The Desert to the Dead Sea: Transformation Through Worship and Mission

In this inspirational episode of Song Lab Podcast, we welcome David and Josiah Paluski from Renew – a mission-based organization committed to sharing the gospel through innovative technologies and storytelling. This ministry reaches out to unreached groups in the Amazon and various parts across the globe, using films, videos, and solar-powered audio Bibles, where little Christianity exists.

Renew faced the massive challenge of conveying the story of Jesus in a language and culture alien to tribes in the Amazon. They found the answer in the Jesus Film, a gospel film that could be dubbed into any language. Their transformative encounter came when they shared this film in the heart language of the tribe. Drama ensued when a tribal chief, fell ill and experienced a miraculous healing that resulted in an explosion of faith throughout the entire region.

Using technology, including solar-powered DVD players and a portable, mini movie theater, Renew keeps bringing the gospel to many. They have extended their reach across the entire 1040 window, influencing millions of lives in rural, hard-to-access areas through a medium they understand and connect with.

Music, along with worship, has proven to be a powerful tool in preaching the gospel. Missions organizations that rely heavily on worship have reaped significant rewards as they combine faith's missional, monastic, and musical aspects to draw in newer generations of believers. This episode dives into the power inherent in music, its influence on younger generations, and its potential use where Christian music scarcity exists.

Incorporating real illustrative stories about the significant influence music has had on gospel spread and the value it brings to Christian missions, including the impact of music on Christian values within the young population. Music extends beyond corporate worship and entertainment; it is a form of inspiration, motivation, and prophetic outreach that creates a deep connection to people's souls, calling them to a higher calling in their Christian journey.

The speakers discuss and stress the importance of weaving personal relationships into our discipleship process and share fascinating stories about the power of music in leading worship and reaching people. They also delve into the potential of everyone, through authentic worship, to connect deeply with the divine in many unique and individual ways.

Mission, worship, and creative expression intersect in the church. Recognizing one's true calling, reaching the lost, and mobilizing the saved can save one from stagnancy seen in the church. Using art as a bridge to cross cultures and introduce individuals to God's reality and glory, we can inspire the next generation of worshipers, worship leaders, and creatives, to keep telling God's story and glorify God in profound ways.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
You can never pass away, oh Jesus!
Welcome to the Song Lab Podcast. This is Michael and Meredith Malden,
where we discuss all things worship, music, transforming culture through arts,
creativity, what was it? Family. Family.
I never remember the intro. Something like that.

(00:22):
But this is how it goes. And so today we are with David and Josiah Pileski over
at, did I say your last name right? You did. You nailed it.
For basically one of the first times ever, someone actually nailed our lesson.
All right. Thank you. Yes. And we're at their ministry called Renew.
And they do something incredible that I haven't seen any other ministry do.
First of all, they are a missions organization, but they create technologies

(00:43):
to be able to get the gospel into some of the darkest parts of the world.
Whether it's film, videos, whether it's, what are these things?
Solar powered audio bibles. Solar powered audio bibles. to turn cell phones
into Bibles and kind of be like a tool that can help rally people to get the
Word of God into places that are restricted or difficult to access.

(01:04):
So we've been having conversations with these guys about the global missions
movement and the power of worship and music to be on the forefront of that,
to get the gospel into places that maybe we're preaching is illegal or it's
illegal to preach the gospel, bring Bibles, but music is legal.
And it's caused us to have some really interesting conversations that we would
love to bring you guys into, we think to provoke you into the greater purposes

(01:26):
of your calling in the context of worship and arts and creativity.
And so I would love for you guys to share briefly about Renew,
maybe in how you guys got started, because I think the starting of this story
down in the Amazon even includes film and creativity and arts and the miraculous.
And so maybe you'd share that story so we can hear a little bit about you guys

(01:48):
and where you're from. Sure. Well, I guess that's mine because you were pretty small.
Right around 2000, I think is when my wife and I, I'm an engineer.
She's an artist and she's a missionary. And we had a couple of little kids and
we both felt in our heart to start reaching out to unreached people groups,

(02:09):
specifically in the Amazon.
And we just had some buddies that we said, okay, let's go do that.
So an amazing story, but we end up in the middle of the Amazon,
finding an unreached people group out in the middle of nowhere through some local people in Peru.
And we ran into a huge challenge. And that challenge was how do we communicate
with them this incredible story of Jesus and our intimacy with him and our relationship

(02:34):
with him when we don't understand their language,
but we also don't understand their culture and how they would receive what we were saying.
So we had to get creative and we found a very creative group called Jesus Film
and they had made this movie that was the gospel that could be dubbed with the
story of Jesus from the book of Luke and we made this film.

(02:56):
Brought it out in the middle of the jungle dubbed it with their language that
was a great story all by itself and showed it to this group of tribal people
now they had never seen a movie before,
so and we're out middle of jungle so they went to the back side of the screen
to see if the back side of jesus's head was like you see back there they're
kind of checking it all out and after they settled down figured out i get what

(03:17):
this is it was in their heart language for two hours they didn't move they didn't
breathe even the babies didn't make noise it was miraculous when it was was over,
they came up to us and they said, we've been waiting our whole lives to hear this story. No way.
Now, if we had just told them a story, or I'll back up more,
if I'd given them a book, they couldn't read.
If we had just told them the story, they wouldn't have understand much of it

(03:41):
because they couldn't get the context of it because they don't know what a road
is because they live in the jungle and they've never seen a door before.
So an open door and many of the the analogies and concepts. Yeah.
It's like, it's all, it's also foreign to them, but when they could use the
creativity of dramatized art in a sense, you know, movies, which was there,

(04:04):
they don't know what that is.
It totally laid the context for them to enter into the story and meet Jesus.
So that's, that's how we got started. When we saw that happened,
it kind of ruined us for normal living. And we realized maybe we're onto something.
Wow. But part of the thing that ended up really launching that story was in, in the middle of,

(04:24):
so I remember being nine years old and getting on a boat with like our little
house church and going days and days and days into the jungle until we,
we get to this spot where the indigenous come out of the jungle and meet us.
And we set up this projector, you know, 400 and some pounds of equipment back then.
And, and since these people had never seen a movie before, like anytime
time the the projector screen flexed everyone would go oh because

(04:46):
like the the noses would get really big on the people and they were like whoa
they thought it was like a special effect in the movie but um
that's not what we're trying to say and so we
we you know we celebrated the people and we we got to
know them better and and we shared food with them and everything
was going great but then the next day after we we showed
the film after they had eaten the food that we we shared

(05:07):
with them their chief completely unrelated to to any of this gets horribly sick
with like some something that we we still don't know what it was where any if
he tried to drink any water he would spit it all out and he couldn't drink water
and then he just started to dehydrate and so we didn't know what to do we're praying we're.
Trying to arrange for a speedboat to get him out of

(05:28):
the jungle but we're literally days away from any civilization so
it would take a really long time to get him to plus we had
a health worker there yeah and she said he probably won't make
it because she pinched him and it just stayed pinched he was that dehydrated
so he's so he's dying with some some sickness that he brought with him out of
the jungle that that probably a spiritual aspect to it to be honest because

