Bi-Vocational Worship Leading w/ Zach Hodges

Alex Enfiedjian 00:16 Hello, and welcome back to another episode of the worship ministry training podcast. My name is Alex Enfiedjian, your host so thankful that you are tuning in today to listen and grow and improve your leadership abilities as a worship leader. Now as a worship leader, you may or may not be part of a church staff, you might be a volunteer, you might be part time on church staff, or you might just get a stipend to lead every weekend. And I would say that if you are in any of those three categories, you are probably the majority there are more by vocational worship leaders than there are full time worship leaders. That’s just a fact. And church size across America is averaging 70 people total. So most of those churches are using worship leaders as volunteers. And I just want to use this entire episode to encourage you guys who are by vocational worship leaders to say to you that one you are amazing to you are valued and valuable and three, you are viable. It’s not any less of a calling to be a by vocational worship leader than it is to be a full time worship leader. So I want to help you in this episode. And because I have never been a by vocational worship leader, I have brought on a really wise by vocational worship leader named Zack Hodges, who actually produced the new intro music for our podcast. So thanks, Zach. for that. Zach has tons of wisdom to share with you guys. And we talk about time management. We talk about how to balance family and work and ministry, we talked about the productivity apps that he uses and the ways he stays inspired to continue pressing on and developing his vision for his ministry. And so if you’re a by vocational worship leader, or if you’re just a busy human being like I am, you will benefit from all the wisdom in this episode. So stick around all the way to the end and be helped by the content. Before we get into the topic. Today, I do want to tell you about our recommended product this month, which is core sound pads, my absolute favorite backing pads for worship if you are a small church ministry, or you lead from an acoustic guitar only, or you even leave from a large band if you want to fill in more space and more sound core sound pads is by far the best pads company for backing pads. And so I want to encourage you to check out core sound pads calm and use the promo code WM t podcast at checkout you can save 25% on any of your purchases. And the other thing I want to tell you about is their app, they have an app called pads live that when you purchase the pads on the website will become unlocked in the app. And the app allows you to have playlist, click tracks and Ambien backing pads with crossfades between each of the songs. So check all the links out in the show notes. And again, use the promo code w mt podcast for 20% off your purchase. alright with that, let’s jump right into today’s episode about by vocational worship leading with Zach Hodges. Hey, everybody, I am here with my friend and fellow worship leaders Zach Hodges. Hey, Zach, Hey, hello. Zach is super cool, guys. I’m so privileged to know him. He is cool for a lot of reasons. But a couple of highlights from his life. Not that life is all about what you accomplished. But here’s a couple of things he’s accomplished. He used to be a producer for tooth and nail Records, which is like that 90s rock Christian record label. Yeah. And he said he did at one point, sort of have a mohawk. So there you go. And also, Zack, you are part of the founding team of the photography app called visco VSCO that our people might know about. But on top of all of that insanity, you are also a worship leader. By vocational right. Is there anything else that I missed in your life that makes you super cool? No. Okay. I don’t know. I’m married. You have an awesome family? Have an awesome family. Yeah. Yeah. Cool. Well, Zach, I think it would be helpful. We’re talking today about by vocational worship leading and I’ve said it in a previous episode that I think a lot of by vocational worship leaders maybe feel less viable or less valuable than somebody who’s full time maybe they feel like I’m just not good enough to be full time at a church or whatever. And obviously, that’s not the case. So hopefully, we’ll be speaking some value into them. Because primarily, I’d say the highest percentage of worship leaders around the globe are by vocational and just to define that by vocational means. You have two vocations, you work a job and then you work part time at the church. So Zack, you’re by vocational. Can you tell our listeners a little bit about your context? Like, who are you? What do you do? How much time do you spend working for Company A? And how much time do you spend working for the church?

