The Meet Hope Podcast
83: A HOPE Summer playlist! The Songs We Sing Together
Why do certain songs stick with us? How can they make a difference in our lives? Listen in this week as Andrew shares with us a SUMMER PLAYLIST! Don't miss this fun and encouraging episode over at the Meet Hope Podcast!
NOTES & RESOURCES:
- Get HOPE's SUMMER PLAYLIST! meethope.org/today
- Let Andrew know about your favorite songs! Email andrew@meethope.org
Thanks for being a part of the HOPE community as we continue conversations about faith and hope! You can learn more at meethope.org or find us on socials @meethopechurch. Join in for worship on Sundays at meethope.live! Have a question? Contact us at podcast@meethope.org.
Enjoy what you heard? Be sure to rate us on Apple Podcasts and click the subscribe button so you don't miss new episodes every Monday!
Why do certain songs stick with us? How can they make a difference in our lives? Listen in this week as Andrew shares with us a SUMMER PLAYLIST! Don't miss this fun and encouraging episode over at the Meet Hope Podcast!
NOTES & RESOURCES:
- Get HOPE's SUMMER PLAYLIST! meethope.org/today
- Let Andrew know about your favorite songs! Email andrew@meethope.org
Thanks for being a part of the HOPE community as we continue conversations about faith and hope! You can learn more at meethope.org or find us on socials @meethopechurch. Join in for worship on Sundays at meethope.live! Have a question? Contact us at podcast@meethope.org.
Enjoy what you heard? Be sure to rate us on Apple Podcasts and click the subscribe button so you don't miss new episodes every Monday!
Welcome to the Meet Hope Podcast, where we have conversations about faith and hope. Hope is one church made of people living out their faith through two expressions in person and online. We believe a hybrid faith experience can lead to a growing influence in our community and our world for the sake of others. Welcome to Hope.
Speaker 2:Meet Hope Podcast. My name is Heather Mandela and I will be your host today. I'm really excited about this edition. We are doing our summer playlist and I have Andrew Barber, our Worship Arts Director, here with me. Hey, andrew, hey, thanks for having me. Absolutely so clearly. Worship Arts Director, you're up on stage on the platform every Sunday. Music's a big part of your life.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I would say so.
Speaker 2:So tell me a little bit about how you realized what a big part of your life music was going to become it always really was.
Speaker 3:I remember in as early as second grade there was a Saturday night church service that was more what was like a saturday night church service. That was more what was considered contemporary back then church service that we would go to, and I was fascinated by the drums. I wanted to be a drummer. My parents wouldn't let me, which cassie will not have that problem.
Speaker 3:Cassie will have drums if she wants drums, um, but uh, I remember just being riveted by the. There was this emotion that I always felt connected to hearing something musically versus hearing someone just like talking at there's like this completely different experience. But I remember watching this band play and wanting to stay after and listen to them kind of play and goof around musically at the end. So I've always yeah, always been fascinated by music and started playing music, playing guitar, when I was 10 and then started playing in the church at a really early age. But yeah, music has always been a big part of my life, whether it's the playing of it, but also the listening and writing and just experiencing it. Music does something. For me and I think almost everybody else, that other stuff, other modalities, just doesn't do.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I understand that. I mean personally. For me, it's one of my favorite things. Music connects me, it energizes me and we see it culturally right. Like everybody, has their rage playlist. They've got their exercise playlist. They've got their this playlist, my sad playlist, my young adult daughters have a playlist for every emotion you could think about. You know and um, so clearly music puts two words or puts two, puts out there emotions that we don't know how to articulate otherwise. We're seeing it in the phenomena that is Taylor Swift right now.
Speaker 2:The entire world Because she has written music and engaged, become a voice for people who didn't know how to articulate the things that they were feeling Just by being herself, by being real.
Speaker 3:And something that she does so well and something that I think worship music really strives for, it's that the words that they're singing and the notes that they're singing and the instrumentation really lock up really well, and I think that that is something we talk a lot about in the worship arts department when we're playing or when we're getting ready for Sunday morning is making sure that musically so the instruments are kind of matching the vibe that the vocalists or the lyrics are even singing. So you know, if we're singing something about being triumphant and shouting, you know, unto God, that needs to be. The instrumentation needs to be verbose as well, and I think that's something that, if you've ever seen clips from her Eris tour or watched it, there's such a great job of. Just the music is almost its own character.
