Episode 513 - Worship Leader Research with Marc Jolicoeur and Adam Perez

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.

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. We have a wonderful episode ahead of us, I know, today. WorshipLeaderResearch.com is the home for articles and news related to a collaborative study focused on the behaviors of the primary contributors to contemporary worship and the attitudes and behaviors of local worship leaders towards them. By exploring the relationships between quantitative and qualitative data, they hope to better understand the relationship between the worship music industry and local worship practitioners. Their study aims to equip practitioners with a deep understanding of the forces that impact their corporate worship song selections. Their first article at worshipleaderresearch.com caused quite a stir online, revealing that almost 100% of the top 25 worship songs on CCLI are associated with just a handful of megachurches. Today I am joined by two researchers from the Worship Leader Resources team, Marc Jolicoeur and Adam Perez. And I hope I didn't butcher your names too badly. Mark and Adam, welcome to Voices in My Head.

Oh yeah, thanks for having us. Yeah, wonderfully done too. You, you speak both French and Spanish fluently, it seems.

Well, wonderful. The Lord has gifted me, at least for now, with tongues for a few moments. So very good. So, well, it's so good to have both of you today. And, and really, I, I just want to start by just applauding, um, not only YouTube but really everyone, all the research that's gone into this. I had Elias Dummer on the podcast a while back, but we were mostly talking about just his, you know, new music that was coming out. And little did I know that he was actually, uh, one of you all that was doing some research behind the scenes. And I really think this is some valuable information. I'm not sure exactly what it tells us, like implications, but maybe we can sort some of that out today as we discuss. So I wonder, and, and really either of you, both of you, whoever would like to answer this question, feel free, but can you explain your research methodology in a little bit more detail? Like, how did you identify the top 25 worship songs and the associated megachurches that go with them?

Yeah, thanks. I'll take that one. Um, so, uh, it's kind of— we're trying to do our best here to use all the available data, um, to figure out kind of what songs have appeared, uh, on the top 25 over the decade of 2010 to 2020. Normally, studies similar to ours, when people try to look at contemporary worship song repertoire, they look just at CCLI, which is a good source, but it's, you know, it's one representative source. So we cross-reference their top lists, which we've been collecting over the years, with the top 25 on Praise Charge, which also our team has been collecting over the years, different members. And I'll say also, it's great to be in a kind of community of scholars who are interested in this beyond our— the team of the 5 of us, including, you know, Mike Tapperson and Baker last summer and the 2 of us, other folks who have been kind of keeping tabs on this and have been supporting kind of our search for that data. So we took these lists, cross-referenced them, and realized, you know, when you cross-reference them for songs that were both written in that decade and appeared on the chart in that decade, which are 2 important caveats here, written and appearing in that decade, So we came up with that 38 songs. And then as we were combing through those songs, at first it looked like, you know, hey, there's like a good spread of folks here. But as you start to look into kind of who the songwriters are and where they're affiliated, and then how the songwriters on any one song are collaborating with songwriters from other places, that web starts to become a little bit sort of clearer. So we kind of had 3 layers. Of, um, of connections here. So we have songwriters who are from those megachurches. We have songwriters that have collaborated with, uh, other writers from those megachurches. And then we have, uh, songs that were platformed, uh, which is the word I've been using. I'm not sure if the whole team uses this word, but, but platformed by these megachurches. So songs that, uh, rose to prominence after they were featured at events or services or on albums by those megachurches. So, and we talked in our article about the performance history. So when you look at when the song is actually performed, covered, these kinds of things, you see this sort of web emerging that all kind of points back to a few things. And sometimes I do feel like that meme of the guy with the red yarn, you know, from whatever TV show that is, and he's like pointing at the board and like, look at all the red yarn. Uh, but, uh, but, you know, it's the— don't think of it as nefarious. We're just trying to, trying to name the connections that exist and kind of name the network that emerges when you start to dig just below the surface of what songs are produced by those main churches.