Zach Hodges 05:12 Yeah. So I guess when I, at least for me, by vocational means that I work full time at my company. And then I’m just a extremely busy volunteer at my church. I’m not like, paid or anything. So I don’t really have two jobs, I have one job. And then just this other thing that I do a lot. And the church I’m at now is called reliance church in Temecula are about around 700 people on an average Sunday. It’s actually a really cool season for us right now, like, literally, this Sunday is going to be our first Sunday in a new building. So we’ve been doing the whole like, setup and teardown thing for, I think seven years, probably by the time this comes out, that’ll already be the case. But for us right now, we have a midweek rehearsal on Thursdays, we have three services and a high school gym on Sundays, that’s about to turn into two services next week. So that’s going to be really nice for my time and my energy. And I’d say probably on average, I spend around 20 hours a week on worship stuff, just between everything else that’s going on with the Ministry at large. And then Sunday mornings. And I’m actually really lucky to get to work from home. And my company is very flexible with my hours. So I am technically working from about nine to five every day, but I’m able to kind of be a little flexible, when I need to like jump in and do something on worship. As long as I’m not, you know, really ignoring something at my job. I can be a little flexible there. And they trust me. So that’s been really good.

Alex Enfiedjian 06:41 So in other words, you’ve never been paid as a worship leader. It’s always been a volunteer role on top of all your other Yeah, work responsibilities. Yeah. And you said, you know, 40 hours a week at your company, visco and then 20 hours or so a week in worship leading, and the craziness of the season with moving from a temporary setup to a permanent church home in a building. And so that’s, that’s just crazy, that’s busy. And I think even if our listeners aren’t by vocational, I think we can all relate to being insanely busy, you know, and so, I personally, like this is the busiest season of my life, you know, we have this really busy church that I’m part of, and then my wife, and I have a photography business, where she does, she does all the cool, creative stuff, I do all the boring admin stuff. And then I have this podcast and the website and all that stuff that goes along with that. So it’s just life can be crazy, plus two kids and all that. So we can all relate to that. But in terms of by vocational worship, leading, what are the unique challenges of a by vocational worship leader, that maybe full time worship leaders don’t face?

Zach Hodges 07:48 Yeah, so I mean, obviously, the elephant in the room is Time, time management time, just lack of time is a huge challenge. For me, actually, I would say the biggest challenge is more mental, just all of the constant context switching is really tricky. It’s hard to keep myself focused and inspired and organized. As a leader, and hard to kind of keep my own momentum. I’ll get, you know, really inspired about something in worship ministry, or listen to a podcast or read a book, or here’s something that somebody else is doing and like, start jamming on something, and then you know, I have to stop that. And I have to go do work, or I have to go do something with the kids or whatever. And then you come back, you know, hours later at nine o’clock when everybody’s in bed or something. And it’s hard to like, get back to that headspace again and get back to that energy. And so for me, just I find myself just wishing like I wish he could just have like one day where all I’m focused on is worship ministry, and then I’ll just put it all the rest and work for the rest of the week. But I can’t do that. And even I’m sure full time worship leaders can’t do that. Like you’re just constantly pulled between different things in that context switching is super hard, and you lose a lot of time and momentum when you have to do that. And then obviously, like I said, time is definitely a challenge. There’s a lot required just week to week just to like keep the wheels on the bus like just to keep things going working in the ministry, so to speak. And it’s really easy to just get in like a survival mode, just trying to keep things from falling apart. Just Sunday to Sunday like okay, what are we doing next Sunday? Okay, what are we doing next Sunday, but that doesn’t leave a lot of time for working on the ministry, rather than in the ministry. So like things like planning, building processes, building relationships, thinking about the culture and the values of your team. All that stuff is like, vitally important, and it’s so hard to come up with that time when there’s already so much to do in the ministry. And you just feel like how can I work on those things, but you have to work on those things, or else, things get stale, and you’re just all going through the motions and it just feels like you’re just accomplishing tasks with co workers. And that’s the last thing I want like, I want everybody unified and marching in the same direction towards this vision that requires me to have that vision and organize things. And it’s just hard to do all that in the time

Alex Enfiedjian 10:13 that I have. Yeah, that sounds seriously difficult. I’m like, Wow, I can’t imagine doing all that, that you just described in 20 hours instead of 40, or 50, or 60, that I get to spend thinking about those things. So that is a super unique challenge that by vocational worship leaders face, and we’ll talk about how you’ve overcome some of those challenges a little bit later. But what are some of the positive sides maybe of being a bi vocational worship leader that you’ve experienced that maybe a full time worship leader doesn’t get the benefit of experiencing?

