Worship Pastor of Olive Baptist Church (Pensacola), Jon Tyner, joins us on the latest episode of Modern Church Leader to chat about the artistry and strategy behind worship planning.
As we peek behind the curtain of church operations, Jon lays out the rhythms of his week – from staff meetings to Wednesday night choir rehearsals to Sunday Services.
Through the highs and lows of major events like Easter and Christmas, to the weekly Sunday service, discover how a blend of grace, planning, and digital tools come together to impact the Kingdom every Sunday Morning.
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For more information on Olive Baptist Church, visit OliveBaptist.org
Watch Olive Baptist Church online HERE
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Tithely provides the tools you need to engage with your church online, stay connected, increase generosity, and simplify the lives of your staff.
With tools like text and email messaging, custom church apps and websites, church management software, digital giving, and so much more… it’s no wonder over 37,000 churches in 50 countries trust Tithely to help run their church.
Learn more at Tithely.com
Worship Pastor of Olive Baptist Church (Pensacola), Jon Tyner, joins us on the latest episode of Modern Church Leader to chat about the artistry and strategy behind worship planning.
As we peek behind the curtain of church operations, Jon lays out the rhythms of his week – from staff meetings to Wednesday night choir rehearsals to Sunday Services.
Through the highs and lows of major events like Easter and Christmas, to the weekly Sunday service, discover how a blend of grace, planning, and digital tools come together to impact the Kingdom every Sunday Morning.
--
For more information on Olive Baptist Church, visit OliveBaptist.org
Watch Olive Baptist Church online HERE
--
Tithely provides the tools you need to engage with your church online, stay connected, increase generosity, and simplify the lives of your staff.
With tools like text and email messaging, custom church apps and websites, church management software, digital giving, and so much more… it’s no wonder over 37,000 churches in 50 countries trust Tithely to help run their church.
Learn more at Tithely.com
All right guys. Hey, good to see everybody. Welcome to another episode of Modern Church Leader. We're going to talk worship planning this week with my new bud, pastor John Tyner, coming from Pensacola, florida. So good to have you on the podcast today.
Speaker 1:It's great to be here.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we got all our tech issues sorted out.
Speaker 1:We solved all our problems ourselves.
Speaker 2:You got lunch and coffee. I just finished mine. I'm on the West Coast so it's a little earlier for me.
Speaker 1:Oh, you just had breakfast.
Speaker 2:Totally.
Speaker 1:I got my coffee.
Speaker 2:I just finished eating. Yeah Well, john, it's good to have you on man. Thank you for doing this. We don't get to talk to a lot of worship pastors traditionally, we're trying to do more of it.
Speaker 1:So I'm pretty excited to have this conversation today. Yeah, me too, I'm excited to be on here. I was telling you earlier. I watched a little bit and I was like, oh no, I don't know anything about AI and they talk about that a lot, it seems like it's because you kind of have to talk about it right now.
Speaker 2:You know people are going to think you're weird if you don't talk about AI.
Speaker 1:Actually it's a funny AI story. We're doing like this special emphasis leading up to Easter. Our church is going through this devotional thing that some of our guys put together but it's called the King's voice, and so my production director was like, man, you should write a song about the King's voice to use. And I was like I don't think there's time for me to get done. And he was like, well, I actually have something. And I was like no kidding. So he sent me this whole like big long. I mean it was really wordy, a lot of lyrics and stuff. But I was like, dude, this is kind of incredible. I could work with this, maybe a little bit. He's like I got to tell you ChatGPT did it. He totally had me. I thought he had written this whole song.
Speaker 2:He's like. I spent the last 30 days of my morning devotionals writing a song. I've got it for you here it is.
Speaker 1:That's what I thought. I thought the Lord had spoken, but yeah, oh my gosh.
