Moving Past Cookie-Cutter Worship w/ Aaron Niequist

Alex |

Welcome to the Worship Ministry Training Podcast, a monthly podcast for worship leaders who are serious about growing in their craft and calling. My name is Alex, fellow worship leader, super stoked you’re here. And if you’re new listener, I’m going to encourage you to hit that subscribe button, because every single month I’m going to give you helpful practical guidance that you can immediately implement into your ministry. Hit that subscribe button, and then go back through the past nine years of episodes and binge listen your way to a healthier ministry. If you’re someone who is really serious about growing as a worship leader, I want to point you to the Worship Ministry Training Academy. What is the academy? It’s an online training platform that will give you everything you need to build a thriving worship ministry. You’ll get ten indepth courses on topics like set building, team building, musical excellence, vocal techniques, and more. You’ll get live monthly training workshops on topics that are relevant to you. You’ll get exclusive expert interviews with some of the best worship leaders in the world. You’ll get done for you ministry admin systems and audition process, onboarding documents, team training materials, and even team discipleship materials.

 

Alex |

We will take care of you so you can focus on leading your team. If that sounds like something that would be of help to you, you can try the Worship Ministry Training Academy for just one dollars by going to Worship Ministrytraining.com. Sign up today for your $1 trial and I hope to see you inside of the academy. All right, let’s get into today’s episode. Hello, beautiful worship Ministry training family. Happy to be doing another podcast with you. And to the academy members who are watching live, welcome. We’ll do our Q and A session with Aaron at the end, but today I want to introduce my new friend Aaron Neequist, who is out in New York City. So let’s welcome Erin to the show. Hello, Erin.

 

Aaron Niequist |

Hey, good to see you.

 

Alex |

Good to see you too. So Aaron and I met through actually a mutual friend who is David Santa Steven, and he has an awesome podcast for worship leaders. So anyone listening to this podcast, go check out the Beyond Sunday podcast. Actually, I was telling Aaron before we hit record that Beyond Sunday podcast was my inspiration to start my podcast eight years ago. So all glory to God and all props to David.

 

Aaron Niequist |

Our friend.

 

Alex |

Aaron. Tell us you’re out in New York City. You said it’s not too cold right now, but tell us a little bit about you. If our listeners are unfamiliar with you, tell them who you are and kind of what you’re up to.

 

Aaron Niequist |

Okay, well, I mean, just framing it from a worship leader standpoint. I went to school actually for music theory and composition, which is a very marketable major. But when I was in school, I realized I think I was called to be a worship leader. I was like, man, I think I made to do this. So I got a job at Willow Creek Church, which is right by the school. I had been involved there with a high school ministry and was there about five years. And then while we were there, we met Rob Bell and he invited us out to Grand Rapids to be the worship leader at Mars Hill for those years. And that was a really exciting number of years. We’ll talk a little about that because that’s where some of the shifts really started to happen. So we’ll talk a little about that, I hope, and then move back to Willow Creek to become one of the worship leaders there on the weekend services. And then that was wonderful and challenging and all of that, but it launched us to start a Sunday night practice based community and that was absolutely life changing.

 

Aaron Niequist |

Did that for a number of years and then moved out here to Manhattan to go to seminary. I’d never got my Masters and just wanted to keep learning. Here I am, graduated about a year and a half ago and am really excited to keep learning and exploring and all of that.

 

Alex |

So you got your masters.

 

Aaron Niequist |

So you are a master apparently on paper somewhere. Yeah.

 

Alex |

That’s awesome. Today, guys, what we’re talking about is we’re really talking about a different approach to the corporate worship experience. This is not a bash on the current approach of what is normal and normative in most churches. This is not a bash on that. It’s simply an exploration of what things maybe are we missing in our current modern environment and what other approaches can we take to gain back or gain new things in the future. And Aaron has done a lot of thinking about this, and, you know, so Aaron was at two megachurches, right? Willow Creek megachurch, mars Hill with robbed megachurch and then back to Willow Creek. And everybody knows that both of those churches are excellent and amazing at their musicality, at their production. They have all the bells and whistles. They are kind of Willow Creek in so many instances and in so many ways is the standard that many churches try to emulate, right. And so Erin has lived in that world. But I think, Erin, for you, maybe just tell us where the shift began or where you started to see maybe this isn’t all that it’s cracked up to be.