Zach Hodges 10:44 Yeah, totally. I mean, I think there’s a lot of positive sides, honestly, I would even go so far to say that I might prefer it, I think there’s gonna come a time maybe even soon, where I have to start actually dedicating some time to the church on a weekly basis, like maybe part time. But to me, the positive sides are that you’re not so hyper focused, you can relate to your congregants, you understand the life that they have, because you have that life, too. And so like, as I’m asking volunteers to do things, there’s not that sense of like, Well, I do this full time, but you don’t, and so you don’t understand or whatever, like, they see me leading from the front, like, Nobody works harder than I do. And I have a full time job and kids too. And they all know, like, dang, like, this is just, you know, I’m kind of able to set the example. Whereas I think if I was full time, there would be a little bit of a separation between us. And then I do really like just the interaction with the world and with non believers, that my work, there’s like, all manner of people, and I am able to talk with them and just have a relationship with people outside of the church, which I think is super important. And then I do feel like sometimes the church can be a bit of an echo chamber as far as ideas and inspiration goes. And so it’s just really nice to get other input and other like creative ideas, and being able to bring that into what I’m doing. And then for better or for worse, like just you have to get good at relying on others, and delegating and leadership. And that’s something that I’ve really had to learn and I’m still learning, but it’s a skill that I think is super important. And it’s it’s been good to, to start like implementing that stuff. And I just have had to as a by vocational worship leader.

Alex Enfiedjian 12:30 Yeah, so it’s not all downside, there’s a lot of positive things to being a by vocational worship leader. And I agree to everything you just said, there was a nine month window where I was not employed by a church. It was a very short window, but it was so helpful to me so fruitful to me. And I think one of the things that was most fruitful for me being in full time ministry for you know, over 12 years, was not having my faith attached to my paycheck. It was like, man, I really am a Christian. It’s not because I’m paid to be on stage every week. You know what I mean? And, well,

Zach Hodges 13:04 I think the benefits for the church are huge to like, because those resources aren’t going to me, those resources can go to other ministries that need it really bad, like children’s ministry, or youth ministry or marriage, or whatever. Like, there’s so many other things. And I, in a way, I almost feel like it’s like a tie or something where it’s like, I’m able to give of my time to, and that enables other people in other ministries to benefit instead of having those things having to come to me. Hmm,

Alex Enfiedjian 13:32 yeah, that’s really good, like 10 to making, right. Yeah, you know, the apostle Paul. And one thing to that when I was managing that computer store for nine months, one of the things that really hit me was, I started volunteering as a drummer at a different church during that time. And I, for the first time, I understood how difficult it is for my volunteers to get to rehearsal on time and to spend time practicing. And I was like, oh, okay, this is why they’re not prepared. Because life is crazy. You’re like rushing from work, you’re shoving a burrito down your throat as you drive. And you’re like, I hope I get there on time and park. So it really gave me grace towards the volunteers. So I think those are just some of the unique positive sides of being a bi vocational worship leader is really being able to understand your your people. Yeah, let’s talk about like you said, the big elephant in the room, which is time management. Because as my life has gotten busier, I have had to completely just cut out anything unnecessary, like social media, and I mean, we don’t watch TV or anything because it’s like, and when people tell me how much time they spend binge watching Netflix or watching this show, or online, and I’m like, how do you have time for that? I don’t have time for any of that. I’ve got kids, I’ve got you know, stuff to do around the house. I’ve got this and church and it’s like you have to be Careful with your time, if you’re going to get anything done, worth value, and I think I did a podcast with David, Santa Stephen A long time ago. And we talked about how if you want to be more productive and creative, you have to cut out consumption, you know, so you can either consume or you can create. And there has to be a balance there, obviously. But if you’re just consuming all day long, then you have no time to create and that people who are creating things are managing their time by cutting things out that they don’t need. Yeah. And also, like, if you think about your life, it is literally made up of your days. And so how you spend your days will determine the outcome of your life, you know, your days, determine your destiny would be like a tweetable way to say that. So just talk with our listeners a little bit about time management, and how you get everything done that you need to get done.

