Kurtis Parks - Episode 366

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1, 2, 3. Holy, worthy of all glory. Jesus, you're deserving. You have won my praise. Holy, worthy of all Holy Jesus, you're deserving. You have won my praise. And be glorified, be glorified. We lift you high. We glorify. Savior, worthy of all honor. Jesus speaks, "All dead, you have won my praise." Be glorified, be glorified. We lift you high, be glorified. <LYRICS>And Prince of Peace, Son of Truth, maker of all things new. Jesus, you are. Jesus, you are. More of you, less of me. Who is worth everything? Jesus, you are. Jesus, you are. Prince of Peace, Son of Truth, maker of</LYRICS> All things, you, Jesus, you are. Jesus, you are. More of you, less of me. Who is worth everything? Jesus, you are. Jesus, you are. Oh, be glorified. God, you will be glorified, be glorified. Oh, be glorified. We lift you high. Yes, be glorified. Be glorified.

Welcome back to Voices in My Head. As always, I'm your host Rick Lee James, and I'm so glad that you're here with us for what I know is going to be another great conversation. My guest today is Curtis Parks. Having written over 1,200 songs across several musical genres Curtis has been a top 50 American Idol finalist. He has been featured on the Fox Morning Show, BET's Bobby Jones Gospel Hour, and had his song "Forever Changed" featured on NBC News and CNN. Having shared the stage with such well-known artists as John Mayer, Howie Day, Sanctus Real, Reliant K, Gunger, Ben Folds, and many more, Curtis's worship choruses are also sung around the world in churches Every Day. He's produced over 50 albums for various Christian artists nationwide, and he served as the worship director from 2010 to 2017 in Washington, D.C. at the National Community Church. Now Curtis has founded Bridges Nashville Church in 2008, where he serves as the lead pastor. He also released his first book in 2016, Soundcheck, a book written on authentic worship, as well as his his first Curtis Parks and Friends Kids album, Story Songs from Scripture. It's great to have a chance to visit with Curtis Parks today under these unusual social distancing times that we are living through. So Curtis Parks, welcome to Voices in My Head.

Oh, thanks so much for having me. And let me tell you this, it's a special day for me because it's actually my birthday, man. I feel, I feel doubly honored here, man.

Well, um, you know what, I was just about to say as part of my, my first question— not really question, but we were gonna say happy birthday birthday to you. So I'm glad that, glad that the Lord gave you to us and we have another year with you here on the planet. So happy birthday. It's, it's great to be able to celebrate with you a little bit here.

Oh, thank you so much, man.

I'm sure all of our listeners, this is your, your permission if you're listening to go out and have a piece of cake and some ice cream right now in, in honor of Curtis today.

There you go. Let me contribute to the quarantine 15, as I've heard, putting on a little extra weight, right?

That's right. I, I just keep saying, I just keep calling it the COVID-19 you know, like the COVID-19 or something.

But anyway, that gives you a little extra leeway.

That's right, you can— you have permission. Not quite 20, but you know, close. Well, hey, I know you have a lot going on in your life, so I'm grateful for a chance that you stopped by for a visit today. And I really want to talk about, first of all, some of the interesting history behind Bridges Nashville. And listeners, you're gonna know this because we're gonna play some music Rick Lee James from Bridges, actually. You recorded recently a song, "Jesus You Are," and there's quite a story behind that song. And I wonder if you wouldn't mind sharing with us not only how the song came about, but really how it connects with the history of your church.

