Voices In My Head Podcast Episode #297: Folk Hymnal with Tim Briggs

<LYRICS>Hymns, Prayers and Invitations</LYRICS> The latest album from Rick Lee James has garnered praise from CCM Magazine, Worship Leader Magazine, UTR Media and more. Written and arranged using hymnals and prayer books for inspiration, this collection of 10 modern hymn-like worship songs will inspire individuals and congregations to draw near to the heart of God. <LYRICS>—in the name of God.</LYRICS> Highlights include Christ Is Lord, inspired by St. Patrick's Breastplate Prayer, Advent Hymn, and the Communion Hymn: The Invitation. Worship leaders will be glad to know that all songs on the album are published through LifeWay Worship. Find Hymns, Prayers, and Invitations on Amazon, Spotify, Apple Music, CD Baby, and at Rick Lee James.com. .com. Have you ever thought to yourself, man, I'd like to host my own podcast? Well, guess what? You can go to podbean.com/voices and get everything you need to create, manage, and promote your podcast. I use Podbean every week for Voices in My Head. There's easy uploading and publishing tools, stunning templates, custom domains, social and promotional tools, an embeddable podcast player, monetization tools, and more. It is your all-in-one podcasting solution. With Podbean, you can create professional podcasts in minutes without any programming knowledge. Best of all, everything is mobile ready right from the start. So go to podbean.com/voices, and when you sign up, use the code voices and you'll get a sizable discount. Podbean, for your home podcasting. Thank you for listening to Voices in My Head. Welcome to Voices in My Head, the official podcast of me, Rick Lee James. I'm a recording artist, a singer-songwriter, an author, a worship leader, and an ordained minister in the Church of the Nazarene. The Voices in My Head podcast is your source for discussions on music, literature, movies, pop culture, theology, and more. Now Sit back, relax, and listen to the latest episode of the Voices in My Head podcast. And don't forget to let the voices in your head be heard by following me on Twitter @RickLeeJames and sharing your thoughts about today's show.

A hark of thrilling voices sounding. Christ is near, we hear it say. Cast away the works of darkness, all you children of the Awake the day, startled at the solemn warning. Let the earthbound soul arise. Christlit sun, all sloth dispelling, shines upon the morning skies. See the Lamb so long expected, see the everlasting light. Full of grace, the Lord is with us. We will hope in him. See the Lamb so long expected. See the everlasting light. Full of grace, the Lord is with us. We will hope in him tonight. So when next he comes in glory and the world is wrapped in fear, he will shield us with his mercy and with words of love draw near. See the Lamb so long So long expected, see the everlasting light. Full of grace, the Lord is with us. We will hope in him. See the Lamb, so long expected, see the everlasting light. Full of grace, the Lord is with us. We will hope in him. Open him tonight. Honor, glory, my dominion. The Father and the Son, with the ever-living Spirit, while eternal ages run, while eternal ages run.

Welcome back to the Voices in My Head podcast. As always, I am your host, Rick Lee James. I'm glad you're here with us today. My guest today on Voices in My Head is Tim Briggs. Tim is the writer and producer of a new series of musical projects being released under the name Folk Hymnal. Folk Hymnal is a revolving community of artists who sing theologically rich songs in an accessible and attractive way. Tim is the writer and producer on Folk Hymnal's latest album, Incarnation Songs, which releases on November 22nd, or at the time you're hearing this has already released on November 22nd. A follow-up EP will be released in the spring of 2019, and we're gonna talk about it today. Tim Briggs, welcome to Voices in My Head. Thanks for having me. Well, I'm so glad that you made a contact with me, and I'll let listeners know how this happened. Just a couple of days ago at the time of our recording, which is actually around November 15th— it's actually exactly on November 15th when we're recording right now— I got an email from you, and you had listened to the podcast with Greg La Follette. And you had some kind things to say about it, and Greg's new album is great. We're all big fans of it here. And you have kind of a similar project in some way, and you let me hear it, and I just love it. And I was so glad to get to talk to you about it today. So before we do that though, I want to find out a little bit more about you because I literally am just getting to know you today. And so I want to start today with a few getting to know you questions, if that's all right with you, sir.

I'm game, let's do it.

All right, well, first off, where do you live?

I live in Charlotte, North Carolina.

All right, very good. All right, well, this is a follow-up question to that one. What is your go-to order at your favorite hometown restaurant in Charlotte?