Zach Hodges 15:49 Well, yeah, I don’t pretend to have this stuff like mastered by any means. This is something I’ve had to grow in a lot. And usually just by like the very, very painful process of stretching and necessity. I think a lot of us get into worship leading because we like music, and we like ministry, and people start asking us to do these things. But a lot of times, at least what I’ve seen is that personality type is often not great at like being organized. It’s usually not the organized people that we come and say, Hey, could you learn to play guitar and sing? Yeah. And so it’s, it’s a struggle. I mean, actually, for me in recent years, just realizing that leadership itself is a skill and something that I can grow in, just like, music has been a huge benefit, and a huge, helpful thing to learn in time management’s like that, too. And so I try to think about time in terms of investment, just like a budget, like you have a limited amount of time. And so where are you investing it. And in order to invest your time, well, you need to have a clear vision of what it is that you’re trying to achieve. And so I’ve spent a lot of time trying to just come up with a really clear vision for my team. And I think one of the most important things that a leader does is just to set that vision like, Where is the bus going? versus just let’s keep the wheels on the bus? And so then that question becomes, if we had all the time and the money in the world, what are we what we want to do, where are we trying to go. And if we don’t have that, it’s really hard to manage your time and your resources well, and if you have this like vague goal, then all you can really hope to have is this sort of vague success. And I’ve struggled in the past feeling like oh, that’s not really having faith, or that’s not following the Lord. But even just myself, like reading some of the biographies of Hudson Taylor and George Mueller, and some of these real heroes of the faith. They had goals, they had like specific things they were praying for Hudson Taylor would ask, he would ask the Lord for like, I want this many missionaries, and he would get it, he would get like exactly that number. He had a plan, he had a vision. And so I’ve tried to do that as well, and just tried to hone that within myself. And for me, a lot of times that happens like in the in between times, I seek just like inspiration, trying to expand my own vision of what my team could be what we could be doing what my ministry could look like. And so a lot of those in between times are things like drive time, commute, time exercising yard work, you know, I’ll try to listen to podcasts like this one, or documentaries, biographies, books, you know, books on tape, or music, you know, whatever, like just something that will spark my interest in helped me grow as a leader and as a expand the vision that I could have. And I really believe that God uses those things to rekindle me for this role. And just to help clarify for me, like what my ministry could be, you may not realize like what you could be doing until you hear what somebody else is doing. And you realize, like, oh, wow, we could do something like that, like, maybe not that exactly, but we could turn it in this way. And then like that would fit us perfectly. You know, for my ministry. I’ve tried to make it super duper dumb, simple. And I just tell my people that our goal is to lead people to worship Jesus, and we just try and like, align everything around that, which sounds so simple, but you’d be amazed at how many things that we do. You ask, like, why are we doing that? And it’s like, wow, because because new people might come and we want it to be good, or, like, we don’t really know. And so just aligning everything around. We want people to worship Jesus. So the songs that we sing the format of the service, the volume, the people that are onstage, like, whatever every single thing is, is is going to help people sing because if people in the room aren’t singing, what the heck are we doing? Let’s go home. We’re not we’re not that good of a band that people are gonna like want to come listen to us. But it needs to have a longer view to and this is where the vision helps. I think you know, if I can raise up more leaders in my team and kind of like multiply myself then more people are going to be worshipping Jesus and I can I can be doing other things and then they can raise up other people and there could be this kind of like multiplicative thing. So in the short term, You know, we have a lot of things to kind of keep going. But then it’s helpful to have that longer term vision to know like, Is there a sacrifice that maybe I can make in the short term, maybe it’s going to affect the quality a little bit, because I’m going to put this person that’s a little inexperienced, then but then like long term, they’re going to grow, they’re going to be able to handle this themselves. And then we’re going to have more people worshipping Jesus, because, you know, we made that sacrifice. And so like having that vision really helps figure out how to make those investments in time and in people and resources and stuff. And I get really overwhelmed and just thinking about all the things that I could do. Maybe I listed too many books and podcasts and stuff. But eventually, I just found that like writing everything out that I could possibly do, or that people were asking me to do, or things that I felt pressured to do, just like writing it all out, really helped. Because then I could like look at it and what it was, you know, it’s looking back at me, and I could realize, okay, here’s my vision, like, here’s what I feel like is important for us. Which of these things are really going to move the needle on that? And which of them can I maybe just do later, and then prioritize those things and make sure that those ones get into either my time or my volunteer his time or whatever?