Well, yeah, that's, that's a great explanation. And, and, you know, it is fascinating because I think, um, and maybe there's some correlation to this, but I know that in the research something happened between 2010 and 2014 where the the life of the song started changing in your research, and something happened there. And I was thinking too, just discussing it with some friends this week about how even the music we listen to, even just not worship music, due to streaming and things— it used to be that at one time when we all listened to the radio, everybody kind of had common songs together. And now we kind of are all the curators of our own playlists, you know, on our individual devices. And I'm not sure there are quite those common songs, which makes it even more fascinating to me when we think about kind of the common sources of these worship songs that are coming out, because you would— it would seem like there'd be so many more outlets than, you know, these, these four. So I find that very interesting. Um, so, you know, what, what to you— and I guess maybe Mark, I'll ask you since Adam answered the first question— what to me, to you, was the most surprising? Um, or even, you know, maybe shocking is too strong of a word, but what was most surprising to you that the research showed you?

Well, so it's, it's good to know, or maybe kind of loop you into the idea that we have released as a team so far kind of one finding, one key finding from what we're describing as phase 1 of our research. So phase 1 is the sort of, it's the data-driven one essentially. So we have like, we just looked at numbers, looked at charts, and kind of crunched, as Adam said, like the trying to figure out, you know, who the serial killer really is at the end of the day, like really kind of looking out and having it all mapped out on the wall, that kind of thing. Whereas the phase 2, which is coming down the pipe a little bit later on, is more of the attitudinal stuff. And so we were able to do a large survey, large enough at the very least for what we're able to accomplish here, of almost 500 different worship leaders and ask kind of their, their thoughts about songs. And, and then we're also able to get a good chunk of their planning center playlists. So we were able to ask them questions about how they felt about certain songs, certain worship leaders, certain patterns. And then we were also able to cross-reference what they said they felt against what their actual songbooks at their churches suggest. And so we're really looking forward to kind of that coming down the line here in the next little while. And I think that for me personally, some of the most surprising things came from that angle of it. So far, To be honest, very little is surprising maybe about the first part of the study. So, you know, very often when you're doing research like this, you, you're doing your best to be objective, but you're also probably starting with a hypothesis. So you're kind of testing in some respects a hypothesis and you have to do your best to not try to skew the data to confirm your hypothesis. You have to work the data to see whether or not it proves or disproves your hypothesis, right? But you can't— you'd be lying to yourself to say that you're not starting with some kind of a gist, some kind of— now, across the team, 5 of us probably had slightly different hypotheses and kind of different biases going into it. But just to be honest, this particular release so far has not blown my mind. This is actually very much kind of along the lines of what we expected to find.

OK. And I had one thing that surprised me, which was not about the data, but in a way I felt like we were describing something that we kind of intuitively knew, but we now we're just sort of putting the details on it. What was a surprise was how, to me, was how others received that as so surprising and so sort of like shocking. Um, because I think many of us working in this area as worship leaders or otherwise, like, we kind of just, you know, like, we know that's kind of true anyway. But so our goal really was to name the data, make it something that we can put it on the wall, map it in a really rigorous academic kind of way. And the reception has really been surprising.

Yeah.

Good.

In a good way. Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah. And I'm glad you pointed that out too, that the research isn't necessarily pointing to like, this is bad or good. This is just kind of like— and again, I love how you said it. It is. It's kind of what those of us who lead music, we probably kind of knew it a little bit anyway. Way, but it does help to kind of confirm it for us too. And I, I just brought up the, uh, the first article that, that you all published on my phone real quick because I wanted to take a look. And if I'm looking at the chart right, it looks like the, the 4 main megachurches, uh, are that where our songs come from, or are— well, it's not just 4, but we have, uh, Hillsong, Bethel, Passion, Elevation, and North Point. And then Phil Wickham is on the list too. So I guess Phil Wickham—

he's just mega.

He's just, he's just, he's just mega. It's just mega. So it is interesting that, you know, those are the particular ones that when we think about, those are the places that are influencing our houses of worship. Not to make a statement about whether that's good or bad necessary, but it is fascinating. And to think of what that means exactly. I'm curious as to what either of you think is driving the dominance of these megachurches to be shaping our worship music landscape. I mean, there's, there's always reasons, and this may be some of the guesswork behind it. Um, you know, we used to always say, well, for whatever reason, there are certain songs God has his hand on, and, and they just seem to go out in the world. But in, in some ways, it almost feels like, well, that might be true, but also It almost seems like, you know, God has his hands on 5 churches that stretches, you know, and I know it's not limited to that. So I'd love even just your thoughts. And I know some of this would be probably taking a little bit of a shot in the dark, but your educated guess as to what's driving that.