(05:48):
this is the first time that the entirety of the gospel had ever been preached
to this people group so So this is their chief.
This is their chief. Okay. And he's dying in front of you guys.
Our open door to the tribe.
He's like the man of peace. Like when Jesus talks about when you go into a community,
look for a person of peace.
That's this guy. He's the one who asked for us to come. So what are you guys feeling at this point?
We're super stressed out because we're like, he's, and actually I remember there

(06:10):
was a captain of this boat that we went on to get all the way,
like this ancient boat from the, I think the 1800s, like we get on to go way
deep into the, into the jungle to, you know, literally it had been on the ocean.
Like it's like like a pirate ship basically that we go way deep
into the jungle on and the captain of the pirate ship was a
pirate himself was basically a pirate nice no he was not
a nice guy um his name was neil i remember and he came

(06:32):
to my mom and he said this man is gonna die and
they're gonna believe that he died because you gave him m&ms
because he had eaten some of our m&ms and he said and then
really bad things are gonna happen to you because this
guy died and they're gonna think that you did it and they're gonna tell all their friends
he's basically like saying they're gonna kill you and we're like whoa and for
us it means the door is closed to the amazon after three years of work

(06:54):
oh my gosh we would lose all that work yeah all
the relationship yeah yeah and so we're interceding i
was i was watching this you know i was nine years old and and i
got kind of i was like man this is sad so i left and was back on the boat in
the pirate ship and while i was gone the holy spirit falls on this man he leaps
out of his deathbed and he begins this is kind of where like the arts and celebration

(07:15):
come in this is a very you guys pray for him wait so We've been interceding
for him this whole time for like a couple hours while we're trying to figure out what to do.
It was actually like a day or two. We kept praying and praying, nothing.
So I'm about to put him back in the boat and say, well, if he's going to die,
at least we'll be trying to get to a hospital. Hail Mary, just like try that.
This is like something. We didn't kill him.
Exactly. Like this is it. And everybody's, we're getting these lovely responses

(07:36):
like, well, he's going to die anyway.
So one of the tribal guys who saw the Jesus film and thought,
well, look what Jesus did.
Yeah. Said, well, let's just pray one more time. And, you know,
I'm deep faith. I'm going, I've been praying for two days, you know?
So we put them on this like rug thing and we just grabbed a corner and hauled
them to the corner of our little building we were in, this floating hut above the river.

(07:59):
And one of the guys just started praying to the Jesus that he saw in the video.
And at that moment, the Holy Spirit fell and the chief Artemio jumped up on
his feet and started running around the room.
Now, the tribal people started screaming and then so did the local Peruvians
because there's a tradition there that says right before someone dies,

(08:21):
they run around fast and they fall over.
So everybody was like, this is it.
I didn't know this then. And so they're all like, he's running around and he's
screaming, right? And here's what he's yelling.
He's going, this Jesus is not just for the white man.
This Jesus is not just for the Peruvian. This Jesus is for our tribe.

(08:46):
And he said, and this is how he wants to be praised.
And he begins wildly dancing. And this tribe is very stoic, very serious. They don't dance.
They're not really a dancer. He's waving his hands in the air.
He's jumping up and down. And then people aren't doing it, his people.
So he's grabbing their hands and raising them in the air, showing him how they
should be worshiping. Of course, they're going to obey him.

(09:08):
Wow. So they're all terrified. Your hands are up.
It's a very stiff worship service. A different kind of put your hands up.
Like, everybody come to the front.
So then the captain comes back, right? Captain comes back. He sees what's happening.
And the way that he said it to my mom, he said, where's the dead guy?
And she was like, he's there. And he was like, no, like, where's the dead guy?
And my mom said, that is the dead guy.

(09:29):
Captain falls on his knees. He repents. He becomes a Christian right there.
No way. So you got the pirate too? Exactly. We got the pirate. We got the chief.
Thank you, James. This story, there's a photo that we have of this chief as he's getting healed.
And behind him, one of the men who was watching this was training,
we learned later, to be a witch doctor. Watch this whole thing happen.

(09:50):
He quits his witch doctor training. He ends up getting trained to be a missionary.
He goes back and reaches his own people.
But that's kind of what started to happen in this tribe. As people started to
hear the story, they started to ask to hear the gospel.
And suddenly transformation starts breaking out in this community,
unlike it had ever happened before in the whole history of their existence. Wow.

(10:10):
That's where it started. So at that point, you guys were like, okay, we're hooked.
That was it. We're ruined. Yeah, yeah, we're ruined. So in our case,
we never got into the missions and technology space because we were technologists.
My dad has an engineering background, so he does have that skill.
But it was because when we were trying to reach this people group,
that was the only way that we could, was using technology to overcome the barriers

(10:32):
of illiteracy and of access of electricity, things like that.
Plus they came to me, the chief came to me and he said, you bring us the gospel, meaning let us do this.
And that's when I realized, wait a minute, God's gifted me with something.
For me, it's not music, but it was engineering.
Yeah. And that's when I went, wait a minute, I do have gifts that I can use.

(10:53):
And so I invented a solar powered DVD player that Chief Artemio and others could
take up and down the rivers to show the story of Jesus to their people.
Wow. And that kept growing until we had a solar powered movie theater that fits
in a little backpack that they could paddle up and down the rivers and show
the same story and share Jesus with their people in a way they could understand.

(11:13):
And now to date, hundreds of, this isn't through just Renew,
but the tools that Renew has made, put into the hands of many missions organizations.
Hundreds of missions organizations around the world have been used to share
the gospel with hundreds of millions of people, mostly in unreached areas.
So rural parts of the 1040 window, really difficult to reach areas,

(11:33):
have found that one of the most effective ways to communicate the gospel is
using audio and visual media, using technology, using...
I mean, that's my story. I mean, I didn't grow up in church,
and so I was discipled by Martin Scorsese and Al Pacino and Snoop Dogg.
Not the best disciple. Yeah, yeah.
But that's what gave me my worldview, and the power of that media shaped me.

(11:54):
And so I've always been a big proponent of arts and creativity and entertainment
for the purposes of being able to show people what God looks like.
And so you guys, your whole ministry is that. You guys are distributing the
gospel through these different platforms.
And so you guys, I know you're connected to all these missions organizations
around the world. They use your technology.

(12:15):
So you guys are on the forefront of how God is moving in these different areas.
I know we started having some conversations about missions and some missions
organizations that don't have worship connected to it, they end up becoming
very dry, like the desert.
And some missions organizations that are very worship driven,
but lack the missional aspect of it, they become like the Dead Sea, right?

(12:37):
They have all this influx of presence of God information, but then they become
almost incestuous and a little weird, right?
And so there's like this needing for the blend of the missional and the monastic
and worship together. We've talked about that, but what are you guys seeing?
Because you've made comments to me, David, about the necessity of worship or
this worship being the spearhead or music being the spearhead of missions. What are you seeing?

(13:03):
It's kind of a big picture. I feel
like there's a whole generation of new believers coming onto the planet.
It's starting now, but it's ramping up in places you wouldn't even imagine that
maybe we don't want to talk about in a public setting.
Is going to have, I believe, a sound that is, in a sense, common to them.

(13:28):
It's just a sound that they're attracted to.
And I believe that that sound is a carrier for the message.
It's a super highway, just like I used a movie for my tribal people.
I believe that for this next generation, that music is going to be the carrier
of the message of Jesus, and it'll go straight into the heart of the next generation.