Alex Enfiedjian 21:14 You talked about the in between time, right? And utilizing that in between time when you’re driving? Or when you’re working out to be inspired and stuff. But when do you actually sit down and work on say your sets for a few Sundays from now? Do you have a set time each week? Like in the evenings I do this? And what does it look like for you,

Zach Hodges 21:34 I try to have the setup by by Monday for my team like today, we have this epic, there’s just a few questions. This is a Monday, there’s just a few little questions. And then I’m gonna I’m gonna send it out to the team for them to listen to. And so a lot of times, Sunday night or Monday morning, sometime during Monday, maybe during lunch break, for me. Worst case, like Sunday night, or I’m sorry, Monday night, I’m working on that set and trying to get it out by Tuesday, because we do our practices on Thursday. So I really want to give my team at least a few days to listen to the songs and be able to prepare. I mean, I know it’s hard, but I gotta at least give him a chance.

Alex Enfiedjian 22:10 You talked about writing down ideas and putting it all down. Are there some apps or some tools or programs that have been helpful to you in in your trying to keep your thoughts organized and move forward and all that

Zach Hodges 22:26 I’m kind of a techie nerd, obviously, because I work at a company like that. And that’s just kind of who I’ve become. So for me, been a Wunderlist user for a long time. And that one’s great because it’s free, and you can collaborate with other people. My Church uses Basecamp and Planning Center. I use Google Docs and Google Sheets quite a bit. And so I like those because they you can share them and other people can edit them.

Alex Enfiedjian 22:51 Cool. So talk to us a little bit about pastoring people, you know, you’ve got a family, you’ve got a full time job. And you have all these volunteers like Do you ever, you know, I could right now I’m at work right now recording this, I could go take somebody out to coffee. In fact, it’s on my to do list today to take one of my team members out to coffee and just how are you doing? You know, how do you find time as a by vocational worship leader to pastor people, Shepherd people spend time with people on top of your family life and all that?

Zach Hodges 23:21 Yeah, this is one of the ones that I would say is is really hard. I try to build like as much connection time as I can into our practices. Like recently, I was thinking about trying to start like a midweek study where we would go through a book or something and my wife and I just realized there’s just no way we can do that. And I was kind of discouraged. But I just realized, like, I just have to make the most of whatever the time that I have. And like when we’re all together, I just have to figure out how to make that time really productive. So I have had many of the worship team over at various points, like for dinner just to kind of get to know them and their family. And for them to be able to get to know me, I have been able to take people out like especially other people that work from home or work locally, we can get coffee at lunchtime, or, you know, a smoothie or something like that. So I’ve been able to do that. Sometimes I’ll try and get coffee with somebody after work for them, you know, like five or 530. But then that starts cutting into my family time. And so I have to be really careful with that too. So it’s tricky. But we also do like worship community nights where we get everybody together. And that some of those are the times that we’ll talk about vision or things like that. But I also just really try to make those times a great connection time as well for people to get to know each other. And also for me to be able to connect with people often do you do that? retrying to do them quarterly it’s been more like three times a year but we’re aiming for quarterly. But yeah, like during our practices I started we would do we like set everything up, do a quick sound check and then everybody would like leave their instruments. We’ll just go sit on some chairs and just spend a little bit of time like reading through a psalm. And we’ll just kind of pop corn around, have everybody read a verse? I think it was you that suggested that and it’s been great. And then we’ll just take prayer requests and pray for each other pray for that Sunday. And it’s actually it’s become a great time to connect and free people to get to know each other. I started kind of noticing, like, we were together a lot, but we would just be shooting the breeze about like, whatever, like, the new iPhone, or a band or whatever. And that’s all good. But I started trying to look for ways like how can we? How can we be really purposeful when we are together, to use this time to connect to each other and to pray and to like, use that time? Well, you know, back to the investment thing, like, okay, we’re all here, or like, during a Sunday morning, you know, the messages going, none of us go to first service or just sitting in the back during first service, talking about whatever. And so I got us like reading a psalm during that time, going a little deeper, you know, asking for prayer requests, getting really trying to ask questions to get people talking. And it’s been great. Like, we had a situation once where it ended up being that a lady had a really difficult time with her daughter, and she started crying, and she wasn’t sure where their relationship was at, and all these things, and we were able to pray for her. And it was like this really great connecting time with her and with the rest of the team. And if we had just been shooting the breeze about, you know, whatever came up in the conversation, we would have never gotten to that really deep hurt that she had at that moment. And so being really intentional about using the time when we are together to try and create those connecting moments has really helped a lot. And I do feel like, I know the team, they know me, they know each other pretty well, it could certainly be better. But that’s one of the ways that I’ve tried to tackle that.

