Episode 512 - Canyon Hills Worship with guest Michael Monroe

Welcome to Voices in My Head, the official podcast of me, Rick Lee James. I'm a recording artist, a singer, songwriter, author, worship leader, an ordained minister in the Church of the Nazarene, and most recently, a hospital chaplain. The Voices in My Head podcast is where I discuss things that are on my mind. The Voices in My Head. Music, movies, books, pop culture, theology, and more are all on the table as I discuss them here with friends and colleagues and sometimes just by myself, processing what I'm learning in the moment. Make sure to let me know what you think of today's episode by leaving me a review on iTunes, tweeting to me @RickLeeJames on Twitter, and by joining 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 are 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 loudest voices in my head, which is ironic because he was such a quiet person. Also, if you do want to be notified about all of my latest releases, not just this podcast, sign up for email notifications on my Substack page found at rickleejames.substack.com. Well, I guess that's it for the intro, so let's get to the latest episode of Voices in My Head, the Rick Lee James podcast.

You give and you take, but you stay the same. You are so, so good. In seasons of plenty, in seasons of pain, you are so, so good. Oh Father, you have been so faithful, constant and so stable. I will trust your hand in every season.

You have never made a wrong move.

You will not accomplish. I will trust your hand in every season. Oh, in every season. Oh, when my heart is at peace and my soul is at rest, <LYRICS>You are so, so good. When I walk through the valley and I can't see the end, you are still so good. Oh my Father, you have been so faithful, constant and so stable. I will trust your hand.</LYRICS> In every season, you have never made a promise you will not accomplish. I will trust your name in every season. Oh, in every season. Oh. There's a heavenly storehouse of favor and love, and it never runs out. It goes on and on and on. You want any plenty? I have all I need. No matter the season, God, bring Bring a harvest out of me. There's a heavenly storehouse of favor and love, and it never runs out. It goes on and on and on. In one and in plenty, I have all I need. No matter the season, God, bring a harvest out of me. Father, you have been so faithful, consistent, so stable. I will trust your faith in every season. You have never made a promise you will not accomplish. I will trust your faith in every season. Father, <LYRICS>You have been so faithful on sinners' stable.

I will trust your hand in every season.

You have never made a promise you will not accomplish. I will trust your hand in every season.</LYRICS> Oh! In every season, in every season, in every season, you have never made a promise You will not accomplish. I will trust in your hand in every season.

Welcome back to Voices in My Head. As always, I'm your host, Rick Lee James, and I'm so glad for all of you who are listening today. That beautiful song that you heard as the show began today is called Every Season It's on the new album from Canyon Hills Worship, and we have a guest today from Canyon Hills Worship to talk all about it. Canyon Hills Worship has been churning out album after album with Dream Records since 2017. The worship team is part of the Canyon Hills Church in Seattle, Washington, a church founded in 1995 by Steve and Tammy Walker. Now the church has over 3,500 people on a weekend and more than 190 life groups functioning throughout the week. All to Jesus Live is the follow-up to 2022's Spirit of God. Michael Monroe, the worship director at Canyon Hills Community Church, is here for a podcast visit to tell us more about Canyon Hills Worship's latest project. Michael Monroe, welcome to Voices in My Head.

Thank you so much for having me, man.

For real. Well, it's, it's really good to be able to have this conversation with you. I was telling you before we started that I've been listening through the album a number of times, and I was having a hard time picking, you know, just 2 songs because we opened the show with a song today and we're going to close the, the podcast with a song too. But so many good, just quality songs. And so I just want to say, first of all, just well done and, and applaud you and your church and your band on, on just another wonderful project. And so I'm excited to be able to, to talk to you some more about it. So, so let's start off, uh, just real quickly, if, if you could, for people that might not be familiar, tell us a little bit about Canyon Hills Worship and, and the connection with the church, and just whatever you feel is pertinent. I'd love for our listeners to know more.