 

Aaron Niequist |

Yeah, well, it really happened in the Mars Hill years and had moved from Willow from the high school ministry, which is just so exciting and energy. So then I come to Mars Hill, and at that time, Rob was speaking so much about the kingdom of God, about the big invitation to join God and what God’s doing to redeem and restore all things. He had been reading a lot of Dallas Willard, and it was just this the most expansive invitation I’d ever heard, and it was so compelling. But I kind of showed up. I looked down at my worship leader toolbox, and I looked in there, and I only had three things. I had loud songs, I had really loud songs, and then I had exceptionally loud songs. It’s like all I had, those were the tools. And here’s the thing. I believe in loud songs. I believe in what can happen, those kind of expansive energy moments. But it hit me one Sunday. I was like, the tools that I have can’t possibly capture the vastness and the depth and the width of this kingdom invitation that Rob was talking about. And so I said, I’ve got to find some new tools.

 

Alex |

Yeah. And I think to be even more explicit and clear to the listeners, like, what it is that I’d like us to kind of dissect it’s like the cookie cutter worship thing. That basically what I’m seeing. And again, this is not a bash because it’s maybe more exploratory of, like, what is the good and what is the bad? But you have two, three, four or five churches that are producing all the music. We’re all singing the same songs in the same arrangements, with the same tracks, with the same parts, musical parts led in the same style, with the same lighting, with the same clothing, attire. I mean, obviously over. I’m like caricatureising it a little bit, but just a little bit. So I’m just wondering because I actually see some worship leaders where they’re set is like, they play the song in the same key every time. They literally don’t change the arrangement. Like, they have the same intro and the same outro because it’s in the track. And it’s just like, what are we doing here? And so there is this cookie cutter thing that because the industry of worship, which that’s a whole other topic, is trying to help us be excellent, which is a good thing, and we should be excellent.

 

Alex |

They’re giving us tools that make it so easy to be excellent that we then just all sound identical, right? And worship, if you go to worship in this church in this town, it sounds exactly the same as worship in this church in this town. And all the individualism and all the beautiful uniqueness of the buy price is lost. And so obviously, it sounds like I kind of have an opinion already, so I don’t want to talk too much more. But let’s start, Aaron. Just let’s talk a little bit about what is the good right now that we do see and what are some of the good things about this current environment where we’re in and then we’ll focus on, like, what are some of the things that maybe it’s leaving us lacking and wanting it, and then we’ll see where the conversation goes from there. So what’s some of the good that we see in our current modern worship set up right now?

 

Aaron Niequist |

Okay, so what is beautiful about the current evangelical worship? I think I would say it in two ways. Number one, the energy. There is an infectious energy about what happens on a lot of these big stages that I think is really important. And you only have to go to a church where there is no energy to realize what a loss that is. And so I think that’s one of the most compelling things to me. The second thing, whenever I, you know, think about and talk about trying to integrate all of the experiences of my life, just the different traditions, the different streams, I keep coming back to evangelical hospitality. Evangelicals want you to come. They want you to show up, they want you to participate. There is this almost falling over ourselves to say, join us, we’re so glad you’re here’s, how you can, you know, I love that our Escapade brothers and sisters desperately need to learn from us in that way. Our Catholic brothers and sisters desperately need to learn from us in that way. And so, yeah, I think that is what’s most compelling. That’s the part of my story that I want to hold on to as deeply as possible.

 

Alex |

Yeah. And I think as I think about you saying that, it’s kind of like that hospitality and that energy actually is very invitational and it brings a lot of people in. And I think what I’m kind of starting to put together in my mind as you’re talking is like the Evangelical church is great at reaching out and bringing people in and making people feel welcomed and that energy and that good feeling and all that, right?

