Keith Getty - Congregational Singing 2

As many churches try to replicate stadium-style worship concerts in their weekly gatherings, the art of congregational singing is declining. Participation from congregants is down and what was supposed to be a participatory event has turned into passive observers watching leaders dance around a technicolor stage. But Keith and Kristen Getty are on a mission to revitalize congregational singing in churches across the globe. Today I talk with the prolific, modern day hymn-writer, Keith Getty about why congregational singing matters, why it’s in decline and how we can encourage more of it in our churches.

Find out more about Keith and Kristen Getty or the Sing! Conference

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Quotables:


Congregational singing has died in the church partly because it has died in the home.   – Tweet That!

Until you have a song that really helps the congregation, love them enough to not play it.  – Tweet That!

Sunday worship is a feast that is prepared all week in the home.  – Tweet That!

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The Ableton Live "Click & Pads" Template is designed specifically for worship leaders who want to use Ableton Live for click tracks, count-in cues, and ambient backing pads but don't want to be stuck playing to pre-recorded backing tracks. This template comes with 100 pre-built, popular worship songs, and a tutorial on how to add more of your own. This template is easy to use, simple to understand, powerful and flexible. Learn more HERE.



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Transcript

Alex Enfiedjian 00:11 Hello, and welcome back to another episode of the worship leader training podcast. This is Alex Enfiedjian. Your host, I want to start this episode with a story. A few weeks ago I came across a video online. I’m not even really sure which church it was from and it doesn’t matter. But the video feature two worship leaders opening up a service with a really popular EDM dance worship song, trying to get the congregation to participate. They were trying so hard, but the problem was, the song was melodically hard to sing. It featured weak lyrics and had multiple 32nd dubstep type instrumental breaks. And it didn’t matter how much the worship leaders jumped around how quickly the strobe lights were flashing, or how many Come on Put your hands together or shouted from the stage. What you saw in the video where the back of a bunch of bald heads with gray hair standing and staring at the stage. No one was singing. No one was clapping. No one was participating. And it’s easy to see the absurdity of what’s taking place. But sadly, this was a reality and is a reality in many churches. Because many churches are trying to replicate stadium style worship concerts in their weekly gatherings. The Art of congregational singing is declining. But Keith and kristyn Getty are on a mission to revitalize congregational singing in churches around the globe. And today in the podcast, I talk with Keith Getty, about why congregational singing matters and how we can encourage more of it in our churches and in our gatherings. But before we get into the interview, we have our recommended product of the month and this month it’s a special one because it’s our worship leader trainings first product ever it’s the Ableton Live click in pads template. You know many worship leaders want to use Ableton Live or they want to use click tracks or have the ambient backing pads and other things that are going to enhance their musical set. But they either don’t know how to set up Ableton Live or they don’t want to be stuck using pre produced backing tracks. Well, four years ago when I first bought Ableton Live, I was trying to find a template created for worship leaders that was both flexible and powerful. And strangely, I couldn’t find one. So I went about the work of creating my own template and the Ableton Live click and pads template features several things click tracks counting cues for your band, and ambient backing pads. It also comes with 100 pre built worship songs in multiple keys and a 20 minute video tutorial to show you how to add your own songs. You can trigger the songs on the keyboard of your computer or you can trigger them from a MIDI controller and all of that is explained in the tutorial. The ambient backing pads are actually core sound pads Deluxe bundle that we featured in previous episodes and core sound has licensed their pads at a lower cost so you can actually get this template and their excellent Deluxe bundle for the same price as if you just bought it from their website. So the requirements for running this template are Ableton Live standard or suite running on a Mac computer. If you don’t have those this template won’t work for you. You can find out more information or purchase this template at worship leader training comm slash Ableton that’s a bl e t o n worship leader training comm slash Ableton All right, well, let’s jump into our episode with Keith Getty about recovering the Lost Art of congregational singing.

Alex Enfiedjian 03:32 Okay, Hey everybody, I’m here with Keith Getty, the prolific modern day hymn writer, musician and worship leader who songs you all know very well Keith, thank you so much for being on the podcast today.

