The Pastor-Worship Leader Relationship [Part 1]

In this episode, part 1 of 2, Bob and David are joined by CJ Mahaney, senior pastor of Sovereign Grace Church of Louisville, to talk about the relationship between a pastor and their music leader. Bob and CJ have a history of serving together for over 30 years, 23 of them in the same church. In this enthusiastic conversation, they talk about their history and some of the practices and insights that have contributed to a healthy and fruitful relationship.

Have a question about this episode? Shoot us an email at soundplusdoctrine@sovereigngrace.com

Follow us
Website: https://sovereigngracemusic.com​​​​​​
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SovereignGraceMusic
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sovgracemusic
Twitter: https://twitter.com/SovGraceMusic​​​​​​

Transcript

David Zimmer: Hey, welcome, this is the Sound Plus Doctrine Podcast. I am David Zimmer.

Bob Kauflin: I’m Bob Kauflin.

DZ: And we have a very special episode for you, a very special guest.

BK: We do.

DZ: Who do we have with us?

BK: We have CJ Mahaney, my senior pastor, my dear friend of… Wow, decades. It’s been a long time, yeah.

CJ Mahaney: It has been, my friend.

BK: So great to have you on this podcast, the Sound Plus…  When I asked you if you’d come I thought for sure you’d say, “No, I haven’t got the time. I’ve got more important things to do.” But you’re here, so thank you.

CM: I’m honored by the invitation. I’m assuming this is an indication that you boys are running out of guests.

BK: Pretty much.

CM: Yeah, yeah.

BK: We’ve done all… Covered all the topics we could cover.

CM: No, and didn’t you tell me you have five years of these done?

BK: Well, yeah, kind of.

CM: Yeah. You won’t post this until after I’m dead.

BK: This will post in 2026, we’re thinking.

CM: And you know what else? Your listeners need to know how you boys roll because what you get is an invitation from you…

BK: You’re welcome.

CM: You get a topic with no specification, no specific questions, then you get told that you’re not allowed to prepare. And then at the end of the invitation you’re informed it will be a blast.

BK: Yes, this is a special podcast.

CM: So here’s what I wanna say to you two boys, okay? I wanna say this might be a blast for you, sitting in your seats asking the questions might be a blast.

BK: Okay, tune in again next time when we will be doing part two with CJ.

CM: I don’t know that this is a blast for the person being asked the questions.

BK: I think it is.

CM: I’m not feeling like it’s a blast yet, but I am honored to be here and it’s a joy to hang with you boys for a few minutes.

DZ: Yeah, it’s like jazz, it’s just… It’s like jazz. We just get in a room and we improv.

BK: Amen.

CM: It’s like jazz? Oh, my…

DZ: So you came to the right place.

BK: He might not understand that reference.

CM: No. I know nothing about jazz.

DZ: Well, okay, well, let’s… Let me refocus our time.

BK: Let’s get into it.

CM: Yeah. Do you have any questions about sports?

BK: No.

DZ: No, this is not a podcast…

CM: ‘Cause that’s my expertise. Yeah, I didn’t think you did ’cause you are the music guys, yeah, yeah, yeah.

BK: I did use a sports analogy once, I think, on one our podcasts and it was embarrassing.

DZ: It was a horrible idea.

CM: No, don’t stray into sports, Bob.

BK: I won’t. I won’t.

CM: Yes.

DZ: Well, CJ, it’s so wonderful to have you.

CM: Thank you, man.

DZ: So how… Let’s start here, how did your relationship with Bob start, and how did it develop?

CM: I’m actually gonna turn that one over to Bob. Bob is more…

BK: Wait, I’m answering the question already?

CM: Well, yes, because you are…

BK: The first question?

CM: No, you are more the historian. You know that.

BK: Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah, definitely.

CM: So when did we meet, Bob?

BK: Yeah. I was in church in Philadelphia and you came up and spoke there. This was 1975. Actually… Yeah, I used to go see you at TAG in DC, there was a ministry called TAG, met Tuesday nights.

CM: But was that the church where I heard… You and Julie had your car stolen the night before?

BK: Yes. Yes, yes, yes, yes.

DZ: Oh, my goodness.

CM: So was that the first time I met you?

BK: That was the first time I think we actually met. Yeah.

CM: That’s right. So I am attending this church or had the privilege and joy of speaking at this church, and I’m sitting there and you are featured as a testimony.

BK: Yes.

