Lucas and Evelyn Cortazio - Episode 384

Hey friends, this is Rick Lee James. I am so glad that you are listening to this podcast today, and I want to ask a favor of you. You know, this podcast is free and it's always going to be free, but we do have a lot of costs around here. Not only making podcasts, but making new music, paying for production costs, website fees, hosting fees, doing research, marketing materials, and so much more. And you can help us with that if you visit patreon.com/rickleejames. Rick Lee James, where for as little as a dollar a month, or even a one-time donation, you can help me to continue doing the work that I'm doing. It would mean so much, and it takes such a very little amount of your time. So if you have a chance, go to patreon.com/rickleejames, and thank you in advance for any help that you can give. Welcome to Voices in My Head, the official podcast of me, Rick Lee James. I'm a recording artist, a singer, a songwriter, an author, a worship leader, and an ordained minister in the Church of the Nazarene. The Voices in My Head podcast is where I discuss music, movies, books, pop culture, theology, and more with friends, colleagues, and sometimes just by myself. Now make sure to let me know what you think of today's episode by leaving me a review on iTunes. Or by tweeting at me @RickLeeJames on Twitter. And please join my mailing list at RickLeeJames.com where you can receive an email every time a new episode is released. By the way, in case you're interested in a daily dose of kindness and encouragement beyond this podcast, I also run the Twitter account @MrRogersSay where I post daily quotes from Fred Rogers, one of the voices in my head. Well, I guess that's it for the intro, so sit back, relax, and listen to the latest episode of Voices Voices in My Head. 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 again for another podcast visit. Rooted in Chicago's Community Christian Church, pastored by Dave Ferguson, Community Music is comprised of worship leaders from the church's 11 campuses. Led by Brazilian-born husband and wife team Lucas and Evelyn Cortazio since 2013, the collective is closely aligned with New Thing, a church planting network created by Community Christian Church representing more than 3,000 congregations internationally. The Cortazios and Community Music lead worship annually at the Exponential Conference and also host songwriting workshops for worship leaders from across the country and around the world. Lucas and Evelyn Cortazio have both stopped by the podcast today for a visit, and I'm so glad that we have a chance to be able to share together. So Lucas and Evelyn, welcome to voices in my head.

Oh, Rick, thank you so much for having us. I think that was like the kindest intro we've ever had.

Well, thank you so much. I appreciate that. Well, it's really good to have you both on the show. And, and just before you came on, actually, through my computer speakers, I was listening again to Nothing He Can't Do and just really enjoying the music that you are putting out through your ministry. And I'm so looking forward to digging in a little bit and talking today. I, I wanted to tell you beginning of the show, I enjoyed your CCM Magazine interview that you did with, with John J. Thompson, and I enjoyed it for a couple of reasons. Not only because I love CCM and have had a good relationship with them over the years as an artist myself, but also because I graduated from Trevecca University several years ago. So it was cool, it was cool to get to see my alma mater there in the background as you guys were talking.

Yeah, we love that campus, that new building. We've been there for times. We've done a worship night there actually a couple years back. And yeah, we love the school.

Fantastic. Well, I know they were happy to have you as well there in that time. Well, you know, for those who may not know much about Community Music and some of the work that you're doing, I wonder if you could kind of give us, for lack of a better term, maybe like the elevator pitch of, you know, what is Community Music and your work there that you do?

Man, you know, the elevator pitch is we are, you know, the soundtrack of a movement, really. That's how, you know, our lead pastor has kind of coined that phrase, you know, for community music. And with that, I mean, we're crafting songs that give language to our church, you know, for life and for worship beyond Sundays and songs. So the songs actually work as a tool, but we're in the, in the quote-unquote business of creating culture, creating worship culture. At the end of the day, I think resuming what we do, whether it's songwriting, whether it's leadership development, you know, vision casting, whatever it may be, linking people together, worship people together, teaching people to step into worship, all of that, I think, resumes in creating worship culture for both our local church and then the global church as God allows us to do.

Well, that's terrific. Well, and I love the way that you— say that one more time— the soundtrack for a movement, I think is what you said.

Yeah, soundtrack to movement.

Yeah, that's a neat way to put it. I really, I really like that a lot. And I love it because, you know, it really expresses what it is you're trying to accomplish with your community as well, being that you're writing music for the people that you worship with and minister to. So we're going to talk about that hopefully more in the show here in the next few minutes. But one thing that I've been asking a lot of people, and I'd love to hear both of your perspectives on this, Lucas and Evelyn, because, you know, we have this world that we're living in now, um, because of COVID-19 and the way that it's stretching all of us who work in church ministries, that we, we almost have this BC world, which I've heard people call before COVID and then we have AC world, after COVID, and which, who knows what that looks like. But we're sort of right in middle COVID right now, or whatever that looks like. And so because of that, I mean, it feels like the way that we do ministry, all of us, it's changed, and it's made in many ways what we all do in some ways very similar, but in some ways it's really changed a lot of what we do. I'd love to hear from both of you, what has it been like, say, before the pandemic versus now, and what are some of the ways that you've really maybe kind of had to stretch yourselves in new ways during this time where we're all doing things a little bit differently?