Speaker 2:It tells the story in itself, and it's its own character, I mean, I've always thought that, so yeah agreed, she is doing something pretty special yeah, and it is, um again, a testimony not just to how talented she is as a musician and a businesswoman, but also to the importance that music plays in the lives of humans in general. You know, we are, we are drawn to it. Whether you like a particular type of music or not, it speaks to us in a lot of ways. I know you talked about it being something that moved you emotionally, even when you were younger, and I resonate with that. It also became something for me. It was a vehicle with which I learned things, if that makes sense. So still to this day, there are many scriptures that I don't say I sing, yeah.
Speaker 3:No, I, because that's how.
Speaker 2:I learned them, I sang a song about them. Yep, so it definitely does speak to our inner being. Tell me a little bit more about the process. So what you said was key right, the instruments, everything has to gel together.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:So tell me a little bit more about the process that you go through when you're bringing music to the worship arts.
Speaker 3:We had done a podcast. I think Ashley and I did a podcast talking a little bit about this concept, but I think the big thing that is really important for everyone to know is, each week there is a theme, whether we're in a sermon series or there's a standalone, and I really try to pick music put together. You know the four songs that point towards or hammer home the. You know the meaning of or the theme of the sermon. So if we're talking about, you know the love that God has for us, we're going to sing songs about. You know God's love, and we're going to sing songs like Gratitude, which talks about the response to having gratitude for what God has done, and so that is a really important part of it.
Speaker 3:Music I think the role of music in worship it's to help us to continue to respond to what God is actively doing in our lives, but also to respond in a certain direction. So if we're talking about the need to have adoration for God, we're singing songs about that. If we're talking something that needs to be a little bit more reflective, we need to talk about trusting in God. There's a song that's called Trust in God and we sing it and the congregation loves it. So we're right now in the middle of a summer series called the Songs we Sing, and we picked five songs that we sing a lot at church and we thought it would be important to dissect them in the context of a sermon. So, each week, what the meaning of the songs is, some of the inspiration behind the songs and also some of the scripture references, because a lot of the songs that we sing there are scripture references that are sometimes obvious or not obvious at all, but most of our worship songs have that deep rooting in the Bible.
Speaker 2:Yep, and it is different, particularly for generations who went to church growing up as children. So people my age or older who were singing more traditional hymns for a large portion of their lives. A lot of those scriptures always felt very, a lot of those songs and the lyrics were right picked up out of scripture, right. So it's literally word for word what the king james or the niv says, and a lot more often what we find now is we're telling the story of scripture and we are.
Speaker 2:it's just as directly from scripture but, it isn't necessarily a word for word quote, and so people may not recognize, yeah, how intricately linked the things that we are singing are with what we know of god.
Speaker 3:Yeah, no, I I think that's and it's. It's so cool. I I love talking to people about music and how they connect to music. I know some people that really do connect to lyrics so they're. You know, I really love the poetry of the lyrics and then someone like me, I really connect musically, and I'm not just talking about worship music, I'm talking about all types of music yeah, um, where I really connect to the instrumentation.
Speaker 3:And there are times I can listen to a song three or four times and I could not tell you one word that was said, but I could sing the melody, I could tell you. The guitar solo in the, you know, after the second verse was whatever, whatever, whatever, um, and it's so cool that, although music is sort of this thing, that kind of has you know it's music, we, you know you know what music is.
Speaker 3:Yeah, but people can experience it and get such different and wonderful things out of it yeah, yeah, yeah, and that's um.
Speaker 2:You know, we often give the illustration of like, hey, some people like people like chocolate, some people like vanilla right, in terms of how we meet God in different ways. And so not only are there people who meet God exclusively in music, like that's really where they're being spoken to is through the musical word, and there are opportunities that they can connect in very real, very, very deep ways. And, admittedly, there are people where music isn't their first jam, it's not the first way that they hear God, and that is okay too. But there still can be things that we glean, that we learn, even if we're not.
Speaker 3:Yes.
Speaker 2:It's not our primary method of interaction with God. Tell me a little bit more about how you walk your band, um, and the leaders, the worship leaders, through introducing a new song, um, how do you bring them? Cast that vision for them?
Speaker 3:A lot of it is, so there's a lot of great resources, um, that already exist, um on YouTube or um. We use this thing called planning center and I can upload, so I always, whenever there's a new song or a song that we want to introduce, there's uh, they have it weeks in advance.