Yeah, so just a little bit about Bridges Nashville. We're a pretty new church plant, and just the term church plant just means kind of a brand new church, like straight up from scratch. We launched at the Listening Room Cafe, which is a music venue downtown in Nashville, September of 2018. So we're about a year and a half old. And we actually planted out of a church that I was a part of in Washington, D.C. for 7 years called National Community Church. And National Community is a church that's been around for about 22 years. Lead pastor is a pretty well-known author named Mark Batterson., and I got to serve on staff there as the worship pastor and campus pastor for 7 years. And, and then we launched down here, as I said, September of 2018. And in our short life as a church, uh, we've, we've really been able to connect, obviously being in Music City, with the majority of our church being musicians, songwriters, producers, but also just kind of from every walk of life. Nashville is such a melting pot that we've been able to connect with a lot of different people. And these last few months have been pretty interesting for us. You know, we had our trailer— we're completely mobile, so that means every Sunday we set up and tear down. You know, thank God our music venue lets us use their sound system and chairs and projectors, so praise God for that. But we pretty much set up everything else from, you know, all of our signage, kids' gear, you know, a lot of the instruments and worship stuff, and then everything out in the hospitality. So it's a full trailer of about $40,000-$50,000 worth of gear.

Wow.

And a few months ago, I went to go pick it up, kind of a standard weekend, and I said, "Wait a minute, something's missing here." And our trailer was stolen. Everything completely gone. And so that was a bit of a shock. Fortunately for us, it was a weekend where we do house church. So every season, instead of meeting at our venue, we actually meet in homes across the city and do house church, kind of like they did in the book of Acts.

Hmm.

And so that's kind of a unique part of our rhythm, and we could talk about that a little bit on how that has actually helped us in this quarantine season. But so anyway, we had about a week to figure everything out, and man, just so much generosity— churches, people, friends poured out. I mean, literally within the course of a couple weeks, we had been donated about $30,000 to help replenish that. And, and then insurance kind of kicked in with the rest. And so God was able to get the glory out of an awful situation and actually brought us closer together as a church. So, wow, that happened a couple weeks ago. Well, Rick, the, the very next week Nashville was hit with a devastating tornado.

Yeah, I remember.

Um, And so, as we were trying to figure out how to pick up the pieces from all of our equipment being stolen, we were simultaneously trying to figure out, "Okay, how do we bless our community? How do we respond to the need?" And so, to be honest, the first $5,000 or $10,000 that came in, we actually gave it away to our city. Uh-huh. We put it into action and bought care kits and went out and emptied the aisles at Sam's Club and Walmart with with, you know, toiletries and needs like that, and then put it into action. We did a care kit packing service on the next Sunday. And so, 2 months ago this trailer was stolen. A week after that our city was hit with a tornado, and then, of course, about 2 weeks after that is when the COVID-19 pandemic started to sweep across the world, and then we got the stay-at-home thing. So, kind of in a short timeframe, 3 epic events happened.

I'd say.

And, uh, yeah, on the front end, on the front end of all of that, Delaney Ramsdell, one of our worship leaders at Bridges, and I, we, we had written this song called Jesus You Are. We hadn't released it, uh, we had done it a couple times in our church and it really resonated with our church body. And, um, you know, to be honest, it wasn't even on the radar to release until like this summer. Um, but, but we felt like, man, with, with everything that kind of happened, we just need to declare God's praises in the midst of all that. And we need to give our church body something to worship to, especially as they're at home sheltering in place. And so, kind of had this idea, and it's, you know, not a brand new idea by any stretch of the imagination, but just to get everybody to record from wherever they were. And a lot of our worship team has home studios, and so we knew we could put together something pretty decent quality. They just did videos on their iPhones and sent it in. So we kind of pieced everything together within a timeframe of a couple weeks and then released it, I think it was April 3rd on Facebook and then April 10th on all the other streaming platforms. And Rick, it was just something we couldn't predict. I mean, people were sharing it. I think it had over 40,000 plays on Facebook in less than a week. So it's really cool to see that it just resonated with people, and, uh, and the story of Jesus You Are kind of came about that way.