(13:51):
And that's all the way from remote places in the Middle East to our local high schools.
I think that music is going to be that platform.
The super highway. Super highway to deliver the message of Jesus to the next generation.
But that's so true. Music is a highway.
It's a highway of connection in so many different ways. And you notice it with kids, especially.

(14:15):
My kids are now 12 and 13, and they're starting to... You know,
music is so important at that stage.
And it's like everything they're just gravitating towards.
And so it's like if you can have music that actually has a message,
you know, of life and godly, you know, just hope and all of those things,

(14:35):
I just feel like it has such a way of getting into that next generation that nothing else does.
I think a big thing that we don't usually understand in the West is that when
there's a scarcity of a specific type of media in a specific language,
then it carries a whole bunch more power than in a place that's saturated.
So in the U.S., we have a massive worship industry.

(14:58):
But like, I think my dad remembers when like, if you went and tried to buy a
Christian album, it was like the Gaithers and the Gaithers and the Gaithers
and the Gaithers and like that one Johnny Cash album, that one Bob Dylan album,
those two Bob Dylan albums, right?
And that was like, that was Christian music. There was not a lot until,
you know, the 70s, the Jesus movement, then more stuff started coming out.
You have a little bit more stuff started breaking into the Christian mainstream.

(15:22):
But around the world, in so many of these communities where the gospel is starting
to spread, they don't have any Christian music yet.
And so once Christian music, music that actually carries the power and presence
of God breaks into these communities, it spreads like wildfire because there's no other option.
And they haven't experienced like, I think a lot of us remember the first time

(15:44):
we heard like a song that actually spoke to our hearts.
You know was what i think for me one of the ones that i remember back
to is that that album of what was the enter the worship circle do
you guys remember that when was that like 2003 or
something like 2002 we heard it in oh four oh five no five oh six because we
were we were in ywam yeah yeah so like our community was kind of like you know

(16:09):
folky hippie sort of type so when that album dropped it was you know it was
djembe driven it wasn't like drums driven which was which was super super,
you know, avant-garde for that time. I don't think that's the right word,
but it was just kind of shocking.
And for me, it was like, it kind of redefined what worship could look like,
because suddenly you could have living room, like worship in a living room.

(16:31):
It's not just in a church setting. It's not just with the choir.
It's not just, you know. It's accessible. Exactly. It's accessible.
So that's something that I think the next wave of missions is going to look
like, breaking into all of these new cultures and language groups with art that
that actually speaks like their heart language in a sense.
You know, the type of art that actually cuts deep into their spirits and speaks to them.

(16:57):
And I don't think this just applies to the church. I think that that same art
is also going to reach people who don't know Jesus and is going to end up being
the spearhead that breaks into new communities,
that introduces people to the entire
narrative of Jesus and what the implications of that are for them too.
I love that. There's a quote, It's either attributed to Damon of Athens or some

(17:18):
politician in Scotland.
He says, let me write the songs of a nation and I care not who writes its laws.
And it's such a powerful quote because it's so true because the younger generations,
they don't care what the laws are, but the music goes right into the heart,
you know, and it speaks that, it speaks the, gives them language for their heart, so to speak.
I would love to ask that question just in general, like in the missions organizations

(17:41):
that you, you know, you're connected to, or even just places that you go,
you know, are a lot, do a lot of them have their own music and their own sound?
And the ones that do, is there a difference?
Yeah. Yeah. So I think I can think of two examples that I think are doing this
really well and they're connected to each other.
So one of them is is YWAM, specifically YWAM Kona. And there's some other bases as well.

(18:03):
A second one is Circuit Riders, but for two different reasons.
So maybe can I dig into those? Oh, please.
Okay. So I went and did a discipleship training school in YWAM on the,
you know, YWAM stands for Youth With A Mission.
It's a missions organization that's been around since I believe the sixties,
kind of invented the short-term mission trip.
You know, before YWAM, people didn't really go on mission trips.

(18:24):
You were either like, you know, getting your family and moving into Papua New
Guinea for the rest of your life, or you weren't involved in missions.
You know, that was kind of how the Christian world was.
So I went and did a discipleship training school at YWAM, and the way that I
saw them use music was really fascinating.
They used music as a way to mobilize young people into missions.

(18:47):
And so my experience before this has been music as corporate worship,
right? Or music as entertainment.
So we have like the worship industry, you know, that's music as corporate worship,
and we have kind of the CCM world, which is music as entertainment.
You know, that's basically what it is, which isn't bad. No, it's not a bad thing.
Entertainment is not always bad.
But I saw new categories of music when I started to interact with some of these

(19:10):
other organizations that I didn't even know existed.
In the case of YWAM, they use music as mobilization.
So like they have this song called the Missionary Anthem, and it has this bridge,
which is like the harvest is ready.
We have to go. We won't stop till the whole world knows the power of the blood to save every soul.
I'm not we're not ashamed of the gospel. And watching hundreds of young people

(19:31):
who are about to be sent out into the nations,
just singing this anthem and watching that
the the culture and the value system
of valuing the call of jesus to reach everyone
with the gospel i realize that music doesn't just
have to be used as an expression of corporate worship it can actually be used
to to sort of raise up an army you know and unify and unify people exactly and

(19:54):
the world does this all the time i mean if you if you look back at like woodstock
and the hippie movement terrible end game like like terrible impact on society.
So many negative things came out of, like a total deterioration of the family
unit came out of the 1960s and 70s.
But what you saw is music being used as a rally point that created a culture.

(20:16):
And so that's what I saw. I saw at YWAM, which was really powerful.
And I think the second one was Circuit Riders.
In their case, they weren't so much using it to, they were still using music
to rally, But they were also using music to reach the lost and also to mobilize
the saved, which was kind of similar to what I saw at YWAM.

(20:39):
I remember, are you guys familiar with Circuit Riders? Have you connected with
them much? We've connected with some of the musicians in Los Angeles.
I know Lindy and some people.
So can I tell a Lindy story? Oh, please.
Okay, this is like the funniest moment in Circuit Riders, but it illustrated
the way that they're using music for me. So we were on tour, right?

(21:00):
So it's where you get like a band of people together and then you go college
campus to college campus to reach people and you use music again as a missional spearhead.
So it's the thing that draws everybody together. It draws the crowd and then you preach the gospel.
You get people connected into discipling relationships and music is that in road.
So we're at a stop and Lindy Kofor is like leading this, this set.

(21:25):
And she's like super, super sick.
You know, she, that was back before, remember before COVID when we get sick
and we just be like, you just do it anyway.
You just go, okay, I have to do this thing. I'm going to do this thing.
So that was pre COVID. So that was what you did.
And so she, she had forgotten her in-ears. So I like gave her my in-ears,
but then I didn't really have any. So I, I couldn't really hear what was going on.
And so they had me playing piano on that set. So I'm, I'm playing piano and,

(21:48):
and in the middle of the first song, I just hear like this dark,
this dark, like echoey sound in this, this hall that we're playing into all
these students who are like engaging. And I'm like, what is that sound?
Sounds so weird. Just playing.
And then I watch her and she's clawing at her ear, like she's in pain.
And I'm like, what's going on? And then she looks over at me.