Oh boy, well, uh, I'm a creature of habits and have grown to love Mexican food, so we go to Chipotle a lot. Um, not exactly a local restaurant, but, uh, it's close to home. Uh, but, uh, yeah, we love, uh, Burritos Burrito Bowls. Can't go wrong there. The kids love going there. All right, that's a win-win.

It's a win-win. Very good. All right, well, I guess it is sort of a hometown because my understanding is they use local, uh, there you go.

That's what I was referring to. You caught that. I'm glad.

All right, well, other than music, do you have any hobbies?

I love, I love to read. I've been into woodworking over the past few years. I like to rock in a rocking chair. Most people probably wouldn't consider that a hobby, but for me it's fun. So I dabble in all sorts of things. I made a board game for my kids last year called Briggs Baseball. Oh, wow. So maybe coming to a Kickstarter near you at some point in the future. Um, so yeah, I like to, to dabble and, and make things and, and figure things out. And so it's a, it's a lively home at the Briggs Manor.

That sounds like it. And a board game. I think you're the first, uh, board game developer I've ever talked with. That's probably the last. Yeah, probably the last two. Yeah. No, that's cool that they're kind of coming back in fashion. It seems like a lot of people are really getting into board games in a way that they haven't for a long time. It seems that's great. I love it. It increases time that we can share together as people and families, and that's great. All right, one more getting to know you question before we get into your music today. And, and I'm just gonna preface this and say you can't say the Bible because every Christian is probably going to say the Bible, okay, for this one. Sure. But I usually, I like to ask a question to people sometimes, like, if you were on a desert island and you can only take one book with you, let's just take the Bible as a given, and you have to choose something else. But is there— you've already said you, you like to read, so giving you just, uh, you know, a very short amount of time to think about this question, and it doesn't have to hold up in a court of law or anything like that, but would you be able to pick a desert island book?

Wow, that is a great question, and I can't choose a book like How to Get Off a Desert Island, one of those things.

Well, that might— that you can if you want. That might be—

no, I'm joking.

We're going to assume you can't get off the island though. So yeah. Oh boy.

Well, it'd be interesting to read. I haven't— I read it a long time ago, but the Robinson Crusoe book, that'd be an interesting read as you're on an island. Sure. Reading about a guy who was stranded on an island. But I think I would probably choose I'm gonna go really spiritual here. I'm gonna choose Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis because that book, along with a lot of other apologetic books, really shaped me and molded my faith when I was in college. And so I think that'd be a great book to circle back if I had a lot, a lot of time on my hands.

Fair enough. All right, well, thank you for those answers. That helps us to get to know you just a little bit more as we begin the show today. Tell me about Folk Hymnal and how this collective came about.

Yes, so that's an interesting story. I'll have to back up a little bit and tell you a little bit more about me. So I came to Christ in college, and I think like every college man learned how to play guitar to impress girls. So I guess that's where my, my love of music started. But It was interesting because going to church really for the first time in college, I was really weirded out by congregational singing. I didn't really know what to do with that. It seemed like an awkward thing. There's really no other space where you would do something like that in the secular world. And so I remember being in those services and just wanting the music to be over and to get to the sermon because I just didn't know what to do with myself during that time. But I grew to love church music and singing at church. And really over the years, as I, you know, continued to play guitar— by the way, that strategy of impressing girls worked for one because she married me. So my motivation changed. Yeah, mission accomplished. But so my motivation changed with playing the guitar. But yeah, in recent years, I just, I find myself loving music more, playing music, and got to a place probably in the last 2 years where I wanted to write music, and particularly congregational music, worship music. And so like with anything, the first time you start, you're not really any good at it. But over time, I would write things and I would share it with some people and I would get some good feedback, and I would feel as if it was good and it was worth sharing, you know, beyond myself and my kids and my wife. So I really wrestled with how do I do this? How do I get music out into the world considering that at best I'm maybe a competent rhythm guitarist, and vocally I'm just not I wish I was. I wish I could, uh, you know, sing, but I, I don't have a recordable voice. I'm not someone really that you'd want leading worship at your church. And so when you don't have the, the skills, uh, to release music, but you have, you have music, it's a challenge. And so, uh, probably over the last year I was just always racking my brain, what do I do with this music that I like? How do I get it out? Because part of the value in creating something is you, you do want to share it, particularly if you feel like it would benefit people, particularly if you feel like it was good. And so, uh, really, uh, leading up to the beginning of this, this year, I came up with this idea. Well, what if I collaborate with artists who are friends on these songs and have them sing the songs? They're much more talented than I am. And so that's really kind of how this project was birthed, was me sharing these songs with friends who are amazing vocalists and can play the guitar well, and just talking with them about, hey, what if we make these songs come to life? And so we created this brand called Folk Hymnal to release these Christmas songs underneath. Oh, that's great. Great.