Keith Getty 03:42 Thanks, Alex. It’s an absolute privilege to be with you via

Alex Enfiedjian 03:46 Yeah, via Skype. So Keith, a few weeks ago, a friend of mine sent me a link to your sing conference, and it’s a conference encouraging congregational singing, and I was reading the lineup of speakers and I was just blown away you’ve got Alistair Begg, da Carson David Platt, Johnny Erickson Tada Bob kauflin. You and your wife, Paul Tripp Laura story, I mean, wow. And so I thought I got to get Keith on the podcast to talk congregational singing with our listeners, because that’s like, that’s my passion is to help the church sing. So, Keith, tell me just first of all, we were kind of chatting before we hit record. But why this conference? Why now? What prompted it?

Keith Getty 04:23 Well, there was a number of things all came together. Alex at the one time three years ago, Chris and I were getting so frustrated by the actual quality of congregational singing in churches as we traveled. And the frustrated reached a point we decided to start doing leadership events. We went to your city, we would give free leadership talks. And in most cities that couldn’t afford lunch, we would actually pay for the lunch for leaders and say, let’s come and talk about this. And we would ask the question, what’s the first question you ask about the music in your church? When you’re reviewing what the music was like in church, and an IT team events? No. One person said, What’s the congregational singing like? So it was, it was Unbelievable, lots of good questions, questions about music and songs and style and leaders and production values and all these kinds of things. But of course, the central calling of God’s people is to get together and sing. That’s the goal that is the foretaste of heaven, not whether music sounds like Coldplay, or Charles Wesley, you know. And so, so we thought, let’s really start to hone in on this. And then a number of people said, We’d love to hear more, we’d love to learn more. Would you consider a book would you consider a conference and then of course, my hero is a man called Martin Luther, who 500 years ago this fall, took a stand on singing the church for 400 years have lost congregational singing indeed, Yon has to pre reformer was burned at the stake in Prague for committing three heresies against his church in his nation. And one of those three heresies was daring glugged encouraged the congregation to sing. And so Luther believed the Reformation comes from his phrase, the reformation of the church through the preaching the singing of the word. And he basically gave his life to getting the church back to preaching the gospel and singing the gospel. And so that was 500 years this fall. And the other frustration was that as you follow in the media celebrations are the 500 year anniversary. There’s lots of history lots of politics, lots but the suppose it scammed because of Luther, but no one is touching this congregational thinking thing. So we came to the conclusion, we’re either mad, or we have to put all this together and try and launch a re reformation of congregational singing. So I guess we’re launching at this September. And that’s, that’s kind of the goal of this whole movement. And so we we launched it two weeks ago, when the conferences almost sold out already. So we’re, we’re desperately scrambling to find ways to try to incorporate more people in the conference.

Alex Enfiedjian 06:40 That’s amazing. I love how you said, a re reformation of congregational singing, if that’s your mission, count me and because I and I would probably guessed that 90% of the worship leaders listening to this podcast are saying amen, yes. Like, this is not a concert. We don’t do concerts on Sundays. We’re trying to help the church thing. But I want to ask you, Keith, what do you think was the root cause of the Lost Art of congregational singing? Like, where did we lose our way? In recent years? Why has congregational singing waned?