(22:10):
And I realized that I had the piano pitch shifted one half step.
So like the songs in C, and I'm playing in C sharp, but because of my inners,
I don't know what's going on.
So I'm just happily playing like the most hideous music into this group of people.
But, you know, I pitch shift the thing back.
But while I was there, I actually kind of made a decision while on that stage

(22:32):
to get involved with music.
Because I always viewed music just as corporate worship.
And I thought, I don't want to spend my life on that. Not because I don't value
worship, but because I was like, other people can do that. I want to do something
more missional with my life.
And I saw Lindy get up on stage and she led worship.
And I watched these people's hearts open up.

(22:55):
And then using song, she punched them in the face with a call to surrender and
a call to give their whole lives. And it was all through music.
There was very little like audience interaction outside of music.
It was all through music. and I remember just being shocked sitting there playing
my piano after I un-pitch shifted it and saying, I could do this.
I don't know what this is. Like I've never seen anyone do this before,

(23:19):
but I could do this because she wasn't just using music in a corporate worship setting.
She was using music to actually reach people and to call people out and call people higher.
And so those are some ways- Through the lyrics of the song.
Exactly. Through the lyrics of the song and through intentionally singing music that-
We want our worship to be vertical, right? We want to worship God.

(23:41):
We want to focus on who he is and focus on his attributes.
But there's a third category of music that isn't just corporate worship and
isn't just entertainment, but it's actually calling people higher or reaching the lost.
It's prophetic and it reaches into people's souls and it points out what's good and what's bad inside.
And it helps people see who they are and what they value and what they don't value.

(24:03):
And that's what I saw both when I was at YWAM and when I was with Circuit Riders.
That's amazing. We actually would, that happened quite a bit at the upper room
where during worship, like all of a sudden somebody would get up and be like,
if you want to know this Jesus that we're all singing to, like,
and people would just come out.
I mean, there was no gospel preached. It was, it was the worship.
Yes. But the Lord would be so, his presence was so, I mean, people were just

(24:24):
like, yes, I want this. I don't even know fully what it is. Yeah.
And it was like some of those moments that were so incredible.
We'd have five, six, seven people just come out and no, I mean,
the power of worship and and music to open your heart, you know,
and create a highway for people to encounter. Yeah.
It's just, it's something that transcends. Well, I think that's super important

(24:47):
to hear and to discuss is because I think that a lot of worship leaders and
songwriters and creatives,
they often don't get valued financially for their craft as much as they should. Right.
And so there's this constant battle of, I need to get paid for my craft,
so I need to write a hit so that I can make money.

(25:08):
And so then the motivation shifts because they're struggling financially, which you get, right?
It's like, man, I see this other artist out there, worship leader, they're banking.
It looks like it, at least.
There's some poor and very well-followed people out there. So true.
And then I think in that same conversation,

(25:29):
you've talked about this, that in worship, there becomes a separation from the
missional side of things or from even the ministry side of things where you
lead worship and then you walk off backstage and you're not down there with
the people praying for people, connecting to people. I don't think it's ever on purpose.
I think it's like you get there early and then
you're rehearsing and then you go behind the scenes and

(25:50):
you pray and then you're there and you're whatever else and
you've got the ministry teams comes up and then you play for that somebody else's
job it's not your job and then you're always separated and you're
separated from the people and you're separated from everybody else's thing
and then all of a sudden you realize man i'm not praying for people anymore like
i'm not actually and and you're in like for upper room or for some of the different

(26:10):
movements we've been in like we're ministering to the lord which is uber important
and i'm like that is a i'm not knocking that at all but in some ways i get separated
from from just being in people's lives and just praying for them on those times
where I'm not pouring out anymore.
And that's part of being missional. Like missional isn't just the missions movement
or just going out and doing a mission trip in the nations.

(26:34):
There's something about actually being willing to reach into people's personal
lives and discipleship.
The foundation of missions is discipleship. And to disciple people,
you actually have to pour into their lives and invest in their lives.
So what I'm hearing is like this, this withdrawal from discipleship into professionalism,
you know, where it becomes less relational and more about I'm going to do my

(26:54):
job and do my job well, which we don't really see in the New Testament.
Yeah. How do you guys keep that flame going missionally for you guys?
Or what have you seen in that way?
It's interesting. I'm listening to your conversation. I'm not a musician,
but I'm relating it to my missions experience that I've seen over the last decade and a half.
You're a little bit musical. I'm a little musical like secret little thing about

(27:18):
my dad he plays penny whistle really well like high key amazing penny whistle
player and my whole life there were always instruments all over the place because
he would always get one play it a little bit and then kind of forget about it
because he's he's I mean he's an engineer when that music,
So like he actually knows how to tighten the djembe and do all this stuff back

(27:38):
from the end of the worship circle days. I'm a wannabe. It's a little, but I'm a worshiper.
I just had to edit you. You're good. But on the missional side of things,
there was like a discovery that was made some years ago and it's with engaging in scriptures.
And so half the world doesn't read well or chooses not to read to learn.
So you have this whole half the planet that needs another way to engage in scripture,

(28:03):
right? So they started making audio Bibles for people like that,
that want to engage in that.
And then there was a discovery made that in, let's say someone has a trade language,
and then someone has the language that mom spoke to them and they grew up with,
and maybe later they started to learn that trade language.
Well, they found there was a real difference in how they engaged with scripture,

(28:25):
how they heard from God based on whether it was heart language, right?
Interesting. Or whether it was just a language that was a little further out
that was used around them, but it wasn't what they dreamed in.
You know, it wasn't their heart language.
But listening to you guys talk, I think, especially with what you just said,
Josiah, I think there's heart language music.

(28:47):
You're talking about that other category of music. I think there's heart language music.
Again, it's a carrier that speaks to specific people and gives you permission
to actually get past some things and into places that it's a science thing.
Resonance, if you hit that note just right, everything vibrates.

(29:08):
But it's sometimes hard to get in to make that vibrate.
But I think music is like water that can flow in and around and get to someone
and then truth will resonate in them and speak to that hollow place inside them and go, wait a minute,
somebody is saying something that actually makes sense to me.
And with all the noise of the world, they let it in and change starts to happen

(29:33):
and they start to open up.
Maybe you guys have seen some of that, but I see a crossover with that from
the mission side to the music side. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. It makes a lot of sense.
I think with music, knowing that, Michael always says this, he's like,
what's around the throne?
What does God choose to have around his throne is music.

(29:53):
It's worship. It's music. So there's
something about that that I think is created to just open the heart.
You know and i think that sometimes we can have music that
when it's come from when it comes from an authentic place that
just has a tendency to go past the mind and go straight to the
heart but also with what you're saying i i think it's like i can still sing
songs as a kid like i i don't know if you guys grew up with like salty the singing

(30:17):
song book oh yeah and all the little you know but like ps like so yeah it's
salty saw see like i feel about that not sure not sure I'll do the singing psalm book.
Yeah, he's kind of scary. Is it psalm book or just song book?
I don't know. We don't even know. But, you know, it's like those songs that
were to the word, you know, and I can still sing those.
I mean, I may not be able to have that scripture memorized, but like something

(30:39):
about the word being in song, all of a sudden I can still recall and I can still sing.
I mean, there is something to music that just has you remember it also becomes like muscle memory.
Well, that's also our heritage in the U.S. Like if you go back to John and Charles Wesley,
one of the most powerful moves of God in the United States of all times,
if you look at longevity, that

(31:01):
is, because like, I mean, there have been movements of preaching, right?
Like George Whitefield and he had an impact.
But the thing about the Wesleys is they didn't just preach. They started a church
planning movement actually unintentionally.
They told people, go to stay at your churches, but join our little small groups.
And those small groups grew into the whole Methodist denomination. Wow.