I'd say that The first word that pops to my head is intentionality. That has definitely, for this season, that has been something for all of us, for us, for Lucas and I, and then for our church as well, just being intentional in seizing opportunities that we see in front of us, new opportunities, things that maybe we didn't see before because we have been doing church in a completely different way. I just feel like it's in a way simplified a lot, a lot of things in how we approach ministry, you know, kind of going back to basics. I'll say for us, like, it's like being intentional with our neighbors. And, you know, when we could before, like, the whole pandemic hit, even before, like, shelter-in-place hit, like, inviting them over for— because, you know, our church, we went online a little bit before Shelter in Place actually took place. So having some people over in our living room to watch a service together and worship, I think that created a little bit more space and opportunity. And so it's pretty much for us kind of keeping the main thing the main thing and not being What am I trying to say here? Like just not being kind of going with the flow that we could find ourselves going, 'cause we've been doing something the same way for so long. And you know, and so for us, it's taking creativity, it's taking intentionality. And we've always said this since even when it started, there's a lot of opportunity that we see arising. And we've seen that in our church and how we do, you know, how we've been, reaching out to others around us. Like, we have an engagement team that will call people, pray with people, with our people here. You know, we've developed something called community cares where, you know, we are reaching out and meeting the needs of our people, whatever those needs may be. So yeah, I would— do you have something to add to that?

It's a tough season. Yeah, yeah, it's a really hard season. I think We're all grieving, whether we understand it or not. We're all grieving the loss of a world, the loss of a way of life. Whether that way of life was good or not, that's kind of beside the point when it comes to losing something, right? I think you go through the grieving process, and I think Evelyn is correct in saying we have lots of opportunities But it's almost like what I'm forcing myself to do lately, and it's a stretch for me because I'm like a futuristic thinker. I like to plan. I like to cast vision. I like to just live in the future, right? And in this season, I think God is teaching me to live more in the now, to enjoy the now, to enjoy the process, whether it is a grieving process, whether it is whether it is some, you know, the process of rethinking how to do ministry, rethinking how to do quote-unquote church on Sundays and beyond Sundays. We're going through all of that right now, and lots of it excites me because it's futuristic thinking. You know, just yesterday we were talking about like, man, we're waiting for the future. We don't know what's going to happen. How do we make these decisions? And we're going, well, maybe we can make the future that we want to happen. You know, if we start making decisions right now, you know, for the future that we want, maybe we'll get to see it. So all of that excites me. However, I feel like I'm being stretched right now in being present in the moment and being present with the people in front of me, whether it's a conversation through Zoom or Skype or the digital world, or it's a conversation with, with Evelyn or one of our kids or, you know, family member. And there's something so special that happens when we are fully present in the space, and that for me is really hard. I'm always thinking of the next thing, the next song, the next service, the next worship night, the next whatever. And I feel like God is stretching me right now, really reteaching me. I'm relearning that being present, that's where I find joy. That's where I find joy.

Well, and thank you for saying that, by the way. We've, we've talked on this show a few times about the grief that we're encountering right now, and yeah, exactly. Many of us don't even know that's what it is, but anytime we experience loss, um, we're— we don't get those things back that we lose. Like, like when we lose a loved one, and when we lose, you know, other things in life that don't have to be people, just even a way of life, um, roll off. I was talking with someone at our church about— they were just discouraged about, well, there's a birthday for my kid that, you know, we didn't get to have grandparents over and we didn't, you know, who knows when they'll be able to come. And we're all experiencing this loss. And I was just thinking about, you know, the, the, the numbers keep rising. And you both minister in the Chicago area, and, and what, what it means for us as, as people who try to lead worship in our communities too. Um, and I, I think the last time I checked, in, in just Illinois, not Chicago specifically, but I think just in the Illinois area, I kind of glanced earlier, and I think it's, it's getting close to maybe around 8,000 deaths just in that state alone. And yeah, if we think about that as ministers, like, that's 8,000 families that are grieving and acquaintances and loved ones. And right, there's a real moment for the church to, to speak into that grief as well, right? And if we aren't people who have hope grief, then our grief is sadness only. But to minister as people who have hope, I think it gives us something different to speak into that moment as well. And yes, anyway, I just wanted to say thank you for expressing that, because I do think that's so important to kind of put our finger on that, that this is grief we're feeling, you know, in so many ways.