CM: And your testimony… ‘Cause I do remember this vividly now, was… Because you shared it so calmly that you had had your…

BK: I was an idiot.

CM: No, you weren’t an idiot. It sounded like life in inner city Philadelphia, so…

BK: That’s true.

CM: Yeah, that’s what struck me initially was there doesn’t seem to be anything unusual to you and Julie about sharing this testimony that you awaken that day to discover your car had been stolen the night before.

BK: Yes, yes.

CM: So here’s what struck me there, was your trust in God and the, in effect, example you were setting for all of us who still had our vehicles about perceiving God’s good purpose in the midst of a trial. So I would have met you then after that meeting. Wow.

BK: That’s right. Yeah, yeah.

DZ: Wow. So cool.

CM: Okay. That comes back to me vividly now.

BK: That is pretty cool.

CM: I thought I had met you before that, but that’s when I met you. Wow.

BK: I was in a group called GLAD, and you were speaking at various conferences… Jesus… What do they call… Festivals, Jesus Festivals in the 70s.

CM: They were called festivals, yep. None of your listeners remember them ’cause none of your listeners were born ’cause none of your listeners were there. Yep. Yeah.

BK: We would look for where CJ was in the program and go find him, and that was… It was great, always a joy, because his passion for the Word, his passion for the Gospel, and then you were very funny, very funny. So that combination of things just made him, really, one of our favorite speakers, if not our favorite speaker.

DZ: That is so awesome.

CM: So then how did we interact from that point?

BK: Well, we became…

CM: So from the festival context, how did that transition to friendship?

BK: We moved down from Philadelphia to the DC area, and actually were gonna become a part of your church, but we’re told, because we live 45 minutes away, told by one of the pastors, “No, you shouldn’t be part of our church.” Which was wise counsel.

CM: Well, it doesn’t really qualify as local if you’re driving an hour and a half.

BK: No, it’s not really local. May have been an hour. So you recommend…

CM: We try to believe in the local church.

BK: He recommended a church…

CM: And you’d be… You were living in another state.

BK: We were. It was Virginia, you were in Maryland.

CM: It just works against… Yeah, the whole local church concept, so yeah.

BK: But we went to a church that was forming a relationship with the church you were at, and that’s how we started seeing more of you, I think.

CM: Yeah. So didn’t we talk about that transition?

BK: Well, when we were… Yes.

CM: Because I had… ‘Cause I had the opportunity to recruit you.

BK: You did.

CM: And unselfishly, I did not. Yeah.

BK: Yes.

CM: And this is awkward.

BK: Yeah, I know, but…

CM: ‘Cause now it appears I’m honoring myself. Well, I do remember that conversation. I’m saying this humorously, but seriously.

BK: Yes, that was one, yeah. And then the second significant conversation was 1983 when we had… I had planned to move back to Philadelphia to do inner city ministry.

CM: Wow. Okay. Refresh my memory.

BK: This was around Christmas time. Yeah, and Julie and I came over and asked you the question, “We’re thinking about moving back.” And actually, just I was thinking about moving back, Julie was not thinking about moving back. She definitely was not thinking about moving back, and so I was just trying to get a feel…

CM: She is the wife you don’t deserve. Go ahead.

BK: Oh, how many times I’ve learned that.

CM: Yep. You need to feature her on the podcast.

BK: That would be great, our wives.

CM: Can I recommend an interview with Julie?

DZ: That’s a great recommendation. Yeah.

BK: Well, both of us…

CM: You need me as your producer. You want this podcast to go somewhere?

BK: I knew this would get off the rails quickly. So anyway…

CM: Let me produce this bad boy.

BK: Anyway, we came over and asked… You told us of our situation and you said, “So tell me what you want to do.” And I said, “Well, I wanna go back to the inner city and do evangelism, lead music, do marriage counseling, work with the youth,” do all these things. And you said… And I’ve shared this many, many times with people who are in a decision-making process. You said, “You’ve talked about all the things you wanna do but you haven’t once mentioned who you wanna be with. And the Bible talks about joints and ligaments and sinews and there are relationships that God uses as means of grace to people. So what I’d suggest you do is find a place that is a means of grace to you through the people there, and then let the ministry flow out of that.”

DZ: That’s great.

BK: That changed my life.

CM: Wow. That’s encouraging.

BK: God used that to redirect me. Walking out of that meeting, I thought, “I’m not going back to Philadelphia,” because it was your teaching, or the teaching through the family of churches we were a part of that was such a means of grace to us. And we thought, “This is where… ” When we hear a message, we hear God speaking to us and we wanna do what’s being taught. And that was just a means of grace, so we ended up staying and it changed the course of our lives.