 

Aaron Niequist |

Yes.

 

Alex |

Which is probably why it’s growing. And especially in the charismatic circles, it’s one of the fastest growing movements in Latin America and whatever like Africa, Asia. So that is great. It brings people into the family of God but then maybe it leaves us wanting a little bit or there’s some substance lacking to it. I’m not sure. And I don’t want to, again, character because I think about my church and we teach the Bible verse by verse like we have the focus on the gospel. We’re calling people repentance. So it’s not like it’s not working and it’s not like it’s bad. But maybe what are some of the things that you found to be lacking or maybe even harmful in this?

 

Aaron Niequist |

Yeah, well, I mean, maybe if I could start with a big sweeping comment and then we can unpack it a little bit. In my Willow Creek days, I remember having the moment thinking this movement and not just Willow, the specific place, but this way of doing church is it might be one of the best on ramps to faith of all time. I mean, I don’t know, I’m not a church historian, but it is one of the most compelling onramps to faith I have ever seen. But I’m not sure it can sustain a whole life of faith and, you know, I hope this isn’t overly critical. At a certain point I was like, it’s like second grade. Second grade is so critically important, and it’s especially important in that it brings us to third grade. And then third grade is so important in that it brings OK, so I’ve wondered if kind of the secret church movement and this really compelling, expansive way of doing church is like a certain grade, but sometimes it doesn’t know it’s part of the journey. It thinks it’s the end of the journey. And so I think that’s why I’m really compelled by ecumenical movements, learning from other Christians, doing it in other ways, because you just realize, wow, this story is really big and it’s really compelling and there’s so much more than my particular stream.

 

Aaron Niequist |

So maybe can I tell a quick story that we were chatting about earlier in my Will years? I remember we were working on lots of different ideas and really we did a lot of stuff I’m really proud of. But I remember the Sunday I realized, I think, functionally, the question I’m being asked to answer each Sunday is, how do we get the room fired up? In the first 25 minutes, I can hear someone saying, we got to give people that God feeling.

 

Alex |

Right?

 

Aaron Niequist |

Well, I don’t doubt their motives. I know each of the people who are having this conversation, they are very good Christian Godly people. But if the question I’m asked to answer is how do we get the room fired up? You know what doesn’t fit in? Lament and scripture readings and call and response and prayer for the world and silence and reflection, you name it. There’s about 25 things that I’ve come to believe are utterly critical for a growing, healthy Christian community that that question excludes. And so that really messed with me. I’m like, how do I really accomplish what I’m being asked to do when I think the question itself limits us from a kind of full worship experience that would help us become healthy?

 

Alex |

Wow. The question itself is how do we hype up this room and give them the Godfin? Wow. You’re saying I love what you said because any worship leader listening can insert some of these things with their pastor’s permission and hopefully their pastor’s down with this. You can insert silence, you can insert, you can insert prayer for the world, you can insert communion, you can insert all of these things into an evangelical service and nothing is lost. In fact, much is gained. Right?

 

Aaron Niequist |

Right.

 

Alex |

But if the question is, how do we hike up the room, then you don’t want to do any of these somber things. And yet doesn’t God meet the brokenhearted? Isn’t he near to the brokenhearted?

 

Aaron Niequist |

Right.

 

Alex |

Well, that’s very provocative.

 

Aaron Niequist |

Yes. Nearly a third of the psalms, if you look at the 150 psalms, nearly a third of them contain some bit or whole of Lament. Nearly a third of the Psalms contain lament. Do you know what percentage of the top 100 CCLI worship songs are laments? Zero. What do we do with that? That doesn’t make non lament, that doesn’t make celebratory music bad. In fact, we desperately need it. But what does it mean? Let me say this. I was sharing with my wife a number of years ago about these different things that we’re trying to bring into worship, whether it’s scripture readings or, you know, moments of quiet or whatever it is. And finally she says, oh, I get it. You’re trying to offer a well balanced meal every Sunday. And that was really profound for me because when I looked at the meal I had been serving, it was a good meal. Like it was chicken and had some rice and a little dessert. It was a really good meal, but it was the same meal every Sunday for years, wondering why my community wasn’t getting more healthy. Because there were a number of food groups that the container of our service did not allow.