Again, without being present at least for me, I actually don't see that. My eyes don't see it. I just go through, you know, 'Ah, that happened. Okay, that's too bad.' You know what I mean? I'm just being honest. And then you move on. You're like— and almost ministry, you know, I loved your question because at times doing things for Jesus, you know, trumps like being with Him and being with others and loving Him and loving others. And it's like this rat race within the church I've done that so many times and I've led other people to do that as well, you know, and it's just like a repentance moment for me, like, man, I can't do this anymore. I don't want to do this anymore. I need to grieve and I need to— like you said, I love what you said about, you know, being sadness without hope is a very real thing, but I often don't want to feel any sadness, whether it's for somebody else or for me myself, and I think it's a moment for the church to rise up in that way as well, like really bear the pain of our neighbor, the pain of the other.

Yeah, and I was thinking with all the writing that you both do, this might be a time that many of us as songwriters for our churches, we might really find that books like the Book of Psalms, which really was the psalm book of the church, we can really embrace some of those that are, you know, what is it, 40% of them are songs just lamenting and crying out, and I think we see so clearly clearly why that's so important for the church to be able to have songs to sing like that, because we're right in the midst of it. So, well, you know what, while we're talking about songs and songwriting, and I'm loving what you guys are bringing today to the conversation, you have a great song that you've co-written called Nothing He Can't Do, which the, uh, the song actually features Meredith Andrews, and she does a beautiful job on it. And I said earlier, I was listening to it before the show And the song is about anticipating breakthrough. And by the way, for our listeners, I'll be playing the song at the end of our conversation today so everyone can hear it and find out more. And we're going to make sure and have all the links on our website at voicesinmyheadpodcast.com so they can find it for themselves. But, but, you know, the song is about anticipating breakthrough, and I imagine that it was written probably before this pandemic hit, you know. And, and I wonder if in your minds if you've been searching in any way, because I think I have in new ways, this question of what did it mean in our minds if a breakthrough happened in, say, say in the midst of our congregation, a breakthrough of the Holy Spirit in some ways pre-pandemic. Let's say that, that before pandemic days, and now we're envisioning in new ways, like, is God stretching our imaginations in any way to reimagine like, what does it look like in, in 2020, in the midst of a pandemic where often we can't be with people that we need to be with, you know, in these moments? What does it mean, um, for God to stretch our imagination to see what a breakthrough might mean in a time like this? Maybe that's too difficult to, to, to ask, but I, I wanted to see if you had any thoughts on that right now. Maybe what God is teaching you and how he's shaping your heart.

Well, I love the question. Yeah, it's a great question. Well, Rick, I think even when we wrote the song pre-COVID, I think the main idea of this song is that the breakthrough that we think we're looking for, so let's say, you know, diagnosed with a disease and I'm asking God to heal me. I mean, that's a huge breakthrough, right? But there is one bigger than that breakthrough, or there's one bigger than 'getting the job that I wanted' or whatever breakthrough I'm looking for. And that is the God of the breakthrough. Like when we meet that God and we understand like that we bear His image in our hearts and our souls and every ounce of my being, I bear that image. I think that's all that we need. So I think we are being kind of forced holy, in a holy way, to remember what we've already had since the beginning. We've always had it and it's ours and it's our inheritance through the blood of Christ and we've lost that. So I think even for worship pastors, we talk about this all the time, in this season I think we're being forced, like a lot of the times that we're leading, we're leading to a screen, you know, and people are watching it via that, you know, other screens. But really it's the audience of one. It's ministering to the Father, to the Son, to the Holy Spirit, you know. And I can say, I've, you know, when we're in a room with 6,000 people, a lot of the times I'm thinking of the 6,000 people. And it's not a bad thing to think about them, right? It's not a— but my number one job is to minister as a Levi is to minister to Yahweh, to minister to our God. And I think this season— I love how you asked the question, like, the creative, you know, process in our brains and, and opening up the mind to see God in new ways, to see, to receive God in new ways. He's always— the Advent is always happening, right? Uh, again and again and again. I think right now he's moving. We, we're seeing He's not quarantined. So then it's up to us, I think, in a sense, to like really open our eyes and see Him moving. I think that's the breakthrough, whether it's on a walk, whether it's, you know, in your quiet time of prayer, whether it's watching something. I mean, He's always speaking. He's always moving. So I don't know if that answers your question, but to me, this is a huge thing. The Holy Spirit is working in our minds right now. Opening our eyes to see Him in a different way, you know, where maybe before COVID it was like, you know, I have the 1 hour, 1 hour and a half on Sundays that I'll go meet God, you know, and I'll expect Him to move. And I think He's going, no, no, no, no, no, I'm way bigger than this. And I want a relationship that's way broader, more holistic than just a Sunday, just a few songs.