CM: Okay.

BK: So I was leading music in the church in Fairfax, Virginia.

CM: Okay. Had you… Has GLAD concluded yet? Or is…

BK: Well, I had left GLAD. Yeah, in ’84.

CM: Okay, okay.

BK: So you were in Gaithersburg, Maryland, and I was part of that church for six years till ’91. And it was during that time, which is how the relationship developed, that we… I began to lead at some of the conferences we had.

CM: Oh, that’s exactly right. Yes, oh, my, my.

BK: Celebration conferences, which were gathering…

CM: Sweet history we have there, yes.

BK: Yeah. In our family of churches, we’d get together for three and a half days and there’d be teaching and there’d be lots of worship and song. And we started to work together more closely then. And then in 1997, I was in a church in Charlotte, we’d moved to Charlotte, to plant a church. And then in ’97 we moved up to Gaithersburg, Maryland. You had asked me to come, not at your… It wasn’t your initial thought, someone else had suggested that he was gonna leave his position, role in the church, to work for Sovereign Grace Music. And he said, “Hey, maybe you should ask Bob to come.” So you did and I came in 1997. So we’ve been working in the same church since ’97.

CM: Wow.

BK: 23 years.

CM: Okay. In the same church.

BK: Yeah, in the same church.

CM: Our relationship dates back far. Do you think anybody is still listening to this podcast right now?

BK: Pretty much everybody’s checked out.

CM: As two old men reminisce.

BK: “Honey, do you remember a group called GLAD?”

CM: Your listeners are… Yes. GLAD, Jesus Festivals.

BK: Okay. Let’s move this along. Got another question for…

DZ: It’s wonderful. It’s wonderful. So Bob, I remember you saying, early on when I met you, that you saw something in CJ that was attracting you to just the gospel-centeredness, his excitement, and was there a decision… Just to clarify, was there a decision in your mind that said, “I want to serve with this man”?

BK: Oh, absolutely. In fact, we had said, years before, if… I wanted it so much that I said to Julie, ’cause she wanted to move to your church, and I said, “I’m not going near that with a 10-foot pole because I don’t trust my heart. I know that’s what I wanna do but I’ve gotta be asked to do that. ‘Cause I just think there’s too much… ” I thought it’d be just great. I’ve always respected CJ and his love for the Word, his love for the Gospel, his love for the church, his love for his wife and his family. All those things, I wanted to learn from those but I didn’t feel like it was something that I should initiate. So 1996, he did initiate. And so I ended up there. We ended up there.

DZ: That’s so wonderful. So CJ, how…

CM: David.

DZ: Being a non-musician…

BK: And I will confirm that.

DZ: How does that frame…

CM: It’s a bit more of a musical background than you boys seem to acknowledge.

BK: We don’t have time though. We just don’t have time.

CM: It’s fine.

DZ: How does that frame your thinking of the role that music plays in the church?

BK: Can I add something before you answer that?

DZ: Yeah.

BK: So one reason I wanted to have you on this podcast was I’ve told people for decades…

CM: Yes, why have you… Do you want me on this podcast? Go ahead.

BK: That you have been my primary mentor in terms of leading music in the church. Now of course, I’ve read some books that you gave me and many others since then that have formed and shaped and developed and cultivated that, but in terms of what I actually do, you have had the most… God has used you to have the most impact on me. So framing David’s question may be a little more precisely, how, as someone… You’re not a musician, you enjoy music.

CM: You guys are gonna just keep working that point, aren’t you? Yeah.

BK: We’ll keep saying that, yeah. How are you able to mentor someone in leading worship and song? What goes through your head? How do you think about that? Because I know, I assume there are pastors listening to this, watching it. I know there are pastors who have said, “Well, I’m not the music guy so it’s not my job. It’s not my job.” But you’ve never been like that for as long as I’ve known you. You’ve always cared about the music. Why?

CM: Oh, yes. Well, care deeply about the music because… Well, because of the gift music is, because of the combination of music as a provocation of singing, because of the difference singing makes as a means of teaching and a means of creating and cultivating our affections for the Lord Jesus Christ. The difference singing makes as we gather together, how God draws near through the singing of Gospel-centered songs. That list goes on and on and on, so… Yes, that’s always been a priority. Listen, it’s typically humble of you, Bob, to acknowledge whatever role I’ve been able to play in serving you.

