Craig Harmann & Church Music Makers - Episode 399

Today's podcast is brought to you by Audible. Get a free audiobook download and 30-day free trial at audibletrial.com/voicesinmyhead. That's audibletrial.com/voicesinmyhead. Over 180,000 titles to choose from for your iPhone, Android, Kindle, or MP3 player. That's audibletrial.com/voicesinmyhead. Give it a try today! Welcome to Voices in My Head, the official podcast of me, Rick Lee James. I'm a recording artist, a singer, a songwriter, an author, a worship leader, and an ordained minister in the Church of the Nazarene. The Voices in My Head podcast is where I discuss music, movies, books, pop culture, theology, and more with friends, colleagues, and sometimes just by myself. Make sure to let me know what you think of today's episode by leaving me a review on iTunes or by tweeting at me @RickLeeJames on Twitter. And please join my mailing list at RickLeeJames.com where you can receive an email every time a new episode is released. By the way, in case you're interested in a daily dose of kindness and encouragement beyond this podcast, I also run the Twitter account @MrRogersSay where I post daily quotes from Fred Rogers, one of the voices in my head. Well, I guess that's it for the intro, so sit back, relax, and listen to the latest episode of Voices in My Head. Hey friends, welcome back to Voices in My Head. As always, I'm your host Rick Lee James, and I'm so glad that you are here for another great conversation. Conversation today. This week is a special episode because it actually is from the Church Music Makers podcast, uh, episode 9, which I had the privilege of being on just a couple of weeks ago with my friend Craig Harmon. I asked him if I could share this episode today because I really love what Craig is doing, and it was just great to be able to sit and chat about some different things that are going on with my ministry and with the music that I make, and also to talk with Craig a little bit about what's going on with him. So let me direct you first, before I play the conversation for you, I want to direct you to churchmusicmakers.com, which is Craig's website. And here's just a little bit about it from the web page. It says, we are all church music makers. We may be in big congregations, small congregations, congregations with minimal resources, congregations with many resources. We may be organists, church are choir directors, guitar players, drummers, singers. Whatever the case is, this blog is for all of us. Well, Craig has really been doing some great things to help support local church music makers and church music makers on a broader scale. You'll get to hear more about some of the things that he does with leading choir at his local school where he teaches and being involved in ministries there. But I I'm so grateful that he allowed me to share our conversation together from his show. And I'm hoping that those of you who listen to my show will go to wherever you listen to podcasts and hit subscribe on the Church Music Makers podcast as well, because Craig is really doing a great job and having some wonderful conversations there. So I hope you enjoy the conversation that we had together on episode 9 of the Church Music Makers podcast. Here we go.

Hi Rick, how are you? It's great to have you on the podcast.

I'm good, Craig. Thank you for having me here. I appreciate being here to be able to have a conversation with you tonight.

Absolutely, absolutely. So tell us your story. Who are you? How did you get to where you are?

All of that good stuff. Yeah, all right, well, where to start? I'm a husband and a father. I live in Springfield, Ohio, and I've been here serving at my church, which is Home Road Church of the Nazarene, for— this is actually my 20th Thanksgiving. I moved here around Thanksgiving time, so I'm starting the 20th year, so I'm doing everything for the 20th time. So it's kind of crazy that I've been any place that long because I actually grew up as a pastor's kid, and we moved quite a bit. You know, it seemed like every 3 to 5 years we were moving, sometimes less, sometimes a little more. But I kind of grew up all over the place, son of a minister. So we're almost like the military in that regard where we were just, you know, different places throughout. So it was hard to find kind of a place to call home. But I've been here long enough now that Ohio feels like home to me. So I'm glad to be here. And I've been ministering Before I moved to Ohio, I guess I was in North Carolina for about 2 and a half years at a church there. And then before that, I was at college at Trevecca Nazarene University in Nashville, Tennessee. And so that kind of is what I do for my living, I guess, you know. I'm part-time at my church, and then I do actually podcasting. I do a ministry with music where I'm Well, until 2020, I was on the road quite a bit.

We're gonna get there.

Yeah, I've hardly done any of that, but I've done some recording with places like Lifeway Worship and Old Bear Recording Studio up in New York and places like that that have just been really great fun to work with. So my other job is as a recording artist and then doing lots of podcasts, both one that I host and have been hosting for years called Voices in My Head, the Rick Lee James Podcast, mostly that's a conversational show, kind of like this one, where I'll bring different guests who I'm really just interested in generally hearing their stories. Sometimes they're authors, and sometimes they're other musicians and actors, just different people. And then the other podcast I do is a Mr. Rogers tribute podcast, which I know people chuckle a little bit when they hear it, but I, I have a lot of great admiration for Fred Rogers, and so it gives me a chance to kind of talk about some of the way that he lived in the world and talked really about the gospel in a lot of ways. So I don't know if that's enough of an introduction of who I am, but that's kind of me in a nutshell, I guess.