Speaker 2:Yeah, ai is coming for us man, it's coming everywhere. Let's touch on that at the end. But you're a worship pastor for a pretty big church out there. You've been a worship pastor for a long time, so maybe just give us a little bit of your story. How'd you get into being a worship pastor? Yeah, long time. Maybe just give us a little bit of your story. How did you get into being a worship pastor?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I grew up. This is an unusual thing, but I grew up in Pensacola, here in this church that I'm serving in now. I was always really into music. As a kid I always tell people I had two passions. It was music and baseball. And you know, when I finally as most of us do come to the realization of my baseball, career is not going anywhere. You know, I decided music might I had a little better shot there and so I studied music. You know, through high school I took every musical opportunity I had went to school, studied music in college. I just really all along the way had this sense that God was calling me to ministry. At the same time I didn't know just what that would look like, but over the years I just developed a passion for the local church and I wanted to see churches thrive in worship. Churches thrive in worship. I grew up, I was coming through high school in the 90s and we had the worship wars everybody was talking about. I just thought, man, this is so stupid. I don't think it has to be this way in churches. I just had a passion to see the church really be healthy and that developed more and more.
Speaker 1:I got out of school and a church in Tennessee. I was serving in a church in Mississippi where I was in school, and a church in Tennessee Bellevue Baptist in Memphis called me on staff there and I went on the music staff there. Adrian Rogers was the pastor at that time and it was a humongous church and incredible education for me. I learned so much there, worked there a few years. Then we moved to Knoxville, tennessee. I was a worship pastor at a great church there for about six years and then my pastor that I grew up with.
Speaker 1:He came here to Olive, my church when I was 11 years old and he called me and he said hey, I'm looking for a guy to come and lead this worship ministry here. Would you be interested in coming home? So we prayed about it and really felt like God was calling us to come and serve him. To be honest with you, he had married me and my wife. I really was called to ministry under his leadership and so I really felt like God was saying to me hey, he even had told me that time.
Speaker 1:He said I know I'm, I'm entering into the fourth quarter of my ministry life here and um. So I really felt like God was saying to us go home and serve him, make this the best, um, the best part of his ministry. Uh, and and love him and support him and and go do it. So we did. We came back home and it's been cool. We support him. And. And go do it. So we did. We came back home and it's been cool. We've got my in-laws are in this church, my mom is here, my brother's a deacon, it's it's been cool to be here with family and part of all that.
Speaker 2:So yeah, that's pretty special man when you're, when you're around the fam and everything too.
Speaker 1:Yeah. And you know helping them finish the fourth quarter strong.
Speaker 2:That's awesome, Absolutely, yeah. How do you become? I mean, you gave a little bit of the story but like, how does one become a worship pastor? Did you go to school for it? Did you study?
Speaker 1:music. I think there's so many, I don't know that there's a one way really. My journey was really through, like music education. That's where I felt like my gifts were, my passions were, um, you know, especially at that stage in my life. So I was, I kind of was like I'm just going to go, sharpen my best tools, the best that I can, and see what kind of doors God opens up for me. And so I did a, I did a degree in music education, um, and then I did a degree in music education, and then I did a master's degree in music, and you know, at state universities, and, and that that's the route I went, you know, and I just, I just thought I'd take what I think the best thing I have to offer and really hone my craft there. And, you know, and doors started opening up for me yeah, you know there.
Speaker 1:There are lots of guys now. There are schools that are doing worship arts degrees and things like that. You could go to seminary. I mean, I know guys that are doing it that you know really didn't study any of that at all and they're just because they were just gifted and good leaders got talent?
Speaker 2:yeah, yeah, right, god gave it to him. Yeah, um, what about the? Uh, the part of becoming a great worship leader? Um, do you start kind of in the? You know in the band and you're like you know you're the, you're the backup person or the side person or you're playing drums and then eventually you're like the lead guy, like what's that. I know it can be very different, so I'm sort of generically asking the question like how do you?
Speaker 1:yeah, I mean, you know, I think um, you know, when I first led worship was uh here at this church and I was in the youth group and uh, our youth pastor at that time, uh, who ended up being a huge influence in my life he, um, he just asked I mean, I think he saw uh giftedness in me and he just kind of fanned the flame. Um, I was reading something recently about um speaking prophetic words over people, and not in like a weird way, but just like when you see something, say, hey, I, I believe God could use this in your life and I believe he has a future here. For and he kind of did that for me, spoke into my life that way and honestly just put me up in front of people and made me do it.