I mean, Adam's going to have some great things to say here, but I love to anticipate pushback as much as possible. And so one of the last questions that I think you probably would If I look— if I'm looking at what you send in advance, one of the last questions you might want to ask us is, what are the limitations of the study? And so, hey, let's jump right out now. And Adam already kind of keyed in on one of them, which is that we're only able to use the charts that we have. You cannot analyze data that does not exist. And so one of the most frequent pushbacks that we had was, well, you know, things like, well, that's not what my church sings, or what about this particular demographic? And a lot of the particular demographics we're talking about are churches of color. This seems to be like a number one kind of a sustained and very reasonable, frankly, pushback that came. But the truth is, is that— and if you're— dear listener, if you have charts from these churches, if you have vast swaths of data that you can give us, or if you have suggestions as to how we can acquire that, it was not for lack of trying. So, so the reason that we, we used the praise charts One of the major reasons we use praise charts in conjunction with CCLI was because we knew that it would at least give us a bit of a cross-section as opposed to kind of just CCLI. So it was, it really was to try to overcome that, but there's only so far that we can go. Um, so I wanted to at least kind of make that clear. The other thing I want to make clear is when you mentioned those 5 churches, um, you know, that doesn't— like, my church sings songs from those actually from 4 of those churches. And I sing songs from other churches, just like your church does and Adam's church does. And I will say that that 5th one, when you mentioned North Point, there's really one song. So if you look at our headline, the one, the one that we released, not the one that got kind of repackaged for general consumption by a religion news service, which gives it a spin that none of us would have anticipated, frankly. But hey, it got a lot of play. The North Point doesn't really get mentioned because frankly, it's one song. That kind of jumps the queue and it makes it happen. And it's impressive that it does, but it's kind of an aberration. It's really what we're kind of calling in-house the Big Four. And explicitly, as we've already mentioned, not to beat a dead horse, but it's the decade 2010 to 2020. So now people, because I know the other things people are saying is, what about so-and-so? What about this person? It's like 100%, but that's not inside the time of of reference, right? So you just have to kind of, when you're, when you're talking about, um, when you're talking about, you have to keep in mind actually what we're describing. So in terms of now, all that being said, why, why would this be the case? And, uh, as researchers, we should be really slow to say why, uh, and do our very best to say, to say what, uh, we can try to get at how a little bit. Um, But the why is really, well, I guess the why is for podcasts. And so it's okay to speculate. It's okay to speculate a little bit, but we, we have to be clear that some of the whys that maybe Adam and I might kind of spit out here in conversation are not always going to be able to be corroborated by the evidence that we actually have on hand. So some of this is an interpretation that we don't really have. We can't back up. So Adam, all that being said, why, why is it happening?

Yeah.

Well, I think the, the one thing I've pointed some folks to is just the general acknowledgement that like we, that our work exists in industry. And industry works through industrial mechanisms. And so, you know, it's no mystery. You mentioned North Point. It's no mystery to me at least that the other group on the list is also a megachurch. I mean, megachurches already have large constituencies that will, you know, if they hear it on Sunday morning there, they're more likely to listen to it later. They have platforms and they have attention. And so, you know, when, when we're working on popularity lists, when people are already looking at these churches, going to their conferences, streaming their, you know, services on their own, these churches are also taking their bands on tour. Like, that builds a platform for popularizing songs in a very sort of basic, simple kind of industrial way. So, yeah, so it's not in that way surprising to me that, that like, you know, a big church with a big following would have a lot of people listening or, you know, paying attention to their songs. And I want to clarify one other piece about the data I should have mentioned earlier. You know, we're just looking at church-facing charts, so the resource-type charts and not the listener charts. And then you're mentioning like the radio and stuff. Like, we are gonna, we are gonna touch in on that as best we can in the, in the attitudinal study in phase 2. But, you know, we're not looking at Billboard charts, we're not looking at Spotify charts, which I would call listener-facing charts. Of course, there's overlap in those things, but charts that document spins versus charts that document use, or at least access for use in the case of Brace Charts, people buying, buying the charts so that they can lead them, lead from them. And CCLI, you know, this lagging indicator of what's been used. So yeah, so on these church-facing kind of charts, yeah, it makes sense. They have lots of attention. The churches already have lots of attention and platforms.