And as listeners will know, because we, in the beginning of this episode, just before the interview, were playing one of the songs, listeners are able to tell that it's really something special and a very beautiful album. I was very impressed when I first heard it. I get a lot of emails from people saying, "Hey, will you listen to my project? Can I come on your podcast?" And sometimes I have to kindly say, "Maybe in the future, but not right now." And I just loved it. I was really very taken with the songs. And you did such a wonderful job on this. And, um, and it's interesting to me, and I want to talk a little bit about more about just sort of you as a musician because this is so unique. Um, you didn't sing on this album and you didn't play on it, but you wrote the songs and you produced it. But even though you've just said you don't feel like you have like a recordable voice or, you know, anything that you feel like was marketable music-wise, Do you consider yourself to be a performer at all? I mean, you don't have to necessarily have the world's greatest voice, as I'm evidence of with my albums, or if, you know, Bob Dylan or someone, you know, take someone like him who doesn't have the greatest voice. Do you consider yourself to be a performer too, or are you just kind of strictly a writer and producer? That's a great question.

I should clarify. So, you know, sometimes you'll hear somebody kind of play humble pie, and they'll say, you know, I, I'm not really a great singer. And then they get up on stage at church and they sing, and they're like, oh gosh, they're, they're amazing. You know, they're just being humble. I'm not that guy. When I say that I can't sing, like, you know, I can carry a tune, I suppose, but again, like, you wouldn't want me leading worship. But to get to your question, uh, I I don't think I would identify as a performer. I think by the strictest definition, I would consider myself an artist. You know, performer gives me much more of a sense that you are in front of people and that that's a part of who you are and kind of how you're wired. Sure. And I think I've become more comfortable in my own skin and how God has made me. And one of the things that I've realized about myself in recent years, and you probably heard it, when I was talking about all my different interests is I, I just love making things. And, you know, we're all made in the image of God, and so we have this creative ability. And I think it looks different for different people, but I've just really leaned into that in recent years, and I found life there. And so I'm interested in a lot of different things, and music has been a place for probably the last year or two that has been my primary creative outlet. And so, yeah, you know, I'm operating like a producer. I'm a songwriter. I think I'm really good at collaborating with people, managing a project, drawing people in, and really putting people in, in their optimal position to do well. And so for me, I don't need the limelight. I don't need the spotlight. I don't need the credit. I just pull in friends who are really good at what they do and then let them do what they do. And it's fun to kind of be behind the scenes and make kind of make all that happen. Sure.

Well, let's talk about some of those friends who you had on the project. The new album that features— and if I get the names wrong, you can help me on this, but sure. Nathan Storey and Stuart Fenters, Kelly Graham. And Taylor Lienhardt. And I had a chance to actually play at Escape to the Lake with, uh, with several great artists this past summer, and Taylor was one of them. And, and so I know the caliber of artists you're working with. I mean, they're amazing. Um, what do you think makes this combination of artists unique? I, I guess maybe that's not even a great question. I guess, how did you all sort of come to be together in this way?

Yeah, great question. Well, they're unique because they're, they're my friends, and there's very few people who sign up for that job. Now I'm joking. No, they— yeah, honestly, I'm kind of the glue for this, this crew of folks. Some of them knew each other prior to, some of them didn't. But, you know, Nathan is a fantastic singer-songwriter who doesn't live that far from me. He's in the Huntersville, North Carolina area, and I met him at the Hutchmoot Conference 2 years ago, which is really funny. We had to go to Nashville to meet even though we lived about 20 minutes away. That's great. And he's a worship leader as well. Stuart Fenters is a, is a worship pastor at my church and a great, great guy, great friend, great songwriter. And he's releasing a solo album in the spring. Kelly Graham has been a friend for many years, a worship leader in Charleston who will probably release some music. And then Taylor I met Taylor because we've started to have house concerts in our home, and over the past year we've probably hosted 6 or 7 different artists, Taylor being one of them. And she has such a unique voice, great voice, and her music is phenomenal. And she's, you know, a touring singer-songwriter, and she's doing, doing great. And she was really kind, you know, to, to opt into this project because she didn't really know me that well, and she certainly had never heard any of my songs, or I have no street cred in the, in the Christian music world. But I kind of pitched to her, hey, here's what we're thinking. I got this song. I'd love for you to listen to it, revise it, you know, play it on the album. And she, she said yes. And so they're all very kind to donate their time and their efforts to this album.