Speaker 1:And uh and that's kind of how it happened, for I mean, I I could play like a little bit of keyboard at that time I was probably in like eighth or ninth grade, you know and so I got up and and probably every Wednesday night for a year saying, lord, prepare me to be a sanctuary. I probably knew like one or two songs, but that that was what it was for me, and it was a guy that was willing to honestly probably let it be less than what it could be quality wise for the sake of really giving a kid an opportunity to grow, and so I loved him for that. So I mean, I think, if anything, what it takes, like how you get there, I think more than anything it probably takes somebody coming along that's going to give you a chance and give you room to grow in your giftedness.
Speaker 2:Right, right, yeah, I love that. Well, I mean, I guess, jumping over into the you know the practical side of doing like you run or lead a pretty big you know team, so talk about that, you know. Just give us the kind of overview so everyone has context for what's the worship ministry look like there.
Speaker 1:So our worship ministry is a is a pretty traditional model. I mean, we my pastor's been here a long time. It's traditionally been like a big choir and orchestra church. You know, we're in so many ways probably just exactly what people would think of as the Northwest Florida Southern Baptist big church you know, in a lot of ways, and so we've got this structure that's there in this kind of history.
Speaker 1:That's there with the choir and orchestra. So we have that. You know we'll have on Wednesday nights in rehearsal, you know, I usually have 120, 130 people in choir rehearsal. We'll have about 30 or so in the orchestra every week. We've got a band and a worship team that kind of come out of those groups that lead out down on the platform on Sundays and so on any given Sunday we've got, I don't know, maybe 140, 150 people that are part of our just the music portion of the team. We've got a big production team.
Speaker 1:That's, you know, also that's making broadcast happen and you know all the things, and so, yeah, it's a big traditional model. I like to think we're forward thinking in the way we're approaching that and the way we're trying to use all of those things. But generally we kind of have a man let's give as many people an opportunity to participate and to be a part of leading in worship, and when you're part of that leadership side of thing, you just have a little more of your heart invested in it, and so it gives people the opportunity to just give a little more of their heart, I think, and connect and build community and all those kinds of things. So that's kind of our volunteer staff each week. And then we have our staff here, like on my team. We've got an instrumental music director that leads the band and the orchestra and he oversees. We call it music studios at Olive, it's kind of a school of performing arts and there are about 90 students that come through taking music lessons during the week, you know, on different instruments and voice and things, and he heads that up. We have a director of next level worship not our team and she leads students and children's worship teams and choirs. She helps lead worship on Sunday.
Speaker 1:A lot puts together a lot of different things for us We've got another campus that's on the west side of Pensacola. Us We've got a another campus that's on the West side of Pensacola. Uh, so we've got a, a worship pastor for that and he and I work really closely together planning and, um, it's it's a little smaller than our, our Pensacola campuses and so, um, you know the context is a little different but we we plan together and, you know, try to try to be in step with each other as far as the kinds of things we're doing and um so, and then we've got, you know, um, got a couple of administrative assistants that are huge part of just keeping people on the you know scheduled right, making all the things happen, to just getting all the stuff done.
Speaker 2:So so just break it down real quick. It sounds like you have got the you know 150 or so people, yeah, weekly yeah, and of those, the 150 are mainly volunteers, versus how many are like staff, like paid?
Speaker 1:staff better. Yeah, they're mostly volunteer, I mean almost everybody's volunteered, and so we, um, we don't even, you know, we don't pay any of the musicians, um, except a couple of people that are on staff that play or whatever, Right, so yeah, it's all. It's all just volunteer driven Church members just come in and doing it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, on one hand, that's beautiful, right Like that's amazing, incredible that you've got 150 give or take people that are volunteering. It sounds like maybe there's five to 10 staff people somewhere around all of it touching in different ways, different ways.
Speaker 2:And then also I'm like whoa, that is a lot of people to coordinate and schedule and practice and find replacements for and all the things, and you're doing it on repeat, right, like at least every Sunday, and it sounds like you've got two different campuses and maybe you've got a midweek service and you've got youth ministries going on.
Speaker 2:So there's multiple things happening throughout the week that involve all of those volunteers. How do you manage it all? Like what's the what's the week? Maybe first start with like give me the week in in like what the week looks, like what's the week look like yeah.