Well, that's great, and it's neat to, to get to hear the story behind the song too and kind of what's been going on. I, I had a conversation not too long ago on here, um, with, with a gentleman that, that runs UTR Media, a good friend of mine, uh, Dave Trout. And I don't know if you've had a chance to meet with him or not yet over the years, but, um, he was talking about his move to Nashville recently, and it was really in the last 6 months when he just moved there from Chicago. And he was talking about one sort of obstacle after another, and yet they knew that God had led them there. And we had this conversation about, you know, it's interesting because we often think when we're following God's direction somewhere that it's just going to all be easygoing and smooth and nothing's going to mess up in the midst of it. And, and how important it is to sometimes point out that just because things are hard on the journey and that there's obstacles, it doesn't necessarily mean that God is not still leading that. Sometimes it's just a difficult journey to get there. So all that is to say, I appreciate you sharing that story about what your own worshiping community has been going through right now. I think it adds a lot of depth even beyond just the, the wonderful song that Jesus You Are is. I think it gives us an even more of a microscopic look into what you've been going through at the same time. So now, is this—

it's just, I think it's just a testament because people will always connect with hardship. Yeah, they just will, you know. And I think, you know, when a worship song gets written to share the story out of that, especially if it's a story birthed out of trials and pain, so many people can connect with that. Whereas on the other side, if it's just like all you're sharing is just the highlight reel of your life and the success stories and what looks like, you know, pretty coding on the outside, it's hard for people to connect with the authenticity of that, you know. Yeah, so I think that's one of the reasons it's connected.

And I think too, you know, we're really seeing the wisdom of things like, you know, the church's original worship book, the Book of Psalms, and those songs that are in there. And that I think it's something like 40% of them are laments, and they're crying out to God from, you know, really from places of desperation. And I think right now, especially especially the church is maybe recapturing some of that right now, and why it's necessary to be honest in all of our moments and to rely upon God in those times. So a quick music question, and then I want to ask a couple of specific pastoring questions in this time. But is this the first time that you had, as a church, kind of recorded a song like this at a distance from each other? And I know a lot of recording I think today is done sometimes in one place and then files are given to another, but was this the first time that you had kind of done that together as a church from different places?

I mean, definitely to this degree, uh, we, you know, we've done a couple mobile recording sites here and there, but it's so interesting. A lot of our church, I would say 50 to 60% of our church is college students. Um, so we have a very young congregation. I think we're 80% under 25. Wow. And so it's a really young congregation. And so with college, you know, a lot of these kids just kind of went back to their hometowns. And so we had Delaney, who's actually the lead vocalist on it, she was recording from Texas. And then our drummer Zach, he was recording from Virginia. And then kind of scattered across Tennessee were the others. And so yeah, it was definitely the first time recording this separated from each other, but I mean, that's one of the beauties of technology and Dropbox and, you know, different recording software is that you can kind of be in the same room while not being in the same room.

Exactly.

Yeah, it's one of those times that you're really grateful for the technology that's there, and, you know, when it works, it works amazingly well. And it's been great to see several different things, not only your video from Bridges Nashville, I've seen things like my friends at Lifeway Worship has been doing like worship choirs online, and there's been different— oh yeah, you know, they've just been doing some really fun innovative things together to still try to be together even though we're apart. And that's, that's what I want to actually ask you about too, are some of the challenges that are being faced at your church where you're pastoring, and really at a lot of our churches, because I work at a church too. And, and, you know, Christians are a gathering people. It's really what we do. We get together and And when we're in this time where, for the sake of, of the welfare of those among us, especially the weak and those who are really susceptible and may have underlying conditions, and really all of us, because, because nobody has any antibodies— no human beings yet have any antibodies to this terrible virus that's going around— we're forced to, to kind of confront the idea of how do we be the church a gathering people who comes together to worship when we can't gather. I wonder, you personally, what are some of the challenges that you have been facing as a pastor in this time?