Yeah, definitely. And Evelyn, do you have any thoughts on that as well?

I totally agree. You know, just sticking to that point of the worship pastor role or the worship leader role, I feel like a lot of us that have that specific role— I mean, you can either be a worship pastor and you're leading on Sundays, but you're also pastoring a team, or you're a worship leader who is on stage every Sunday.. And that is not the reality anymore. And I think we've all, I think we've all to some extent come to an identity crisis during this a little bit where, like I said before, like we have to go back to the basics and like keeping the main thing, the main thing in that, again, our identity is not what we do. And especially when, like Lucas was saying, you know, we now do our lives stuff, you know, looking at a screen and who are we really ministering to? And I think a lot of the times for us as worship leaders or worship pastors, we are looking to our audience or to our congregation to qualify what we're doing, you know, and whatever we're getting back from them is what qualifies us and not the opposite. Like we've already been qualified, that's, you know what I mean? And that's why we're doing it and God is the one that qualifies. So I feel like for a lot of us walking through this, I was having a conversation today with two of the girls that I mentor and one of them was struggling mightily with this because I think a lot of her, she was brought up with us like amazing worship leader, but she's now had to find ways to minister or to lead herself in worship outside of the stage and outside of her small group. And that has been something for her that's been a huge awakening. And she's like, I haven't figured it out yet, but to the point that she's questioning what she's supposed to do in the future. She's like, I don't know if that's, you know, she wants to be a worship pastor. And she's like, I don't know anymore. You know, so I think there's a lot of unveiling and a lot of exposing happening to all of us in our motivations and intentions and what we really base our identity in. So I feel like that, even without us praying for, that is like a huge breakthrough. And God is like, hey, let me show you the breakthrough that I have, that I have in mind for you guys. And, and it could be the healing, it could be the financial breakthrough, it could be the, you know, relationship breakthrough, whatever it is that I believe that he can bring those to you. But I, I feel like he is unveiling these breakthroughs that we didn't even pray for or didn't have, didn't even have in mind in this season for us, you know.

Sure. And isn't it interesting when so often the things that maybe look like a curse to us are so often these blessings in disguise? I, I've been reading a book right now. It's called Making Loss Matter, and it's actually by a rabbi named Rabbi David Wolpe. It was written back in the '90s, but it's It's a really incredible book with so much good insight for right now. And one thing that he talks about in that book is that his wife was diagnosed with cancer shortly after the birth of their first daughter. And said they were dealing with accepting a new situation in life. And said that everything had to change for them. They said if we went on pretending like nothing had changed, He said, it said, we would have been worse for it. We wouldn't have gotten through it. But he also says something as they have learned to live with the new normal, which makes me think so much about like our present situation in so many ways. We've got this new normal, right? And he said, he said, speaking of the cancer, he said that his wife has become this whole new person. And she said, my wife— he said something to the extent of, my wife, as well as so many people who have survived cancer, have come through it blessing the cancer because, because it opened her up to new ways of seeing God, to new ways of seeing the relationships around her. And I think it may be interesting, you know, maybe one of the breakthroughs that, that God has for us in these moments, um, is, is to maybe cut away some of the things that are not God, you know. I was thinking too about, um, yeah, of just all these people that right now are in hospitals, can't see family are by themselves, or maybe they get one visitor a day or something like that. And yeah, and I keep thinking of, well, if it's, if it's not good news for them, then it's not good news, you know. If it's not good news for those who are suffering loss, that's right. So maybe, maybe some of what God can teach us through this is, is he is so real. I love how you had said, Lucas, a few minutes ago that God is not quarantined.

No.

And he can get through to all these places. Yeah, I'd love to ask you too, as songwriters, and I appreciate so much that your heart as songwriters is not just to write the next big hit, but you're writing for the kingdom.

Wait, wait a second. Who told you that? Of course we're writing for the next big hit.

Let me check my notes and go back. No, I'm sorry. Let's see. No, no, I love joking with you about it, but I know it's true. I know your heart is that you truly are writing for the sake of the kingdom of And I wonder if as songwriters, if in any way this has also pushed you to write maybe in different ways. I think sometimes— and let me give you an example of a way in my own personal life.

Yeah.

As you think about the question of something God spoke to me about, I felt like many years ago, several years ago, as my grandmother was dying in the hospital, she lived a great life for the Lord, you know. And she never had like tons of riches or anything. And at the end, she didn't have much to her name other than her family that was around.