Keith Getty 07:11 Well, of course, we have to be careful what we say because there are many churches where the singing is wonderful. You know, I remember being at Capitol Hill Baptist Church in Washington, DC, which is an Anglo reformed Baptist Church in the middle of the Capitol, where the average age of a congregation members actually 28. But they’re all singing in harmony. They’re singing passionately. They’re engaged, as in both parties at political parties are engaged in all kinds of careers. But they’re coming Sunday morning and Sunday night to sing their God. So we visited Brooklyn tabernacle, with a very high view of music and art, Puerto Rican, Pentecostal church, primarily Hispanic and African American who come and sing for 45 minutes to sing themselves Hawk reminding themselves of the gospel, this thing there would have made you wait, we visited old reformed churches in Scotland would sing the Psalms on accompanied, and it would make the hair in the back of your head stand and, and and many local churches, where the pastor just loves congregational singing and encourages church every month, and it’s great, so many places, it’s great. But I think I think there is a danger, that once we change the question, we lose the definition. And once we lose our understanding of something, then the secondary things become the primary things. And so very quickly, we can almost make an idler out of something. And so worship music has had a very bizarre transformation. As you know, you know, what was accepted musical style for essentially three centuries changed in the last two generations, what there was the worship wars, which of course, permanently ripped apart more churches than any other single movement since the Reformation itself, then, of course, we have, you know, having Judeo Christian history, and that the church has always been governed by psalms by liturgy by hymnbooks, or by localized singing. And in the last 20 years, it’s actually primarily become governed by wall street with all the worship all the music companies moving into worship music to to save their economic line. And so you’ve got lots of really interesting challenges and I think a lot of pastors have slowly but surely let the definition change to music is to make an impact is to give you an emotional movement, it’s to help brand your church it’s to attract the young people it’s to bring life into the church it’s to see the Holy Spirit move, which is actually called for it get some more emotional action on the moment. And and all of those things we can argue and split the differences on but all of those things have actually moved the movement away from the fact that this is something we do because we’re created to do, because we’re commanded to do because the scriptures model is to do and because we do because we can’t help it because we sing because Christ has saved us. And so we get together and we sing as God’s family to one another. You know why? Cuz you’re my family because Alex, I don’t know you. You might not even like me. We might not even get on. We certainly probably wouldn’t hang out in the same clubs together. But we are part of a bigger club. That is so important that in a Sunday, no matter how I failed, no matter how sick I am, no matter what has happened as we were getting together to sing to each other, the goodness of the Lord. And that is the main thing. And then after that these worship leaders and musicians and songwriters and producers and music administrators have the privilege of assisting that, of trying to make that better. And and if they can’t make it better, they should stop. They should just let the people sing. You know, but music lead beautifully for congregational worship at its best does make it better. So it’s a wonderful privilege.

Alex Enfiedjian 10:31 Yeah, yeah, that’s really interesting. You know what you said about we’re called to sing to one another. And I have friends who have kind of told me Hey, there are two views of how to promote singing and gathered worship. One view is that if it’s dark and loud, the people will sing because they can’t be seen or heard. So they’re not self conscious. They’re not afraid of lifting their voice. So dark and loud. That’s one view. And then the second view, which is my guess that you belong to this camp is that if it’s if the lights are up, and we can see each other and the band is not blowing people away, but acting as a support to the congregation’s voice, the congregation’s voice is the primary instrument in the band is just to support and the lights are up so people can see and hear each other, that spurs people on to seeing more. So do you want to give a little commentary to either of those views? Or both of them?

Keith Getty 11:20 I think any intelligent person knows the answer to that. I mean, you know, I have been to so many mega churches, where the congregational saying if you look out into the congregation, there’s probably a maximum a 25% participation night. Have you got a bunch of people near the front with their hands in the air? Sure. Have you got a bunch of people on the front? Maybe jumping up and down? Yeah, but are 70% of the people even singing? No. And that’s not I mean, what is Christ saying, Love the Lord your God with all your heart, your mind, your soul, your strength, love your neighbor as yourself. So when you and I are choosing, so when I’m choosing songs for my three daughters to sing in the evening, and family devotions, or when I’m choosing songs to sing in a home group, or when I’m choosing songs to sing for my church, around the corner here on a Sunday morning, we choose the songs that the whole family can sing together. If it’s family movie night in your house, you’re not going to choose the movie that only the one of you gets really excited about in the raster looking board at the beauty is that we are God’s family singing together. Is it a sin? To have light dark music in a dark room? No. But is it sensible? Not even slightly?

Alex Enfiedjian 12:23 Yeah, it doesn’t really help. You know, it’s kind of like a play. When you go to a play, they turn off the lights in the house and turn on the lights on the stage and say watch. That’s subconsciously being communicated. Right?