Well, I think, as you said, you know, it's just so hard to not be able to physically gather with people that you're used to worshiping with, you're used to having lunches with and coffees with. And I'm an extreme extrovert, Rick Lee James, like I mean, to the max. And so, you know, I get my energy from being around people, and especially within the church body, you know. And for us, being a smaller church plant, less than 100 people, it's very family-centric. It's very, you know, when we get around each other, there's just such a huge value in that. So that's probably been the biggest challenge for me personally. But I will say this, you know, as a church, it's been so important for us to recognize that we don't just exist from a leadership standpoint to create content and to feed people, right? The challenge is to help them feed themselves. And the challenge is to not just, you know, put content, content, content, but make sure that you're creating opportunities to connect. I think it's connect over content. And so So, you know, we've been very intentional about throughout the week creating touchpoints where people can interact and engage because I think it's so much easier to learn when you're in a conversation, not just a lecture. And so, if you're just putting out content that's like, you know, "Hey, go and watch this message," or "Go and watch this worship," or "Go and—" you're still creating a consumer mindset. It's just online now. Right. And so I think when you can create things— so we do this thing called Message Monday, and we did it last night. We're on our Facebook and Instagram Live. We're just diving into the message, and people can ask questions. They can bring their comments to the table. And so it's a really cool conversation that happens online. And then Tuesdays and Thursday nights, we're doing what we call Worship Leader Takeover. And so that's been a really fun thing on our Instagram page. At Bridges Nashville to give different voices in our church. Like tonight, one of our keyboard players who's never led worship on a Sunday, she's leading worship for the Worship Leader Takeover. And I think it's a cool way for people to engage with just the different voices on our team. Um, then we do like a Zoom Wednesday night Bible study that's going to kick off next week. Um, and we're doing a Friday morning— it's called Coffee with the Pastor.. And so it's just me out on my deck having coffee, saying, hey, how can I pray for you? What— how are you guys doing? Um, you know, what are the challenges you're facing? And so it's kind of creating conversations instead of content. And I think, um, that's, that's one of the biggest challenges of the church with a capital C right now, is that, you know, we're so used to doing things per the usual, that the temptation is just to copy and paste that to an online format. And, and you can't do that because it's just harder for people to look at a screen and connect. So you just have to be a lot more intentional about inviting people in and engaging them instead of just feeding them, if that makes sense.

Oh, definitely. And you know, one of the— again, one of the blessings of this time is, as much as a lot of us are are facing challenges with technology and trying to learn and relearn certain things for the sake of our congregation. I think one thing that we do have now available that wouldn't have been here just a few years ago is, as you're talking about, the idea that people can actually respond through live feeds too that are going on. Because once upon a time, in the last, what, maybe 5 years even, you just put a YouTube video up and that was about it. If somebody wanted to leave a message in the comments, was there whenever you got around to it. But I think it's— I think it actually is adding a new element right now that we are finding ways for people to, to online be able to respond. And the fact that we are so interestingly disconnected on a normal basis because of our devices and things, in this case it seems like it's the best way to bring everybody together. So exactly, it's, it's an interesting challenge that we face, and it makes me wonder what the challenge will be once we kind of get some normalcy back. Uh, will, will people, you know, want that, want more of each other, or that, will they want less of each other? You know, it's kind of, it's kind of interesting as, as the days will come because I think we're in this uncharted territory right now of, you know, what does life look like afterwards and when we come back together? Because we all know it's going to be a little different, um, but kind of keeping our eyes open and our hearts in tune to the spirit of where he might be leading us in the coming days. But it is always fun to see the innovation that starts happening, especially around churches, when things like this happen, because I think God really has to start leading a lot of us who are in ministry, start going, okay, what do we do, God? Right, right. And to quote Rich Mullins, we're lost enough to let ourselves themselves be led. And so I hope that that's something that happens more and more. On that note, what are some hopeful things that you are seeing in this time? You've explained a few of those things, and it's been great to hear some stories about the way that people have really gotten behind you financially when, like, the trailer was stolen. But then with all these different hard things that are happening and are separating us, what are some maybe some hopeful things that, that you are seeing, and maybe some things that we're starting to do better as a result of this social distancing.