That's how, that's how markets work in a very fun, good, clear. That's a good clarifier though, because it's interesting that as you're saying, we're looking at what's happening on the church-facing charts. So that you're a big church would not necessarily then mean, because we're not talking about Joe and Sally, we're talking about Joe and Sally worship leader at other churches, right? That's how CCLI reporting happens.

Yeah.

So there is something about the fact that these aren't merely the constituents of the churches. It's other churches and other congregants who are somehow kind of gravitationally being drawn to the content that are coming out of these larger churches.

Yeah.

And limitations on the data. CCLI, we don't know from CCLI or PraiseCharts if, if and how. Well, we know PraiseCharts does some weighting of the data. They mentioned that in their blog describing how they do their chart. But on the CCLI chart, like, honestly, I have no idea if, say, you know, if you're at a tier, at a higher tier of membership and paying for— like, do the songs you choose end up getting sort of more weight in the calculation of how top 25— and those algorithms, as far as I know, are not publicly available and not shared. They're industry secrets, you know? And I know that from colleagues like Nelson Cowan, who's doing work on CCLI and interviewing folks there. And anyway, yeah, so there's some ambiguity about what the stuff means.

But, you know, it would have been interesting too. I should have reached out to George Ross, the president of CCLI, again, uh, because I had him on here a while back to kind of dispel some of the myths and things and make some corrections. Yeah, it would be interesting to kind of have a dialogue with him as well about these things, because you're asking—

you facilitate that, Rick, I'd love it.

Maybe one of these days we can. That'd be a lot of fun. Yeah, he's a great guy and really, really fun, easy to talk to, and really has a heart for churches. So it was a good conversation. Uh, but, but it is, you know, part of— probably you're right, what we do on podcasts is we are kind of weighing a little bit some of these implications and what they mean. And one thing that I had been thinking about was, you know, Gordon Fee once said, "Show me a church's songs and I'll show you their theology." And it was Derwin Gray this week, I heard him say, "The gospel you preach is the church you get." And I think it's very interesting that, you know, I'm interested in what this means as far as what kind of disciples we're making. You know, what does it mean that churches are responding to these songs, or how are not only, um, you know, how are not only churches using these songs in their worship, but what are these songs doing in the life of people? Because, uh, you know, songs are kind of like sermons that we leave singing, you know. And it, and it might actually be some of your very helpful research may help those of us who write songs for the church to look in and say, wow, there is a huge gap in, in what we're not writing about, you know. When we look at some of these songs and we think, wow, there's a whole, uh, category of of, you know, things that we preach about in the Gospels that, that maybe we're just missing, or, or important things about the Christian faith. So, um, I really appreciate this, this research on multiple levels because I think it can really be a help to, to our churches in many ways, to kind of fill in the gaps in some ways. And, um, so it's just, it's just illuminating and all that.

So, um, Mark, do you know, or if you had, uh, or Rick, if you had Glenn Packiam on your, on your show I have not had Glenn on.

I've met him at retreats over the years a couple times, but yeah.

Well, I asked too because, you know, he— like, our research is a different kind of work than his research. And one thing his research brings out in his book Worship in the World to Come is, um, you know, in some ways the theology that we get from our worship songs doesn't have necessarily a one-to-one relationship with, say, the text of that song or kind of, you know, you can't just say like, oh, you know, this is what the song says, so therefore this is what people will believe and it's good or bad or whatever. That worship and music and that experience is a bit more ambiguous for all of us, even in the hymn singing traditions. You know, I'd like to, I like to joke that, you know, go to even to like a choir member at the end of a service and ask them what, like, what one of the hymns was about like summarize for me what this hymn is about, right? And they'll say, oh, the one that goes, you know, like, it's not, you know, we don't do it on this sort of like, I think we think we're more rational than we are.

Yeah.

And, um, and so what is the theology we're learning from these, you know, top 4 songs? Well, yeah, maybe something general about who God is and how God works, but it might not, you know, might not be summed up in just like how many personal pronouns, though that, that's interesting to, to learn about and think about as songwriters. Um, but that doesn't, you know, that's a small, a small slice of the pie, um, on kind of what we believe after being part of a community that sings these songs or something.

Yeah, I, I really love that you just said that because what I think you're talking about and the way you're expressing it, uh, and I'm glad you did, is I, I think we're talking about about what the Holy Spirit speaks to our hearts through this music too, you know, in some ways. And I'll fall back on my, my other presence on the internet is I run this Mr. Rogers Twitter account where I post quotes from Fred Rogers every day. And it just has grown like, you know, hugely, you know, people, it's like 91,000 followers on it. It's crazy.