That's absolutely perfect. So one of the things, and I absolutely love this, I've looked at your website a few times, but this really stuck out to me. And I want to point this out for everybody going to rickleejames.com. Your mission statement, I absolutely am just amazed at this. It's hear it, sing it, live it. To lead congregations in hearing God's word, in confessing God's holiness, in praying faithful prayers, in singing truthful songs, and accepting God's generous invitation. How did you come up with that?

You know what, I, for about a year, I had a manager I was working with, and we didn't have like an extreme exclusive contract because I had already done a lot with the music business and was doing a lot of it on my own, but I just needed somebody to kind of help me develop some vision for things and kind of nail down what it was that my ministry really was trying to do. And his name was Gary Stripling. He still does it, and I actually recommend him to anybody if they're interested. And he has a whole bunch of different things that he does that he works with. For several years he was with Integrity Music and just a really great guy. And we sat down over coffee and did like a— man, it was like a long marathon, like it was like an 8-hour day. We just kind of sat down and went through different things and he said, "So what is, you know, your mission and what is it that you really are trying to be? Because it's something people need to know about you." And so I'm very grateful to him for helping me kind of flesh that out. I kind of knew what I wanted it to be because all those things that are mentioned there were really the heart of what I felt my ministry was and what I felt passionate about. And yet he was really good about helping me kind of, okay, make it concise. And then, you know, what can you do just to stick it in people's mind? You know, hear it, sing it, live it. Or I said it backwards, sing it, hear it, live it. But it really is the gospel, you know.

Absolutely.

Singing it, hearing it, living it. And it also means, you know, hearing from the Holy Spirit and allowing him to faithfully move in and through us. So that really was such a help. So I'm very grateful to Gary Stripling and the management agency because he really did do a lot to help kind of get me disciplined in what my message was, I guess. So yeah.

Yeah. You know, I'm a fan of mission statements. I've worked on one for a while and I Still working on it, but I think it helps us to focus because for the longest time, for me, it was, you know, I'm just kind of aimlessly going along. And I think many of us in church music, you know, that's what we do, right? We're leading worship, we're singing, we're directing choirs, we're doing so many different things, wearing so many different hats that trying to come up with something that's, this is what I do and this is why I do it, I think coming up with a statement like that really helps to give us some parameters and give us a direction, give us some focus. You know, I mean, mine's taken on a lot of different directions because I went to college to be a high school choir director, and I did that for one year. And then I'm a pastor's kid too, so, uh, you know, but it basically— after one year of teaching, which didn't go that great, I went into church music and I've done it for 18 years. And now I'm, I'm back in the classroom part-time again Um, and, you know, but it's, it's taken on different, different directions of, you know, I'm, I'm— my goal, whatever I'm doing, I'm wanting to educate. I'm wanting to help people be the best musicians they can be, to help them sing. That doesn't matter when I'm in a church setting or whether I'm in a school setting or teaching private lessons or whatever. So, you know, but having that helps to give that direction and give that focus.

So yeah, that's amazing, Craig. Yeah, that's awesome. I love that you're doing that. And yeah, just, you know, as someone who, uh, I've never been a great choir director, but I love choirs, and I love whenever we have a, like, a community event especially, and you get, you know, over 100 voices together, and there's something just so beautiful about everybody getting lost in that together. It's not about any one person. And, uh, it, you know, it's everybody working together, and I, I love that. I love that you do that, Craig. That's amazing.

Thank you. Thank you. Now, it's, it's something that, uh, that definitely was ingrained in me from a, from a young, young age. I mean, my dad, uh, like I said, was a pastor, and he, he sang in the, in the choir in seminary and, uh, just loved, loved choral music. So that was a staple of my life growing up. So, uh, that's, that's just always been a huge part of, part of who I am and what I do. Um, all right, so let's, let's dive into the podcast because I just, I, I love what you do. I, I listen to Your Voices in My Head podcast regularly and absolutely love it. Um, the, the conversations that you have are really, really powerful. And I think, you know, like you said, it, it really is an eclectic, um, group that you have on from time to time, which is which is great because I think that, that gives you an opportunity to talk to a whole lot of different voices. Um, how do you, how do you go about choosing your guests?

Uh, that's a really good question. Um, especially when I first started, which has been— I can't even remember now. I think I've been doing it for 8 years or something. It's, it's been a while. Uh, when I first started doing it, I didn't exactly know how I was going to do the podcast. Just knew I wanted to do one and The reason I called it Voices in My Head was because I thought, well, I don't have to be tied to any one thing. I love music. I love movies. I love books. I love, you know, all of it. If I say just voices in my head, it can be anything that's speaking to me right now, you know, and it doesn't always even mean I have to necessarily agree with it. It's just something that has been like kind of on my radar that I want to talk about. So it's enabled me to have some pretty diverse conversations, I think, on the show, and I always try to help people express what they want to express and highlight, you know, what they are doing at the time. So in the beginning, it was just a lot of reaching out. Now I have a lot more people reaching out to me, thankfully, and which makes my job a lot easier because now that I've, you know, made so many connections, and I still I do reach out if there's like an author I really want to talk to or a musician. Sometimes it's easier than others, but I get fewer nos now than I used to because at least there's an audience that's listening. But yeah, so sometimes they reach out to me and say, you know, hey, we love having this, you know, an author for instance, and the publisher might say, you know, it was a good thing for us and wondered if you would like to have another one of our authors on. And I always love that, you know, it gives me a chance to meet people and even to get some books that I didn't even know were out there at the time. So it introduces me to some new stuff.