Alex Enfiedjian 26:45 Yeah, that’s huge. Talk to us a little bit about, you know, you talked about your family time and trying to do too much. And your wife’s like, no, that’s not gonna work. So what rules have helped you maintain health balance and boundaries? In your family time? Do you have like, I get home and I put my iPhone away? So I’m not working? That’s one that I wish I could do. My wife really wishes I could do that. But what are some boundaries that have been really helpful in maintaining health in your own personal life? amidst all the buisiness?

Zach Hodges 27:17 Well, I mean, I don’t have a lot of like, really strict boundaries. But there’s certain things that I definitely do that I think have helped. I don’t really help with anything at church except worship. So if somebody needs, you know, some other thing, like, you know, for me photography, or something like that, like, I’ll probably say no, because I’m trying to be very focused on worship. That’s my job. That’s my role. And I’m sorry, I don’t have time to do anything else. So it’s hard to say no to things at church. But it’s, it’s important to know when to say no. And then I also do try to keep my work as close to nine to five as I can, you know, certainly it bleeds over sometimes. But I’ve tried to just set a precedence with the people at my job. They know, you can’t, like ping me on a on a Saturday at 10 o’clock, and expect me to answer. And that’s hard to like, you can feel like, Oh, I need to always be available, or I need to always whatever. But then you end up creating this expectation with everyone that says, I’m always available. Work is the most important thing in my life, and everything else can be interrupted. And then they will. And for me, I’ve just kind of tried to make a point of like, you know, Hey, can I deal with this on Monday? Try to keep those boundaries and keep healthy boundaries. And then just making my wife, a partner, rather than a victim of my role has been really helpful. What does that mean? So she was as much of a part of the decision to take on this role as I was. And she’s crucial. And just the planning, the thinking, the organizing, building relationships, like she’s the ones that sometimes reminded me like, Hey, we wanted to bring people over, like, Who’s the next person from the worship team that we’re going to bring over. And the reason for that is, you know, we both decided that we wanted to do this, she’s bought into the vision of a really healthy worship ministry, at my church, and she wants to see that happen as much as I do. And so she’s not just a passive participant in that, like, I’m asking her for feedback, I’m asking her for help. And then I’m also like listening to her when she’s saying, like, I don’t think we can do that. That’s too much, whatever. And it’s something that we work on together. That might sound impossible for some people to try and manufacture that but just to get your spouse at least understanding why it’s important to you and why it’s a good use of time. And because it’s a sacrifice that they’re making to like when you’re gone. Like when I’m gone, my wife is alone with the kids, she has to put them down, you know, Thursday nights, and then she has to wake up with them and get them all ready for church on Sunday mornings. Like it’s a lot of work. And she has to be totally bought into that reason. The why like why are we doing that? And thankfully she is. And so she’s super helpful to me. But she also helps me maintain those boundaries.