99,001.

I'm gonna follow that right now.

Like that.

But what's interesting about Fred Rogers to me is there was something about him that he very intentionally lived his life a certain way. To the point that he, from all accounts and people I've talked to, he was more Mr. Rogers off the screen than he was on the screen. And one thing that people would tell him, and I've read these stories about, you know, a person was thinking of ending their life, and they turned on the TV in the hotel room, and Mr. Rogers was there. And they had a chance to talk to him later on and say, you kept me from like like doing something drastic that night. And Fred Rogers would say to those people when those encounters would happen, he wouldn't say, well, I'm glad I was there, you know, or something. He would say, that was the Holy Spirit taking my words and saying to you what you needed to hear, you know, in that moment. So I think what you're talking about is, in the way you explained it much more eloquently than I did, is there is something that God will do with these songs in spite of sometimes whether we said it or not or whether the person remembers it, the ascends these things. So I, I really love that explanation you just gave, and, and for Glenn's research. I need to try to reach out to him and have him on too, because he would be fascinating to listen to. So, oh my goodness. So, uh, I, I had so many questions planned, and now I'm, I'm off page a little bit. So it's all right, but, uh, but conversation— we're talking— conversation is, is that way. So I, I really appreciate that we did get off a little bit this morning. So I would love to ask you— you've already alluded to some more articles and some more of your research that's coming out. And I think just this week there was another article that came out that had to do with songs like Great Are You, Lord, and, you know, particular songs that are coming through. But I'd love to know kind of what's coming down the road with the research that you're about to release. I'd love to know more about bit.

Uh, yeah, so I mean, uh, we just, uh, released, like you said, a kind of a, a clarifier. So internally we're kind of saying we have essentially articles and then we have responses to those articles, and we're doing our best to kind of respond, uh, not react, uh, but respond, uh, to, you know, I guess the larger number of questions that we receive. And so one of the huge questions that we received was, what are you talking about Greater You, Lord is not from a megachurch, or what are you talking about, King of My Heart is not from a megachurch. And so it really required more than just 140-character tweet to explain the kind of connection points that Adam was talking about earlier in terms of platforming songs. So the response that you're alluding to, I don't— we're recording this on the 28th of April. We just released 2 days ago, essentially an article version, and then yesterday, a video version explaining, explaining it. Just kind of shows you through the timelines. And like, I'm blown away. I didn't have any— I didn't do any of the work in terms of how it's visualized, but I found it as a visual learner, I was like, oh, this is really, really helpful to be able to kind of see the timelines for 4 of the songs in particular. So that's available on there. So articles, responses, and those are kind of happening under Phase 1. So Adam has one that he's working on as another response here in the next couple days. And then we're looking at releasing another finding, another article from Phase 1. We're not intending to try to make this last in perpetuity, believe it or not. We're just trying. This is not a career. Everybody has a career.

Yeah, we don't make money off of this. I just want people to know there's no commercial incentive here.

Sure.

No. Although I do want to tell you about a really exciting new supplement that I've been using. And it really— if you can go online— no, just kidding. I don't have it. I'm not sponsored. Yeah, so Phase 2, which is the attitudinal stuff, which should be coming out, we don't know exactly, but quite likely it's going to be this summer by the time we start to move into that. Yeah, so I mean, to dovetail kind of on what you were talking about just earlier, yes, the Holy Spirit. Holy Spirit is a contributing factor to the kind of work that Glenn's talking about in this. I haven't read the book, but I've heard him speak about it enough times that I also understand that there is both kind of divine work and then also just sort of of sociological natural impacts that happen from the kind of worship that happens in not really in any, in any kind of church, the aesthetic experience of what happens. But there is a particular kind of aesthetic experience that happens in these, these four megachurches and then megachurches that are kind of like them. Like what, what do you feel like when you attend one of these worship services? And so one of the driving factors and one of the things that we're going to be looking at mostly in phase 2 is, is there a connection between why we might be looking to program these songs in other large churches, but even also in small churches? Is it, is it that maybe in some respects we're hoping to have the same kind of experience in our local congregations as they're having in these larger congregations? So you mentioned Elias. Dummer earlier on. He's the one who gave us kind of terminology of aspirational programming. So the idea of, is it possible that when we choose a particular song to put into our Sunday morning service, is it that we are potentially aspiring to have a similar experience to the one that we've seen either at a conference that we attended, at a church that we went to, or on a YouTube video that we we just watched, when we— so the way that those songs become fused with the performance history and therefore with the aesthetic and therefore with the emotional reactions and experiences. So that's something that we're really looking forward to being able to tease out ahead.