Yeah.

So that's kind of how the show goes. You know, some of my favorite episodes have been ones that were a stretch, and I didn't know if the people would even come on because still to this day, I refer to it a lot when I tell people what I do on the podcast is when I had the actor Stephen Tobolowsky on the show. And Stephen is a character actor. And I can just almost guarantee to anyone listening, they've seen him in a movie or television show because he's, he's literally one of those actors. It's like, oh, that's that guy, you know, I've seen him. And if you've seen the movie Groundhog Day, he was Ned Ryerson, the insurance sales buddy. But, but it turned out he was, he's a pretty secular guy. But he has really been kind of returning to his Jewish roots. And he wrote a book called My Adventures with God. And it just so happened to fit enough, you know, kind of with the format of my show that we actually had some, some strong theological discussion. So those are the kind of things that I get really, you know, interested in. They aren't necessarily just like church-oriented. They often are, and I would say probably 90% of them have something to do with churches in that way. But I mostly love good conversations with people who I find interesting. So yeah, that was probably way too long of an answer.

Oh no, that's perfect. That's absolutely perfect. Now, so what, what has been your favorite conversation out of, out of all of them that you've had?

Man, well, that was, that was definitely one of my favorites, talking with Stephen. Um, I hope we get to do that again. I've— there's been so many good ones, and we're almost up to— we're about to be almost 400 episodes now, so it's really hard to think back. I've had some wonderful ones. Phil Keggy was a great one. I really have always looked up to Phil Keggy, just not only as a player but as a person. And it was just so great to sit with him and talk about some, some good things that he was doing to help kind of get music into the hands of people around the world that wouldn't— instruments rather, because he was working with Instruments of Joy, which is just a wonderful ministry that puts musical instruments in the hands of people around the world. So that, that has to rank up there, you know, with one of my personal favorite ones. I always love when Andrew Peterson comes on the show and we get to talk because he always has just some really fascinating insights. I'll give you one more because there's just so many, and I hate to start naming names because then I feel like I'm gonna leave somebody out too, because they've all, they've all been good. I mean, But William Willimon, who I just had on this week, actually, I think this is maybe the fourth time I think I've had him on the show. Just an amazing pastoral theologian. I mean, he's kind of been a real hero to me over the years. I didn't even think he would want to come on the podcast. And if he did, I thought, oh man, he's just gonna think I'm like an idiot when, you know, just because he's so brilliant and he's a Duke professor, you know, and you always think, I'm just, you know, he's like way up here and I'm way down here, and we're not even going to be able to talk. But we've ended up becoming friends and just have enjoyed kind of each other's companies, and we swap emails from time to time. And same thing with like Walter Brueggemann, people like that. It's been fun getting to know some hero theologians. So I'll stop. Those are some of my favorites.

That's fantastic. That's great. All right, so let's go to the other one, which this one's been just so fascinating to me, uh, Mr. Rogers. And, and like you, like you alluded to already, uh, he obviously— yes, faith was very important to him in what he did, um, and, and definitely came out without really him having to say it, just how he lived his life, the way that he treated others. Um, so talk a little bit about that podcast. What was, what was it that made you say, I need to create a Mr. Rogers podcast talking about him and his life? Was it just there wasn't anything out there, or what, what led to it?