Well, that's great. Well, and it really feels like they came together in a way that's, I mean, it just flows so well. All the songs sound so great and each one into the next. As far as recording it, I know that recording these days is much different than it used to be and it doesn't all have to take place in one spot, but did it? Did you guys all kind of, you know, throughout the project come to a certain spot to record or did they kind of send it in from different different parts of the country and added it together? How was the process of recording for this?

Yeah, you know, we— I've never done anything like this before, and so I kind of felt like every step of the way of this project, we were just kind of making it up as we go. Sure. I don't know how it works in the real world, but I have a good friend, Rob Shoemaker, who is— Rob's one of those guys that everybody hates because he's really good at everything. Including recording music, engineering. He's a musician himself, and so I really leaned upon him and said, hey, I'd love for you to do the nuts and bolts engineering of this and contribute your ideas on the production side too. But, you know, how do we, how do we do this? And so we, we, we met up this summer over the course of probably 2 months at Rob's house in his living room. We would set up microphones, and each, each week a different artist would come in for a day, and we'd knock out their instrumentation and their vocals and get as much as we could. And then really the late summer and early fall was spent with Rob and I just kind of talking through how we wanted this to sound and what other instrumentation we could put in to fill in the spaces and the gaps. Uh, after that. And so I have no clue how it works in the real world, but that's how it worked for us. And, and honestly, the flow worked really, really well. Uh, Rob and I work great together, and he's so creative and, uh, just did a great job of filling in that space, you know, in those songs. And so, you know, we kind of mapped out a timeline going back to January of how we would make this album, you know, with the Kickstarter included, finish up the writing, the recording. And, you know, we're here on November 15th recording this, and as we sit here, we're, we're like right on schedule. So it's almost as if we know what we're doing, but we really just kind of made it up as we went. Well, that's great.

Well, and, you know, I've been seeing different postings about it, and I think I maybe had seen them before, but because of the connection that we made over this past week, I noticed more. It's almost like, you know, when you get the car and then you start to see all the other ones on the road. They're like, yeah. But I've been noticing your project, people have been posting about it in places like the Rabbit Room, uh, Facebook page. And yeah, uh, just different places online. I'm starting to see a buzz about it, which is wonderful. And I'm so glad to see that because it really is something special and unique. And that leads me to ask this next question because it is such a unique project in that you yourself are, as you said, you're the artist but you're not the singer and you're not sort of somebody that's going to be touring with this project. But I do wonder, what are your hopes for this project and kind of what you're dreaming about it? And I know certainly you want people to hear it, but I wonder what kind of life you're hoping for it to take on in the coming days and even with future EPs that are coming out?

Yeah, that's a great question. You know, I, I certainly want individuals to listen to this and enjoy it and be nourished in their faith and, you know, contemplate and celebrate the coming of Jesus. I think though, honestly, the highest honor for me would be that a worship leader or a pastor would hear this music and say, we We want to sing this song or these songs at our church. When I've, when I've been thinking about this music and as I wrote it, I was thinking about the local church primarily, and honestly, just the saints singing these songs together. And so the highest honor for me would be that someone enjoys it and likes it so much that they think it would be edifying and beneficial for their congregation to hear it and to to sing it. And so I love that. Um, I have no clue what to expect, you know, with this. It's a really open-handed sort of thing. It's really an experiment in a lot of ways. But so far so good. I mean, the feedback that I've received has been all very, very positive. It's really hard— maybe you can speak to this, Rick Lee James, as an artist— to even think through what is, uh, success when you release music. Like this. Certainly just getting it out is, is a big win in and of itself. But it's hard to— at least for me, as I think through this, I have no paradigm to understand, like, you know, metrics. Do I care about metrics? Does that help measure any level of success? Sure. You know, beyond my intuition, uh, what, what does make this a project, this experiment, a success, so much so that we would want to keep doing it in the future. And so I, I don't know, honestly, I'm not sure what success is, but maybe you, you could chime in with your history and your background, just how you've wrestled through that.

