come enjoy Christmas at Northwestern.
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_03: I know it's a tradition for many, many alums and the community.
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_03: You get to enjoy it a few times, really up and close.
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_03: Absolutely.
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_03: Uh one final question for you, if I can, T saw.
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_03: And it connects with actually what we were just talking about, with the world needing light and needing to the gladness that comes from Christ.
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_03: But right at Northwestern now, we've just started talking about amplifying the gospel a lot.
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_03: It's fresh, you're hearing that all over the place.
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_03: What does it mean to you to amplify the gospel?
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_02: Well, it's really simple for me.
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_02: Years ago, the father of one of my students in Northwestern Choir was not a believer, but his son had invited him to come to the performance, and he'd never been to a choir concert before, he'd never heard his son sing.
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_02: And I remember he I will remember this till the day I die, and this is one of those stories I tell to the choir every year.
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_02: Um, he came over to me and I said, So nice to meet you.
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_02: I hope you enjoyed the performance.
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_02: And he looked at me like, what didn't even understand my question.
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_02: And I said, Are is every was everything okay?
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_02: And he just he kind of looked distantly and then said, I never knew God's voice was so beautiful.
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_02: And that is the heart of what we're trying to do.
• 19:42
  SPEAKER_02: And I think that what we're trying to amplify is that God's voice, because it comes from his heart, is so beautiful, and people don't know that, you know.
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_02: And he heard it that night.
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know how that story ended, but after that he sort of walked away from me, and I was like, I I want to know more, tell me more.
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, but it wasn't my story.
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_02: He just stated those words, and so I said to the choir, we never know who's listening to us.
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, we we never know what stories are are being needing to be finished in the places where we sing.
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_02: So we just have to go there with our voices and our bodies as tired as they are and our hearts as weary as they can be, and sing into that darkness, you know, and sing some light and truth and joy in back into this very confused world.
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_02: Is that like the subtext of Amplify the Gospel?
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_03: That's it.
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_03: That's it.
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_03: That's it.
• 20:44
  SPEAKER_03: It's to take this great news and make it known, and even through the the spiritual resonance that comes in a song that we just feel as the choir is singing, Jesus, I adore thee, or whatever the song is, that we feel it and we know man, if this is this beautiful, then who is this God?
• 21:04
  SPEAKER_03: Thank you for not just being a guest on the Unwavering podcast today, but thank you for what you do at Northwestern as you lead choir and you inspire all these students that have come through your program, that have been declaring these this good news to the world, that have been inspiring not just that gentleman, but so many that have had their hearts filled and have been reminded that there is light and there is reason to be glad, and this is a good news worth amplifying.
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_03: So thank you for being a part of Northwestern.
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_03: It's been an honor, Captain Bald Eagle.
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for listening.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_00: To hear more, subscribe and leave a rating wherever you listen.
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_00: And if you know an alum, faculty member, staff, or student of Northwestern doing amazing things out in the world, let us know at alumni at unwsp.edu, the unwavering podcast, highlighting the people, the purpose, and the pulse of Northwestern.