Speaker 1:So in the office you know, in the office here we'll we have Monday morning every week. My team has a Monday morning staff meeting and we just talk through the week and the coming weeks. You know what's going to happen. We'll spend about an hour together just making sure everybody knows what we're doing and what, what direction we're headed in, what we're doing and what, what direction we're headed in. And then that on Monday afternoon we have a production meeting with our couple of guys that are on our production staff, which is it's a different department but we work real, you know, real closely obviously with them and so we meet with them on Mondays. But really I mean so we're kind of talking through the week as it goes, but I mean I would say most of my Monday is usually preparing for Wednesday night when all of our rehearsals and things happen.
Speaker 1:We kind of feel like if we can get Wednesday right, then Sunday will be a breeze. You know, Sunday can be fun if you can get Wednesday right, and so we really spend a lot of Monday kind of planning those rehearsals, figuring out exactly what we're going to do, making sure the service is just what we want it to be. It's planned by Monday always, but in case there's just little things that we need to take care of. But that's what that Monday really is about is making sure that everybody's on the same page. We're making our plans for Wednesday night. Everybody's ready for all of that.
Speaker 1:Tuesday it's kind of a general staff day. We have an all staff meeting every Tuesday morning. We have once a month a staff worship time that we'll lead, and so sometimes that comes up. I'm on the executive staff of the church and so we have an executive staff meeting after those others, and so a good know, a good part of my day is with just kind of administrative sort of meetings on Tuesdays, and then most of the afternoon, you know, I spend working on task lists that came out of those meetings that I was in all morning, you know. And then Wednesday I'm kind of prepping. We do like a Wednesday morning run through of the music for Sunday. So we'll get we'll get our staff together that's musically like part of things and leading worship and we'll sit down and go through like with all the click tracks and we'll sing through and play through all the music. Make sure the transitions are going to work Okay, Make sure all the clicks are right. All that we kind of have a little rehearsal on Wednesday morning and then Wednesday night.
Speaker 1:we'll have all of our team here and so choirs on Wednesday night at six o'clock, orchestras at the same time at six o'clock in different places, then our worship team and band come in after that and we'll rehearse and then we'll put it all together in the worship center. So we're going from like six until about 8 30 or 8 40 on wednesday nights in rehearsals, just prepping for sunday and yeah, and and other events that might be coming up.
Speaker 2:so and that's when that rehearsal at various or at some point all 150 people yeah, everybody would be here would be there, right, that's when all the volunteers come in.
Speaker 2:Yeah I mean that's incredible. That's like, you know, twice the size of most churches. Uh yeah, getting after it on wednesday night, prepping, um, and you get them all there. I guess it's just in your guys's case it's like that's the standing thing, so everybody that's part of it knows it's not like a. You're not hunting everybody down per se, because it's kind of a. It's built in, it's part of the culture and so people show up.
Speaker 1:It is and, like, I think, for those volunteers it's because it's a large church, it's, you know, that that, like in the choir that those people are really that's, that's their church family. You know they couldn't possibly know everybody but, like for a lot of them, that's the community that they belong to in the church. And so we try to make the Wednesdays. I mean there, I think people come and join for like three, one of three reasons. I think some of the choir members we have, or orchestra members, are musicians and so, like this one of three reasons, um, I think some of the choir members we have, or orchestra members, are musicians and so like this, an obvious musical outlet for them they want to use that they don't have. They're not in marching band anymore or or a high school choir or whatever Very few of them singing, like a community choir or something like that.
Speaker 1:So it's an opportunity for them to just come and sing and or play and you know, and use that gift that we love when those people show up, cause they're usually your really good musicians, you know. And then I think you've got another group of people that are there. They don't have a lot of musical background, they may be just kind of okay singers, but they really have a passion for worship and so it's a natural place for them to come and plug in. And then I think you've got people that are just looking for friends. They just want to connect with somebody and it's a good place to do that, so they just come and they find that sense of community there in the choir. So we try to be real intentional about scratching all of those itches on Wednesday night so that everybody doesn't necessarily just feel like this, like they have to come out of compulsion or obligation or whatever, but they really want to be there because that need that they have, that they're trying to fill, that we're going to provide an opportunity for that for them.
Speaker 2:So it's almost like the small group, but it's it's rather large, but it's like it's like that it's the smaller group and that's their natural community. So totally yeah, and those Wednesday night times.