Yeah, I'll just say this, you know, when we went through the, the trailer being stolen and the tornado, my hope in the kingdom was restored because I just saw so many pastors and churches coming around us. And much like Aaron and Hur lifted Moses' arms during the battle in Exodus. I think I just felt like other churches and other pastors, there's just not this sense of territorialism. It's more of a sense of, "Look, we all need to do our part. We all need to run in our lane, and there's so much more to be done in the kingdom." I heard this phrase about 10 years ago that, "How much more would get done in the kingdom of God if we all stopped caring who got the credit?" Yeah. And I've seen churches live by that. It's inspired me to live by that in a greater degree. And so, you know, we've been looking for opportunities to bless other church plants, and we're doing so this September and helping a couple churches launch. And so my faith in the kingdom and community has never been higher than it is right now. And I think we're seeing that also with the quarantine and COVID-19. You know, people are rallying and saying, hey, 'What can we do to be a blessing? How can we bless our neighbors?' And, you know, I think it's just— it's further instilled the need in all of us for real community. And I tell you, I think on the other side of this thing, you know, I think there's obviously going to be some hesitation with mass gatherings, and, you know, I think it'll be a slow leak into just how we step back into that. I do think people are going to be so excited to just be around other people that, you know, for us as a church, I think it's going to be almost like a party. Like, man, it's been so, so long since we've seen each other, and just embraces. And I think it's going to be a beautiful thing. My hope in these last, I don't know, 5 or 6 weeks as we've all been sheltering in place, my hope has really been in the gospel, man. I mean, I think, I think we've been able to, um, spread the gospel at an all-time rate because of technology. I think I saw something, uh, a statistic on just one platform out of the many that were used to broadcast video, and it was like 70,000 people made decisions for Christ over Easter. Wow. And that was just— I think that was just in the US. Using this— it's like a church online platform that Life.Church put out there for free. So that's one thing, and I'm like, man, as I look at what we've been able to do— and granted, we're a church, like I said, less than 100 people. Our resources aren't huge. I mean, I'm the only full-time staff member. We've got 3 other part-time staffers. And, you know, so we're a small operation. As far as that's concerned. But man, we've been able to like multiply our usual reach by like 20, you know? And so, you know, just through— and especially through a song like "Jesus You Are," you know, if it has, you know, upwards of 50,000 views, that's 49,800 people that didn't know about Bridges 2 weeks ago, you know? That didn't know that there's a church in Nashville that has a story to be told. And so, I don't know, I'm just— it's exciting, Rick Lee James, and it's, you know, I think where it's so easy to see, you know, maybe the despair in any situation, as believers and as followers of Jesus, we have to be hope-driven. I mean, there's just no other way to put it. And I see the potential, I see the opportunity, and I see the gospel expanding at an all-time rate. So that's— it's exciting to me. Yeah.

And, and, you know, one thing really hit me this past Sunday too. I was reading the gospel passage again of Jesus appearing to the disciples after his resurrection. And, you know, it leads into the passage of, of what we call Doubting Thomas, you know, where Thomas is asking, you know, I want to see his hands, I want to feel the wounds. And touch his side. But something that I think I've jumped over a lot that had new meaning this year was the fact that they were behind locked doors. If you look at the passage, it says something like the doors were all locked, you know, right? Right. And I was thinking about like churches around the world, not just homes, but churches who literally are locked right now. And the idea that, that Jesus comes behind the locked doors in that that passage, and he stands among them and he gives them new life and new hope. And it just reminded me again of, of what a privilege it is to be bearers of the gospel, that, that Jesus really doesn't need us to do this. Jesus allows us to be a part of it, and yet even when we can't get to our people, he's still doing something that we can't see that's well beyond. He had already started it before we started it. And so I, I was I was just thinking of that in a new light this week, the idea that behind the locked doors, Jesus is still coming. And you've just said that so well today, the idea that people are making these decisions, not necessarily from inside those church doors, but from the places where they are, and Jesus is still showing up, and Jesus is still doing his work, and his resurrection is still being revealed to us again and again. So that's terrific. I appreciate your hopeful words for us today. You know, as we close our conversation together, I know that you have another project that is exciting to me, and I've been enjoying that Venture 3 Media has been putting out these, uh, the series of albums called Simple Hymns. And, uh, and I, and I know you have a new song on their, their newest one, uh, which I believe it's called Songs of Refuge, is the new, uh, the newest release that they did.. And you have a song on there called Set My Eyes on You. Would you want to tell us anything about that song today? Because I think I'm actually going to close our episode by playing that today.