Yeah, kind of. It was a few years back now. I had read a book. Honestly, I hadn't thought a lot about Fred Rogers over the years since I was a kid, probably. But a book stood out to me. I think I saw it at the library, The Simple Faith of Mr. Rogers by Amy Hollingsworth. And this was before any of the movies or the documentaries or anything like that had come out, like Won't You Be My Neighbor. And so it was for me, like my first dive into understanding who he was and like the powerful, like faithful person that he was and sort of his like religious practices. And like, he was almost, I found as reading this book, he was almost like a John Wesley type figure that, you know, up early in the morning so he could start his prayer time and he had a daily rite that he would do and then he would off to exercise And then, you know, the prayer would continue and he would walk through the studio doors, you know, with this prayer he would pray every day, you know, "Lord, let some word that is heard be yours," as he would walk through the door. And his life was just like, it really spoke to me at a time when I needed it. And I was trying to develop kind of a daily rite in my own life at the time. So it really worked out because I really admired him and his practices as much as anything else. And his approach to the gospel was not so much tell as much as show, you know. And his whole theological world was really wrapped around this idea of Jesus telling us to love our neighbor as ourself. And who is our neighbor? Everybody is our neighbor, you know. So if we can love each other well, then we are enacting the gospel. And I just found his life to be so amazing in that way. So about, it really would have been around 2015 going into the election in 2016, I was finding myself just very discouraged at the state of things and I was, I had a couple quote books from Fred Rogers that really, really that's all they are, they're just these little snippets from Fred Rogers and I hadn't seen anybody doing anything like this so I thought well I'm gonna I think I'm going to start like a Twitter feed just for, you know, Mr. Rogers quotes. And I didn't have any followers or anything. It was just like, every day, maybe I'd put up a Fred Rogers quote that was speaking to me at that time. And I now, a couple years later, you know, I think 4 years now, there's, we have 65,000 people on Twitter that follow this account daily where I I literally just post Fred Rogers quotes. Um, out of that, I kind of asked because people seem to be interested so much in it and movies were starting to come out and things like that. And I thought there's maybe some interest in this and this might be a really good way to kind of tell the story of Fred in a different way. I wonder if there's a podcast and there weren't any that I was aware of. So I asked like the Mr. Rogers quotes community on Twitter that I run. I said, anybody interested in that? Would you, would you listen? You know, and, and I just got a ton of people, oh man, please, please, please, you know. So I think it was, yeah, it was about a year ago I put out this podcast. It's called Welcome to the Neighborhood, a Mr. Rogers tribute podcast. And the first season that we did was more like an audio documentary where I get together with my friend David Dalt, who is in Chicago and I'm here in Ohio, and I'd write the episode first, as far as like the story I was going to tell. And one week would be like a theme of love and like how Fred would show this, or kindness and how, you know, different episodes or parts of his life were geared towards this. And it would turn into a conversation at the beginning of the show. Listeners may not have known that I'd already recorded like sort of the documentary part, and my conversation partner had listened through that and came with some questions. So we kind of start the show conversationally, turns into sort of this documentary-style episode, and then I usually would end the episode with an actual audio clip of Fred Rogers talking. Well, then that turned into kind of a conversation show too, because other people started really having a lot of connections. So the— over the last year, I've got to have conversations with like the editor of Newsweek because they got interested because of the Twitter feed, and then the podcast became big and And the podcast, like, it's the only show I've ever hosted that made it like in the top 10 on iTunes, you know, it was like a big deal when it first came out, because everybody was just, it hit perfect time with the movie and everything. And then, like, Tom Junod, who wrote "Can You Say Hero," that great essay that they actually based the movie around, he came on the show. They did an album with several musical guests. So I got to talk with like, all in the same show, It was like Jackie Velázquez. It was Tom Bergeron from, you know, Dancing with the Stars, Funniest Home Videos, because he did a song on there, but he was sort of like the, the MC for a little documentary they did about it. Who else do we have on that show? It was Lee Greenwood came on the show. John, John Secada came on the show. So it was like just a fun time to have these conversations. And then some really great authors like that have written about Fred Rogers. I've just been able to do conversations. So In a lot of ways, it's like what I do on Voices in My Head, but it's like all geared at Fred Rogers, or at least themed around things that he would have been about. Because we've had a few conversations that are more like how this person affected my life and what a difference that has made as a musician or as a, you know, writer or as a teacher or things like that. Because we've had all kinds of interesting folks. And I just love it. It's my, it's one of my favorite things to do. It's not about me in any way, which maybe that's why it's so much fun. We don't have to, you know, focus on what I do. It's about the work and ministry of somebody else, and it's, it's pretty cool to get to do.

So yes, that's amazing. That is just, that is so cool. I, I think that's, it's, it's a fascinating topic to talk about Mr. Rogers. Because, I mean, he is, he is somebody who's been beloved by so many for so long. I mean, if you're a child of the '70s and '80s, even into the '90s, you know, you know who he is. I mean, it's, it's one of those things that just transcends really any age. And, uh, and I think it's, it's just such a great opportunity to share that with so many other people and get a little bit more behind the scenes and a little bit more detail. Yeah, I think that's, that's fantastic, and I really appreciate you doing that.

No, well, thanks. It's, it's totally a pleasure, and it's one of those things that I, I feel like I hardly did anything. Like, it was just, you know, here's some quotes from Fred Rogers, and people were just so needing it, you know. It was just such a, such a contrast to what I feel like the atmosphere in this country is even right now. And I'll just say one other thing, if you don't mind me interjecting it in, because I've had this conversation a little bit with other people, and I think one thing that is so sorely missing, at least in American culture right now, is we are at a strange time and place where there is not one moral voice that is universally recognized as a moral voice that speaks to everybody. You know, and it's, it's very strange. Like, there's not a Billy Graham right now that even if a person like didn't believe in God, at some point, they at least had some sort of respect for this is a man that I respect, you know, like with Billy Graham. And there have been people throughout our history that just had that voice. And they were people that spoke into that moment. And it made all the difference because they could, they could just steer whatever was at the tipping point. It was like they came in and you knew they had moral authority. To me, I feel like Fred Rogers was one of those few people that even to this day, like, his character has been unimpeachable. Like, he's not one of these guys that they look back and found his story, well, here's the dirty dark things that was in, you know, underneath the baseboards or whatever. He really was a person who aimed to be as faithful on the screen as he was off of the screen. And I think maybe that's why people so resonate with him right now. Is because I don't see any voice out there that just universally could be seen as like the moral authority. And I feel like in some ways people are turning to him because they remember that he was, you know, and they think, well, maybe, maybe I can be that, you know, maybe I can learn. And, and, and he so cultivated his life to be that way. Um, it didn't happen by accident. And I always try to emphasize to people, you know, um, We all have this capacity given to us by God to become people of holiness, but it's not by our doing alone. It's by working in cooperation with the Holy Spirit to say, "Yes, Lord," and to say, "I'm yours and avail myself to you." And yes, even become people who are disciplined and do hard things like getting up at 5 in the morning for prayer, you know, and doing it on a regular basis. And so I just wanted to add that to the conversation because I, again, it just adds to the extraordinary figure that he was and how desperately we need people like that in our time.