 

Alex |

Right.

 

Aaron Niequist |

And so what happens when you exclude needed food groups over years and years and years, you know? So I think if I could say one thing in this entire conversation, it would just be notice the food group that you’re serving over and over and be thankful for it. It’s probably really good and necessary. Don’t throw it away. Keep serving it. And try to discern with your team, with your leaders, with your community. What are the food groups that you haven’t even bought from the store yet, let alone served on a Sunday? What is lacking?

 

Alex |

Wow. Yeah. That reminds me a lot of I’m sure you’ve heard of Zach Kicks book called The Worship Pastor and he talks about worship leaders as dietitians and how the corporate worship experience is very extremely formative for the discipleship community called the church. Like what we do when we gather informs us and forms us into people who do that outside of church. So if we don’t give them the language of lament, if we don’t give them the language of whatever silence or the teach them the practice of silence, then they won’t do it at home. You have a quote, I think it’s on your website. It says, the way we do anything is the way we do everything.

 

Aaron Niequist |

Yeah.

 

Alex |

How does that apply to what we’re talking about here?

 

Aaron Niequist |

Well, that’s a Richard Rohr quote. That’s something I learned from him. And it’s kind of like Jesus teachings on a good tree doesn’t produce bad fruit. And so I think as it’s pertaining to this, maybe we’d pull back the curtain just a little bit. And I think I would want to lead my worship team with the same grace that we are inviting the community to celebrate about God. We’ve probably all been a part of things that behind the scenes are stressful and potentially damaging, but then as soon as we count down to the service. It’s isn’t God’s love. Great. So I think the way you do anything is the way you do everything that we don’t get to separate those things out. Yeah.

 

Alex |

For me, when I was reading it, I was thinking a lot about just that the methods we use inform the message that’s communicated or they color the message. For example, if we do giant IMAX picture on the screen of a larger than life pastor or a larger than life worship team, it is telling people something. So, in other words, when I was reading the quote, I just thought of, like, the methods inform the message. Right.

 

Aaron Niequist |

The medium is the message. That’s exactly right.

 

Alex |

Yeah. And so, again, it’s like looking at what we’re doing and realizing that how low we turn the lights down. And I’m not saying which way to go on any of this, but just to be aware that if you do something a certain way, it’s going to result in it’s going to impact people how they experience it. Because the ecumenical movements of churches are also doing quiet, contemplative, dark candlelight worship. They are also turning the lights down. So I’m not saying that, but there has to be a reason behind why we’re turning the lights down. And I think so many of us, we just do it because other churches do it. But we’re not asking the question, why are we turning the lights down? Or why are we turning the band up? Or why are we doing Imac on the screens? And I think I had a conversation with Jeremy Riddle maybe six months ago, or maybe the podcast came out six months ago, but people can go back and check it out. Just scroll through the feed and look for the latest one with Jeremy Riddle. And he was like, we ask why we do everything.

 

Alex |

How is doing this production technique making disciples? That is his primary question. Do you want to speak into that at all?

 

Aaron Niequist |

Oh, yeah. I think the why is the biggest question and the biggest thing that is in the way right now. You were talking about some of the problems we get to see online, all the different ways that people are doing it. I’m not sure that’s a problem. It’s only a problem if most of the people who are broadcasting aren’t asking the bigger why question. Then we’re just reinforcing that. It’s about the euphoric experience. How do we get to the mountaintop each Sunday? Right? And so, yeah, I think the why is critical. A couple of reflections on that. First, it started for me like I shared earlier when I was at Marcel and realizing I didn’t have the tools, I started looking at how other traditions were doing it. And that was really helpful. I mean, I noticed right away most Christian traditions every Sunday do a confession and then hear words of assurance afterwards. Well, why do they do that? Every Sunday, and why do we never do that? That’s a really fruitful conversation to explore as a team. Most Christian traditions have a lot of scripture read in the service, and I realized we could go three or four Sundays and never hear more than two or three lines of scripture read at one point.