Yeah.

And one thing that we did was we sang songs, and they were songs that she knew so well. They were songs of faith. And for her, it was, you know, it was songs— might have been Gaither's He Touched Me or something like that. It might have been— we sang songs like song— just songs about grace, great hymns, you know, about the goodness of God. And it occurred to me those were the songs that were lasting, that were— that we were singing around the hospital bed. And I just thought in that moment, as a songwriter for the kingdom of God, I thought, Lord, help me in what I'm doing. If, if my songs don't hold up around the hospital bed of a person dying, then they probably don't hold up you know what I mean? And it totally changes our perspective on like why we're doing this and why we're writing these things, because we're all, uh, we're all equalized at some point by these things. So that very long preface to that is, I just wonder, is God speaking to you in new ways throughout this situation, maybe about your own writing and sort of even your own motivations for doing so?

It's a great question. Um, you want me to go?

You can go.

Um, I think, A, we've been writing a lot. I mean, the last month we kind of took a little break, but the first 4 or 5 months of COVID more than ever actually, we wrote so much, which is great. We just felt like very early on like I felt like the sense that we were gonna have just some creative juices flowing, you know, because of what was happening. It just felt that way, like, all right, how do you wrestle through this? And one of the ways is songwriting. I don't know that the motivation has shifted. I think the language in a lot of our songs that we're writing right now is very different. And I think there's like this motif of, um, and this is something that we've felt like God is— one of the things God perhaps is doing, uh, is, is like this exodus, you know, from Egypt where idols were falling left and right. And yeah, you know, he, he, he rescues his people. He He in a sense quarantines them from the rest of the world. It's supposed to be 40 days and it ends up 40 years. Yeah, there's like an isolation that happens. So I think there's a lot, you know, that we can draw from that story. So a lot of the songs that we are writing are songs about, you know, keeping our eyes on Jesus, are songs about, you know, asking God to to demolish our idols, you know, to demolish our idols. It's almost like there's a sense in repentance in these songs as well, turning around, a teshuvah, kind of turning around, repentance. And so yeah, I don't know if the motivation I think has stayed pretty much the same. We want to write for our local church, give language to them so that they can connect with the Holy One, right? And if we say this out loud in our rites, if God wants to take it beyond this room and then to our church, amen. Beyond that, it's his problem, not my problem. He deals with that. But the language has definitely shifted, as it should, I think, right?

There's a common theme.

There's a common theme, for sure.

And it's something that I'll say, and I don't know, I mean, we never talked about this really, but I don't know if you agree. It has been like the the first few months that we were writing during quarantine, it has felt more freeing in a way, because again, we continue to write always to give language to our local context, but we don't know what that's gonna look like. So the process, like we've always been really about the process, like Lucas said, we are about this moment with Jesus and how do we encounter the Holy Spirit? How do we minister to His heart? How do we grow together with whoever we're writing? Like, how do we share? Like, it's different people with different journeys, different culture at times.

And in that sense, Rick, I think— and I learned this from a friend who's from Harvest or Vertical Worship, Andy Lee James. I mean, it's fascinating, but he's like, the point of the songwrite, the korite, is the korite, meaning there is— it's like a worship service, a mini worship service, vertical and horizontal worship here, time of worship that hopefully we're encountering the Holy Spirit. That's all it is, and if it goes beyond that moment, that's a blessing. I'm sorry, but yeah.

But I feel like that was accelerated more while we were in quarantine. Like, we always had that, but we were living it in a way that is like, when are we going to be able to introduce these songs to our people? We don't know what the future looks like. We don't know, you know, so, but we're still gonna be faithful and we're still gonna minister and we're still gonna, you know, share experience and share language and and spend this time with the Lord here and just really process these things through song and melody and lyrics with other people that sometimes people that we've known, sometimes like we've, because again, like we were talking about opportunity because of quarantine and like Zoom began, like we were writing via Zoom all the time and we got to write with people from all over that we, I don't know that we would have been able to in the amount, like the amount of times and in the short period of time that we did. So I think those things have definitely, as songwriters, has like, those things have been, you know, we've been experiencing them.

And I, yeah, I want to say this too, in this season, even through the screen, even writing, and it's not the same. I mean, Rick, I don't know if you've ever done like, tried to, you know, do over Zoom or Skype. It's not the same, but it works, right? What was surprising, I was just as you were talking, I'm kind of going back to some of the, some of the co-writes that we've had, and they were such phenomenal, like, Spirit-filled times, you know, of prayer, of like earnestly going after the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. And again, it's like we're here, Evelyn and I, can't see us right now, but we're just sitting in our living room, which is kind of like a pseudo studio space right now. Because of COVID right? And it's like messy, but we're just here and we might be connecting with somebody, you know, across the pond in England or somebody in California or somebody in, you know, Nashville or Colorado. And like, we are experiencing the power of the risen Christ Jesus together. Like, that has been such a gift. I feel like our co-writes, if not all of them, most of them in this season, were like these holy moments instead of like, oh, let's write, let's write a song.