Oh yeah, no, that's absolutely true, absolutely. Well, and that's, that's a perfect segue into, uh, the next, next thing I wanted to talk about, which is, you know, like you had said, you're, you usually are out on the road, and obviously this year with, with, uh, COVID, it has been crazy for Everybody. Yeah. What is— what does 2020 look like for you now in comparison to other years?

Yeah. Oh man, it's been, uh, not at all what I expected, that's for sure. Um, I, I was hoping 2020 was going to be like a good year for touring. I had a fairly new album out, Thunder, which released in, in 2019. Um, but we had just really started as far as like getting it out, getting some radio play and doing some, you know, things. I thought this will be great, 2020 will be like, I'll be in earnest on the road, school will get back in, and, uh, well, it just, as you know, life didn't happen that way. Yeah, screeching halt. So there's, there's really been, other than just some online stuff I've done occasionally with like Breedlove Guitars because I'm endorsed by them And I may be doing another show for them pretty soon online. I haven't had any like concerts or, you know, album sales have gone because that's where I sell albums is when I, you know, I'm on the road. So I've got like, you know, boxes of CDs and I had just printed vinyls. And so it's like this huge expense. And then all of a sudden you're like, well, I guess they're just going to sit in a corner in my basement, you know. So that's, that's been a hard thing. But I've been so busy. And I, you know, like the people that have been coming on your show and talking, and I've got to listen to a few of their conversations. I feel like we are maybe 3 times more busy at our local churches than we ever were, even if there's nobody in the building. Because we've been online, we've been doing a like radio service from the parking lot where people can drive in in their cars and tune in. And then we also do a socially distanced indoor service at the same time. So it's like 3 ways to do it on Sunday, and then we don't meet any other time in the building during the week because we're doing videos and stuff. So in some ways, one part of life which was very important stopped completely, and then the other ways, like this exhausting just marathon that just never seems to end, is still going on. And we're entering this hard wintertime. And I'm, you know, it does feel like at times, like, how long, O Lord? Like, we miss each other, you know, it's— I'm tired of only seeing people with a mask on, you know, and yet I want them to wear them because I want them to be safe. And I want to, I want to keep them safe. And yet I'm itching to get back on the road and do some music because there's just something about playing live. So yeah, it's been, it's been an interesting time for sure.

And I think, you know, it, it really helps us to realize how important it is to be connected together in person, right? Yeah, you can, you can, you can do so much, and technology is great, and, and I repeatedly thank God for that, for, you know, for the developments that we can be able to have conversations like this with me being in Texas and you being in Ohio. But even for worship too, to be able to do all of that. But there is something different about being connected together, whether that's in worship, whether that's at a concert, whether that's wherever we go, right? I mean, for me, my challenge right now, I mean, all my choirs, my school choir and my church choir, we've sung with masks on, which it works, but it's far, far, far from optimal. And yeah, we're not— I mean, for my school choir, we're not having Christmas concerts. So I'm in the process of putting together virtual choir videos for my school choirs because, you know, it's at least—

it's a lot of time.

It's a lot of, um, but it's something that I'm happy to do, and I'm willing to sacrifice that time to make it happen for them so they've got an out, you know, to try and make it as somewhat normal-ish as possible because it's nowhere close to normal by any stretch. But, you know, it's, it's, it's that is trying to make it as routine-based or at least, you know, typical as we possibly can. And I think for many of us as we're heading into the holidays, that's, that's the struggle is trying to figure out, okay, how do we do this? How do we make this you know, especially as a parent, how do you make that fun for your kids and enjoyable and keeping some of those traditions, you know, that you've done together but altered in some, in some way? It's, it's tough, really is.

Yeah, yeah, it's, it's a hard thing to figure out as a, as a pastor at a church too, you know, when you're ministering. And like I said, I've been doing music at this the same church for like 20 years, and they've been gracious to let me travel and do other things in addition to that. Well, now this is all there is. So, you know, there's been no lack of playing, that's for sure. It just hasn't been, you know, the stuff I used to do. But I'm always wondering, like, did we do enough to protect our people? You know, because I feel like in some ways right now, we're like— loving each other and loving our neighbors is Sometimes it's as simple as putting on a mask and still being there with each other. But then there's times I think, oh boy, did we do enough today? 'Cause most of us would probably be okay if we got the virus, but we got this lady right here that comes every week, so many health problems, she's so faithful, she's gonna come if the doors are open. And I almost feel like, did we do her a disservice this week by opening this week? She's so faithful. She's gonna come no matter what, you know. And that's her choice. And there is this wrestling of like, you know, what do we do? Like, we want to meet together. It's so important that the body of Christ be together. We miss it when we're not together. We grow together. But gosh, we're asking these hard questions we just never had to ask before. On the other hand, if I looked at like the bright side of things, It forced us to get kind of with the times a little bit with some of the technology and things like—

A lot of churches that have done that.