 

Aaron Niequist |

Well, why? Why don’t we? Why do they? And it just kept the more I was exposed to the ways that other Christians were doing it, the more I realized, again, not they’re right and we’re wrong, but we are a very particular version of the Christian story. And I think if you’ve only been inside that version, you don’t realize how particular we are, how wed to this very moment of American culture we are. Again, good or bad? I don’t know, but specific and so widening that question, can I share a story that a mentor told me? Yes. I actually shared this in the book that I wrote about this whole topic called The Eternal Current. And I had a mentor, he just said, Erin, you have a little kid, right? And so I said, yeah, he’s just learning how to walk and all that. He goes, okay. When little kids are pre verbal, it’s really frustrating for everyone. And the most gracious thing that a parent can do is give the kid language to help them articulate what they’re feeling inside. So that’s why we give him words like, I’m scared or I’m hungry to express what’s going on.

 

Aaron Niequist |

He said, at a certain point, though, a good parent needs to move beyond that and give kids language they would never choose to say, but as they say, forms them into certain kinds of people. It’s why we teach them to say please and thank you, and I’m sorry. And he stopped, and I realized where he was going, and he’s like, My guess is your worship experience that you’re leading is primarily helping people express what’s going on inside them. And he said, that’s beautiful. A lot of the psalms are expressive worship, but he said, at a certain point, you’re going to have to explore more formative worship. What are the words that your community would never naturally just express, but they need to practice? So there again, that’s why we choose to do a confession of sin. That’s why we choose to pray for the world. That’s why we choose to do some of these other things. And that was really helpful for me. He said, Get your team together. Try to discern what are the words your community loves to say? Keep doing it. And then what are the words that your community almost never says?

 

Aaron Niequist |

What would it look like to integrate some of those practices into your worship? Dang sage advice.

 

Alex |

Yes, that is so helpful, because what do they love to say is important, but what do they need to say is just as important? When I think about the songs that work like a lot of times as worship leaders, we like to see the response, and so we play songs that we know work and elicit a response. And I’ve been kind of like seeing a pattern recently of songs that are really working, are all songs about how and this is not bad, but this is what our church loves to say. They love to say, God, you’re going to come through for me. You’re going to bring my victory. You’re like my genie in a bottle. Who’s going to bring the path all that I desire and you’re going to overcome this hurdle for me. And all the stuff I’ve noticed that those are the songs that are being written for the church and that the church loves to sing. And of course, when the church loves to sing a song, songwriters write more of them. Oh, my gosh.

 

Aaron Niequist |

It’S one good food group that is a theme in the Scriptures, thanks be to God. So I hope we never lose that as one stream. But man, a full diet of only that is just malnourishing, because that’s not the whole story. So we get out of theory land. Can I share one concrete example, please? In 2016, we were doing this practice based community on Sunday nights, and that was in the fall, the lead up to that election, which was, if you can bring yourself back to those days and was so nasty and divided and just really tough times. And so we said, well, we are practicing community. What is the practice that can form us into the kinds of people that we won’t perpetuate this nastiness, but maybe we could stand with Christ for a better way. And so we went to Jesus words that Jesus said, pray for your enemies, bless those who curse you. And we added a part of our liturgy. So every Sunday we had a confession, some silence, and then words of assurance as far as the east is from the west. And then we added a prayer for one of our enemies.

 

Alex |

Nice.