Yeah, thank you. Um, honestly, thank you so much for listening to the album. That means a lot. My pleasure. Um, yeah, we, uh, Canyon Hills Worship started, um, started as kind of out of a, a desire. The worship pastor, Kobe, uh, Kobe Orr, at the church, um, I think around 10 or so years ago, uh, just saw a need to write songs for our church specifically. Um, he just, you know, there's— I mean, there's so many good worship songs out there, but just knowing the heart of, or knowing the stories of people in our church, um, and what we as a church needed to be singing and what we as a church needed to be praying, um, we started making songs for our church specifically. Or rather, Kobe and the team did. At that time, I wasn't a part of Canhills Worship. Time. Um, and yeah, just kind of grew out of that and a lot of, a lot of learning, uh, through the years on what it looks like to record songs and what it looks like to write songs on all of that. And just been continuing to try to be faithful to writing songs for our church specifically. And it's been cool to see, like, in recent years, just it— those songs going out of the four walls of our church and hopefully encouraging other churches around the country and the world. And, um, yeah, that's been, that's been really humbling and special. And our mission has always been, and we recently defined it a couple years ago, to create atmospheres of worship that are Jesus-focused and eternity-minded. And we have really tried our best to stay true to that vision and stay true to that mission, and do it within the walls of our church and writing songs for our church. And yeah, that's kind of, that's kind of the heart of Canyon Hills Worship, if you will.

Wow, I love that. Jesus-focused and eternity-minded. Very good. That, that's, uh, and you know, I love that you, your, your church, your worship band, that you've all put in so much thought into this. I think sometimes we think about just doing music, but we don't always put a thought into the mission behind it and what we want to do. So just as another layer, um, to the good work that you're doing, and I also love that you're writing for your local church. And yeah, and, and it's, it's sort of like a plus if other people pick up some music and use it and find it helpful in their congregation. But I love that your focus is to minister where you are too. And exactly, yeah, that local focus, because honestly, those are the people that you're seeing week after week. So that's, that's a wonderful thing. So, um, tell us a little bit about just kind of making this new album. If I'm not mistaken, most of it at least was recorded live. I know there's a few tracks that seem to be like studio tracks on it, but it has the real feel of a live album. It's fun. Whenever I was listening to it on Apple Music and you can kind of scroll to the bottom and there's several videos, you know, that are connected, you're able to see the congregation and, and everyone there in the band just singing and playing and all that. But I know that that adds a whole other layer of difficulty sometimes when you're totally recording live.

There's not a lot of overdubs, you know, when you go back. No.

Just tell us about, you know, kind of that whole project and what it's like to do live music and turn them into albums from the worship of your church.

Yeah, thanks for asking that. It was, uh, it was, yeah, it was mostly recorded live. Every season there's two versions of it on the album. There's a live version with Elisha singing, and then there's the studio version that I, that I led. And, um, but every other song at all of those 9 tracks prior, um, are all— they were all recorded live in that order at our, um, at our night of worship that we had for, for this recording night. And it was, it was really cool. Like, we, we rehearsed that set so much to make sure that we didn't have to do those overdubs, and I was really, really I was really pleased with how the band did because, um, those are actually like 100% the takes from, from that night, which is really cool. And that was the— and that was the goal for, for this album. And I knew that it would take a lot of rehearsal. And, um, the conversations leading up to— yeah, a lot leading up to the night was, um, you know, this is going to be a lot of work, but I think it'll be worth it in the end because I think For me, I personally like when I'm listening to just like a rock band or something like that, like I usually prefer to listen to like a studio recording because it's clean, it's perfect. But the thing about like worship music that I love is that it's not necessarily perfect, but it is honest. And that's what I wanted for this record. That's what we wanted for this record was it to be honest and it to sound like what Canyon Hills Community Church sounds like on those worship nights, because they are really special. And, um, yeah, I think it— praise God, because it was like, I think that was captured on this record, and there wasn't any big flubs that we had to go back in and overdub.