Speaker 3:So they can listen to it, get familiar with it. Occasionally, um, yeah, if, uh, if there's like um, every once in a while, you'll get a clip on YouTube or social media, even Instagram, of some artists you know, like a Brandon Lake, who writes music, talking about the inspiration behind the song, and I love sharing that with with them whenever possible, because I think when we have a better understanding of the why of the song, it will do a better job of um, of leading it because that's what we're doing.
Speaker 3:We're not performing on Sunday mornings we are leading the song for others to join in in worship, um, and then on thursday nights when we rehearse, we often will talk through okay, so at this part of the song, this is the um, this is where it gets bigger.
Speaker 3:Or there's this one song we just introduced a few weeks ago called crowns down, and the congregation really liked it. And there's this one line that just said in full abandon, um, basically talking about laying, laying down the my earthly things, um, at the foot of the cross. But there's this one part where it the lyrics sort of changed and josh kind of I'm one of our worship leaders kind of said I guess, can I sing that a little bit louder, can I sing? And I said exactly, yeah, that's what we want to do. So a lot of it is making sure that the intention behind each thing we sing, play, hit, strum, whatever you know it is, is matching the words of the lyrics. So it's also having an understanding of what the words are, the scripture references behind it. So a lot of it is just trying to give them resources to get a better understanding of the song.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and that applies for everyone right.
Speaker 2:So then we're sitting in the um, we're sitting in the congregation, participating and worshiping along with our worship leaders and um, they're able to lead us emotionally to places that we might not have been able to go before, because they've taken the time to prepare and go there. Yeah, and it does, and I'm that person, always you, I'm the person that's going to cry through the songs you know I'm going to be a bubble and mess and because it does speak to my heart in unique ways, and it is the method that I think God has often used to both encourage and refine me in different times in my life.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and the beautiful thing for me in worship the music part of it. So worship and I've given this definition before on the podcast is for me, worship is just an external adoration of God in direct response to what God is actively doing and has already done in my life. And music is a great way, one way. One way, exactly, but it's one way that sometimes stops the head, and it's more of the heart and I know.
Speaker 3:Jeff says that a lot you know talking about music, but it's a way to respond from a more emotional standpoint and it makes it easier to respond more emotionally and that's some of my favorite moments in worship where you can tell that there's this emotional response collectively to what's happening in the room or what's happening in the moment. Because, yeah, we have a God that loves us so much, that wants to be in a relationship with us, and our response is to worship him, is to literally fall at his feet or to praise him with everything that we are, all of those things. And when we do that with music, I think that's one great way to really, yeah, to just take it to another level of for emotional response, because I think sometimes when we're listening to a sermon, I'm really trying to take in the intellectual side of it and trying to understand and have a deeper understanding of who God is, and then there are moments where the emotion does come in. But I think for me, music is a great emotional response.
Speaker 2:Agreed. Is there a song in particular that you connect with emotionally?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think. Well, there's a lot. But I think, as a really good example, there's a song by Brandon Lake called Gratitude. We do it a lot and it's one of those songs where. So the first line of the song is all my words fall short, I've got nothing new. How can I express all my gratitude? And I think everyone on earth has felt that, as a relationship with God, that anything that I have is not enough. So then the chorus. So I throw up my hands, I praise you again and again.
Speaker 3:So the line I throw up my hands and praise you again and again has taken on an entirely new meaning for me, since I had my daughter Cassie. When Cassie is done, doing what she's doing, or when she fell on her butt the other day and I think it just more scared her and she got upset.
Speaker 3:And what did she do? She saw me and she just raised her hands and she didn't have the words because she doesn't really talk yet. And what that meant was I need you, I need you. So when we raise our hands in worship, that's sort of this physicalization of God. I need to be closer to you, I want to be, I want the distance between you and me to be less, yes, distance between you and me to be less, yes.
Speaker 3:So when we're singing those words, um, that to me, that raising of hands, or the desire to be close to god, or the desire to have a deeper relationship with god, that goes beyond any sort of intellectual thought and anything you know. And then we go to the bridge and the bridge has come on my soul. Um, you've got a lion inside. So there's this almost like this response of when we talk about the line, there's like this ferociousness inside of us um, so get up and praise the lord, which I think is this response to when we feel closer to god.
Speaker 3:When we experience that closeness, then there's this empowering to say I can do so much more than that. So that in the song is such a beautiful example of just how important it is. Sorry, I'm going to start that again. That won't be on my list, it just made me laugh. I know I'm like that song is such a beautiful example. Yeah, that is such a beautiful example of a song that breaks down the barriers between our intellect and sort of the emotional response to God, a physical response, not just singing because, worship is so much more than just singing.