Keith Getty 12:33 Yeah, try and ask 10 people outside the church, ask a standard producer, ask a singing teacher, you know, ask a sociologist, you know, what would they could probably laugh at you for the question.

Alex Enfiedjian 12:44 Yeah, totally. So besides maybe the over, you know, production is not bad. But besides the overproduction, what would you say are some of the greater hindrances to congregational singing in this modern worship culture that we live in?

Keith Getty 12:59 Well, you know, I think I think at the end of the day, at the end of the day, the only reason that we get to sing is because if you made a lie, you know, it’s true spiritual singing, is because Christ is made as new dead people don’t sing. And that’s, and that’s where it begins is. And I think when we come to church and Sunday we come with without preparation, and we should come with a preparation, that the Sunday service is a highlight of our week, my wife always says, you know, Sunday worship is a feast that is prepared during the home all week. And, and so that’s, that’s an important thing. I think, churches as if we’re talking about it as individuals as my own preparation, and then my own understanding of what I’m doing. In terms of churches, I actually think it doesn’t begin with the worship leader. I think it begins with the senior pastor. What we have learned as we’ve traveled around is the music, the worship leader, the church’s budget, and the church’s size, and demographics are almost nothing to do with the congregational singing. We’ve seen the poorest and the richest, and African American and white churches and mixed churches all have really good singing and really poor singing. And the single largest common denominator of churches that sing well, is churches where the pastor really cares, where he teaches the importance of it, where he encourages, where he’s standing at the front singing passionately. And even if the pastor can’t sing in tune, he just takes a turn his microphone off to the mean, because that’s not the issue. The issue is that he is passionately engaged, that he’s encouraging his people that he’s involved in the choosing of the song not in an impressive way but that he’s just encouraging them, you know, choose good songs that he cares about the songs his churches sing, that he’s that he loves his musicians that help them you know, to mean that he pours himself into them. And so that that’s the biggest thing. And then secondly, quite honestly as churches that that are connected as a family I think is a huge thing, you know, that that this family thing mean mean something to each other, you know, and the Bible is nearly always talks about that and it’s interesting, you know, in the New Testament churches would have been probably circles they would sing circles to each other And, you know, that was one of the problems with the larger churches, it’s hard to imagine singing to one another. But but we have to remember, that’s what we’re doing. You know, we’re encouraging each other in this faith that whatever my week was, like, whatever fears I have for next week that I’m singing, you know, the Lord is holding that he is resin, and reminding myself of these great things. So I think all of these and then and then, and then a worship leader on a music team, who’s dynamic is all about serving the congregation. Because once you begin with that question, once the worship leader and the drummer and the band director and the singers come offstage, and the first question is, how did the congregation sing? Suddenly, all the other questions find their right place? You know, it’s like, it’s like each of us in our own faith, you know, I tend to get most stressed, when my priorities are out of kilter in life, I don’t know about you, you know, and then I realized, oh, but actually, my children’s success or my career success, or how much money I earn, or how successful this is, or someone’s perception of me, you know, all these things are actually secondary, but all of them, if I let them become too important, can steal my sleep can steal my joy, you know? And so, I think similarly with the congregation’s if we actually begin with, how did my singing as a backing singer, how did my drumming? How did my leading help the congregation say what songs didn’t sing? Well, you know what I mean? Do I really need to talk this much? Do we need more music to any less music? Do we need a lot more variety? which is usually the answer, you know? And then and then how can we help? And how can we do it better? And so and that kind of I think, I would call it humility, but it’s actually common sense, which is what most humility is, gentlemen, once we begin there, then I think we start to ask all the right questions. And Heck, you know, I have given my life to making music, gentlemen. So I have a very avid Martin Luther ask kind of high high view of musical performance. So I’m certainly not a reductionist. I’m not I’m not a sort of third generation Puritan who thought all emotion was wrong. I’m quite the opposite.