So good, so good to know that.

And I also just want one little thing that I was thinking about. I think they're all, when we gather to write, like there is that, you know, like the common denominator is Jesus, is, you know, the Holy Spirit. But I feel that because we're all going through the same thing, which is COVID. We were all quarantined, right? We were all uncertain. We didn't know what the— I still don't, but you know, even back then it was even crazier. It was new, right?

Yeah.

I think that brought us together even more. I think there is a power in that, like living through uncertainty, through question, through doubt, through fear, through all of these things together. I think that brought all of us together in that process even more.

It's a huge community moment, not just community, but like going pain together, grieving hardship together. That, that's a huge point, but that's beautiful. Yeah.

Wow. Well, that's, that's great to hear. You know what, before I go any further, um, I, I had said when we started we'd probably try to go about 30 minutes, but we've already reached that. Are you guys, are you guys okay to go just a little bit longer? Great. Definitely. I just always want to be conscious of, uh, of my guest's time, for sure.

Thank you.

You know, there's a couple things that you said whenever both of you were talking, and it brought up some other thoughts in me. And I was wondering about this because you have been writing so many songs. And of course, one of the great joys of any songwriter is to get to share their new song. And it's wonderful and it's scary. And you know, it's time to get to— because in some ways, I don't know if you guys— you at least know of him. You probably know him too. But Paul Balázs.

Yeah.

I've heard him say a number of times, Paul been a good friend over the years, and he's always described it as it's kind of like unveiling your kid to the world and hoping they won't tell you it's ugly, you know, type of thing or whatever. And I was thinking about that just in this time. I know that in our context, we have started meeting back together in person a little bit, but there's still like 3 different ways at my church where people can come. They can either come to our parking lot service where we broadcast over the radio and people just stay in their cars. And then we have a social distancing, you know, kind of service inside, but everybody's kind of, you know, with masks on and separate from each other. And then we broadcast online as well. So there's these different ways. And I think this coming Sunday is the first time that I'm even attempting to teach a new song because there's just this sense of like, well, I don't want to— you know, it's kind of hard to teach something when we're not sure even what it's going to look like next week. Week. So my question for you, has this been a time where you've felt free to introduce any new music, or has it kind of been like, well, I don't want to throw too much new since we aren't meeting in the way that we have? I'm just curious how you've been able to handle that, especially with all of the new songs you've been writing.

More of the latter. We actually, we've done, because it's so weird, like when you think, I'm sure you think this way too, but what, like Introducing a new song, like, we'll take our time with it on a Sunday. Like, we'll teach them the chorus, sometimes a little bit of the verse or the bridge, whatever, and like get them really like going. It's like it's a meet and greet of sorts, you know. Here's this something that we've been working on, you know, get them excited. They're usually excited and we don't have that anymore. So we are not meeting in person. In any way, shape, or form. Actually, tomorrow is the first time in 6 months that we'll do a parking lot event, a worship night, and we're super excited. For this first one, we won't teach and introduce a new song yet, but we're planning a couple of, you know, a few worship nights in September, and that's when we'll start to re-engage our folks in that sense of of teaching original songs. We've done some new songs, but again, it's like when we're leading like a Facebook Live thing, it just doesn't feel like I can introduce anything. I can just sing something. So we've done a couple of new songs that we've written, but like it wasn't like this introduction, you know, right? Like, hey, here it is, let's learn this together.

Let's see how you sing it. Yeah, let's try it. That's always a great way to gauge it. Like, let's hear how you sing it. Exactly. Do you catch this? Can you catch it?

Exactly. So much of how we write write for the congregation, we have these two little questions that we ask: Is it true? Right? Is what we're singing and writing, is it true? And is it approachable? Is it something that our people can kind of like grab onto and really take beyond that time and space that they heard the song? But can it speak to them during the week? Can it motivate them to shift habits and whatever it may be? Something that just sticks with them. And, um, it's so hard to do that in the season, at least for us. It's been so hard.

Yeah, yeah. I almost wonder if, you know, at the end of this we're gonna have just this, uh, this avalanche of new songs that people have been writing that, you know, they haven't had a chance to share them yet. And, you know, more than ever, it's just amazing.

But I can't wait.

Yeah, yeah.

To hear what's going to come out of the season.