Well, you know, that's a good question, uh, and you're not supposed to make me think. I'm supposed to, you know— I'm just kidding. Um, no, I've actually thought a lot about that, and, you know, being that We both are making music that hopefully congregations will find usable in a way that helps the life of the church. To me, I think I measure my success differently than maybe a lot of people do because I really like to get the church singing. You had talked about earlier what a weird thing this is, and it is unique among the Christian music world. The only thing I can think maybe in the secular realm that it reminds me a bit of is somebody like Pete Seeger who would get people singing, you know, together, and those are usually for political and social activism type things. But it was— he almost was leading sort of a secular worship rally, you know, whenever he came together. But the church has always been unique in that, in that we have something to sing about, and that we sing in good times, and we sing in hard times, and every Sunday, regardless of the circumstances, we are there to celebrate the resurrection through song. Among many other ways that we worship together. So for me, and I think what I'm hearing from your heart today, maybe the best measure of success for us is if congregations can grasp on to some of these things together. And, you know, one of my prayers often is just, you know, the prayer that I stole from Mr. Rogers. When he would walk through the studio each day, he would pray this prayer: Lord, let some word that is heard be yours. And hopefully if our music can do that, if we can pray those prayers over our songs as we're writing them and recording them, and just pray, God, if your words can just be heard somehow through this, maybe that's the best measure for success. Because certainly metrics come and go. There's things that don't make sense to me in the music business at times when I will hear albums that just I find to be stunning and no one ever hears about them. And then I find albums that are incredibly mediocre, and the whole world just can't get enough of them, you know? Right. And so I feel like there has to be something greater to measure by. But anyway, I think that's something maybe we both kind of are resonating on at this point. Yeah, for sure. Because I love the way that you've talked about congregational worship. But I'm talking too much. I need to get back to you again. I just wonder Did you have any really high moments or, you know, in the recording of this album? Because I know for me that the times when I've been in the studios and I've had a— I just finished making another release, and every time there's been at least one moment when I've been in the studio where I felt like there was these real God moments that happened, that— and you kind of wish, like, boy, I wish this is what people could experience in here right now, like what we're feeling. There's been moments in each recording that I've done where it's like we've just had to stop and pray right in the middle of it because there was just a sense of the divine that was so powerful in that moment. And so for me, there's been a couple of those times. I'm wondering if— was there any particular moment during the recording that— I guess I almost call them confirmation moments you know, that you're getting these times. But just wondering if you had anything like that to share. I'm certain you did, but I'd love to hear about them if you did.

Yeah, well, first off, I'll just say really quickly, you know, recording an album is so much harder than I anticipated and have earned all sorts— or I've gained all sorts of respect for folks who do this. I've probably worked on this album. I've done something every week week for this, probably since the first week of January. And we're here in mid-November and that will probably continue through December. So incredible amount of work, but it has been so enjoyable. It's been a great way to spend myself as a hobby. I'm not doing this vocationally, but just in my spare time to put my creative energy behind it. And so along the way, there's always these milestones that you celebrate and you do have those moments those high moments where you're excited and you're just thankful that it's happened, whether it's, you know, the completion of the songs or actually getting to the moment where we record them, you know, hearing the first couple mixes. I think one particular moment was there's a song on the album called Emmanuel, and it has, you know, going into we kind of had this idea, kind of mapped out how that song would sound. And then at some point in the process, I had this idea of adding a cello to the song and then putting a choir at the end. And it's interesting for me because not having a strong musical background, I hear these things in my head and they sound great in my head, but I don't always know if they're going to translate to real life. But in my head, I was like, oh, this is— this sounds amazing, you know, if we could add these two elements. And, and then we did. And the first time I listened to the song with those two elements in the song was one of those high moments of, wow, I had this idea of what this would sound like, and then we did it, and it actually came pretty close to matching up, which is a rare thing, you know. And I'm not an emotional, an overtly emotional guy, but I almost cried at that moment of hearing that song. Sure. Because it was powerful just to have an idea. And it's a rich song, you know, in itself. But then to add these beautiful elements to it certainly contributed to that. And so hearing that song for the first time was really a powerful moment for me. Yeah, that's great.

Well, you know, I couldn't have asked for a better segue because my plan was all along to play Emmanuel at the close of our conversation today. Look at that, look at that. Everybody's going to get to kind of hear and experience what it was you were talking about there. So that's great. God is good. He's just let us—

there you go. It's almost as if he had that planned out for us.