Alex Enfiedjian 16:52 I love that question. How can we serve the congregation? That should be the primary question that all worship leaders and worship musicians are asking a couple more questions for you, Keith, as you are launching this re reformation of congregational singing? Can you paint us a beautiful picture of your vision for corporate worship in churches everywhere? What’s your vision for corporate worship? What should it look like?

Keith Getty 17:14 Gosh, well, I think I think the answer isn’t what I think I think, I think you read Revelation, and we think what what does that mean for the church today, you know, the picture of every tribe and tongue and nation and language before the throne, singing to the Lord. That is, if that is heaven, and that is what we are striving for? What does that mean for us as congregations? And not only what does it mean for us as congregations? What does it mean for us as families, you know, as I put it, my wife earlier saying it’s a feast for somebody prepared in the home. And, you know, we live in a generation of family tragedy, you know, the breakdown of Christian family, I, I suspect this statistic of families that break down, that have family devotions every day and sing to the Lord together is actually a very, very small percentage. You know what I mean? If our families are singing a hymn and praying and reading a Bible story, it doesn’t take more than 10 minutes. But if everything else in life is more important than that, I think we can expect family to struggle. And so, you know, congregational singing has died in the church, in part because it’s died in the home. And so, you know, it’s interesting, if you go back to the generation after what Luther established, was that if a man would not lead his family devotions every day, he was not allowed to take communion. Wow. But I mean, and that’s right. I mean, when you think, oh, that’s extreme, one another, then you think, no, it’s common sense. What right does he have put right? Does he have to do that? If he isn’t taken care of his first responsibility? This is a second responsibility. So I think there’s so much to learn from these people. And and there’s so much that we have to get right. And it’s interesting. It’s not just having a family devotion of 10 minutes in the evening or morning. The second thing is filling your home. I remember, we’ve come to California tomorrow, we’re going to see john McCarthy remember the first time john McCarthy wanted to meet me about hims. And I was thinking he must think you’re something theologically wrong. And I was so nervous, I was so nervous, my coffee was nervous, but he was he was just extraordinarily encouraging about, you know, being filled with the scriptures and your songs. And he was he couldn’t have been nicer and asked his advice on on raising children because we like yourself with two kids at the time. And we were just Kristin and I were on the road and we were just feeling we were failing with all the time. And of course, feeling in public is always the worst kind of parenting, you know. And, and he said, one of the most important things to raising kids, he said was filling every home of your house with songs of the Lord. to note I mean, you know, you know where life happens so in the two cars in the in the play room, in the kitchen, and perhaps in the bedroom, fill those homes and songs of the Lord and so, you know, you can imagine our home we listen to a lot of folk music, classical music, you know, pop music, you know, classic song singer songwriter, theater, we have a very, very broad palette of music. But everyday in our home, we try to spend 30 to 60 minutes, just singing along to songs about the Lord. Enjoying a car goes up to down. So we find songs, they can dance and sing to it. I think those kinds of things help. And I think they can help transform the family, you know, if we were going into the most exciting generation in history to be Christians, but we’re also going into the most challenging generation to be Christians, as biblical Christians were neither side of the law as biblical Christians, the challenge of other religions is considerable. And the challenge of non religion of secular atheism is reaching a level of aggression that that our parents couldn’t have dreamed of. And how bad that becomes, I don’t wanna say how bad it is, because in many parts of the world, it’s way worse. But what’s for sure is the only children that will survive the next generation are those that are very deep believers. So part of luthers belief will we build deep believers by singing deep songs. And so we need to build a generation of people that sing deep songs, we need a generation at an age where family attrition is catastrophic. We need a generation of families who sing together, and a generation where community is disintegrated to a point to fund recognizability. We need to show in our churches that radical Christianity means that we get to sing to each other in a Sunday with the goodness of the Lord. And then finally we show to the world the radical witness that is congregational singing from the Old Testament with the Jews, to the new church to Paul and Silas in prison, to all three history. If you look at all the revival movements, the actual congregational singing was the witness this idea that churches getting together and practicing for four hours so that they can do Mumford and Sons song not as well as Mumford and Sons is somehow going to impress those who aren’t Christians. It’s just a joke. What actually will draw them to real vibrant Christian life? is God’s people getting together and saying, Where else in society they want to see that?

