Developing Future Worship Leaders w/ Passion

Alex Enfiedjian 00:11 Hello, and welcome back to another episode of the worship ministry training podcast, a monthly podcast for worship leaders and worship team members. My name is Alex Enfiedjian, your host, if you are a new listener, gosh, we are so glad that you’re tuning in. I really hope that you are helped by this podcast. Go ahead and look through the entire archive of episodes, we try to stick to one topic per episode and be as in depth and practical as possible. So dig through the archive list and find some topics that will be of help to you also want to remind our listeners, maybe you only listen on the podcast, but we have a website. It’s worship ministry training calm. And on that website. There are a bunch of free resources that I’ve developed for worship leaders. If you go to worship, ministry training, comm slash resources, you’ll get those things for free, just enter your email. So check that out. And today’s episode is all about raising up the next generation of worship leaders. Now, one of the prime objectives in Scripture to humans is to be fruitful and multiply. And obviously there are a million ways that we can be fruitful and multiply. But one way that we can do it as worship leaders is to intentionally raise up and invest in the next generation of worship leaders. If you and I, as the current set of worship leaders do not intentionally raise up the next generation of worship leaders, there will be a lack of worship leaders in the world when we’re gone. So that is exactly what I talked about today with Kristian stanfill and Brett younker. From passion and from passion city church, they were intentionally brought alongside of guys like Chris Tomlin and Matt Redman and David Crowder and a whole bunch of other people. And they were invested in by those people. And they leaned into it as well. So it was a two way street. But they are now in the role that they have because somebody intentionally invested in them. And now they are turning around and already in their 30s beginning to pass the baton to the next generation of worship leaders behind them. So it’s a really great episode full of insight and wisdom and I’m excited to share it with you. But first I want to tell you about our recommended product of the month pads live pads live is a brand new app from core sound pads that is literally revolutionising the pads game with how simple they have made it to introduce backing pads into your band. In the past with other pads you had to download the files, find a software program to play them figure out how to crossfade and all that. But now you can download one app on your phone or your tablet, plug it into your sound system, build your setlist within the app and click play. You advance through the songs they automatically crossfade and then they fade to silence at the end of your set. It is so easy to use and it is absolutely free. There’s even a metronome option if you’d like to start playing with the click track so pads live app the links will be in the show notes you can unlock more pads within the app itself or even better for you is to go to core sound pads comm enter the promo code w empty podcast at checkout and you’ll save 20% off your purchase. Those promo codes do not work within the app you have to go to core sound pads calm and enter the promo code WTF podcast at that website but it will automatically unlock those pads in your app. So check it out. All the links are in the show notes and that is our recommended product this month. Let’s get into today’s episode with Kristian stanfill and Brett yonker from passion.

Alex Enfiedjian 03:31 Everybody I am here with Kristian stanfill and Brett younker from passion and passion city church guys, thank you so much for being on the podcast today. Oh yeah, man. Yeah, what’s up? What’s up, stoked to have you I really want to talk with you guys today about developing future worship leaders because I feel like passion as a movement and even passion city Church has been doing that since the early days. You know, it started out with Chris Tomlin and Charlie Hall and Matt Redman and Crowder back when they were a little bit younger than they are today. But they’ve already begun, you know, they’re not old yet. But they’ve already begun passing on the baton to you guys in a younger generation. And I just feel like they’ve done a really good job at that. And I just want to know like Was that something intentionally planned by the leadership of passion and kind of what about look like to have these really excellent worship leaders raise you guys up and pass that baton to you?