Oh, awesome, man. Man, that song is a special one to me. I didn't grow up with hymns. I grew up in a very contemporary church setting. And so I think the only hymn I knew until I was 21 was Amazing Grace. Yeah. And, um, and so it wasn't until moving to Washington, DC And I think it was one of the first weekends that I led worship at National Community, and Pastor Mark said, "Hey, can we close with 'Great Is Thy Faithfulness'?" And I said, "Okay, which Hillsong album is that on?" You know, I'd never heard of it, and so I dove into just studying all of these hymns. I fell in love with these ancient songs, and then I decided to write a few of my own. And so "Set My Eyes on You," I wrote that with Kelly Minter, and she's an amazing writer and author. And we wrote that back in 2012, I think. And it ended up first getting on this album called One: A Worship Collective that came out in 2013. It hit number 1 its first week, and it was a huge thing within the Assemblies of God church movement. And then it kind of just kind of laid low for a little bit. Some churches— I keep getting, you know, statements from like England where a lot of churches are doing that song. And so I'm like, "Oh, that's cool." And then, of course, working with Venture3 and Steve, and he heard the song. He's like, "Man, we've got to put this on Songs of Refuge." The song is really a simple hymn, as most of them are. And it's just 3 verses. It talks about the different battles that we have. The first one would be just kind of the battle with our circumstances in the world. The second would be the battle with the enemy. And then the third verse is about the battle between spirit and flesh that we all face every day. And through those three different battles, um, when you set your eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, um, I mean, it's like the old hymn, Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus, says, uh, the things of this world will grow strangely dim. And the song is just a reminder that no matter what battle you're going through, when you keep your eyes on Jesus, Jesus, he not only pulls you out, but he pulls you through. And when you go through a storm, when you go through a battle, you come out on the other side just way stronger and closer to the heart of Jesus.

Wow. Well, thank you for sharing about not only your music, but your ministry that's going on with Bridges Nashville. And I hope we get a chance to have another visit in the future, maybe with— once all this quarantining and self-isolating is over. We can, we can do another kind of follow-up podcast. But today I want to thank you again for being here. We're going to close the episode today with that song that you just talked about from Simple Hymns called Set My Eyes on You. For everybody listening, you can go and find links to Curtis's website, to Bridges Nashville, to the music video, and everything we've talked about today at this podcast website at voicesinmyheadpodcast.com. And we'll make sure you have all the information that is pertinent to what we've talked about today there. So Curtis Parks, thank you for being one of the Voices in My Head this week.

Thanks for having me, it's a pleasure.

This world may be a fallen place, but blind to hope, in need of grace. Though the storms, they seldom cease, you will harbor me in peace. Through the trials of this age, you are the friend who stills the waves. When my fears against me I will set my eyes on you. The tempter comes to steal and kill, scorns the treasures of your will. Still he flees before For your word sharper than 1,000 swords. By your power, my lot secure. My inheritance is sure. When my fears against me rise, I will set my eyes on you. Flesh and spirit war within. Though I'm weak and stained with sin, the battle for my Destiny will be one on bended knee. As my prayers like eagles soar to your image, I'm conformed. When my fears against me rise, I will set my eyes on you. in need of grace. Though the storms, they seldom cease, you will harbor me in peace. Through the trials of this age, you are the friend who stills the waves. When my fears against me rise, I will set my eyes on you. I will set my eyes on you. I will set my eyes on you.

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 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.