 

Aaron Niequist |

And we said, we’re going to do this 52 times this year, every Sunday. And so I would set it up the same way. I would say, okay, how many of you know that Jesus said, pray and bless, pray for and bless your enemy? Every hand would go up and I would say, how many of you do it? And we’d all put our hands down, myself included. I don’t actively do that. So we made that practice. And so some Sundays would be like, we’d talk about someone in the news, like a foreign enemy, and we’d pray that God would bless them just as people. Sometimes we’d keep it real personal. Is there someone in your life that, if you’re honest, has become like an enemy? Would you take a moment to pray that God would bless them, that God would heal them? And then as the election got close, we did this two different times where we put up on the screen Donald Trump’s face and Hillary Clinton’s face and said, don’t pray for the one you’re leaning toward. Pray for the other one. Yes, and don’t pray that God would change them or make them repentance.

 

Aaron Niequist |

Like, pray that God would bless them, that God would take care of their families. I mean, can you imagine being a kid of a presidential candidate pray for their marriages? Can you imagine what marriage they are? Deeply beloved. A son and a daughter created by the God who made everything. Let’s pray for them. And I’m telling you, it was painful. We kind of all hated it. And then we did it again the next week, and we did it again the next week, and we just said, who will we be if we submit to this practice? Which is just basically obeying Jesus? How would that form us into particular kinds of people?

 

Alex |

So that’s amazing.

 

Aaron Niequist |

It didn’t get the room fired up, so it failed on that end. But I wonder if it was a real faithful way to try to grow as a worship community.

 

Alex |

I love it, and it’s 52 weeks. You see this long game. Like, I talked with Andy Razzier recently, and he’s like, it’s a long game if we want to see change in people, it’s not a one week like, it’s how do we spread out the strategy across a year to move people in a certain direction? And then also with that said, it’s like, see how your role as worship leader has moved beyond just singing songs? Now you’re using other elements to help people worship. Because I always tell I really dislike when pastors say, we have worship and the word I’m like, no, the whole thing is worship, right? And it’s not just relegated to the songs. It’s like the entire service is worship unto God. And so I think worship leaders need to hear that. We have to think bigger than the song.

 

Aaron Niequist |

Can I say a word about that?

 

Alex |

Yes, please.

 

Aaron Niequist |

Again, it was in the Mars Hill days where we made a critical shift that changed everything. And it was a shift from saying so often, big changes start with just language. And it was a shift from, what, five songs are we going to sing this Sunday? To what, 25 minutes worship experience are we going to experience together this Sunday? That language shift changed everything because it’s why I’m a little weary about, like, planning center. I love the organization of it. I love the volunteer side of it, but it is tempting to drop into slots. Okay, what’s the opening song? What’s the second song? And I think that just gets us really stuck. And so when we switch to what journey are we going to go on? Well, suddenly then we see how songs can really serve that, but then we see, actually, this part of the journey, we need to do something different. And this is such an embarrassingly small beginning, but back in those days, we were singing, remember that song better as One Day Redmond, which I love that song, but we’re singing that a lot, and we had the painfully obvious idea, what if the band just starts the groove?

 

Aaron Niequist |

And what if we invite someone to come up on stage and read the entire psalm that that song was written out of? We just let the whole psalm wash over us. And then she walked down from the stage and we just said, how lovely is your dwelling place. We never sang the song the same way again after that Sunday, it just changed, and it was, again, such a simple idea. But I’d never done anything like that before. Yes. And so it was beautiful in that it brought some depth. It also acknowledged that not everyone in the room likes to sing. And that doesn’t make them second class worshippers. That makes them people who don’t like to sing. And I think we conflate that, like, if you’re not as moved by this song as the guy who gets paid to do this professionally, there’s something wrong with your heart. Well, maybe their heart is fine. They just don’t want to sing. Like, singing corporately is weird. We only do it like we do it at baseball games, we do it singing Happy Birthday, and we do it at church. Well, again, it’s not bad, but we’ve just got to acknowledge that there are a lot of people who are walking with God, that singing is not their pathway.

 

Aaron Niequist |

And I think it would be an act of, again, hospitality and love to invite them to worship.