Kristian Stanfill 04:22 Well, I’ll just say first of all, for Brett and I, it was pretty surreal. At one point in our lives to start coming alongside these people, because they were worship leaders and songwriters that we were looking at from a distance for a long time, Brett and I’ve known each other since middle school. And pretty straight away. When we first met, we started a worship band that we would lead in our youth group and we were singing passion songs, and we were you know, we were studying these people from afar. And so eventually, to come alongside and to get close up to them was pretty incredible thing and really to find out that these were men And women who actually love Jesus had Jesus at the center place in their life. And everything that we had absorbed from afar was just the outworking of their love for Jesus. And so that I think was first and foremost the biggest thing immediately that I learned. But then just watching them week after week, when passion city church started both of us just being up close to Chris and watching him, craft a setlist and lead a room and follow the Holy Spirit. Watching him do that. It was like a masterclass. Yeah. You know, watching that happen every week. And I don’t know how intentional it was. I mean, of course, everything is intentional on the leadership of our church and the movement. We’re thinking about this getting the younger worship leaders up close to these people, but a lot of it was just being in close proximity. Yeah. And learning and watching them like a hawk. Why did you do that? Why did you do that? Why did you do that? And asking a lot of questions to honestly, when you could, yeah. Yeah, I agree. I think that was one of the greatest gifts in the world. And neither one of us could have ever dreamed that, you know, our heroes would have moved to our hometown to help start a church. And, you know, obviously, Louis is from here. But with Louis and Chris, both, I think just allowing us to be close by and it really is a lot like Jesus, you know, where he pulled 12 guys around and said, Hey, follow me. And and let’s go do ministry together. And in the process of doing ministry, we were learning a lot and still are learning so much. And, and so I think that was such a cool thing. I think when I think about guys like Louie and Chris and Matt, David, and Charlie Christie, they had such an amazing humility. And they knew they obviously got a call them to, and hit us them in is still using them in really powerful and profound ways today, but they carry that with such grace and humility. And at the same time, they’re really hard workers. And I think that’s one thing that getting getting to see like, under the hood, a little bit on the writing, of passion songs, and in all this stuff is like, man, the things that hit the cutting room floor wood, or like some of our other people best songs, I mean, they’re like, wait, we’re not gonna use this as amazing. But just to see the doing what we could do, and then letting God do what God does, with with every one of these people, I think is probably one of the greatest gifts that we’ve been given as young leaders is to go, Oh, that’s why God has trusted these people with some amazing songs in the world. It’s because they carried the gift really, really well. And so, so I’m really thankful for their life and their investment into us and into really laying the foundation for what God has is doing here in our church today. I mean, we’re standing on on there, saying yes to Jesus, and we’re really, really grateful.

Alex Enfiedjian 08:01 Yeah, and it’s encouraging, I think, to me, to hear that. It wasn’t like this like, regimented, like, scholarly program, but it was just they opened up their lives to you, really, and it was like, you know, it was a two way street, because they had to open up their lives, but you had to be hungry. And you had to be asking questions, right? And, and all of a sudden, like, you’re just like, osmosis, absorbing all their, like guru, their guru ness and also their spirituality as well. Now, you guys are younger, right? Are you in your 30s? Yeah, yeah. And my guess my hunch? Is that what they did with you, you’re already starting to do with the next generation at passion city church. Is that true? Yes. Yes. Yes. So like, tell me and tell our listeners like, what does that look like for you guys? Now that you’re the leaders of passion city church, you’re young, but you’re already looking to the younger generation going, Okay. How do I find the ones that have the right heart and have the gift? And then how do I start raising them up? So what does that look like? How are you identifying the next generation and training them?

Kristian Stanfill 09:07 Yeah. Well, I really want Brett to talk a lot about this because Brett has a real gift of identifying people who are going to be in it for the long haul. A lot of the people that Brett has pulled up onto our team are still around and really become crucial parts of our worship team and culture. But you know, you said the most important thing to me is, do you have a heart that loves Jesus? Do you have a humble heart? Do you have like the humility of Jesus cloaked on your life, like that’s really what we look for. First of all, right out of the gate. We do. We don’t call them an audition. We call it a worship discovery. We feel like the word audition can be kind of scary. You know, but we have people come in and, and they’ll play their instrument, and they’ll play with the band. But really, my favorite part of those is actually looking them in the eye and talking to them, and getting a field, what is your life? Like? What do you value? Are you here to serve people? Are you here for a platform? That is really what we’re after. And I think one of the best things that we do is before you ever lead on a stage, you’re going to park cars in the parking lot for for a little while. That’s good, you know, that really helps us identify the humble servant, you know, you can stay in the parking lot and park cars, which those people don’t get a lot of praise, you know,

Alex Enfiedjian 10:30 they should do you guys actually, like, tell people once they like, do the worship discovery or the audition, or whatever? Do you actually say, you know, we see giftings in you. But before we let you on the worship team, or into our ministry, we have this process and the process involves going in parking cars, first of all, like is that you say?