Yeah, oh, definitely. I think we're gonna, we're gonna see some new and some rich things that are coming from it in this time. Well, well, thank you for, for kind of sharing that. And I— isn't it interesting how now, even though before pandemic we probably all had— I mean, we all have our own contexts anyway in the place we worship. Some churches are small, some are huge, some are medium. It's been interesting to me to talk with so many people from so many different places, how we all seem to be— it's kind of been the great equalizer, and we're all doing it the same way now, right? So it's good to be able to kind of share those, those things, and even just to say to other people listening now that are— maybe they're going, oh yeah, I'm so glad somebody else understands and, you know, relates to what I'm going through right now. Because again, it's so hard when you're interacting with a screen to know, right, how you're even connecting and stuff. Well, this has been so much fun, and at the end of our conversation today, we are gonna share a song that you guys wrote that we've talked about today. And, and it's, it's a shame we're running out of time on my end anyway, but I wanted to have a chance quickly if we could before we end our conversation together today. I'd love I would love to hear either or both of you talk a little bit about New Thing, your church planting network, because I know that that's such a vital part of the ministry that you do. It's not just writing songs for the church. You're actually actively planting churches. And I'm wondering also, not only if you could tell us about that, but has the way that New Thing has operated gone through a bit of a change as well? Because I have been wondering about people who plant churches. If right now has been a good season for that or if it has been an even more challenging season for that kind of work.

Go ahead, you, you with the new thing.

Um, man, new things— one of the reasons, by the way, Rick, that we left— I don't know if we said this out loud or in your intro, but Evelyn and I are both from Brazil, and then we moved to Boston with our families, and, um, we met each other there, you know, 17 years ago, got married had 2 kids and then met this church called Reunion and Reunion was the 5th church plant at the time from New Thing. This was about 10 years, 12 years ago it was planted. We got to, you know, connect with that church, start serving there. We planted a second location. They hired us as the worship arts directors and so New Thing has been part of our like our minds, our conversation, our hearts for almost a decade, if not over a decade now. And it's one of the big reasons why we actually picked up and came to Chicago. We believe in church planting and multiplication so much. We do believe it's one of the tools given to us to advance the kingdom here on earth. And New Thing has been doing amazing things. I mean, I think you said this in the beginning, but we're at 31+100 churches in almost 40 different countries. It's grown exponentially in the last 5 years. Basically, when we moved here 5, 6 years ago, it was at 170 churches. So God has added to that number in amazing ways. It has shifted. COVID, one of the most exciting things for us, for me, I think for you too, is actually looking at a situation like this one that we have right now and going, 'How can we learn from this, but then how can we innovate?' So right now, a new thing— and we're here at Community, we're kind of starting some of these new ways of doing church, and with the hope of, you know, if it works here, it can work elsewhere. But we're really like mobilizing a church, our church, like never before. So no, there is we're planting more and more churches now, and we're thinking through it differently though. There has been a movement to like house churches, and we're not a house church church, but this season has kind of, you know, forced or, you know, graciously nudged us into a direction of doing these hybrids where we can have, you know, a big big, you know, we have 10 locations in the Chicago area, one in a prison, you know, two in the city, and then, you know, seven in the burbs. And some of our buildings are very large, some are smaller. We go from, you know, 150 people at a location to 3,000 people at a location. So, but the engine behind what we're doing, where when before used to be like when we're going to plant a church, We need all this money. We need all, you know, all these resources, you know, we need to hire this kind of person, this worship pastor, blah, blah, blah. And now we're going, man, we can do these 3C communities. It's what we call them, which are basically micro churches. We could do this all over the world. And, you know, now I have— I need one leader, you know, because we can resource them with even like the Sunday recordings, you know, the messages and all that stuff, small group content. We can give them all sorts of resources.— but now we don't have to be there, you know, and they could be partnering with us and planting a church, 1, 2, 3 in the city, you know, meeting at their homes and like the low budget, the overhead is super low. So there's lots of exciting things happening in that world right now. It has been a gift. Again, people have died, This is— I mean, it's beyond— I mean, it's beyond sad. It's like devastating what this virus has done. People have lost their jobs, families are struggling all over the world. We're all kind of hurting in this together. But in the chaos, and it feels like this is how usually God works or how he shows up in big ways, in amidst the chaos, amidst the uncertainties, he is certainly moving, man. I think he's opening our minds to something that we've perhaps missed, Rick, in how to do church, you know, whether it's on Sundays or beyond Sundays, and how to love people and how to serve Him better and how to expand the kingdom. And yeah, New Thing is like the— it's something that we hold very dear to our hearts, you know, and near our hearts. Evelyn and, and it's what's next for us too. I know we don't have time, but it's like a new thing music, new thing worship. That's what we want to do next, and in that sense, community music is almost like the first step because what we want to see, Rick, is like 100, 200 different kind of community musics, quote unquote, across the globe, you know, kind of like the Vineyard movement was, and that's the vision for us, and we've We've been blessed enough to have the foundation of New Thing to actually even spark that vision in us.