BK: Just being real.

CM: No, it is. And it makes more of a statement about you than it does about me. What I saw on that first occasion in Philadelphia is what endures and only grows and what I tell people constantly who are coming to learn from Bob, that it’s what I’ve observed of the evidences of grace, of a heart of humility and a heart to serve privately that makes it easy for me to be on the shortlist of most enthusiastic public fans of Mr. Kauflin. Obviously, there’s a musical expertise, and I don’t know if your listeners are aware of his background and his training. And you have to extract these stories from him, you have to work hard to do so, and a number of them I’ve only been able to extract because we have worked together for decades. And when you are doing these conferences together and you are happily exhausted after four days and you are then taking a long drive together, it just does something relationally in terms of being able to draw one another out and hear about one’s past.

CM: So I know about what Bob’s training entailed at Temple, and I know that he had a particular professor who recommended that he would go to Broadway. So obviously, that individual was perceiving these pronounced gifts in Bob’s life, and I’m so grateful to God the Lord saved him and instead of Broadway, he’s made his way into the local church where he’s been able to write songs that have glorified God and been sung throughout the world. So when Bob identifies me as playing this role in his life, I think that’s more a reflection of his humility. But how spoiled am I, David, how spoiled am I? So, for decades I have been able to serve with this man leading our singing, so…

BK: Okay, back to the question.

CM: I don’t know. I don’t talk about this much personally because I would understand other pastors listening, possibly being tempted to envy. I get that, but how grateful to God I am that we have been able to serve together. And he is… Yeah. He is my favorite worship leader. But the priority of the gathered church singing to The Savior together and all that scripture describes about that priority and that experience is why music and who leads is so important. Whoever is leading the singing… This is how we view it, we approach it. I understand that it can be a challenge to be consistent with this in every context, local church context, but ideally, I think the individual, the guy leading the singing needs to be… He needs to be pastoral, he needs to be viewed as one of the pastors because his role is teaching. He’s not just starting songs… He’s not just choosing songs and starting songs, he’s teaching theology.

DZ: Yeah, that’s right.

CM: So you just couldn’t have a better individual leading them. Bob… Because Bob is a pastor, and that’s what I think… People who don’t know Bob see him from a distance. They’re familiar with Sovereign Grace music, but if you don’t know him personally, that’s his heart, that’s what… So there’s a personal humility and then there is a pastoral heart, and that’s what informs his role as the one who leads us in singing.

DZ: Yeah.

CM: Not sure that answers your question.

DZ: It does answer my question.

CM: Yeah. Be more helpful if you guys gave the questions ahead of time, but…

DZ: Well, so CJ, you said there’s a… Bob, and we know this to be true, Bob is marked by humility and a pastor’s heart. For a pastor that’s listening, how would you cultivate that in your worship pastor? Can you speak to that?

CM: Oh, I think I can.

DZ: Because I know that there’s pastors probably listening that don’t have the rich experience and decades of working together. They might be… It might be a brand new relationship. So how would you cultivate that?

BK: Yeah. So let me take you back to when I first came to…

CM: Take me back.

BK: Gaithersburg, Maryland. I’m still not very humble, but I know I wasn’t very humble then, less humble then. I remember almost every Sunday after leading, you would come up afterwards and talk to me about what I had done. And you’d begin with encouragement, and then you… Very specific, “This was good, this is really helpful, this is really helpful,” And they say now, “I wanna share a couple other things… ” but this didn’t affect what happened, us encountering the Lord but, “I think that it’d be helpful.” And then you shared very specifically. And then you would turn around and thank everyone in the band and you do that to this day. And I just wanna say, if you’re a pastor listening to this, watching this, if you follow that example, your musicians will be a lot more receiving of anything you have to say to them. But my question was, when I came at the start, how were you thinking about mentoring me, just helping me? What categories did you have and how do you help a guy who’s maybe a little defensive? ‘Cause I know I was and still can be.

CM: Well, I think you develop the relationship privately. So what you’re describing of being able to approach you publicly after a meeting, and we can get into that a little bit more, but it has to form privately. So there has to be a trust that forms relationally in private over a period of time. A respect that exists, a history… So you, though, have been easy to approach in this way, and because of your humility, because you do desire to grow, because you invite this, you pursue this, and you invite this so you make it easy for me. So what would I say to any worship leader I was interacting with? I would say… I would say to them, “Well, you need to study humility.”