Kristian Stanfill 10:50 Yeah, yes. I mean, there’s, it’s, it’s in terms of finding people and getting people to be on our team that comes in all kinds of different forms, you know, this force of discovery is a big way. There’s also to just relationship, and you know, as we are developing relationships with guys around Atlanta, you know, we say, hey, come come be part of what’s going on. The biggest thing for anybody whether no matter how you came to be on our team is, you know, we consider everybody that is helping out a passion city church to be a door holder. And this is a big cultural thing for us. They said, a psalm 84, it says that I’d rather be a doorkeeper in the house of the Lord than dwell in the tent of the wicked. And this is a door holder is somebody who says, I know what’s on the inside, and I’m willing to stand on the outside to let you to help you get on the inside with God. And so we want to have that as worship leaders. And, you know, I think in just for whatever reason, it is an interesting way of serving because it was part of the wave you’re serving as you are up front in front of people something wrong about that at all. And so it’s, it’s a great, great thing. So. So that’s the thing, we just want to maintain that heartbeat with people. And I think what what Christian is saying here, which is awesome, is it is a little bit of a lengthy process. It’s not something that Oh, you auditioned, and on the next Sunday, you’re going to be playing in any one of our spaces to play, it’s going, Hey, cool. Now you’re on our team. Now let’s be around each other. Let’s I mean, this is kind of like what we’re talking about, let’s, let’s be in proximity with one another, let’s get to know one another. And what we found is the people that just want to want to be up there to sing or, you know, oh, I just love to play music. And I just want to do that. And then nothing wrong with that. It’s just going, what we’ve found the people who have the heart to serve God and serve his house serve as people and who are gifted by God, they will be around, they will stick it out, they will. So we just don’t rush, you know, and that can be frustrating for people. And that’s okay. But we weren’t rushed into it. And we’re not rushing other people into Yes, sir. So and we just wait a lot and wait on God and wait on the right opportunity. And God knows when he wants to elevate, you know, certain people, there’s a guy on our team that I can think of that he had an amazing song. And we have this great opportunity with our students, they were going away for camp and we’re like, man, it’d be so great. If we could play this one song. And he had been around our house for a long time, everyone knew that he was gifted and talented and all these kinds of stuff. And so cool to see when the right moment came with the right song and the right opportunity, and how that began to open up other avenues of leadership for this guy on our team in our house. And, and now he’s one of the heavy hitters. And so it’s pretty cool. That’s awesome.

Alex Enfiedjian 13:36 Yeah, I really appreciate that whole idea of waiting. And like making people wait a little bit. I think that there’s so much wisdom in that because a lot of times we see someone with talent, and we want to rush to get them involved, but like something that we’ve been doing at our church lately is, first of all, I tell people, you’re not auditioning for a team, we’re getting to know you to see if you’re a good fit to join our family, our community. And I also say you’re not particularly trying out for a specific role or a spot on a specific stage. Because there’s a bunch of places here to serve. And our job is just to partner with you and see where your giftings are, and you know where might be a good fit for you. And it’s it’s a very vague, intentionally vague process. But it really kind of takes the pass or fail in this out of the the audition, or whatever you guys call it. And it really just says, Hey, this is a relationship and let’s begin a relationship. And it might take a while to get you involved. But that’s okay. And like you said, It tests the heart as well. Because if they’re like, No, no, no, I want to sing on that big stage. And I’m not willing to go serve the youth band or whatever, then obviously, their hearts in the wrong spot. So

Alex Enfiedjian 14:42 that’s really good. That’s good stuff. So that’s how you identify the heart now, are you guys kind of like keeping an eye on all the other venues that you guys have? Like, are you checking out the youth band? Obviously, you guys are really busy and you’re backstage and you’re writing songs and you know you’re overseeing this whole thing, but how are you like keeping tabs on the other areas where there might be up and comers, like what does that look like for you guys?