Speaker 1:we, you know, we try to make them fun and upbeat and, you know, make it well, I want them to leave like man. I'm glad I came tonight. I had someone tell me a long time ago I used to be a little kind of a taskmaster, you know, in rehearsals and things, and I had a volunteer tell me one time. She was so sweet, she set up a meeting with me actually, and she came into my office and we chit chatted a minute. She goes. Well, I just need to tell you this On Wednesdays we've been working and we've been, um, you know, going through all of our life and there's so many things that weigh on us and when we come to choir on Wednesday nights, we don't need to feel your stress. You're stressing us out and I was like, oh man, that's a word, like I really was. I think that it kind of made me realize, oh, they have like a. There's a spiritual need there or a need for community or something that. That's what my focus needs to be on, more than just getting the work done.
Speaker 2:You know, it's just where are these people and?
Speaker 1:how can I help figure out where they are and help them? Help them, move them along Right right, right, right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they're like don't, don't stress us out more, let us have some fun and enjoy that yeah.
Speaker 2:That's awesome, though. Good feedback, yeah, Um. So how do you go about, uh, like managing all this stuff? Right, You've got some built-in meetings that happen, yeah, Like how you know, and it sounds like you've got a couple of administrative assistant type folks and then the staff like you know what's it look like to kind of manage and make sure that everything's being executed, um, so that you're not stressing the people out, but you know, you know it's all happening, yeah.
Speaker 1:We use um, the first thing we do, we use a website called planning center online. That I would think if they're worship leaders listening, they probably and you may know of it too but um, it's a great resource, um for us and we schedule everybody on on there. Um, we have a choir rehearsal service that's just ongoing and we update it every week with the songs that we're going to be doing and, um, they all you know, accept or decline, so we know who's coming each week. They can practice their music on there, listen to it throughout the week to get ready for rehearsals, and so that's a huge, huge resource for us. You know, with managing that many people and our worship team, the like frontline singers that are part of the service every week. It's an audition group and so it's a little higher standard. We ask a little more time of them and things. So we're scheduling them every week and they're kind of on a rotation as far as when they're singing out front, okay, but that really helps us keep up with they can block out their dates that they're going to be out of town or whatever you know. So that's a huge resource for us there.
Speaker 1:But, man, with all the things, it's still tough to keep up with everything. We want to know who's going to be here to sing and to play and to get those things done. But on top of that, just trying to stay up with what's going on with people's lives can get tricky sometimes, and so we've done lots of different things with that. Different things with that with um. We've had, like um, a leadership team that people like were responsible for a small group of people and just keeping up with them if they didn't see them for a couple of weeks, right, um, connecting with them and and things like that. But um, always keeping up with what's going on with those people is the biggest challenge yeah, do you break it up?
Speaker 2:you mentioned kind of breaking things up maybe into smaller groups. Do you have like service teams, like on a Sunday, that are on like a rotation of some sort? So, like you know, you've got every first week in March that's this group that's going to be kind of on platform form and then, yeah, that's exactly what we do. And so those guys kind of know they're scheduled in the software and it's like okay, you've always got week one of the month and you've got week two of the month, or however you guys do it Like is that?
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's exactly what we've done. And we've done it different ways over the year but, honestly, depending on like who and during that season was on and how much they were available, how many we needed, but that's exactly what we do. They're on like a regular set rotation so they can look at the calendar and know and I tell them I'm like, hey, you'll be able to tell. So if you're like you know, going to go on vacation and you're trying to decide between this thing and this week and this week, all things being equal, like choose the one you're not scheduled, you know, right, like choose the one you're not scheduled, you know and, and so, yeah, they're pretty good about that, most of them. Yeah, yeah, yeah, but yeah, that's what we try to do to make it as easy as possible for them.
Speaker 2:Right, right, and are you cycling in different um, like musicians, like the, the instruments and things like that too? Is that you have a pretty big crew of those folks, or is that pretty consistent for every?
Speaker 1:yeah, it's, we do have a rotation for those as well. Um, you know, there's certain instruments that we'll have a little bigger roster for, that we can rotate a little more, and there's some that you know there may be times where it's like oh, we really only have like one bass player right now, so he may play for a number of weeks in a row or or whatever you know. But you know, but but mostly we try to have like multiple people that are in that rotation as well.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Like what of when you're doing all this? What are some of the biggest like I don't know challenges? You know you mentioned kind of like sort of ministering to people and like knowing people's needs and that kind of you know the pastoral side of it Less less about the music, more about the caring for people. Um, outside of that, like what, what's another or a few other like the biggest challenges of like running the worship ministry.