So yeah, well, yeah, well, and well done, because— and again, that involves your whole community there, not only just from those that are— not only from those that are putting in so much work to rehearse, um, but even for the congregation to, to show up, you know, and be a part of that. And again, I love that that you're, you're community-minded, that you're focused on who's there before you when you're doing that. But then that is just an awful lot of work. But I agree with you, and I'm not going to name any albums, but I know of some bigger churches that, you know, put out so-called live albums. And for listeners that can't see me holding up my fingers with, you know, quotations, live albums, and you find out afterwards, it's like, you know, every track has just been overdubbed to the, to the max, you know, on those live albums. But, but I do love too that you wanted to capture that. And I think of a church that musically, it's, it's different completely, I would say. But with the mission, I think it would be very similar. And I was thinking of Brooklyn Tabernacle, like the Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir has a number of live albums. And one thing I love about some of their releases is they have almost entire tracks that are just the congregation responding to, you know, like the choir has kind of fallen back because God's just doing something. And you can hear people praying, and you can hear just the midst of people being in the presence of the moment. So there's— you're right, there's something about those live moments that's hard to capture. And as wonderful even as your studio tracks are, I found myself wanting to go back and listen to the live version, you know, whenever I would hear it, because there was just something of the power of that moment. So I'm glad you were able to put in that work and to be able to capture it in that way. Um, and I'd love to know too, because you're a church that, that writes those songs for your community, and I'm always curious about what does it look like, um, for your band, uh, for your church even, what does it look like for those songs to come together? Do you have— is it part of your church life that you like have writing groups, you know, that get together? Because I think that's kind of an interesting idea. I'm not sure how often I've seen it take place, but like, you What if instead of a small group that's only Bible study focused, do we have a small group that's on songwriting? Or, you know, so I— and I—

oh, that's an interesting idea.

Yeah, I think it would be kind of an interesting way to train people. But I'm just curious because every scenario is different. How does it look in your particular setting when it comes to writing the songs and where they come from? I'd love to know more because a lot of our listeners and myself, we're songwriters.

Yeah. Um, yeah, that's it. Honestly, the— this— I'm gonna write that down. The small group that's focused on writing songs, I think that'd be really cool. Um, because we're— our church is really focused on life groups, and because it's a large church, and that's a way to make a large church smaller. Um, but yeah, I'm gonna— I'm actually gonna steal that idea from you.

That's awesome. Go forth and steal it. That's how— that's fine.

Yeah, yeah, the writing— the writing for Canyon Hills Worship um, we have a group of collaborators that we, that we work with. Um, Kobe, that worship pastor I mentioned, he's the head of our department, and I, we do the primary— we're the primary writers for Canyon Hills Worship. But we, we work with these two guys specifically from a church called North Point in, um, in Atlanta. You probably have heard of it, Andy Stanley's church. And they, um, they become really, really close friends, Brandon Coker and Clay Finnesand, and they're just excellent songwriters. And we became friends, I don't know, some like 5 years ago. And most of these songs, all except for one that we wrote with this guy named Raymond Gregory, who's— he used to be over at Harvest, and then now he's at a church in East Anaheim, Calvary Chapel. Um, but yeah, they just, um, we, we do these writing camps every, every year or so, or every 8 months, and, um, just, you know, get together in an Airbnb for 5 or 6 days and just write songs all day. Um, and it's been, it's been really cool to see, um, where those songs have, um, have gone and what they've done for our churches. And just out of that small room and those prayers for our churches um, have led to these songs, and it's been, it's been really cool and really cool.

Well, that's neat. I'm glad to hear that. And we had Clay actually on this podcast a while back. Oh no way! Yeah, yeah, I had several friends over the years also from North Point. And, um, yeah, Eddie Kirkland years ago used to be one of the worship pastors there, and he and I have done some songwriting together. And you're right, just a, just a wonderful group of people. And North Point just, you know, keeps churning out wonderful writers. And yeah, so, so I'm always glad to see, um, when churches are trying to, to find that out for themselves too, because I think that's a, a really neat ministry that churches can take on. I've never quite— as a worship pastor, um, myself, I've never quite figured out how to make that happen in my local congregation where, you know, like, like the idea has come to me before of like just the one I had said to you, wouldn't it be nice to have like these songwriting groups so we could come together and not only like dream and talk about songwriting, but then what does it mean to write in a way that others can sing, you know? How do we kind of create our own psalm book, you know, so to speak? And, um, and so I really, I love that you're doing that for your church. Um, and, and I wanted to ask you too, um, because a project like this I know it takes a lot out of you. Yeah. And it takes, takes so much time and it takes so much effort to, uh, to come together. Um, but I know there must be some spiritual practices there too, you know, in, in the midst of it. And I know everybody kind of has their own thing. Is there a way that you kind of help your, your band, um, as people who are leading worship from week to week, how do you help them to connect their heart with the Holy Spirit, you know, with the Lord, in the midst of those busy weeks when you're coming together for practice. I know different churches, we all are looking for different ways not only to just run a practice, but we are about making disciples and we are about drawing people close to Jesus. As you've talked about your mission, I'd love to know if you just have any insights for us as far as working with a church team. You know, church musicians. How do you transform it from not just a practice but into an actual setting where this is part of our worship together too? This is how we draw near to God, is even in the rehearsal time.