(31:22):
And the reason you see that flame in the Methodist denomination is because there
was such a powerful move of the Holy Spirit during that awakening that they
put it into their their original branding, you know, because they wanted to
remember what what they came from.
But the music was actually the uniting factor between the movement.
And it was the way that they communicated truth. Because if you look in almost

(31:43):
any hymn book that's connected to the denomination, almost all those songs came
from that revival and came from those times of revival. And it became both.
Anthems that united people around the movement of what God was doing,
but it also became a way for the common man to understand the truth of who God is.
It's so exactly like you're saying. There's something about how music goes beyond.
It's an extra dimension of expression that for some reason sticks inside of

(32:08):
us more than other things do.
I found that even with like when I've gone to different churches or even with
like in upper room early days, when we started writing our own songs from what
the Lord was teaching us,
like the revelation we were getting, it was like all of a sudden the unity between
the group, the celebration between the group, it just went to a whole different
level because now it was ours.

(32:28):
It was our worship to the Lord. Like it was our sounds and songs and our language
that we were wanting to connect with Him.
And so I'm just wondering, even just within like, you know, what you guys going
and seeing mission stuff,
you know, when certain cities or churches have their own song
rather than singing someone else's song is there a difference like
do you think that there is i was at a conference some years ago and there was

(32:52):
this guy named frank fortunato he was younger then but he wasn't that young
man he had been in operation mobilization as their worship leader for i don't
know 30 years or something for a long time so frank had studied worship music
longer than i was alive he's an.
Ethnomusicologist so he has like a doctorate in you know the study of and he
runs with all those world music. Frank Fortunato.

(33:13):
He was a YWAMer way on. I don't know if he'd admit it. Amazing man of God.
So I was just intrigued by him and his whole music bent.
So I went to his little breakout in this conference and he was laying out music
and how different music works in different places.
But then he made this statement and it kind of speaks to what you're talking about.

(33:36):
And he was talking about Bible translators. And there's a group called Wycliffe,
which is like like the big Bible translation group in the world that's translated
most of the Bibles, I think.
And he made a statement. He said the president, he was at a meeting and the
president of Wycliffe Bible Translators was talking about church growth.
Like where do people start become Jesus followers around the world, right?

(33:57):
And this is what he said. He said, when you're sharing the gospel with people
and you have the word of God, churches will grow.
And then he added this statement and this floored me. He said,
and it surprised me, he said, when you're wanting to plant churches and you
have the Word of God and it'll grow,
it will grow quickly if you add the response back to God, which is worship.

(34:23):
And my mind just started spinning about the different groups that I'd seen,
like tribal people, sometimes they don't sing.
They just play drums, like the group we talked about earlier there.
That was the first time they danced and they still are developing little dances
now, even though that's not really in their culture.
But somehow they had to express what had just happened to them because they'd

(34:45):
been in deep, deep darkness.
And I think probably as worship leaders, especially, you forget
what it was like to live in the the dark where you in
the cave in the middle of a mountain and
you guys are always in light and always in light and always in light but when
somebody who's been lost in darkness
not just their life but their parents and their grandparents you
know for generations the devil has like owned he

(35:07):
thinks you know a group of people and suddenly light
hits them there's expression that
comes out of that and when you capture that and you
give it back to them and they share it from person to
person it's like a hot flame that explodes
because that's that that resonant sound that that
draws the moth to the flame it's the

(35:29):
response it's that authentic response to the one they real and it's raw it's
not manufactured it's not someone else's and it's not someone else's i'm like
that's what i always say like you cannot i cannot sing your praise for you like
i can sing your song but it means something different to you because you wrote
it you have something that has come from you.
But to me, when you sing your song, your praise, your thing,

(35:53):
there's something so authentic and so moved.
I think heaven is so moved by that sound because it's authentic.
So it doesn't have to be, it's not as pretty.
It's not always that, but that authenticity is so moving.
And when you see someone for the first time respond to God, who's just been
met by God, I don't think there's anything more beautiful.

(36:15):
Someone who's truly just been healed, someone who's just encountered God to
go and then to respond and hear that sound. It's like, whoo.
So Frank, the guy that my dad was talking about, he calls what you just described,
he calls it a heart sound.
That's the name of his ministry. Yeah, that they did for a while.
And what he meant by heart sound, you know, after years of studying ethnomusicology,

(36:36):
years of studying worship, is that every single person, every single community,
has a way that they would naturally express themselves to God If people from
the outside didn't tell them how they're supposed to, right?
So all of us come from different cultures, you know, we come from church cultures,
we come from religious cultures that impose a specific way that we're supposed

(36:57):
to express ourselves to God.
But if you stripped all that away and you gave someone permission to express themselves to God.
It sounds different in these different communities when they actually engage with their heart sound.
But the wild thing is when you empower people, and this is the reason why I love SongLab,
when you empower people to actually create and engage in worship that taps into

(37:18):
their heart sound, it is an entirely different level of power and authority that comes with that.
Because they're not, like you said, they're not singing someone else's song
and it's not in someone else's sound.
Sound they're singing their own song with their
own way that they would naturally express themselves
with their creator and i believe that that's going to be something that revolutionizes

(37:39):
world missions when when we begin to see the nations not think that they have
to sound like hillsong yeah not think that they need to sound like bethel or
need to sound like any other worship movement that has come out of the west
or come out of of other prominent churches you know out of Brazil,
out of these other places where you see Christians writing music.

(37:59):
When people write their own music from within their culture,
the way that they naturally would express it, I think we're going to see the
power of the Holy Spirit ride on that music because God blesses.
He blesses the movement of a natural, beautiful response to him like King David did.
King David wasn't writing somebody else's music. He was writing his own music.

(38:21):
He was writing his own music and it wasn't for...
Spotify or a crowd or a, you know, stage performance.
Like he was writing out of his like honest need and connection to the Lord.
Like he was running in caves, you know, like he had just gotten saved.
So he wrote a song that like, God, you saved me, you know, or he wrote this.
And it's like, but the beautiful thing is it, is that we're still given connection

(38:46):
to the Lord through his songs because he was writing to connect with the Lord through his song.
And so we're the secondary connectors of his song, which we put our own lives
into what he was going through at that time.
And that's why the power of song, to me, is so important.
It's hard sometimes in the American church. We're like, I'm teaching people

(39:08):
how to write songs. I'm like, don't we got enough songs? We've got lots of songs. And we do.
I mean, we have so many. They say how many songs are uploaded to iTunes and
Spotify each week. And it was just crazy amounts. mounts.
But to me, it's not about that. It's about your authentic connection to the
Lord. And when you sing it, it means something different.
And I don't care if it's ever heard by anybody else, but if it's for you and

(39:32):
the Lord and it connects your heart, then well done.
That's it. That's the purpose. And I think if we get more people who actually
believe that and will write out of a place of who they're called to be and what
God is doing in their life,
then the heart connect is It's going to be so much easier even in corporate
settings because we know how to do it. You know, like we're opening our own hearts to the Lord.