Kristian Stanfill 15:05 Yeah, that’s a great question. On our team, we have guys and girls we call coaches who are really are just the best of the best on our team, just in terms of musicianship, and also, on the heart level, they’re just stellar. And so what we try to do is spread those coaches across the house, we have two locations here in Atlanta, one here by 15. And we have another 175 at Cumberland, which probably won’t mean anything to anybody. But those two locations, so we spread our coaches out across the house. And so we’re pretty intentional with scheduling. Like, if we have a new drummer, we’re gonna schedule that person with a great bass player who might be a coach on our team that can really help lock in with that new drummer. And so and then, every Monday, we we all give feedback, we all talk about all the different rooms of the house that we were in, here’s what happened. Here’s what was great. Here’s what we need to work on. Here are people we need to keep our eye on. So when the time comes, you can elevate those people or keep giving those people opportunity. One thing that Louie always says, He says, sometimes you just like fires around people and see who ignites you know, so you kind of find those people you want to keep giving opportunity to and see who’s going to who’s going to raise up so those coaches really help us keep an eye on that. I don’t know if you have anything else? Yeah, I mean that that’s really nice. For us. It’s it’s trying to get people in like Krishna saying, find those opportunities, where it’s like, what is a little bit pushing for you? What is a little bit stretching for you? Or how can we pair you with somebody who will, you know, that’s what I love. There’s, you know, guys who travel with us on the road is passion. Well, they might be playing in passion students are passionate kids, with somebody who just got on our team, like three months ago, what that does remember, for us, like going back to what we’re talking about, like when we got to play around guys like Chris and his band? Well, I mean, these were amazing what it did in us, as they called us up into it. Exactly. And so we just try and create that across all of the house. You know, it’s not just like, Okay, cool. Well, you’re in the auditorium band. So like, that’s all you do. And now we’re one big team. It, we don’t ask them, we don’t ask people for perfection musically, because that’s not possible. I mean, I botched something pretty bad the other week. It just happens. And so I’m spirit of vulnerability, but but, you know, I’m still here. And so that’s the way it is, you know, but in every room, we don’t want to put somebody like in front of the auditorium that maybe not might be ready to carry that weight of responsibility or anything, because this is our whole church, this is big Sunday, you know, whatever. But hey, maybe they could be passionate students or passion kids. And if something, we still want to call them up to excellence, but if something does go wrong, it’s not the end of the world. And it’s not the end of the world. Either. It’s just, we’re just trying to find like, who can carry what, when,

Alex Enfiedjian 17:53 yeah. And I think what’s cool about what you’re doing is you are maybe taking or probably in the beginning, when you started doing this, you’re taking a short term loss, like, okay, all of our best players, like we could keep them on the mainstage, like all the time, and we would have a rockin set, but we’re gonna, we’re gonna spread them out. And we’re gonna take a short term loss, so that they can develop people downstream. And then we’re gonna have a long term gain, you know, and I think that’s really wise. And that’s just something you know, for the worship leaders listening to think about is like, maybe you send your best singer to the youth band and like, have them coach, you know? So besides hands on training, are you guys doing any sort of other training for your not just your worship leaders? We can talk about that, but also your musicians like do you guys have? let’s just let’s talk about worship leaders. Do you have like a group of worship leaders that you’re intentionally spending a day of the week with discipling? Or is it all kind of like you said, This osmosis thing?

Kristian Stanfill 18:49 Yeah, I would say that Brett and I and all of our worship leaders like Brett would say, like our heavy hitters worship leaders, we’ve all pretty well identified a couple of people that we’re we’re in close relationship with. Now, we can’t do that with everybody. And so that’s another great way to help leaders along we, you identify a leader on your team and go, Hey, once you go spend time with this person that actually develops the leader, as well, you know, and so we try to identify those people. But we also try to delegate that a good bit too. So I Brett would be great to talk about. Well, this is part of this major part of his role here in the church. And he he’s so brilliant that helping facilitate this. Thank you Krishna. Krishna is a great boss. So attitude reflects leadership. It’s a quote, man. Okay, sorry. Um, we met were in eighth grade. So there you go. for an hour. But

Unknown Speaker 19:50 was the question.

Alex Enfiedjian 19:51 The question was, are you so you know, are you intentionally discipling other worship leaders like picking a day of the week and you know, Maybe you’re doing a Bible study with them or I don’t know. Yeah,