Yeah, we never really streamed our services out before this. And then now, if you take it just by like viewership that we have on a Sunday morning service, and then the people that come, we actually have more people that we're ministering to than we ever did before in some ways. So I mean, there are like ups and downs and trade-offs with all of these things. There's been lots of family time, you know, around here. My wife is a teacher, so she goes out to school every day, but my son is online at home and I'm like with him. And we've not been meeting outside of our home with much of anybody. Matter of fact, because she's at school and like, you know, her principal had COVID, teachers in the same hallway have COVID, kids have come in, they've had family with COVID So it's like, we're worried about like, she and my son have not come back to church. Because like, if anybody's carrying it, it's her, you know, type of thing. So then I try like when I'm there on Sunday morning, even though I'm there, I'm trying to keep away from people as much as I can because I don't want to spread it. So it's this weird thing of like, we want to be with each other while not being with each other. And, you know, it's just such a hard time right now.

It really is. And I think there is that balance, like you said before, it's that wrestling of How do we, how do we navigate this? You know, we, we aren't called to live in fear, right? And obviously God is bigger than any virus or anything else around us.

Yes.

And so, so that's the thing I've come back to over and over again is I'm, I'm willing to take as many precautions as possible. I will wash my hands regularly, I will wear a mask, I will keep my distance, I will do all of those things. And if for some reason down the road, I look back and say, you know what? I didn't have to do all that. I just overreacted. Great. I would much rather do that than to say, oh, you know what? I could have done this. I could have done that because, you know, I mean, because that was the, and I think it was kind of reading some of the articles back in March about some of the choirs specifically that had different events that, you know, where it was like one person came in and had had COVID and Everybody who left and they're all infected. And it's like, right.

Whoa.

Well, yeah. I mean, singing is, singing is different. And so I, I spent a lot of time really wrestling with that and investigating, you know, what are the things that come from singing? Well, obviously you're breathing deeper. So if there is somebody, you're, you're going to breathe that farther down into your lungs. If you have it, well, you're expirating more, right? And so the sound that, that air is gonna travel farther. So. You know, for me it was, okay, well, and there's some, there's some churches and schools right now that are still, we're not doing any singing.

Yeah.

At all. Yeah. For the near future. Well, okay, I can see that to some extent, but I think there also has to be a balance of we have to take precautions, but we still have to live our lives. We still have to find creative ways to worship. And so like what you guys are doing of Hey, we're gonna put it on the— go in the parking lot, turn on your radio. I've seen a lot of churches that are doing that, which is great. I mean, that's a creative solution where you're still together, but you're not, right? And it's, it's, it's different, but the good part is this is not going to be forever. Yeah, and I don't know how long, but yeah, it's not going to be forever.

And for us, it's kind of helped in like our indoor service too because we have enough. I mean, we may have 70, 80 cars on Sunday morning that show up, you know. Well, those people generally are not going to come inside either. So actually, the people who do come inside, it helps us to space everybody out too, you know. And then we do encourage people, wear your mask if you're going to sing, you know, and things like that. So like you said, and I was just thinking of what some of my friends who have traveled around the world to, not just in this time, like in other times, in places where like the church is persecuted. And they can't sing because of like, if they get found out, sometimes it's an underground church type thing, you know, in different parts of the world. And I've heard stories that they'll come back and tell me about this place where they worshiped. I said, you know, these people are literally in a cave worshiping on Sunday morning. It was somewhere in the Middle East. And they said, if they're found out, you know, that's it. And they said they were whispering, like, Open the Eyes of My Heart, you know, songs like that on Sunday morning. It's like these people were so desperate to worship God, they would do whatever it took, you know. And I've thought of that with like this climate that we're in, like nothing is going to keep us from giving praise to the Lord. And yet, like, if they can do that in a cave, like to whisper, like surely we can figure out some ways that are safe, you know, to do this with each other and continue singing praises and still look out for each other and hopefully help each other in these times.

Well, and even too, you know, I mean, growing up, one of the things I heard over and over again is, you know, the church isn't the building, it's the people, right? And so this is the opportunity for us to lift that out. And I think it's hard because we get comfortable. We build these traditions, we build these connections, and so we become reliant on the building. Yeah. Now the building's closed, but we're still the church. We're still worshiping. In fact, like you were saying, and for my church as well, our reach has actually increased. Mm-hmm. What a great opportunity, right? God has laid this in front of us to say, hey, okay, so you can't come to church. Well, we can bring church to you. You can be in your living room, you can, you can be drinking your cup of coffee, you can be sitting in your pajamas, you can come and worship. Yeah. And it doesn't matter where you are. It doesn't matter if you're in, in the state, in the city, even in the country.

Mm-hmm.

You can still worship.

Yeah.