(39:53):
So I have a story about that from the nations. Is it okay if I jump in that real quick? Yeah.
So recently we were in Kyrgyzstan and we're getting together with a bunch of
people from the underground church.
They came from a bunch of the other stand nations and they're all gathering
together at a conference.
And we attended one of one of their church gatherings

(40:14):
and most of the songs were
like Hillsong Young and Free translated you know made in Australia in English
translated into Russian and now being sung by a culture that isn't even Russian
you know they Russian is not their first language right and they're singing
they're worshiping in Russian and so I was like oh man there's got to be more
so I talked to one of the worship leaders and and he told me he said man man,

(40:36):
there's something about when I sing a Russian song that it's just like we're
just singing, like we're just saying words.
But when we say things that we write or that are in our own language,
we're actually singing.
Communicating something. We actually believe what we're saying and we actually
know what we're saying. We're not just saying words.
We're not just making like instrumental sound, you know? Yeah.

(40:57):
And so I'm sitting on this and digesting this.
And a few days later, we end up in a church gathering where people are,
you know, playing through their Russian songs and doing their,
their thing. And, and we're like, okay, this is good.
But then halfway through the
worship set, this guy gets up on the mic and he looks like a K-pop star.
You know, everybody there, you know, They're very fashionable in Kyrgyzstan.

(41:19):
They like to dress very clean. They always wear neutrals. It's always black
and white. Everyone wears black, white, and brown. So he's wearing black, white, and brown.
And he gets up on the mic and he belts this long note that sounds like something
from like Panic at the Disco, just like, and we're like, whoa, what is happening?
And it's this song in Kyrgyz and it's written, you know, out of their community

(41:42):
in their local language.
And it doesn't sound like any style of music I've ever heard because it's driven
by electric your guitar and bass and still has that, you know,
like Brit folk or American rock like backing,
but there's something so other to it that nobody could, that you can't put your
finger on. It's just different.
And so he whips into this song and it's like chills grow across the whole room.

(42:05):
And I watch people all start pulling their phones out across the whole room
because they're, they they've never experienced worship that actually comes
from the culture for the culture in the heart sound of the culture,
the way that they want to express it, the way they want to say stuff,
the way they want to worship.
And when I saw that, I was like, this is what we need.
We need to see more people actually engaged to be able to write songs that tap

(42:30):
into their experience with God and that will reach people in their community.
You know? Wow. Oh, a hundred percent.
I feel like, you know, I also think it's just a place of relating.
Like when you're in a war season, You sing different songs and you relate to
God in a different way and you know God in a different way in a worse season

(42:50):
than you would be in a peaceful season or a joyful season or a season of harvest
or whatever else. You sing different songs.
You feel different things. You relate in different seasons.
And so I feel like sometimes when we're only –.
Pulling from other places, like we're going to miss the beauty of who God is
to us right in those moments and whatever season we're needing him to be in, in those times.

(43:13):
So like the beauty of teaching people their authentic sound is,
is absolutely necessary and, and beautiful.
And like, it doesn't need to sound like whatever else we're trying to make it
sound like, but it can be authentically them.
One of the things that it sounds like in this conversation, it sounds like we're
trying to get to the heart of who people truly are and that expression back to God.

(43:37):
I was thinking about the guy in the Amazon.
He just begins to dance.
His heart is wide open. In a culture that doesn't dance. He doesn't dance.
And he just has revelation somehow that he knows to dance and express.
He has to express that. I wonder what he saw. His heart is wide open. right?
And sometimes that's in song, sometimes it's in dance, sometimes it's in painting,

(43:59):
all these different creative expressions that can be authentic.
And I remember when we were in YWAM in Jerusalem, there was a girl who had cerebral
palsy and her hands were kind of curled in a little bit.
And there was a lady teaching on breaking free from the fear of man.
And she just taught, then she just sat down. She goes, all right,
Holy Spirit's going to take over the class from here on out. And she just sat down.

(44:19):
And I know Meredith, you- I knew what to do. It was the strangest thing.
Like she just taught on break and free she brought a guitar that day
and had never brought a guitarist class before and has never played in
front of anybody before and i felt like i was supposed to get up
and actually play for the lord i'd all i'd ever done is perform for people
you know that was what i had done my whole life and i felt like i was supposed
to get up there and sing for god and i think michael was like it was super dramatic

(44:42):
because like my guitar can't even play very well i got like my black makeup
is all streamed down my face and i like just sing to you know sing my song to
the lord she opens it up she breaks it open with with a song and then this girl gets up And she goes,
I've always wanted to dance before the Lord, and I've never done it.
Because she was embarrassed to put her hands in her muscles.
She just hadn't, not necessarily even just danced in front of people,

(45:02):
but before God by herself.
So she puts on some music and gets in front of the room, and she just starts
to dance her heart off. Oh my gosh.
And the glory cloud comes into the room, and we all fall.
Look, I still get chills talking about it. Everybody in the room falls on their
faces. We're bawling. And she just keeps dancing.
Oh my gosh. And it was so beautiful. It was an expression.

(45:23):
It was so authentic and it was so not based on anybody else.
And it wasn't like, oh, professional ballerina status, but it was the most beautiful
dance I've probably ever seen, you know, because it was so real.
It was so authentic. What an expression. So like, what is that?
Is it just the heart opening? Is it just the heart responding?
Is it, what do you guys think that is? Is it, because we've talked about,

(45:46):
we've just theorized, like, is it, does, do open hearts create an open heaven?
Is it that aspect of it at the end of the day? Is it the heart opening,
the spirit opening, the veil being torn? What do you guys think it is?
I mean, I'm a guy, so what does this mean? But it feels a little bit like the
dance between the bride and the bridegroom.
You know, there's something supernatural.

(46:08):
It's that mystery that Paul talks about. He says, if you'll take this,
it's a mystery. It's kind of weird.
You may not get this, but Jesus and his bride, Jesus and us,
it's like when two people fall in love and commit themselves together to live
together forever, somehow, if you can take it, it's that.
And I think we're just getting a foretaste of heaven.

(46:29):
That's what I think that is. I think heaven cracks open and a drop falls out
and hits us. And it's so big.
It's so overwhelming that we don't know what to do with it, but it's just a
foretaste of of what's in store, because the best is yet to come. It's so good.
And it's interesting that, because you talk about a drop, because sometimes
it feels so overwhelming, like it could kill you so good.

(46:51):
You're like, no more. It's awesome. Don't stop.
Okay, so part of it is, it's because it's the thing that we were created for.
So the A.W. Tozer called worship the jewel of existence.
Like he said, there's this quote where he said, said, the purpose of God sending
his son into the world to do everything that we know in the gospel is not so

(47:15):
that we could be saved from doing tobacco.
Or he said, like he says, I've heard so many sermons where people say,
yep, and Jesus did this so that you don't have to be, you know,
have to do these things or you can be free from these things.
And he says, that doesn't even touch it.
He died and the gospel happened so that we could be restored to our position
of worship, which was the original intent of the purpose of humanity.

(47:36):
Like, I like how John Piper, he has a really famous statement where he said,
missions exist because worship doesn't.
And when this age is over and the countless millions of the redeemed fall on
their faces before the throne of God, missions will be no more.
It is a temporary necessity, but worship abides forever.