BK: And you wrote a book on it, matter of fact, that I would be happy to commend.

CM: As a proud man, I wrote a book and I’m still a proud man pursuing humility by the grace of God. But as I look back, early for me, early study of Proverbs, Derek Kidner holding my hand, his excellent commentary. And a phrase that I remember vividly from those early times of study that has served me to this day is he writes about how wisdom’s frequent companion is correction.

DZ: Wow.

BK: That’s a good one.

CM: Wisdom’s frequent companion is correction. So if you want wisdom, if you desire wisdom, if you value wisdom, you’re gonna have to pursue wisdom. And one of the means of maturing in wisdom is correction. Now, I’m gonna be quick to say, I wish there were alternatives.

CM: And if there were, I would have already discovered them, pioneered them and written a best selling book. And if you leave me to my preference, I’d much rather just stay within the confines of James 1, where I just privately pray for it and the Lord kindly gives it to me. But there are many means of pursuing correction for the purpose of experiencing and growing in wisdom. And one of them is inviting others who you trust, who you respect, who have sufficient theological discernment to serve you and ask for their evaluation of you. But what you do, Bob, is you make it easy by inviting. So it has never been difficult for me to approach you and yes, that practice, I’m always glad to hear that it has served you. I believe every senior pastor, lead pastor, not necessarily right after a meeting, we have such a history of relationship that this works easily right after a meeting. But at some point during the week following and… Well, ideally, I would say right after the meeting…

BK: I would say ideally right after the meeting.

CM: They should identify evidences of grace. Because I think worship leaders are, understandably, they’re just very prone to be more aware of what didn’t go perfectly or ideally. And they’re often thinking musically, when in fact those in the congregation didn’t perceive anything.

BK: Yeah. Oh, absolutely.

CM: And the singing wasn’t hindered in any way, which is what is most important. So the singing and the voices and the affections, that’s what I’m listening for. That isn’t to minimize the importance of the band and the band performing or serving proficiently, etcetera, but I want you, every Sunday, to know, here are the evidences of grace and yes, we did it in this past Sunday. And then, yeah. I think it’s like, “Duh. Obvious 101.” Yes, you should thank the musicians. And every Sunday, in our church, since we are renting space, they are normally surrounded by people serving and taking down all they set up. The minimum, the least I can do is make my way to each of those individuals and thank them for their investment in serving. And when it’s the musicians, what I want to do is thank them, first of all, for their personal example of passionately worshipping. I’m very grateful for their skill, but their skill is secondary to me. They’re not performers. You have assembled passionate worshipers.

CM: Again, not dismissing skill, minimizing skill. You need skill. If there wasn’t skill, that would be very distracting and they wouldn’t get the job done. But I’ve seen plenty of skillful musicians who I don’t think are compelling examples of true worshippers. So that’s what I’m thanking those people for. Primarily, although… I do say this regularly, “Thank you for the countless hours of practice in private that prepared you so that you can, it seems to me, effortlessly do this on Sunday in order to serve us.”

BK: I remember one concert… I guess it was a Christmas concert or something. Might have been a Sunday morning, where you came up and thanked the choir… Or maybe I thanked the choir. And this is another one of those mentoring moments. Thank the choir, “Hey, thank you. Isn’t it great? Didn’t these guys do a great job?” Something like that. And I remember you coming to me afterwards, not like immediately, like making a beeline for me, but just some point during the week, just saying, “You know, when you thank the musicians… ” Just what you said, “You always wanna highlight their character, you always wanna highlight who they are, before… Or rather than just highlighting their skill.” It’s one of those things that just has stayed with me for decades, because it makes such a difference in terms of what our focus is. ‘Cause what we focus on, from the platform, is what the people are gonna focus on. So if someone sings a solo, and the person gets up and says, “Boy, doesn’t she have a great voice?” That’s what people are gonna remember. She has a great voice. Rather than, “You know what I love, along with the fact that she sings so beautifully? Is that she sings from a heart that is in love with her Savior.”