I think that's so powerful. And I think that that's going to have a long-term impact. I really do. I hope that's a positive thing to see.

I hope so. And I hope this will help us too. My worry is in all of this, because right now I'm very comfortable telling people, if you don't feel comfortable coming in to worship with us, like, that's why we're offering this online, you know, send us messages. We've got like sort of online greeters that can kind of talk to you. We want to hear from you. Relationship is really important. Important. My fear in all of this is that we're— I hope we're not creating a new whole other problem of just consumerism with worship again, you know, like, well, you know, I went for a year and didn't go to church. I could just do it at home, lay in bed and watch it. Kind of like that, I'm gonna keep doing it, you know. So it's these other, like, this other problem. Thank God we have the capacity to do this right now because even 5 years ago we wouldn't have had the technology to still connect with our people in this way. So it's like anything else, there's these really good upsides to it and there's these downsides we want to watch for at the same time and then keep encouraging our people like, as a reminder, just like Jesus is coming one day and this isn't forever, like the pandemic isn't forever either. And so we don't expect that we're always going to be you know, distance. And there is a time where we're gonna be like, hey, we haven't seen you in a while, you know. We've been pandemic-free for 3 months now. You ever gonna come back to church? You know, type things. So we do miss each other.

And I think that's, to me, one of the biggest things is we, like I was saying before, I think we're realizing how much we really appreciate and need that interaction with people in person. I mean, for me, it's, it's been a given and it's been hard for me since March because I'm an extrovert. My wife is more of an introvert. She's, she's good. Doesn't have to be around people. My girls are like me in the fact that they need people and it's hard. I mean, it's been really, really hard for them. And I think that's, that's the challenge. Too, coming as we come out of this, is to not just, you know, not rush back into our old routines and habits of being right all the time. Because I think that's been the nice part of this, is it's really forced us to reflect on what is most important.

Yeah.

You know, and, and how do we use our time, and how do we, you know, so if, if these events and activities that we usually do, like for me right now normally my month of December, as I'm looking at the calendar, it's, oh my gosh, I just have to survive. This is going to be crazy. This is going to be chaotic. This year, looking at it, it's like, oh wow, this is going to be so different. And yeah, I'm kind of looking forward to it because it's not going to be as busy. It's not going to be having to prepare a choir cantata. It's not going to have to be 300 services on Christmas Eve. It's not— it's, it's a lot less stressful. Yeah, to some extent. And I'm thankful for that in that regard. It's, you know, obviously, yes, we love those pageantry things, those get-togethers, all of those things. Yeah. And there's a place for that. But I think as we come out of this, that's kind of where my head's starting to go already is, okay, what are the lessons we take from this? You know, how do we, how do we balance that moving forward of You know, not doing— doing some of the things that we've always done, but doing it in a way that's healthier in some regard.

Yeah, um, go ahead. Sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt you. I was thinking through this and have been thinking about this lately. Like, I, I almost wonder if we're in a moment that if we'll avail ourselves to it and allow God to just use it We kind of are in a time where we can't do for ourselves right now. If it wasn't for the generosity of like the people at my church, I wouldn't have any paycheck on Sunday right now. And a lot of them who are sending in like their tithe money to help support that haven't been in the building, you know. So it's kind of an interesting thing to see the, like the church in that regard, in some ways being the church, and we're kind of at this mode, like, It doesn't matter how good of a sermon you can preach or how great of a song you can sing. Right now, we're kind of powerless to like— there's not any church growth strategy right now that anybody can really like hang on to. We're literally in this moment of we just have to trust God for all of this in this moment. Our livelihoods, some people have lost their livelihoods right now. Thankfully, I'm not one of them at this point. But I'm aware it could happen at any day, you know, my job's not for certain. And we can see the number of people unemployed right now. It feels like a time where everybody is just kind of in a state of weakness, you know, like, there's nothing I can do about it. This has happened. But I wonder if in that the opportunity is the biblical concept of Jubilee, that on that seventh year, We're gonna let the fields lay fallow. We're not gonna plant anything. We're not gonna grow anything. We're gonna let the ground rest. You know, like what you just said, we don't have these huge services we have to do. We actually, if we can avail ourselves to it, this might be a time to let our souls be refreshed a little bit and allow ourselves to wait before the Lord. You know, we literally were at a time when this pandemic started and everybody's saying don't gather together. And we couldn't see each other, it was as if God was saying to the whole world, be still and know, you know, like this.

Yeah, yeah. Psalm 46:10 was one that went through my head a lot at that. Yeah.

And it was— exactly. And I almost wonder if maybe the hopeful part of this is we've literally lost a year by the time it's done. We've— it's like we've lost a year. But I wonder if this could be like an example of like, God, can you show us what that means. This, this whole concept of Jubilee— like, we had this year that was just gone, the locusts took it or whatever, you know. What if now you can really show us what you can do and we can stop pretending we ever had anything to do with it in the first place? You know, like, like, who would have thought we'd be reaching more people by not getting together all this time? You know, that's, that's got to be a God thing. Who would have thought that we would miss each other so much and that some of the silly battles that churches often fight over the carpet and the color of the curtains, those things have ceased. So we can maybe enter into like, what's really important right now? What do we really find? So I'm hopeful for that. I'm hoping that this is sort of, we're just gonna start year one of Jubilee over next year. I love that.