Yeah, that's a really good question. Um, in, in COVID time, so when we were just recording our services and having to, um, kind of lead cameras in worship. It was a really weird— it's a weird thing, but we were coming off of a big growth spurt in our church, and we were at 4 services. We're back to it now, 4 services on Sunday morning. And it's just like, it felt like a grind, and everyone was kind of, I think, like on the verge of starting to get really worn out. And then we got this break, and it was honestly kind of bad circumstances for the break with the pandemic, But, um, what it did, what it did force us to do was think about, um, how we did our rehearsals. Because in that time, we were doing, um, recording these services in like chunks of like 3 services at a time. And what that did was like increase like the ways that we worship just together, um, and it was like just these really special times. And I honestly sometimes miss it. Like, it's just us as a band just worshiping together and getting to sing these sets a couple times and really focus in on what these songs are saying. And so once COVID started to slow down, we started to have like actual services again. We— oh, Kobe had the idea of kind of doing what we call church for us. Like in, in the rehearsal time. So we'll, we'll get all the technical stuff out of the way, we'll run the songs a couple times, make sure everything, all the transitions are good and everything. And then when we do our run-through, um, we actually just all turn in into the middle of the stage, and whoever is like the primary worship leader for that, for that day will lead us through kind of the devotional for that, for that week, um, will lead us through the prayer time and everything., and we just get to worship together, and we encourage the band like, hey, we have all the technical stuff out of the way right now. We have— we know what we're playing, we've practiced throughout the week, we've done the run-through, we've done like— we've gotten all that stuff out of the way. So now in this time, focus in, worship, see what God is trying to tell you, surrender to him right now, whatever that theme is for the week, like focus in on that, meditate on that scripture. And that has been— that has been really cool. Last night night. We just had our rehearsal for Sunday, and yeah, it was just a really— I was so encouraged going out of that time of worship. I, like, my heart needed it. And I think that also overflows into Sunday morning, because if we're just going there to lead songs or to play songs and do glorified karaoke, like, it's not gonna it's not gonna, um, that's not the best offering we can give. And if we have our hearts actually focused on Jesus and on eternity, um, that is such a better place to lead from.

Amen. Offer something better than glorified karaoke. I like that. Yeah, that's good. Oh no, thank you for that. I feel like those practices are so important, and, and even glad to hear about just the fresh thing that God's doing even last night, you know, in your heart. Those are wonderful things for us to hear as we're listening. And that's what we want to strive for. We're always looking for better ways to help our people connect, for sure. Well, boy, our time has just flown by, it feels like. But I want to talk about, uh, the song that we're going to close the episode with today, which is also from the new album. And the song is called Surrender. And I think the reason that it— that it— I'm drawn to it is, is because I feel like it's a song that may be good for congregations who are a little bit traditional and a little bit contemporary all at the same time, because it really plays off of the song I Surrender All. And so, so many churches, if they're very traditional, are going to know all to Jesus I surrender, all to him I freely give. So that's in here, but there's a little bit more to it as well. There's a song that actually is completely— probably I feel like your whole album is kind of based around this theme of surrender. And I feel like this would be one that not just your church, but again, I feel like other churches would pick this up and feel like, boy, our congregation could really worship with this song. So what would you be able to tell us just about kind of where this song came from, Surrender?