Yeah, well, I'm so grateful to hear that, and thank you for sharing. I love hearing about healthy churches that are doing church planting. You know, so often we hear of churches that have just kind of settled in, and we're us and that's enough, and so I'm so glad to hear about the ways that God is moving through Community Christian and New Thing, and you guys, you're all doing it together. And, you know, just as a closing thought here today, as you were talking, probably throughout our whole conversation today, I keep having a lyric from the late, great Rich Mullins going through my mind, and, and it— and I think it applies also to our, to our writing, to our ministering, our church planning, and all of it.

Yeah.

And it's from a song that he wrote called Hard to Get. And in one of the lines— really, the song is a lament song that's questioning God about a lot of different things, right? At the end of the song, there's a line that just keeps coming to my mind, and he's saying to God, he says, "I can't see how you're leading me unless you've led me here where I'm lost enough to let myself be led." And I've always thought that's a great line, but more now than ever. Yeah, don't we all kind of feel that way, that maybe we're just We're lost enough to let ourselves be led at this point, you know.

What a gift of freedom that is, man.

Yeah, for sure.

Wow.

Well, Lucas and Evelyn, this has just been a real joy. I feel like in some ways we've only scratched the surface of what we could continue our conversation. So hopefully we can do a follow-up in the coming days. But thank you both for being here. I'm, I'm going to, uh, close the show today by playing the song Nothing He Can't can't do. Is there anything before we, we close out and say our final goodbyes that you would like to share with our listeners that we haven't covered that you're feeling is very important and you want to today?

No, do you have something?

No, I don't think we talked a lot. Like, we love talking about worship and like the worship culture. And so I just say this super quick because we are, you know, strapped with time. And, uh, but man, worship is— it just feels like it has to be beyond music, you know, songs and Sundays, Rick, you know, like, and I really want this, like, it's like one of my heart's desires is to see the church in North America, the church across the globe really looking at worship as something that goes beyond just music, but something that really transcends every area of their lives something that changes how we think, how we choose, how we make our choices, how we talk to people, how we communicate, how we do everything, how we do everything. And sometimes I think we sell it short, and maybe we should expound on this next time we get together.

Sure, for sure. Well, thank you, both of you. This has been a real treat. So Lucas Lucas and Evelyn Cortazio, thank you for being some of the voices in my head this week.

Thank you, Rick.

Thank you, Rick.

Well, we're going to close now, and here is Nothing He Can't Do, which features Meredith Andrews and co-written by my guest today, Lucas and Evelyn Cortazio.

Come lay down every chain. Watch him break them all. He will make you whole again. Come lift up highest praises. Exalt the highest name. Watch him move right now as this whole room begins to change. I will bless the name of Jesus. The Lord. I'll bless the name of the Lord. Before the breakthrough, nothing he can do. I'll bless the name of the Lord. I'll bless the name of the Lord. I know he'll come through. Nothing he can do. We lift up highest praises. Watch him move right now. As this whole room begins to change, we will bless the name of the Lord. We'll bless the name of the Lord. Before the breakthrough, nothing he can't do. We will bless the name —of the Lord. We'll bless the name of the Lord. We know you can do nothing he can't do. We will bless the name of the Lord. We'll bless the name of the Lord before the breakthrough. Nothing he cannot do. We will bless the name of the Lord. We'll bless the name of the Lord. We know he'll come through. Nothing he can't do. Everything is possible for the one who holds it all. His name is Jesus. His name is Jesus. Everything is possible for the one who holds it up! His name is Jesus— his name is Jesus! Everything is possible for the one who holds it all! His name is Jesus— his name is Jesus! Everything is possible for the one who holds it all! His name is Jesu-— Nothing he can do. I will bless the name of the Lord. I'll bless the name of the Lord. I know he'll come through. Nothing he can do. We trust in you, Jesus.

We trust in you, Jesus. Thank you for joining me here this week on Voices in My Head. I hope you'll visit me on my website at rickleejames.com where you can find out more about me, get my music on vinyl and CD, follow my blog, and even schedule me for a concert or speaking engagement. Better yet, even a book signing in your neighborhood. You can find all that and more at rickleejames.com. Also, it would mean a great deal to me if you could write a review of this podcast on iTunes. The more positive reviews that we receive, the more visible this podcast will be on 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.