 

Alex |

Also, that was an unexpected and wonderful point. I was like, yes, okay, let’s give people in our church who don’t like to sing a way to worship instead.

 

Aaron Niequist |

Of making them feel like they’re second class worshippers.

 

Alex |

Right? And you said you took your first embarrassingly small step. Well, Aaron, I think a lot of the listeners are like, okay, I’m not the senior pastor. I don’t get to make all these decisions. But there’s two things I want to do. I want to want you to kind of give us some baby steps in the right direction. But secondly, I definitely want everybody to hear about what you’re doing and the conference and the retreats that you’re doing to help worship leaders learn more about that. So let’s talk about baby steps, and then let’s talk about what you’re doing and how they can plug into that or explore more about that. And then lastly, I want you to give some final words of wisdom. So let’s go with baby steps, baby step to move us towards a healthier, more holistic worship experience.

 

Aaron Niequist |

Yes. Oh, what a great question. Well, I’ll tell you how we started it at Marcel, we committed. My worship leading partner, Troy and I, we said every Sunday we’re going to do one nonsinging or beyond singing worship element every Sunday. And it could be simple. It could be as simple as a scripture reading, it could be as simple as a corporate prayer, but every Sunday. And so that discipline got us asking that question. We couldn’t just do four pop songs and a hymn. We needed to also do something beyond. So my first encouragement would be look for beyond singing worship moments. One of the ones I used to do at Willow all the time was we’d finish a song, especially a particularly meaningful song, and I would say, listen, I don’t know what you need to say to God right now, but I’m just going to play for 1 minute and invite you to say it silently. I just play and I don’t know what’s happening, but it gave us space to not just jump into the next song. Sometimes I wonder if the primary role of a worship leader is to lovingly invite our community out of autopilot.

 

Alex |

Dang.

 

Aaron Niequist |

I use the word provocative, but I don’t mean that in the, oh, isn’t this cool and dangerous? I just mean to provoke out of just singing. I’ve sung the song again. Okay, here comes the bridge. So what is one beyond singing way of worship every Sunday? How can you create space that invites your community out of autopilot and frankly, invites everyone on stage out of autopilot? I mean, we can all tell stories about how we just went into the mode and hit play on the next song. And then I think back to the beginning of the conversation to get really painfully clear about what we’re trying to do in these 20 or 30 minutes. Not like the Christian ease we’re honoring God. No, like what I shared. I realized I was supposed to get the room fired up. What is the functional purpose of that time? And then humbly ask, is that a big enough purpose? And what can we do about it? The senior pastor is saying no. That’s it. Well, then the decision is, can I stay in this container or do I need to go to another container? But I think a lot of times senior pastors are open to humble, wonderings about how this could expand a little bit.

 

Alex |

Yeah. So have that conversation with your senior pastor. Don’t just make decisions, guys like, oh, we’re going to do this. I heard a podcast episode, that guy Aaron is really smart and we’re going to just you have to talk to your pastor about it.

 

Aaron Niequist |

Yeah. In the same way, you have to share the vision with a community of why we’re doing this weird thing. Very often you have to vision cast the senior pastor. Here’s the heart of why we’re going to do 1 minute of quiet after the song, because we wonder if this song is going to evoke some things that then people want to say, oh, can I tell one Willow story?

 

Alex |

Yes.

 

Aaron Niequist |

Remember the Song Hillsong United, I think. Hosanna, hosanna, hosannah. I love that song. We were doing that every other weekend, it felt like. But it got to that amazing bridge. Heal my heart and make it clean the words break my heart for what breaks yours it was so cool, but I realized every time we got there, every amp was at eleven and we were cranking that and I said, I think we might be missing the depth of these words. And so what we did is we’d sang it. We got to that point as I walked from Earth into eternity and then the band just went down to a vamp and I said that, I said, I wonder if we miss the depth of these words sometime. And so I want to give us we’re going to take three or four minutes to go line by line through that bridge. So let’s bring this up on the screen. So heal my heart and make it clean and then the next slide just had some sort of scripture verse about God bringing healing to our hearts. And then there was a question, and I think for that one, it was, in what way do you need God to heal you today?