Alex Enfiedjian 21:40 Yeah, no. And that’s such a fascinating answer, Keith, like that your vision actually expands beyond the the local church and the global church, but all the way down to the foundational building block of the family. And and you’re saying you your vision is to see families worshipping God in their homes through singing, which builds up and spills out into congregational singing, which then goes out and witnesses to a lost and dying world. And that’s, that’s an incredible insight that you have there. And that’s super encouraging.

Keith Getty 22:10 Well, it’s not funny, original. I mean, it’s, it’s kind of Old Testament, New Testament, and it’s kind of, if you look back to all the revival movements, there ain’t none of them happening, because somebody was somebody was kind of signing 80% as good as Coldplay.

Alex Enfiedjian 22:22 Yeah, well, maybe that just shows us how off base we’ve gotten. It’s a biblical principle, but it sounds new to our ears, then Wow, we really need to get back to the basics. Keith, you said something about that our churches need to be singing deep songs. And I know you’re you’re just a prolific songwriter you and your wife, amazing songs that you’re putting out and very rich and biblical. We have set, you know, songwriters who listen to this as well, Christian songwriters. And so how would you exhort them? What are some practical things they can do to write more congregational engaging songs,

Keith Getty 22:54 um, gosh, I always laugh when people say you’re a prolific writer, everybody who’s written with me Can’t understand how few songs I write, you know, of all the melodies that we write down in manuscript paper, and I’m putting our file, or else record on GarageBand, and save on the computer, we wouldn’t even be close to one and 100 becoming a song. So. So we’re, we’re pretty low success rate to try and get to the results. So it’s work hard. But I think the first thing I would say is slightly counterintuitive. And that is this is, we do this to help the congregation. So until you have something that really helps your congregation, love them enough not to do it. You know what I mean? You know, there are plenty of great hymns. No church needs new hymns. There are enough wonderful hymns for God’s people to sing. And that the main emphasis should be we sing great hymns that talk about the goodness of greatness and the expansive wonder of the Lord, and that we sing better. And But that said, being created in God’s image means that each generation create new things. It’s what we do. And so we enjoy new things, we are stimulated by new things. And so there’s a good precedent to try and write. And when we have a song that is fresh, then try it’s Ponce. First of all, put the congregation first. And don’t don’t insult them. Every time you teach a new song to a congregation, the singing goes down. So make sure when you’re going to expand that capital, that it is worth spending. Secondly, work very, very hard at it. Thirdly, I would say be realistic about songwriting. I mean, 95% of the songs I write never go anywhere. And then of all the songs that are written, the vast majority are either for personal pleasure for timely pleasure, or for a localized context. And so we don’t have an expectation that either your songs should go somewhere or that to be valid, they need to go somewhere. That’s, that’s American Idol theology. That’s not creation theology. Fourthly, I would say immerse yourselves in your church and right to the need, right to the need. So that means if you want to write for the church, okay, get involved with your church them, you know what I mean? And so get involved in your church to say, where’s the next So if the need is actually a song, a song that explains the gospel to your children and your summer camp, then then spend three months trying to write one of those if if we need to. So if your church or if the pastor is really excited about teaching Romans next year, then try and write a hymn in Romans take some of the beautiful old hymns that were based in Romans and reset one of those old lyrics, then not only are you actually serving your church, like you said, You wanted to in the first place, but you have the excitement of the church behind you. Thirdly, it is music that is alive and active and useful. And fourthly, you’re actually being original. And we actually be original, if we speak into your context, with all the authenticity that God has given us, if we hear what is in the radio, or hear what is cool, and try and copy it, that is the least original thing we can ever do. So I think if you if you say you want to write for your church, stop listening to the radio all the time when everybody else is doing and get stuck into your church. And then after that, you know, just you know, try things I know, have good places to try them. You know, try them. I mean, when we actually have to stand in front of a group of people, we should know whether a song was good or not. So I think, I think, you know, try the songs that we are friends of repeats to try, try songs out your script, try some Japan practice, once a month, have 30 minutes of band practice where you just everybody gets to try new songs, we all support each other. But on also listen to feedback, not not a not a panel of one, you know, two of my closest friends told me in Christ alone would never work the first time they heard it. So you know, but but but listen to numbers of people. And over time, people can tell you what good song is.