Kristian Stanfill 20:02 definitely that that comes in seasons for us. I mean, there are a lot of aspects and avenues to our jobs. You know, like sometimes there are there is a pretty crazy travel season sometimes you know, right now we’re not in one of those. And so we’re actually kind of bolstering in a lot of things are happening with church and and all that we just added a lot to our staff team. So we’re kind of like finding that rhythm and groove. So the answer question, the answer is yes. But again, it just goes back to this thing of going, Hey, come along with us. And so the the guys on our team who really lean in what’s happening, they’re the guys that probably get the most out of what’s going on, guys that tend to hang on the fringes, it just takes a little bit longer. And there’s still much love and all that kind of stuff for everybody. And not everyone has to be at everything and do everything, because there’s no way that’s possible. And we do we have done different things in the past, like, we’ll do different, like text journeys with guys where we’ll say, hey, let’s read Ephesians For the next 10 days, and group up with like two or three guys at a time. And let’s just text back and forth. Like, hey, here’s what God showed me today. And sometimes we do that as a whole house is as a whole church. And so that’s one little small way that we maybe we’ll walk through the scripture together, we have a once a month creative night where we get our worship team production team, and any other creative in who calls passion city church home. And so that’s another little like moment for everybody. And then we rehearse on Thursdays. And obviously we’re serving on Sundays. So we don’t do a lot of stuff, like program wise, like outside of that, because it’s already a pretty full schedule. But like Chris was saying, we might pick a guy and say, Hey, for the next couple weeks, maybe let’s every other week, like let’s grab a coffee. And let’s just spend a few, just some intentional season together. And that’s what we do try and do that. Brett just mentioned this, and I’m just thinking about, there’s probably a fair amount of people who are being led and who are leading people, and Brett just talked about it, but the idea of leaning toward your leader is really important. You know, if I can’t feel you know, leaning our way, or really wanting to be in the mix or alongside then it’s gonna be pretty rare that I actually reach out and go, Oh, hey, you know, so we really do try to identify the people that we feel who we’re asking for feedback, you want to be in the mix, we want to know why things are going, those are the people that we really leaned back toward. And so, and I even tried to do that with my leaders, you know, what my leaders to feel that I’m on their side, and I want to learn and get feedback. And so it’s just a good leadership principle. Yeah, that’s

Alex Enfiedjian 22:33 really good word to the younger leaders. And one of the questions I had on on this list of questions was for you guys to maybe speak to younger leaders, and maybe they have an older leader above them, and they’re feeling maybe stifled or maybe like they’re being underutilized. What would you say to a younger leader, who is serving under someone who’s older than them?

Kristian Stanfill 22:54 I would say really simply go by clay scroggins book, it’s called How to lead when you’re not in charge. And I’m not even joking, it will really set you free, in a lot of ways. And, but I think what Christian is saying is huge. I also think, I think when as a younger leader, once you even get more leadership, you will begin to have even more grace for your leaders. When you’re like, Man, you know, I know how did this not go this way? I tell a lot of the guys because most of us, I’m Christian, and we all sit in the middle leadership wise, you know. And so our job is twofold. One, our job is to receive vision, and transmit vision to people. And so that’s, that’s one job that we have. The other job is to help our leaders lead Well, we occupy a space in the organization and on the team. And so we got to somehow get the beat of what’s happening in our world. And we give our leader that information so that they can make the best decisions possible. They might not make the decision that we hope they would make all the time. But our job isn’t to make that decision. That’s their job. They’re our job is to help make sure that they have what they need to make the best decision

Alex Enfiedjian 24:04 that’s happening. Yeah, like you’re in here and a mouth. And your job is to be a blessing. Your job is to be a blessing. So for all the young worship leaders listening, your job is to be a blessing to your older worship leader, whether you like it or not.

Kristian Stanfill 24:18 Well, you want to be I mean, you want to be a joy to work with, you know, on all fronts. Yeah, you know, so yeah, be nice.

Unknown Speaker 24:25 Nice.

Alex Enfiedjian 24:26 Now, let’s talk a little bit to the older worship leaders or not even the older worship leaders, but the worship leaders who are our age, like who aren’t developing people like what’s at stake, if we don’t intentionally develop the next generation of worship leaders like paint an ugly picture for us of that?

Kristian Stanfill 24:43 Well, it’ll die with us. But as ugly as it gets, yeah. You know, if Chris and Christie and David who’s Crowder is still here at our church and a big part of what we do, if they hadn’t done what they did with us, we would be dead in the water when we can Are we going wow, how do we do this? You know? Yeah. And so I think it’s important to not just see the moment you’re in, but also look to the future and go, where is this thing going? What is the dream in God’s heart for the future passion city church? And how do we get there? And who’s going to carry it? You know, and you don’t have to answer all of those questions right now. But you got to have your eyes open, at least you got to put yourself in a place where you can be aware of what God is doing and aware of the people he’s raising up. And so I think, worst case scenario, if we fail to look to the next generation, then it stops with us, you know, and this is a great story that God is telling right now through his church and on the earth, and it’s got a long arc. And so you can’t just look in the mirror and go, this is it. Yeah. Well, and I just always go back to what did Jesus call us to do? You know, Jesus calls to follow him. And he said, Go make disciples. He didn’t say, you know, people loves our songs. We spend a lot of time writing and what we believe in these moments and these songs, like there is a lot of power in that. But at the end of the day, what, when you like boil down to the essentials of everything, what Jesus wants us to do, is to go find people and lead them to go follow Jesus. Right? So that needs to be a priority for people, no matter what you’re doing. If you’re in church work. Yeah, Sunday needs to be great. You want to bring your best, you want the songs to sound awesome. But it’s not at the expense of people. It never is. I mean, that’s not the way of Jesus. So you’ve got to find people and say, God, we tell our team this all the time. God is using music at passion city church as a way for us to be in each other’s lives, so that we can spur one another on towards Jesus. That’s,