Speaker 1:Um, I think, I think it is just anything you run into with a big group of volunteers is always like the uncertainty of who's going to show up, you know. I mean, for example, next week is Easter, next week is also spring break for, like all of the schools around here you know all the school systems, the university that was really close to us down the road everybody's on spring break the week of Easter, you know, next week, and so I'm like freaking out that nobody's going to be here. You road, everybody's on spring break the week of Easter, you know next week, and so I'm like freaking out that nobody's going to be here. You know rehearsal or an Easter Sunday thing, you know. So, um, it's all. I think that's. That's probably the biggest stressor a lot of times as far as just the, just the, the, the aspect of relying on volunteers is always just wondering who's going to really show up, right?
Speaker 2:So yeah, I mean that makes sense. To me, the biggest stress is, like is this all going to happen? Is everyone going to show up? That's supposed to show up? Yeah, you mentioned Easter. When it comes to this stuff, there's a handful of like bigger services every year. I would imagine you know most churches have that Easter, Christmas, things like that. Like how much more goes into planning those services for you guys?
Speaker 1:This. You know, we kind of came to a place a few years ago with Easter Sunday that we were like. We were like, do we want to do? If you really go all out on Easter Sunday, so far from what your norm is, it's like, does it feel like a bait and switch if they come back the next week and you know what I mean, and you're like, hey, this isn't at all what they did the other day. And so we've kind of tried to do what we do. They're more people and it's more dynamic. Um, we'll put a little more thought into kind of planning and things like that for it. But, um, we try to make it feel like this is what Sunday feels like. Here we try to give our best every week. Easter Sunday is one of those times. Honestly, if anything, we really try to make sure that we keep it a little bit condensed because there's so many more people than on a normal week.
Speaker 2:We just got to practically get the parking lot turned over faster you know, in between services, do you do multiple services on a weekend?
Speaker 1:Yeah, we do multiple services on a weekend. Okay, so we have, and Easter is like this year, it's our normal schedule and we'll just be packed, you know both, and we'll have overflow and things. But sometimes some years we've done additional services and and so yeah it. So we kind of go through our normal thing on Easter Sunday the last few years and have just tried to do it in a big dynamic way, right.
Speaker 2:Right yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there are times like Christmas is a different story a little bit. Well, at Christmas we'll do like we do a big Christmas concert every year and we'll do multiple performances of that. Um, and then Christmas Eve has gotten to be such a honestly, christmas Eve, I think probably is a bigger day than Easter Sunday right now for us, and I think that's probably. I would I don't know, I'd be interested in seeing like statistics on that, but I would. I would think that that may be starting to happen in a lot of places. So we'll have on on this campus we'll have three services on Christmas Eve every year and they'll all be like really full, well attended, and so you know there there are some days that are really big like that.
Speaker 2:You know there there are some days that are really big like that, how do you go about doing when it comes going back to kind of the, the scheduling and management of this whole you know thing which is really big multiple services? Do you on a Sunday, if you're scheduled, are you doing all two or three services or are you rotating different teams for every service?
Speaker 1:Yeah, we do the same um, the same people for for all those services, just for the sake of, like, not having to do multiple rehearsals and sound checks and things like that. So it cuts down. We'll try to use logistics.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and then they'll have a you know two or three weeks where they don't have to do that, and so it's a little easier, right, um? But yeah, we'll do. We'll try to use the same crew both in production and on the music side of it, on the stage yeah, yeah, yeah, totally makes sense.
Speaker 2:What? Okay, let me ask you a real geeky software question. Um, because you use some software to do all this kind of stuff and you you may not be the guy that's like in it all the time, day to day, so you know answer this. However, you think if there was something, or is there something that you've always wanted software to help you do as a, as a worship pastor, managing this whole thing, like what's something you just haven't seen yet, and maybe we can weave in the AI stuff to this kind of part of the. You know, ending here, but like anything, you've always been like man. I wish there was something that helped me do this better?
Speaker 1:That's a good question, I mean there's. So we use so many things now. We like on Sundays now I mean, this is something I probably would have said 20 years ago, but we have it now. But, like you know, now we run ableton on sundays and our click tracks are there, but we also can use tracks for, like, whatever we want.