Alex Enfiedjian 30:07 And if someone’s spouse isn’t bought in, it’s probably not gonna last very long. Yeah. And well, not the marriage, but the role in ministry. Yeah. Hopefully the marriage lasts long. never kill your marriage for ministry. Yes, always kill your ministry for marriage. I actually quit one church to work on my marriage. It was crazy. And maybe one day I’ll talk about that. But I quit my only job to make sure my marriage was healthy. So always sacrifice ministry, you can always get another ministry, I’m living proof of that you can never get another marriage. Well, you can. But it will not honor the Lord, you know. So our first ministry is primarily to our family. It really it truly is. So let’s not mix those two things up, you know, yeah,

Zach Hodges 30:50 you know, and I think another thing that can be helpful is just to have really good communication with the leadership of your church. You know, like, if the pastor knows, hey, you know, I’m really working on developing some people. And, you know, the quality might go down a little bit, but this is why and he’s bought into that, then there’s not going to be these conversations later on, like, hey, why is worship getting worse or something like that? So having really good communication with your leadership can actually help with balance and boundaries, because you just have a lot less hassle and conversations and awkwardness to deal with.

Alex Enfiedjian 31:23 Yeah, yeah. As we wrap things up here, are there any kind of key points that you feel like we maybe missed that you’d like to speak to by vocational worship leaders,

Zach Hodges 31:32 I’ll just say it’s really, I found, it’s really helpful to get away to get out of your routine sometimes, which can be really hard. But occasionally, I have to make a trip for work. And a lot of times I come back, just feeling like so refreshed as a worship leader, just to get out of my routine and out of like, working in the ministry, like, like I was saying earlier, and sometimes I feel like just maintaining my own interest in my role is almost like one of the most important things I can do. Because I can get worn down, I can get tired and just kind of doing the motions. And so anything that inspires me that makes me want to do better. I’m just always looking for that. And you know, somebody else’s six steps won’t be mine. But just rekindling that fire in myself will make me want to get back on, you know, keep keep pushing on this thing.

Alex Enfiedjian 32:19 Leadership is not for lazy people, right? No, no. And I love that you’re always constantly like, trying to work at it, trying to stay inspired, trying to learn new things, trying to grow yourself. And something that I’m learning is like, a ministry will not grow unless the leader himself is growing. So we literally can become the lid on our ministry. And for people who are in by vocational worship, leadership, it’s even harder to have that time and that focus, to really grow yourself in that area so that you can grow your ministry and so, you know, God bless you guys, all of you who are serving by vocationally. You are my heroes, truly. Zack any final encouragement for our listeners? And then maybe you can tell them where they can keep in touch with you if they want to?

Zach Hodges 33:06 Yeah, sure. I like Second Thessalonians 313 He says, brothers do not grow weary in doing good. And to me, I take that as like, don’t just that doesn’t mean like, you’re not allowed to get tired, you’re going to get tired, but you need to manage yourself and your time and your energy and your vision and not burn out. Just being this like manager person. And so have your priorities and maintain them stay close to the word. Stay close to the Lord keep in prayer and fellowship with people that encourage you in your role and have a long view of your life and your ministry. Like for me when I’m 80 and looking back I want my legacy to be a legacy of of worship leaders that were raised up and people that were grown in are thankful for me just like I’m thankful to others who did this for me think about like what you want your the result of your time to be and then build towards that in the Lord strength as you pray and and seek Him every day.

Alex Enfiedjian 34:03 Awesome. Zack, where can people keep up with you online if anywhere? You

Zach Hodges 34:08 can just email me Zack z IC h at Reliance church.org.

Alex Enfiedjian 34:14 And then download visco the camera app and subscribe so that Zach can continue feeding his children. Yeah, why not? why don’t why not get more subscribers to your awesome camera app? Zack actually designs all the filters for those for the photos. So he’s the creative genius behind that. And then I remembered one last reason why you’re awesome. You created the new podcast theme that people are hearing on this episode. So yay, yay. Zach is the one who produced that music. So good job, Zack. Happy to do it. And and he did it for free. Thank you Zack, but don’t expect him to do it for you for free. He just likes me a lot. Alright, Zack, say bye to our listeners. Thank you so much for your time. Bye. Thank you.

Alex Enfiedjian 34:59 Alright, That’s it for today’s episode. I hope you were helped and encouraged and found some new ideas to better improve your worship ministry as a by vocational leader. And if you have any thoughts or comments please feel free to email me Alex at worship ministry training comm also please feel free to send this episode on to a friend. We make it very easy by creating clickable links in the show notes of your podcast app. So please spread the word for us so we can continue helping worship leaders grow in their craft and calling. Alright, that’s it this time. I’ll see you next month for another helpful episode.