Alex Enfiedjian 26:37 that’s what we’re doing. Yeah. Music ministry is discipleship of your team and your and your congregation. That’s it, period. Right. So and, and, you know, just again, for the worship leaders listening, like what these guys are saying is like, if Chris Tomlin and the others didn’t disciple them, there would be no Christian stanfill or Brett yunker. Like, there wouldn’t be that. And so there might be it just wouldn’t be very good. Yeah. It would be way off, and we would lack all the beautiful passionate music that’s coming out. Right. So, you know, and I have two churches that are asking me, hey, do you know any worship leaders? And sadly, I cannot. I mean, they’re paying well, like, so by the way, if my listeners are like, looking for a job, but honestly, like, Oh, wow. Well, pretty well, we can talk after the broadcast recording. Right? Yeah. Christian, you’re doing a good job. But honestly, two churches, they’re paying Well, they’re looking for qualified worship leader, I have no one that I can recommend. Can you believe that. And so it’s my job, and it’s your guys’s job. And it’s our listeners job to raise up those qualified worship leaders to be able to send to new church plants or to churches who are looking for someone qualified, theologically. pastorelli. And musically like we have to, there shouldn’t be a deficit. But there is, I don’t know about you guys how it is out there. But out here in California, there’s a deficit of worship leaders. So I want to be part of the solution of that. So and you guys are being part of the solution by being on this podcast. So thank you. Let’s shift gears and talk about your new passion album heart, which is really good. And as of right now, at the time of this recording is sitting at number one on Billboard’s Christian charts. So how does that make you feel? Great. That’s the that’s good. Right? That was a very unenthusiastic.

Kristian Stanfill 28:30 Like, wait, that’s amazing. That’s awesome information that really is exciting. And that’s really due to the hard work of a lot of people. We have an amazing team, we were talking about Nicole and our six steps team just before she’s one part, we are two parts of a big team who’s worked really hard to see that happen. So we’re really excited. It’s our I mean, passion. 2018 was such a beautiful moment, with three different, you know, arenas too, and here in Atlanta, one in DC, over 30,000 college students. And so that’s the sound you hear that it’s the sound of this generation, making a big deal about Jesus and worshiping Him. And so we’re really excited. It’s out. We just had a really great night at our church this past Sunday, just to officially release this record as a house and pray over the songs and we’re already seeing just the impact these songs are having on people’s lives. And so we’re really happy really grateful. Yeah, that’s it. Yeah. Yeah, we’re excited and we feel that you know, the last couple years last year and this year to just this renewed sense of what God is doing has been really really amazing to see we’ve been praying that you know, this music would touch people and I think even what you’re where you’re saying how awesome is it is right now senate? that slide billboard right now. That’s incredible. And for us that just says, Hey, God is moving and doing something through these songs and he’s touching people’s lives and so yeah, We just hope it means something to people. And it’s helpful to people.

Alex Enfiedjian 30:04 Yeah, I really have been enjoying it. I’ve been listening in the last couple days. And I feel like it’s very attainable. Like the arrangements aren’t bogged down with like, too many tracks or too much electronic elements. Like it’s very, it’s something that a live band can totally pull off in almost any church. And so I think that’s really encouraging is that you guys didn’t overproduce it so that we worship leaders feel like we can’t we can’t even play those songs in our church, you know. And also, like, melodically, I feel like it’s, it reminds me Don’t take this the wrong way. But like, it almost reminds me of like some of those early like 1970s songs that are like so simple melodically and so, so simple, and yet very emotionally moving, you know. So it just, it’s very congregational. And I really appreciate just the overall feeling of the album. And I would encourage our listeners to definitely check it out. And I’ll put links in the show notes. But I wanted to ask you guys after recording so many Live albums, like what’s one thing that you’ve learned about arranging music in a way that works for the congregation? Like, because? caching Yeah, go ahead.