(47:57):
Missions exist because worship doesn't. And so when we're in this missional
context and when you see worship start entwining with missions and the two starting
to get tangled up, the reason is because missions is the thing that makes future worship possible.
It's the preparation for worshipers and it's laying the groundwork and creating
the foundation that future worship of the nations to their creator is gonna be built on.

(48:21):
And so when we see this expression of people in dance and in song and people
tapping into this authentic piece of who they are,
It's a reflection, like my dad was saying, it's a reflection of heaven.
It's what we're going to see for all eternity when every tribe and every tongue
and every language at the culmination of the great commission,

(48:41):
when missions is over, we will have worship.
It's the end game. I love that because it's that mystical union of just the oneness with us and God.
And you talk about the intertwining of worship and missions.
I met, I met a, he was a Lebanese pastor and he came to the upper room and he
was just so confused by all of our worship. And he's like, we're going to get to worship when we die.

(49:01):
Why are you doing this now? I'm going to preach the gospel.
That's totally what he said. You're wasting your time. You're wasting your time.
And so I think there's that mindset out there, or there's just the missional minus the worship.
What have you seen with that? Well, last night, I was visiting a church with
my wife, and it's about half Middle Easterners are there, and then the other

(49:26):
half is a wonderful mix of people. and they had a Christmas service.
But in that Christmas service, they had, you know that song,
you know, fall on your knees.
Yes. And I just started crying. I'm like, how many times have I heard that song?
But yet the spirit of God came on me. It just was so beautiful.
Again, it was that like the drip started happening.
Well, there happened to be a first time man of another religion there and he had a drip fall on him.

(49:52):
So afterward, he came and asked some questions about what was that. First time in church.
First time in church. Never been to a Christian service before.
And so my wife was there and she said, so, and this guy was there with his wife.
And she said, so what struck you? Like, what was it? And he's talking to his
wife. He said, well, you say first.

(50:13):
And she said, no, you say first. And he said, no, you say first.
And he said, if I say first, you won't say first.
And he says, okay, I don't understand the joy I see in their faces.
And he said, that's what I was gonna say. he he saw
it and then they started asking questions about
what worship was the spearhead it was you know
what the next question was and if you knew my wife this is if this is

(50:34):
her favorite question she's like but how do you know the
bible hasn't been changed and she's got
this amazing answer for that question
but for him to get to that question first he
saw the glory of god on
the faces of his people like me who'd
heard the song a thousand times but once again

(50:55):
the fall on your knees was one step closer to my
destiny and my purpose and where I'm gonna be one day and when you strip that
out of the missions movement it becomes exponentially harder to draw in the
lost because when you actually are able to engage with God in that.

(51:16):
With our full selves, our emotions, our mind, all of those different dimensions
of who we are through music,
it's like people have revelation of the truth of God and of the gospel in a
way that they wouldn't if you talked to them for years with apologetics,
trying to break it down for them, trying to answer all their questions.
There's something about someone just getting an even brief glimpse of the same

(51:38):
presence of God that we grow so used to that completely ruins their life and
makes it unable for them to ever go back to what they knew before.
I think David said, there's a Psalm. He says, he put a new song in my heart,
a song of praise to my God.
He says, many will see and fear and put their trust in the Lord.
Yeah. Right. It was through that. Through music. Through music.

(51:59):
That you see. That you see. Right. That you see. Yeah. It opens the eyes of
your heart. It does. It opens the eyes of your heart.
But I think that that's what's so fascinating within the missions movement that
thrives is when you have the worship, the missions just flows so so much easier
because it's coming out of an overflow.
And that's where it's so powerful is because you have an overflow.

(52:23):
But then seeing the other side of it, we were talking about earlier is like
seeing those who like where the worship gets separated and you don't have the
missions, then sometimes I don't know why, but it doesn't feel like you get that overflow anymore.
Or sometimes you feel like you're still get in a weird way dry,
even though you're worshiping.
And I feel like there's that mix you have to be able to let it out for it to

(52:46):
flow so that's where you get the desert and the dead sea is you've got one that's
you're getting filled up but when you don't let it go out it gets stagnant I don't know if that is.
It's another salty reference,
different salty I mean you guys have seen that happen so many times I didn't

(53:07):
have a word for it where I was like Like, why is there so much deconstruction
in the worship community, like more than any other section of the church for some reason?
And I realize it's because you have these people who are put into a professional
position and they die inside because they were not made to only do that.
They were made to be on mission.
They were made to be drawing in the lost. They were made to be mobilizing the

(53:31):
church. They were made to be cutting deep into the hearts of people and communicating truth.
And they've been put in the wrong calling. and they feel like it's an honor
because it is because they're on a stage but not everyone was called for that.
There are people who are musicians and are talented who were called for that
third door that few people are going in, which is reaching the lost and mobilizing the saved.

(53:53):
And if we open up that door, I think it's an outlet that will end up saving
these people from utter stagnation because you just see it in their eyes.
They're bored with life.
And when that happens, people cannibalize each other. It's because they have
nothing else to fight when you don't, when they have no enemy,
when they're supposed to be the king out on war, but they're staying home, bad stuff happens.

(54:14):
And it's the same thing in the worship community when people are supposed to
actually be taking new ground and innovating and reaching the lost and exploring
new sounds and breaking new ground, being pioneers,
but they're expected to stay in the same place and do the same thing. They just die inside.
And then we think that it's their fault, but we have a piece of that,

(54:34):
a piece of that unhealth.
And I think that the worship movement is waiting for the missions movement and
vice versa. and the missions moment is waiting for the worship.
They can't be separate anymore.
That's so good. I think that's so good because I think even in our conversation,
the last time I was like, I have felt that.
I have gotten it. When I've gotten too separated, I feel it.

(54:56):
And then you feel guilty. You're like, what's wrong? Like I'm worshiping.
I'm doing all the things. Why do I not feel like I'm overflowing anymore?
And it truly is that we're missing out on that other side of things.
Because you were made for it. Because you are made for it. You were so made for it.
And so I just like, I mean, even with this conversation, I'm just hoping so
many others will be able to go, yes, like it's not because I'm just doing something

(55:18):
wrong or because I'm missing, you know, God per se.
It's like, and the guilt doesn't help you actually act.
Cause I lived under that for years where you feel the guilt of not being missional,
but it doesn't actually change anything. It's just guilt.
But people don't realize that.
How exciting it is, how fun it is, how freeing it is, that if they actually

(55:40):
step into using their art and their skills for the purpose of the Great Commission,
it's the most exciting thing in the universe and the most rewarding thing they'll do with their lives.
That's so true. It's giving away the abundance that you have.
For me, it might be my engineering gift on the musical people's side of things.
If fullness is measured by overflowing,

(56:04):
then what would happen if the musicians that are called by God to be musicians
give away to someone that they can't get back from?
What if they go to the place I was last night? There was all these refugees
there that have never even seen the inside of an American's house.
What would happen if they picked up their guitar and went to their their little

(56:27):
home, and visited them and sang their music.
Josiah does this. And then the next thing is they want to come to your house and you sing your music.
And music, again, is the bridge that crosses cultures.
And you sing and they feel him and they see the joy. And then the questions start.
And I don't really know apologetics so well. I haven't studied them,

(56:48):
but I know that if I can let them see something of God's reality and glory through
this real expression of what God's put inside us,
then the questions come and it's just natural back and forth to bring someone
into the kingdom of God. But there is this...
Place of initial discomfort. It's called faith.