 

Aaron Niequist |

So the band’s just vamping. We gave it like 15 seconds. All right, next line. Open up my eyes to the things unseen scripture about God opening our eyes in a question that helped. And it was the same kind of thing. Pretty simple idea. We’re just going one line at a time, offering some scriptural grounding and a reflection question. But then when I said, all right, stand up, we’re going to sing this again, it was different. And so I would invite everyone who’s listening, what are those moments where you can invite us to move beyond, gosh, I love this song, or I love to sing this part of the song into God. What are you saying to us through this moment of this song or through these lyrics?

 

Alex |

It’s super helpful and I think it takes work. It took you a lot more effort to plan that then just to play the song. So that’s true. People have to care. Worship leaders have to care to help people break out of the autopilot mode. And we do it through just pastoral guidance and changing things up. And any time you’re in a rut, you have to break the script. I think it’s called the script, to flip the script in people’s minds that’s like, they pay attention, they’re like, oh, my gosh, like something different is happening. I pay attention now.

 

Aaron Niequist |

Yes, absolutely.

 

Alex |

To the listeners listening, obviously, and to the people watching on YouTube, aaron, you can tell, has a ton of wisdom. He is a master, by the way. He has a master’s degree. So, Aaron, please tell our listeners, where can they connect with you? Tell them about the retreat, tell them what you’re doing and how they can plug in.

 

Aaron Niequist |

Yeah, well, I mean, the biggest thing for this particular conversation is my book, The Eternal Current. I wrote about the whole story of moving from Willow Creek Weekend Services to this practicebased community that we started. And so a lot of it is about, you know, I talk a lot about liturgies, don’t be afraid by the word liturgy. It’s just the things that we do when we come together. So I think The Eternal Current has a lot in there about this conversation. But, yeah, we’re also doing in 2023, three retreats that we’re calling Pastors, Priests and Guides. One in Houston, one in Chicago, and one in New York City. And the whole idea is it’s an ecumenical group, so there will be Christians from all over the different traditions and we’re all coming together to say we’re exhausted. Many of us are pretty disillusioned. I mean, these last few years have been tough. So how do we begin to heal together? And then how do we explore some new ways forward? So we don’t want to just heal and then go back to what hasn’t worked for a long time, but we want to begin to heal and then we want to reimagine some new ways together.

 

Aaron Niequist |

And my suspicion is a lot of the new is actually going to be really old recapturing, but not just going backwards recapturing and bringing it into this world that we find ourselves. So, yeah, they’re called it’s called Pastors, Priests and Guides and the website is just Pastors, Priests and guides.com. We’d love for any and all of you to join us for one of these retreats.

 

Alex |

That’s so cool. I’ll put links in the show notes for the book and for that conference. So Aaron, this has been one of my favorite conversations in a long time, back on many more times in the future. Yeah, for the academy members who are watching live, we’re going to jump into our live Q and A right now. So just give us 1 second. Thanks for tuning in today. I hope this episode encouraged you, helped you and pushed you forward in your ministry. If it helped you, can you take a second and help us by sending it to just one person that you think needs to hear this? And if you’re feeling extra nice, leave us a nice shiny five star review on Apple podcasts or like this video if you’re watching it on YouTube. If you want to discuss this episode or ask questions, we do have a free section in our academy where you can post comments and questions and chat with other worship leaders just like you and also sample some of our courses. And you can go to Worshipmestrytraining.com Free to join us inside the free portion of the academy. If you’re looking for more, check out the full access academy.

 

Alex |

You can get 15 days for just $1 to start and try things out again. You can try all of it for 15 days for just $1 by going to worshipmestrytraining.com. Com. Hope to see inside the academy or else I’ll see you next month for another helpful episode.