And I'll say too, you know, we're not, we're not done with part one. We have at least, you know, some of these follow-up posts, but also, you know, at least one more sort of main article about industry mechanisms that help songs become popular to get to the top 25. Some findings from our initial, that initial data crunch. And Shannon Baker on our team has done a really amazing job with working through the data for us and helping get it in a way that we can all look at and talk about. 'Cause you can imagine how a bunch of these numbers and letters don't mean much unless they're organized. And so she's done an amazing job with those. And like the timelines you mentioned, on the website too, look great. Um, so yeah, so, uh, this is, yeah, more stuff in the similar vein, and then also shifting gears to the kind of the why, um, and what people feel, which is going to be just so fascinating. Already is so fascinating.

Yeah, well, I, I look forward— yeah, I look forward to, to more of these being released in the coming days. And again, I, I appreciate the research that your whole team has done and the way that you're helping us to, uh, just look at some things that, you know, again, we may have felt a certain way about about, uh, the songs that we sing, but, but didn't know for sure. And I just feel like this firms up some of our suspicions, I guess I would say, of where our music is coming from. And this has been really fun to talk to both of you guys, but I, I realize that as we're talking today, I'm not the only podcaster in the, in the call today. And I want to give both of you a chance, actually, if you don't mind. I'd love for you to tell our listeners a little bit about yourselves and, and other things that you have going on outside of just, um, worship worshipleaderresearch.com. So, uh, Adam, do you want to start? Maybe just tell everybody a little bit about yourself, and then we'll follow up with Mark. And, and, and please, uh, you know, uh, plug those supplements or whatever you have. Feel free. I'd love to give you a chance to do that.

Yeah, thanks. Um, do you want me to talk about myself and the podcast, or just—

Sure, yes, please do. Whatever you feel like, uh, would be relevant for listeners who are hearing you right now. This is your Yeah, yeah.

So, um, some longtime worship leader, uh, start, you know, as a— started as a drummer in middle school. God bless that congregation. Um, uh, but, uh, but sort of got into academic research on contemporary worship from my own kind of crisis of confidence about like, do I believe some of these songs that I'm singing and being asked to lead? And, um, been pursuing that, those kinds of questions. What can like deeper research help us understand and, and like like, yeah, come to know about how God works through contemporary worship music, um, over the years. And so, um, you know, I continue some of that academic and practical interfacing both in my teaching at Belmont University. I teach worship, uh, here at Belmont, which is known for its sort of its music side. And, um, and also I have this, this podcast. We're in a sort of fallow season right now. We're working on rebranding. It's called, uh, Conversations on Contemporary Worship. And we're sort of rebranding toward, uh, what I'm calling the Worship Nerds Podcast. And, uh, and it'll be the same kind of, the same kind of shtick, which is I bring academics who are studying contemporary worship and try to, uh, have a conversation that connects their academic research with, you know, something that worship leaders can learn from and appreciate. So it doesn't just get stuck in stuffy books and libraries, but that, um, that kind of work can enrich, uh, worship leader conversation. And that we don't have to be afraid of of academic research on contemporary worship like that. It might tell us something about what's going on that's somehow nefarious, but that we'll learn and grow, and these academics provide important helpful lenses for thinking about that. So I think we've got like 12 or 13 episodes up now. We'll be rebranding and sort of relaunching over the summer and fall with some new episodes, a little bit broader, um, scope. And yeah, I'm looking forward to that.

I love that. So we'll be watching out for Worship Nerds Podcast. I think that's a great name. That's— and it rolls off the tongue very well.

So thanks.

It'll be something here. So excellent. Thank you for sharing that, Adam. I appreciate it. Mark, what about you? Please, uh, tell our listeners more about yourself.

Sure.