Kristian Stanfill 31:09 I mean, you just said it. Just don’t make it tricky. You know, it’s helping connect the songs with the people and not putting too many barriers between that, you know, think when you start to get smart, and you get a little bit self indulgent, you can lose people, you know, a little bit. But, you know, honestly, when we’re arranging a song, and I really want to give a huge shout out to our band, who worked so hard on on the arrangements, the songs, we really, we rehearsed, and rehearsed, rehearsed, and fought, and fought and fought to make sure that these songs came out the way that they needed to. But you know, for us, the way it works is, when we’re stuck, we start working on a new song, we just start finding our way through it, you know, and after playing so much together and leading so much together, everybody’s instincts are pretty sharp. But you know, again, it comes back to that awareness. Just having your eyes open, asking God for discernment, honestly, is a big part of arranging the songs and going, what does this song need, you know, and then the church leading the songs at the church and watching the people because I mean, you know, pretty quick when you’re a fairly new song, okay, we just lost them. that something’s not connecting here. And being okay to say that didn’t work. We need to keep refining and keep working, and keep, keep doing and being diligent. But for me, man, the goal is what you just said, I just want people to sing to God. Yeah, I really just want to put a song in the mouth of people to sing to God. And when you get tricky, it might be cool to you. But you’re going to lose people. And so I think it’s just making it simple. And getting rid of all those

Alex Enfiedjian 32:46 barriers. Amen. Preach it. Yeah. Yeah. What are one or two songs from the album that you think worship leaders could consider introducing to their churches? I mean, we’re leading all of them. Yeah. Any any one or two that are really like connecting?

Kristian Stanfill 33:01 I mean, it’s like, but you must put you must pick two. Yes. I mean, God, you’re so good, which is track three on the record. We’ve been seeing that church for a while now. And it just really is connecting with people. In all seasons of life, you know, people can sing it when in the beauty and they can sing it in the Badlands. You know, it’s like, it’s calling people up to believe something maybe they don’t feel yet you know, which is which can be really cool. So God, you’re so good, is great. More like Jesus has been a great song for us. Now, of course, reckless love is on the record. That song is just for you. Oh my gosh, just slamming whole heart. Those are probably the top line am I forgetting? We’ve been calling for a while church, so they’re all pretty good.

Alex Enfiedjian 33:50 Yeah, yeah. Like I said, the whole thing is very congregational. And yeah, God, you are so good was one that kind of stood out to me like, wow, that can work anywhere. So listeners check it out and and perfectly add it to your rotation. Guys, one last question. Any final words, then for our listeners today, maybe about raising up the next generation or just anything that you know, God has put on your heart to share with worship leaders around the globe who are listening to this?

Kristian Stanfill 34:15 Yeah, I think we would just say, keep running after Jesus, follow him. That’s what he wants from you. And that’s gonna inform so much of your leadership and just don’t lose sight of people in the process. And I think, you know, really always challenges us that it will help you lead better if you’ve got people on your mind and in your heart and it will help you write songs better it will help you lead your team better and so just look up outside of your world and your issues and your problems. There really got to deal with them at some point. But like look up to Jesus and look around you to see who’s around and who God wants to use you in their life. And, and I think when you see God moving in, you see people coming to know Jesus You’re going to you’re going to have a song to sing and you’re going to, it’s going to be amazing. So, yeah, thanks for letting us be part of today. Man, this has been great. Thank you, guys. Thank

Alex Enfiedjian 35:08 you guys. God bless you. And we’ll stay in touch I’m sure. All right, that’s all we have time for today. I hope you are feeling encouraged and maybe challenged to start investing intentionally in the next generation of worship leaders. Again, if you and I don’t do it, who’s going to do it? So maybe ask your pastor for a day of the week that you can dedicate to discipling and raising up the next generation? And just pray and ask God Lord, show me Show me who is the next generation person that I can pour into and develop as a worship leader. So may God give you strength and grace and wisdom to do that. And I would just highly encourage you to change your schedule around and change your priorities around to begin doing that, trust me it will pay long term dividends not just for you, but for many churches around the world as we equip worship leaders to fill those positions. So that’s all we have time for Be sure to check out passions new album, whole heart, the links are in the show notes. Also, be sure to check out pads live the app and our recommended product this month. And check out worship ministry training.com slash resources. God bless you guys as you lead and I will see you next month with another