Um, you know what, I— whoa, my lights just flickered for a moment. I hope, uh, nothing went out audio-wise, but But listeners, I should let you know I'm in the midst of an ice storm right now here where I live. So thankfully we're almost at the end of our conversation, but we haven't lost power yet, but it might happen. I've lost my train of thought for a moment, but I'm coming back. I wanted to let everyone know that you can find the album website at folkhymnal.com. That's F-O-L-K, just like folk music, folkhymnal.com. You can find it also on Kickstarter, I believe, which is where I first heard it from. At the time that you're hearing this, the album is already released. We're recording it on November 15th, but it actually releases on November 22nd. It's so hard to know when I'm talking for the future. I don't know which day to say. But I really encourage all listeners to check it out. Go to folkhymnal.com first and just find out more about it there. Preview the songs, and they really are really good songs. And before we close our conversation and hear a little bit more from it at the close of the episode, have I missed anything that you feel like we really should talk about today before we close our conversation?

You know, I don't think so. You asked really good questions. I, you know, I hope people listen to this, and I hope that it's a resource to the local church I hope maybe, you know, for some people out there who have dreams, ideas, but feel limited, that maybe this would serve as some inspiration for them. I think I've realized in recent years, I've kind of felt myself just kind of believing, you know, when people say you have to do things like X, Y, and Z. Like, here are the rules, it has to be this way. And I've kind of found myself being rebellious a little bit and going, well, does it really have to look that way? Does it have to go that way? And so really, I mean, this whole project was in a way an act of rebellion to say, I think there's a way to do this, you know, without being a super talented instrumentalist or vocalist. And, you know, this is early, but so far so good. I've really enjoyed the process. And so I think just the value of thinking outside the box of how to make a dream happen or just an idea and just the rewarding sense you get when you kind of break the rules and you're able to do something that is not typical. And so maybe there's, there's somebody out there or a listener who's listening to this this, and they've had, they've had an idea for a while and they can't figure it out. And, you know, the rules say they can't do it. Maybe, maybe this is, you know, inspiration for them to, to think outside the box and, and, and give it a shot and see, and see what God does with it.

Great. Well, it's been wonderful talking to you today, Tim. And likewise, we're going to close out our conversation together. I'm going to play the song Emmanuel, and I'm Looking forward to getting listener reactions from that. But Tim Briggs, thank you for being one of the Voices in My Head this week.

Glad to do it. Appreciate it.

Eternal peace. The Son of Man did condescend with healing hands this world to mend. For stain and filth is our torment, but beautiful is His advent. The lowly babe for mortal sake will satisfy. Satisfy creation's ache. Emmanuel, the hope our hearts have waited for, have waited for. The Prince of Peace, the Savior King forevermore, forevermore. The light into the darkness shine and ease Western Star displays the sign, a manger seats the human form of God who by His grace was born. So sing until your lungs are spent, concede your will to Joyce Consen. His birth will end our earthly strife, His death will bring the saints to life. Immanuel, the hope our hearts have waited for, have waited for. The Prince of Peace, the Savior King, forever Forevermore, forevermore. The angels sing, the Lord has come. Our voices ring, the Lord has gone. The angels sing, the Lord The Lord has come. The Lord has come. The Lord has come. Emmanuel, the hope of us. Hallelujah! Hallelujah! For the Prince of Peace, the Savior of Kings. Forevermore, forevermore. And you are the voice of us, a way to grow, a way 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, follow me on Twitter @RickLeeJames, like my artist page at facebook.com/rickleejames, and keep up to date on what I'm writing on my author page on Amazon. There's also the Voices in My Head Facebook page. Community found at facebook.com/voicespodcast. And if you want to follow my alter ego on Twitter, follow my popular Mr. Rogers quote account found @MrRogersSay. Also, make sure to follow my appearance schedule on my website, and if you would like to have me come to your town to do a concert, a speaking engagement, or a book event, you can book me through my website at rickleejames.com. Www.rickleejames.com/bookings. And it would mean the world to me if you would write a review of this podcast on iTunes. The more positive reviews we receive, the more visible this podcast is on the internet. And now the benediction: May the God of peace, who raised Christ from the dead, strengthen you in your inner being for every good work, and may the blessing of God Almighty The blessing of God Almighty, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, rest upon you and dwell within you this day and forevermore. Amen.