Speaker 3:Worship is a posture. It's something that we talk a lot about as a worship team. It is a full body experience, the moments when you want to sit, the moments you want to stand, all of those things and that song is a great example of it, and the different parts. So there's the simple part of I don't think I have enough to give, but my desire to be close to you. That can be enough, because it's really not about you, it's not about me, it's about you, god, and then this sort of confidence that it comes within that bridge. Of that you've got a line inside of your soul.
Speaker 1:So let's just get up and praise the Lord.
Speaker 3:So yeah, so that is a perfect example for me of really how we can connect emotion for when we're singing, if we understand what we're singing and we're understanding the context of the song as a whole.
Speaker 2:Sure, yeah, oh my goodness, that makes so much sense and it resonates so deeply in me, andrew, and it's also one of the reasons I'm so excited about this summer series.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and on top of that, we actually put together a summer Hope Summer playlist which has the five songs that we're doing together, a summer Hope Summer Playlist, which has the five songs that we're doing during this summer series in July. But I also put five more songs that are either new, that we might introduce soon or are just other songs that we really like, and we'll have that available in the show notes and we'll share it on our social media and all things. We'll have it on different. If you're an Apple or Spotify, we can make all that work, uh, but my encouragement for you is to spend some time listening to the words. Spend some time, uh, listening to the emotion.
Speaker 3:If you like one of the songs, look it up on youtube and find a different version. That's one of my favorite things to do and that's a musical dork and Andrew speaking. I apologize, but hearing different ways of experiencing it, different versions of it. But music does something that's so incredibly special and this is just one playlist that we have. We have a lot of different playlists that I share with worship team members and all that stuff, but this is specifically kind of touching on this summer series.
Speaker 2:I love that and I love the idea that we can all be listening to the same, the same summer tunes at the same time. Yeah, so what process? The summer playlist that we're talking about, the summer song series?
Speaker 3:that we're talking about specifically right.
Speaker 2:What's your?
Speaker 3:favorite, but it took on a new meaning. My brother from another mother, frank, was in the hospital and he had a heart attack and I think a lot of you know about that. But that was a song he listened to a lot and so that song to me is just a newer song but it's just really special because it was this sort of rallying cry for him. But it was also this thing for me of just remembering that trusting in God not when it's easy. And there's some like, really like. There's some, some more obscure references to.
Speaker 3:There's a line that he's the fourth man in the fire which is an old Testament reference and they're going to get into that more during the sermon series. So I think that is. It's a. It's a good, rich song.
Speaker 3:But my favorite one is my soul sings, which has become a really popular worship song, um, at the church, and it's not one that is popular. It's not as popular in the rest of the world culture. Yeah, yeah. So like, if a song is popular, um, there will be like four different versions recorded and you know, brandon, like, we'll do a version, phil wickham will do a version, whatever, whatever. There's only ever been one version that I've been able to find and I just think it's such a great song. It's beautiful, yeah, and it's emotional and it speaks to the. It speaks to the intellectual, but it also speaks to the emotional, yeah, so, yeah, I think, and there's.
Speaker 3:I love that there is such a great. Um, saturation is what I'm going to use, but it's not um, there's such a great. Uh, let me start again. I love that there is such a diverse amount of music, specifically worship music, out, and it is literally impossible for me to listen to it all and to access it all. So, um, for anyone that's listening, if there's a song that you love, I would love to hear about it. So, uh, my email, andrew, at meet hopeorg I would love to share and hear the songs that you are listening to, because it's yeah, there's so much out right now worship music-wise, christian music-wise that I know I can't access at all, and I'm just always looking to hear new music and to hear things that people connect with, because I know that just because I connect with a music, a song in a certain way, doesn't mean someone else will.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, yeah, well, thank you, andrew. I'm really looking forward to continuing to walk through our sermon series and get to sing some of our favorite songs, but also spending some time in this summer playlist and really listening to what those words are saying to me, because there's some really great stuff in there. So, thank you so much. Listeners, like Andrew said, please feel free, shoot us a link with your favorite song that you're listening to right now, with what's moving you the most, and we look forward to seeing you next episode.
Speaker 1:Thanks for being a part of the hope community as we continue our conversations about faith and hope. If you don't already, please join us for worship on Sundays or on demand. You can learn more at meethopeorg or find us on socials at Meet Hope Church.