CM: Yes. Exactly right. Those people, they aren’t performing. They aren’t professionals performing. They obviously often have professional-grade skill, but that’s not what they’re about. They have hearts to serve. That’s their passion. So yeah, that’s what I want to draw their attention to. And you know what? That’s evident in a number of ways. It’s evident by how they participate in the singing, because people are obviously looking at the words projected onto the screen. But in our view, is the band. And so their example is setting an example or not. And then the way you have wonderfully trained them to, not just play skillfully, but to play selectively. So what I was able to say to Ben, on lead guitar, Sunday was, he came in… I forget which song it was, but he came in in a way, which was… It provoked us. And then he withdrew. So it’s not as if this mass, this wall of sound is coming at us. No, they’re there to serve, so they play selectively at your direction, to provoke what is of ultimate importance to us, which is the sound of voices. The sound of voices who have been humbled by the Gospel, who love the Lord Jesus with all their heart, soul, mind and strength, joined together, singing to Him and encountering Him. That’s what they’re facilitating and making possible. And provoking, rather than distracting us.

BK: So you’re just… What’s the word? Very intentional. You’re communicating all these truths about congregational singing that you’ve imparted to me and to many others. So my question…

CM: As a non-musician.

BK: As a non-musician, that’s right. [chuckle] That’s exactly right. So I’m still interested in hearing from you, when you would watch me lead in the early years… ‘Cause I know of so few pastors who do this, really. They’re getting ready for their message, that’s on their heart, they’re burdened for that, but you are there, engaged in the singing, thinking, “Hmm. I wonder what could make that better? Oh, that was really good.” And remembering, by the end of the meeting, the specific things. So what kinds of things should a pastor be looking for? Obviously, you’re engaged. It’s not like, “I’m just gonna take out my notepad and just write down things about it.” You’re one of the most demonstrative singers in the congregation, and that has been another…

CM: It can be dangerous to stand next to me.

BK: Yeah, you can. You are. You are. But that’s been an example to me. I remember hearing you sing and saying things in between lines like, “That’s true,” or, “It’s so good,” or something like that. And I’m thinking, “Wow, he’s really thinking about what we’re singing about. I’m just singing.” So part of that’s who you are, but I think a part of it is your intentionality that these songs matter. They mean something. Now remember, this is not a great example of how to plan, but we would have the songs ready for Sunday, and then I’d meet with you in your office Sunday morning while rehearsal was going on, and then sometimes we’d change the songs. But you’d be talking about…

CM: We are legitimate charismatics. We’re continuations, which is what we prefer…

BK: We’d be talking about how this fits together and why. So what categories are you thinking of when someone’s leading? What are some of the things…

CM: You’ve asked a hundred questions.

BK: Okay. Well, here’s my one question.

CM: Okay. No, no, let me just… I’ll start where I wanna start.

BK: No, this is dangerous. If you just

CM: No, I’m having to take over because you two guys, you do a great job normally, but you just asked like 16 questions.

BK: We’re already at max time. Tell you what…

CM: Here’s where I’ll start. For a lead pastor, what’s most important for the lead pastor? I think what’s most important is that he be a compelling personal example of someone who is humbly participating in the singing and passionately participating in the singing. So that’s what I would say to any lead. And what I would say to senior pastors, lead pastors is, “People are studying you, they are studying you. You are in their peripheral vision. And if you are there… ” I’d say a couple of things. “First of all, if you are there still preparing your message, well, you’re making a statement that the singing isn’t really of utmost importance to you. You don’t wanna make that statement.” Second, I would just say, like I practically, “It’s too late.” Like if you…

CM: “You need to pray that they’ll hear a better sermon than you’ve prepared, ’cause nothing that’s gonna happen in that last 15 minutes, is gonna make any dramatic difference in your preaching.” But no, primarily, I don’t do it, first and foremost, to set an example. I do it because of all the wonderful commands and invitations in Scripture to participate. But yes, I am aware and I do want to set an example for all those who are watching me. So that’s what I would say to any senior pastor or lead pastor, they must be a personal example. People are studying them. And if it just appears that the singing is a formality and that they are unaffected by it and not participating in it, you are making a very loud statement by your example that this is actually not of utmost significant importance to the Sunday meeting. You don’t wanna make that statement. So I would say to that pastor, “Do you have a theology of worship? Do you have a theology of singing? You shouldn’t assume that. And what are your personal devotional times like? Can you be heard singing when you are alone?” And so we’d have a lot of private work to do before we brought that into the public context. But that, of the 16 questions you asked me, that would be where I would start, if I was interacting with any lead pastor.

BK: There’s a lot more to say, but we gotta shut this thing down.

DZ: Yeah, we do. Yeah

BK: ‘Cause we care.

DZ: We do care, and we’re gonna move on to a part two with CJ. And we’re very excited that you would come and join us for this podcast, so we’ll see you in Episode 2.

BK: Thanks for joining us.