(57:09):
You have to step out of what you're normally doing and step into someone's life
who's a little messy, a little uncomfortable.
It might mesh your hair up a little bit and you might step out of your comfort zone.
But this is just, I think, a promise from heaven because it's how faith works.
When you step out of your circle and into
someone else's messy circle it's faith

(57:32):
and heaven will meet you there and what happens
is the flow starts and fresh flow comes
and it revolutionizes what you do and it goes back to some of the things we're
talking about your music will change when your heart breaks for what god's heart
is broken for and it's broken for broken hearts that don't know him and you

(57:53):
have to get in that messy space And this is why I love Song Lab,
because the thing that you guys do is you see the people's calling and you give
them permission to step into that calling.
And so what he's talking about is permission. That's what I saw happen at Song
Lab when the first Song Lab that I was a part of is it changed the way guys
I use Song Lab as an analogy all the time for other things that I want to see

(58:16):
happen in missions. He does.
Because I've never seen an environment where all these insecure,
unmobilized, scared people can get together and walk out giants ready to take
on the world, ready to do anything just with a little encouragement,
a little permission and a little bit of validation.
And suddenly they're like, I can do this for the glory of God.

(58:38):
And that's what, it's what we need in the, in the, for people to actually step
into the missions movement.
They just need an example and they just need structure where they can be encouraged to try.
And like at the, I remember the first song that we had and others since then,
you gave space to say, okay, guys.
I want to have you guys go off, and I don't want you to write a worship song.

(58:59):
I want you to write a song for the lost.
Take the truth of the gospel. Take the truth of what you've seen in your own
life, your personal story, and I want you to turn that to a song that could
meet a lost person and open up doors for them to hear the gospel.
That's a bridge, and that is permission for people to do something that they
would have never thought that they can because there's this pressure of like,

(59:20):
oh, I got to write corporate worship because that's what God wants.
And that's religion. religion it's not always bad but
it's just the structures that we create have benefit but they
have massive pitfalls and so i just want to
say thank you guys for writing your whole family around unlocking people's potential
instead of just giving a prescribed method for this is how you do stuff and

(59:42):
and trying to build a ministry on that like it's interesting the more we can
be people first over ministry first man that's good it's interesting how the
word mission is in permission.
Yeah, that's true. There's a sermon in that. There is. Yeah.
That's salty right there. Yeah, there's a seven-point Baptist sermon somewhere in there.
Yeah. No, I was going to say, even with that, just one last little thing that

(01:00:06):
is saying that is like, but also knowing that it doesn't mean you have to go to another country.
It doesn't mean that you have to figure out some big missional thing.
It really is truly just going, Lord.
What can I, where is my, what are you showing me here that I could do? Who are my lost?
Who are my lost in my life that I could share a song with or I could do something to?

(01:00:26):
Like that just lets that outflow go, you know, just a little bit more.
When I first started posting like my worship songs on Instagram,
people would like start like messaging me from Pakistan or from other places
and saying, well, I'm not a Christian, but I really, really, really like this.
My mom started sending my songs to this this guy who owns a nightclub in israel

(01:00:47):
and he and he and he sent back he's just like tears i am crying you said i'm
crying so much flowing from my eyes.
And so and so it's like he started asking questions exactly and now his heart's
been open but it was that the music actually was the was the thing that kind
of helped do that so and it caused him to ask questions yeah exactly it's the

(01:01:07):
open door all different level that we we would never have into some of these people.
So every worship leader has a potential to be involved in something missional.
It's just, who are your lost?
You don't have to move to Uzbekistan. Who are your lost?
Absolutely. It was so funny too, because from that same song lab where we said,
okay, we have our in songs, our in songs are our songs to the Lord, our expression to him.

(01:01:29):
And then our out songs are those parables that Jesus told to the masses, right?
It's those ones that you can relate to. What does that mean even?
So we ended up writing a song, my group did, and it was just kind of like,
Like it was about being a seed in the ground and feeling like you're not seen.
And then all of a sudden like sprouting and like growing and like,
you know, it's just kind of a parable of, you know, what we do,
you know, and how God uses the things where we die and then we come to life, you know, the seed dies.

(01:01:51):
And anyways, so that was the song. So Michael ends up sending it to somebody
who's not a believer, who's making a documentary on growth and seeds and all this kind of stuff.
And it ended up being this whole missional thing where we were in this whole
situation where we were not expecting to be in with people who are doing music
of all kinds of of other stuff, but it was like a, it was a doorway in that
we weren't even expecting, but we'd talked about it being, and we were like

(01:02:13):
shocked that it did go somewhere.
And they were like, we want to put this in our documentary and like, tell us about the song.
And I mean, so it's just opened up all these doors that we weren't expecting. So, you know.
Doing what we tell people to do and then doing it. And you're like,
wow. That actually works. It works.
Who would have thought? Totally. Yeah, that was the whole Solomon asked for

(01:02:34):
wisdom to lead people in and out before the Lord.
And we talked about wisdom for the in and the out.
And so maybe that's a good way to pray us out. Yeah, for sure.
For us to have that kind of wisdom to be able to not be in the desert,
not be stagnant and salty.
Get a little too salty. Yeah, why don't you pray for us, Mary?
Oh, me? I think they should pray for us. They're the missionaries for me.

(01:02:56):
Yeah. All right. Go for it. Y'all do it.
Jesus, thank you that you're the great artist and you made us.
You took your thumbs and you formed us.
And you said that we're your workmanship and we're creative for good works that
you prepared ahead of time for us to walk into.
We are your art with purpose and we are your expression in this earth.

(01:03:18):
Lord, thank you that you've given us permission to live outside the box and
to love in ways that are so incredibly creative they've never even been thought of.
Thank you, God. Lord, I ask for this next wave of worshipers and worship leaders
who are called to more than the examples that they've seen.

(01:03:38):
God, I ask that you would begin raising up people in on different facets of society.
Who are within the church, but who use creativity, who tap into the creative
that you made them to be to tell your story and to reach the lost, to mobilize the saved,
and to advance the kingdom of God in profound, unprecedented ways.

(01:04:01):
And God, I pray that this next generation of singers, musicians,
and creatives would come against the structures,
that we have built in our own minds of what it has to look like,
what it has to sound like, what it has to feel like.
God, I ask that as they create, that the church would be shocked and would worship

(01:04:22):
you more because of it, that they would see the glory of God in what we create.
And God, I ask that the world would be shocked and cut to the core when they
hear the art that we are creating, not out of human wisdom, not just out of
human strength, but out of the depths of redemption.
The beauty that you have put inside of us, the great darkness that you have brought us out of.

(01:04:48):
God, I ask that our stories would permeate our art.
God, do it in us and use us for your glory.
Raise up an army of worshipers and musicians who will take this gospel to every
single language, every single subculture, every part of the world that is not

(01:05:09):
seen and totally forgotten.
Gotten all for your glory and all for your fame in the name of jesus amen amen
thank you guys i was fun you guys i'm excited now we keep going i know i'm like i got like an hour left,
oh.