Uh, so I'm in, uh, Moncton, New Brunswick, Canada. So some of you know where that is. And so I say you go to Maine and then you turn right. We're just up there. And I have been here most of my life, though I did live in Nashville for a couple of years and tried to slog it down there. And when my wife and I wanted to have kids, we thought, you know what, Canada has centralized medicine, we should probably go there. And so this is what we're— so we're dealing with it. We're dealing with the ramifications of that choice now. But that's an aside. So I have been— I've been on staff as a worship pastor at my local church, actually the church I grew up been for about 7 and a half years now, and I absolutely love that, really grateful for it. I also do kind of— I'm in the process of kind of migrating out of that position, and not because I don't love it, but because the way that our church is growing, I've, uh, um, I'm gonna be moving kind of more into a broader discipleship role and still intend to be able to lead worship from time to time, but be able to pass on that sort of growing portfolio to somebody else. Uh, and so I teach part-time at a local university as well, uh, but very, very part-time, just in their worship arts position. And I'm happy to be on this team You mentioned I'm a podcaster. It's true. It's more of a— it's very much a hobby. So I have a podcast called the Jolly Thoughts Podcast. My last name, as you said absolutely beautifully at the beginning, is a French last name. And so a lot of the Anglophones that I work with, they just have shortened it to Jolly. And so it just kind of stuck. And so I have the Jolly Thoughts Podcast and it is— it is— it will almost certainly never grow to a large listenership because it is just so wildly eclectic. Like, I don't— you put excellent thought into the questions that you asked today. You formulated them well. You sent them in advance. I'm just like, hey, Matt. So I intentionally call all the things that I do conversations. So I'm not interviewing somebody. I'm having a conversation. What that means is we're going to talk for a little bit and then I'm going to stop the recording. So I have conversations with people who are runners. I have conversations. It's mostly with people whose books that I read. That's usually my go-to. So I have an opportunity to essentially have a live book review with the person that's always super choice. Uh, but then the one that I released today, uh, literally just today, uh, was with a guy who wrote a book about aliens, uh, aliens and Christianity. So, uh, it's— there are no bounds to the people that I have an opportunity to have a chat with. And so that's, that's me in a nutshell.

Well, that's, that's great. I love that. That's kind of, you know, in some ways that's what I do too on Voices in My Head. I try to find these people that are speaking to me, which is why I called my podcast that. And, you know, you should follow that up then, your alien podcast, with, uh, Willemijn and Harwas to about Resident Aliens, their book, you know, that would be, you know, there's another one.

Give them my number.

Well, and one more time, that it was the Jolly Thoughts podcast, correct?

Jolly Thoughts.

Well, that sounds wonderful. And now I've got two more podcasts to add to my queue so I can, I can listen along. Um, well, I always want to make sure before conversations end, if, if at all possible, is there anything that you kind of were really wanting to talk about today that we didn't have a chance to? Because I want to make sure we cover all bases. And, and if not, that's okay too. But I just want to make sure that both of you have a chance. Maybe there's something that was kind of really important to you that you wanted to talk about today pertaining to our topic, or again, maybe you just have a supplement to sell, one or the other. But we'd love to, we'd love to let you have the final word here today.

I think, I mean, just one final word from me, which is just to affirm that, you know, we all got into this project because we love the church and because we love worship and we're all engaged in it both professionally and personally. And, you know, sometimes I— we fear as a team that people receive this as some sort of hit piece and trying to burn the thing down or something. And, you know, that is not our intent. You know, our hope is that, you know, in sparking these conversations, we can be enriched by them. Not that we can be sort of, yeah, turn our noses up at things or whatever. And so I just want to affirm how much our team are committed both pastorally, professionally, family, you know, etc., uh, to, to the work of worship, which, uh, in which we give gratitude for the songs that are coming out of these churches that we're talking about. Um, so I just wanted to, I wanted to highlight that for us.

Yeah, no, co-sign for me. That's all I'll say. It's beautiful.

Great. That was a great, a great way for us actually to, to close our conversation down today. So once again, I, I just want to thank both of you for your time today, and, uh, and please extend my thanks to everybody on your team as you visit with them from time to time because I really feel like you're doing a, a work for the church that is going to help us greatly in the days ahead. I'm not sure even anyone, everybody on your team quite knows yet what the implications are for down the road, but I'm sure that we're going to be able to learn from this and grow from it. And hopefully God will just continue to use research like this to help us in our planning. So Mark and Adam, I just want to say once again, thank you for being some of the voices in my head this week.

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 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 that you may abound in hope.