Alex Enfiedjian 26:33 Yeah, that’s really helpful. Keith, I wanted to give you a chance to just tell us about the same conference before I asked you if you have any final words for our listeners. So tell us when it when is it? Where is it? And where can our listeners find out more about it and hopefully attended.

Keith Getty 26:49 Thank you for asking. And, you know, the same conference is happening in September of this year. And it’s basically a conference for pastors and musicians, we aim equally at both. And and it’s basically to try and rediscover and open this question of congregational singing in our churches, and in our denominations. And the significance of it is the speakers who proto lower basically taking a look at each different part of it. So why we sing, being created, commanded and compelled to sing to the gospel is being done by Mr. Alistair Begg, then singing and how it transforms the individual. And in particular, the Christian mind is being done by a man called da Carson, then singing and the Christian family and the Christian community is being done by a man called Paul Tripp. And then the radical witness of Christian singing is being done by our good friend David Platt. And then we’re having a thing called a life three song library singing Hi, hi, john Erickson, tada, has gone through configure life in high singing has spoken into that and her life and her context and her circumstances. And then we’re also doing a lot of practical looks at that as well. I’m trying to work at all light. So that’s that’s kind of what we’re trying to we’re trying to see. See at work at this point.

Alex Enfiedjian 27:58 Yeah. And what’s a website that people can go to to check it out?

Keith Getty 28:01 The websites getting music.com I should also say lots of wonderful musicians, Kristen, and I, and our whole band are going to be there. Stewart Tynan, and we’ve written many of our songs is going to be their Laura story. And then the kaufland is Bob Jordan, and Devin are all going to be the three courses and guys on the one stage is going to be amazing. And so we’re pretty excited about the whole thing. And then a chai Lin, of course, bring some of his urban music, green lips and how to write write theologically for congregations in an urban way. So it’s a it’s a, it’s kind of a real interesting group.

Alex Enfiedjian 28:33 Yeah, I can’t wait. And I hope it turns into an annual thing because I think if you can champion the re reformation of congregational singing, and get us back on the right track, I think the churches will grow and flourish and people will be glad. So Keith, do you have any final words that you want to say to our listeners about congregational singing?

Keith Getty 28:51 Sure. It’s the holy privilege of each each of our lives. So we encourage you to sing often, and sing in your homes and sing in your church and try and live with the words that you sing to the to the glory of God and for the good of his kingdom. Awesome. Heat. This

Alex Enfiedjian 29:05 has been such a blessing and I’ll send all of our listeners to your website, Getty music calm, and I’ll put links in the show notes for them so they can easily get there. So thank you so much for what you’re doing. And thank you for your ministry to the global church and I look forward to staying in touch with you,

Keith Getty 29:21 Alex, thanks for your time. Gotta run see my girls.

Alex Enfiedjian 29:28 All right, well, that’s it for today’s episode. Thank you Keith, for sharing your wisdom. And guys, please go check out getting music calm and register for the conference. If it sounds interesting to you. Also check out our recommended product of the month at worship leader training comm slash Ableton and I’d love to hear from you. So if you have any thoughts on this episode, go ahead and email me Alex at worship leader training calm or just click the link in the show notes. If this episode helped you please help us by forwarding it to a friend. You can do that very easily by clicking the links in the show notes and sharing it to social media. And that’s it Be sure to check out worship leader training comm for more articles, resources and other things for worship leaders. And I will see you next month for another helpful episode. God bless