Yeah, I have a, I have a distinct memory of the writing session for this song. Um, it was just a, just a really special time. And, you know, I think that, that song— I've, I've had a thought about that original hymn, um, All to Jesus I Surrender. I, I have a really hard time with it because 'Jesus.' Once you start thinking about the lyrics, that is a really hard thing to say and actually mean. 'All to Jesus I surrender.' So even more than like a statement, it's a prayer to me that, 'Lord, I want to surrender all, so help me surrender all. If all it takes to come to you is faith just like a child, then here's mine. If you can form your image out of dust, then I trust you. Like, those, those, those things, more than a statement, are a prayer to surrender. Because honestly, that is a, that is a hard thing to like fully actually surrender everything to Jesus. Um, but if we are consistently praying that prayer, I think he'll help us get closer and closer to full surrender. So that's kind of the heart behind that song.

Wonderful. Well, I, I appreciate the theme. I appreciate your heart. And thank you for this wonderful new album of music. And everyone listening today, just a reminder that if the technology works the way it's supposed to, you should be able to even while you're listening to this podcast, you can go to the show notes, click on a link, and it should take you right to the album. So we're going to close the podcast episode today with the song Surrender that we have just been talking about. Michael Munro, thank you so much for taking a few moments today and be able to have this visit with me. Again, the album is called Canyon Hills Worship, or that's the name of the band actually. And, and the album is called All to you, correct?

All to Jesus.

All to Jesus.

I'm sorry, I didn't write it down right in front of me.

So all to Jesus, which goes so well with the theme of this song we're going to close with today. But I'll just say to you, as I say to my guests every week, Michael Munroe, thank you for being one of the voices in my head this week.

A heart that's dead can be raised up to life. He is mine. If grace can break the hardest of the hearts and offer broken people a new start, If anyone who wants to come back home is welcomed in, then I'm in. Yeah, yeah. Oh, to Jesus I surrender all. My blessed Savior, I surrender all. If you can use a fool to shame the wise, if you are pleased with humble humble sacrifice. If all it takes to come to you is faith, just like a child, then he is mine. Oh, we sing surrender. Oh, oh, oh, to Jesus I surrender Oh, my blessed Savior, I surrender all. Oh, I surrender, I surrender all to Jesus. I I surrender all. Oh, my blessed Savior, I surrender all. I give you my heart. I give you my whole heart. I give you my whole heart.

Come on, we sing.

Every moment, every minute, Lord, I give you my heart. If you want it, you can have it. All I am for all you are. Every moment, every minute, Lord, I give you my heart.

If you want it, you can have it all.

I am for all you are. Every moment, every minute, Lord, I give you my heart. If you want it, you can have it all. I am for all you are. Every moment, every minute, Lord, I give you my heart. I give you my heart. Oh, to Jesus I surrender. Oh, I give it all. I give I give it all, I give it all to you, my blessed Savior. I surrender all. Take it all, oh, take it all. He said, sing, oh, to Jesus. I surrender all. My blessed Savior, I surrender. But we sing it again.

Hey!

Every moment, every minute, Lord, I give you my heart. If you want it, you can have it. Oh, I am for all you are, every moment, every minute. Take it all, take it all. If you want it, you can have it. Oh, I am for all you are, every moment, every minute. Lord, I give you my heart. If you want it, you can have it. All I am for all you are. Every moment, every minute. Lord, I give you my heart.

I give you my heart.

Oh, to Jesus I surrender, all to Him I freely give. Oh, I will ever love and trust Him in His presence. Oh, I surrender all. Yes, I surrender all. All to thee, my blessed Blessed Savior, I surrender all. Yes, I surrender all.

Thank you for joining me here this week on Voices in My Head. Music on the intro and outro of this show is from my single, "As I Walk These Halls," which can be streamed on any streaming platform, including Spotify. 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, schedule me for a concert, a speaking engagement, a podcast, or even a book signing in your neighborhood. Also, it would mean a great deal to me if you could write a review of this podcast on iTunes or wherever you listen to podcasts. The more positive reviews we receive, the more visible this podcast will be. And now 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.