Speaker 1:So if, if we were to be missing, um, a bass player on a sunday or whatever, we can just drop bass tracks in right to play along and fill that, fill that gap. You know, thankfully we hadn't had to do that on. We did actually not too long ago. It was on a a special thing. But, um, like very last minute, the guy that was playing drums for us this wasn't on a sunday, it was actually a saturday morning thing but his son had to go to the emergency room. He couldn't get here, none of our other guys were available and we just dropped drum tracks in for those few songs we were leading at this event that day and most people probably never knew the difference, you know. So things like that are like. It blows my mind that we have that, that we have that now. I mean. So I don't know if I have a good enough imagination to think I would have to really think about the answer to that question Like what? What do I wish we could do?
Speaker 2:Yeah, Um, well, how do?
Speaker 1:you how?
Speaker 2:how do you think AI is going to impact your world? Just to you know just what are you thinking of there, or what you know what? What have you heard? You got people writing songs with AI already.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I was going to say the first thing. I've always the first thing I've thought about with AI has been songwriting and I mean, even if they're not great, I really think and they probably already are, honestly, I really think a lot of people are going to use that to at least get them started. When they're struggling with everybody that writes, anybody that's creative, you run into just writers blocking things. I could definitely see I'm sure that's happening a lot already, even on the preaching side I know sermon writing, research, all those kinds of things. It's already becoming a thing Totally. I've heard people talk about hearing messages or podcasts or listening to different things and they didn't know it was like AI doing the whole thing and then they thought it was a person or whatever.
Speaker 2:It's scary.
Speaker 2:Yeah with voice and all of that. I mean, I was talking to a pastor yesterday and he's working on. They have a pretty international ministry and so he's working on. You know, I'm preaching in English but you know, maybe I'm doing some like leadership development work for all of our pastors. He kind of oversees about 900 churches, so he's like they all speak different languages so I can do my teaching in English but then I can turn it into Spanish or French or any other language, but it's still me doing it. But what the word is going on about sound like me and everything, but it's a different language.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's wild. You know, we just did. We just hosted a worship conference for an organization called next level worship and they have a very international base, and so we were. We were just the kind of the location. It was a simulcast conference and we had groups from 20 different countries that were, um, that were there. They were like watching virtually, you know, and a part of the conference, but something like that could have been. They had done some work ahead of time to try to get some translation, make some resources available and things. But, like you know, on the on the fly, it's almost impossible to do that. But that is interesting because something like that could be a huge game changer for any sort of international ministry like that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah, language and I mean I love your thought around sermon prep and even song writing assistance, let's call it because you never want to take the human out of it. But yeah, ai will do a lot of this stuff. I'm sure at some point We'll be listening to songs that were completely written by AI.
Speaker 1:But I like the assistant aspect of it more than I like the… Kind of a propter.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, being like your assistant. I mean, there's people that have sermon writing teams and music writing teams and all these kind of things where it's a bunch of people collaborating to come up with, you know, the end result, you know. So I like the the kind of concept of AI as like a co-pilot, as an, as an assistant, as part of the team, not the thing that's like you know, doing it for you per se. Um so, um. Well, this is cool, man. Where can folks go to kind of check you guys out?
Speaker 1:you've got some of your worship stuff online, like on youtube, on the website, yeah you can check out uh youtube and alabaptist um church there, and uh you can check us out on facebook they should probably search, like all of baptist church in pensacola. Right, yeah all of that is church pensacola, but you'd be able to find us, so yeah yeah, we have a YouTube channel.
Speaker 1:I think we have some worship videos on there on that YouTube channel somewhere as well. Facebook our worship services, you know, are there every week and you can check all those streaming out.
Speaker 2:Love it, love it. Well, man, this has been awesome. If you know any other great worship leaders, send them my way so that we can get some more on the podcast here. But thanks for coming on today and sharing some of your experience with us.
Speaker 1:Thanks for having me.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely so everyone. Yeah, go to YouTube. Go to Olive Baptist Church in Pensacola, florida. Check out what they're up to. I mean, they've got a pretty awesome production going on and we'll get some more worship leaders on the podcast. And we'll get some more worship leaders on the podcast and we'll see everybody next week on another episode of Modern Church Leader. See ya.