That's my prayer as well. And I'm hopeful that that that does, you know, that really brings a focus for all of us on really stepping back and figuring out what's most important. I mean, that's, that's been the nice thing for me. I mean, you know, when all of this came down, it was, you know, in the lead-up to Easter. Again, another busy time for us church musicians. And it was honestly, it was great for me to be able to spend time at home. Yeah, it was, you know, My girls are now 11 and 9. And so it's, you know, it's that opportunity at a really important time in their life to be able to say, I don't have to run for all of these services. I don't have to go and do as much as I had been. I'm here, you know. And I think there's, there's some blessing and some benefit to that. And yes, that's looking at it from the self-centered point of it, but I think there's, there's some importance in that. And that's One of the things for me that with the, with the podcast and with my blog, that's, that's kind of the direction that I've been going is for those of us as church musicians, we think about others ministry-wise. We think about others more than we do ourselves. Um, I mean, that's, that's what my dad modeled for me and it was great to see, but I think there's, there's a lot of benefit and necessity when it comes from self-care, right? And so we can't minister to others if we're not fully taking care of ourselves. Whether that's getting the physical rest, the, the physical care, the spiritual care that we need. Yeah, if we're not doing those things, then we can't be in a place to care for others. And that starts with our family, you know. If we're not— if we're not taking care of ourselves the way we need to, we can't minister to our family before anybody else. And so that's got to be the priority. So I think that's, that's one of the things I'm hopeful again for all of us, whether we're in ministry or not, is that we make sure that we're taking care of our family first. You know, I mean, there was, there was a point, like I said, my girls love people and love— and they're girls, so they have lots of words every day to use. There were, there were March, April, there were a lot of days where I'm like, I need to leave the house and go somewhere because, okay, there's too many of us. Yeah. You know, now looking back at it, I'm thankful. I really am, because, you know, it has been a blessing of a time for all of us. And so I think that's, that's the thing is that it's looking at those things and saying, oh yeah, okay, so in the midst of all this chaos and craziness, there is positives, there is blessings that come out.

Yeah, but I'm there. I agree.

Yeah.

Yeah. Well, Craig, can I just say something as a word of thank you? I love that you are here as an encouragement to church musicians and that your whole focus is on the wellbeing of those who minister. I think that's something that's very much needed and it's very unique. So I just wanted to say before we end our time together tonight, before I forgot, because you were talking about that with your family and with your ministry, and everything you do is out of this place of love that wants to encourage people and encourage people in a very holy way. So I really appreciate that and appreciate you reaching out to have this conversation with me. This has been a lot of fun tonight, for sure.

Absolutely. Absolutely. So just To finish our time, what if there's one thing that you can give as an encouragement? What would it be?

One thing as an encouragement? Well, tell you what, at the time of we're recording this, we are about to enter into my favorite time of year, which is Advent. And we, we— I just love telling the story. And it encourages me to be reminded that Jesus is coming. And then we enter in Advent. We're telling the story of his second coming through the lens of his first coming, you know, and we look with an eye to what Jesus is going to yet do. And so if there's any encouragement I find from that is, guess what, the story's not over yet, you know, and it's not all gonna be— at some time we're gonna look back at this really hard year and it's just gonna be like an old tale that we tell. You know, like, you remember how that year was like? We were wearing masks everywhere. Can you believe it? And we didn't touch each other. We didn't hug. And, you know, I do think looking with an eye to the gospel for the hope that is there, there's so much to be encouraged about. There's so much knowing that this is not done yet and that our God is so good and is so faithful and present. So I'm joyful to get to tell the story all over again as we enter into the Advent season again. And it's gonna be a different way this year. I don't love doing it over the internet when we do it that way. I don't love doing it for a bunch of cars in a parking lot like we're at a drive-in theater, but we do it. And you know what? It's never been about our convenience and comfort. For 2,000 years now, the church has been striving to find new ways. How do we tell this story? And so this is another opportunity for us this year. It's gonna be a different way than we ever did it, but we're still gonna get to tell the story, and I'm so grateful for that. So I hope listeners will find that encouraging, 'cause that's what's encouraging to me. I love this time of year, and I'm just not gonna let the pandemic ruin it for me.

I love it, and that's a great place to end it. So thank you so much, Rick. I really, really appreciate your time, really appreciate the conversation and having you on.

Same here. Thank you for having me. It's been a pleasure. Thank you for joining me here this week on Voices in My Head. I hope you'll visit me on my website at rickleejames.com where you can find out more about me, get my music on vinyl and CD, follow my blog, and even schedule me for a concert or speaking engagement. Better yet, even a book signing in your neighborhood. You can find all that and more at rickleejames.com. Also, it would mean a great deal to me if you could write a review of this podcast on iTunes. The more positive reviews that we receive, the more visible this podcast will be online. And now, For the benediction: May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope. God bless you, and thank you for listening to Voices in My Head.