Something I am so grateful for is the leadership experience I received growing up in the church. From a young age, I got involved in worship teams. I led small groups. I developed skills. I was put on stages I had no business being on. Church wasn't just a weekly service we attended. It was a leadership incubator.

L. Michelle Smith has written a new book called Call And Response: 10 Leadership Lessons From the Black Church. In it she discusses how the Black Church has historically developed high level business leaders. The book borrows from culture, neuroscience, and positive psychology to describe the power of the Black Church and why it has produced so many high level leaders .

Whether you've grown up in the Black Church or have never even visited, we all have something to learn here.

Because if the church stops developing leaders in favor of merely hiring out a professional, performative workforce, we could be in some trouble.

This is David Santistevan. You can reach me anytime at [email protected] As always, thank you for listening.

• Why the history of Call and Response in the Black Church matters to us today
• Leadership development in the local church
• Leadership lessons learned in the Black Church
• What it's like being a successful Black women in corporate America
• Why The Black Church is seen as inferior in both white and black spaces

• Show Sponsor: Planning Center
• Call And Response: 10 Leadership Lessons From The Black Church by L. Michelle Smith
• The Black Church: This Is Our Story This Is Our Song by Henry Louis Gates, Jr.

This episode is sponsored by Planning Center, an all-in-one church management software made to help churches help people. You can organize your ministries and keep everyone on your team communicating and aligned around what's going on.

As a worship leader, good communication is key to building a strong worship team. You can cultivate relationships while ensuring everyone has what they need to successfully prep for your services.

But why not take it up a notch using the chat feature?

Built right into the Services mobile app—which, by the way, you should totally download if you haven't already—chat helps you coordinate all the service details with your team. Plus, you can have fun while doing it!

No more juggling emails, group texts, and multiple apps to ensure your whole team is aligned. Chat will simplify your communication in one convenient place through the Services mobile app. And everyone can ask questions, request prayer, or join the banter in real-time with one another.

The really cool part about chatting with your teams? Team members are dynamically added or removed from conversations as availability changes!

So if your original bass player suddenly declines (why is it so hard to find a bass player, anyway?), your newly scheduled bass player is automatically added to the chat conversation.

All of your chat conversations stay in sync. No more outdated group threads or irrelevant messages! So what are you waiting for? Download the Services app and start chatting!

There's an argument that has gone around for decades and it revolves around the idea of how much worship music do we need? Do we have enough?

On the one hand, yes, we have more worship music than we'll ever be able to use in our Sunday morning services. And there's also the argument that worship music is the most lucrative music in Christian music. I don't think that can be debated.

So while there are business and industry incentives to make worship music that will always exist at the intersection of Christianity and industry, what is the biblical perspective?

What does the Bible teach us about singing, songwriting, and corporate worship?

Trip Lee is a hip hop artist, a preacher, a rapper, an author…and he's released a worship album.

I appreciate Trip and his commitment to God's Word.

We talk about the power of worship music, why we need more cultural expressions of it, and how worship music should be viewed as a tool of discipleship. We also talk about culture and Christianity, racial tension, and how we should think about the division in the church right now.

• Trip's story of coming to faith in Christ
• The influence of church music on Tripp's music
• Musical and theological influences
• Why Tripp decided to make a worship album
• The intersection of culture and church
• Why it can be challenging to partner together across racial and cultural lines

• Show Sponsor: Planning Center
• For Your Glory EP by Trip Lee & Brag Worship
• Brag Worship

This episode is sponsored by Planning Center, an all-in-one church management software made to help churches help people. You can organize your ministries and keep everyone on your team communicating and aligned around what's going on.

As a worship leader, good communication is key to building a strong worship team. You can cultivate relationships while ensuring everyone has what they need to successfully prep for your services.

But why not take it up a notch using the chat feature?

Built right into the Services mobile app—which, by the way, you should totally download if you haven't already—chat helps you coordinate all the service details with your team. Plus, you can have fun while doing it!

No more juggling emails, group texts, and multiple apps to ensure your whole team is aligned. Chat will simplify your communication in one convenient place through the Services mobile app. And everyone can ask questions, request prayer, or join the banter in real-time with one another.

The really cool part about chatting with your teams? Team members are dynamically added or removed from conversations as availability changes!

So if your original bass player suddenly declines (why is it so hard to find a bass player, anyway?), your newly scheduled bass player is automatically added to the chat conversation.

All of your chat conversations stay in sync. No more outdated group threads or irrelevant messages! So what are you waiting for? Download the Services app and start chatting!

• The difference between formation and experience in worship
• Why our current model of worship experiences isn't wrong, but inadequate
• The value of silence in our gatherings
• Why we need artists in the church
• Creative ways to introduce silence, reflection, and community in our worship spaces
• The kinds of songs the church needs to be singing today

• Show Sponsor: Planning Center
• Glimpses of the New Creation by W. David O. Taylor

This episode is sponsored by Planning Center, an all-in-one church management software made to help churches help people. You can organize your ministries and keep everyone on your team communicating and aligned around what's going on.

As a worship leader, good communication is key to building a strong worship team. You can cultivate relationships while ensuring everyone has what they need to successfully prep for your services.

But why not take it up a notch using the chat feature?

Built right into the Services mobile app—which, by the way, you should totally download if you haven't already—chat helps you coordinate all the service details with your team. Plus, you can have fun while doing it!

No more juggling emails, group texts, and multiple apps to ensure your whole team is aligned. Chat will simplify your communication in one convenient place through the Services mobile app. And everyone can ask questions, request prayer, or join the banter in real-time with one another.

The really cool part about chatting with your teams? Team members are dynamically added or removed from conversations as availability changes!

So if your original bass player suddenly declines (why is it so hard to find a bass player, anyway?), your newly scheduled bass player is automatically added to the chat conversation.

All of your chat conversations stay in sync. No more outdated group threads or irrelevant messages! So what are you waiting for? Download the Services app and start chatting!

• Brittany's faith tradition growing up
• The need for liberation theology and what it means for the local church
• The importance of unlearning and contextualizing theology
• Noticing how white supremacy undermines the prosperity of black people
• The defunding of HBCUs and what that means for black thriving in America
• What it means to be a red letter Christian
• Politics and faith
• The prophetic witness of the Black Church

• Show Sponsor: Planning Center
• Brittany on Instagram
• Brittany on Threads
• Brittany's Website
• The Black Church in the African American Experience by C. Eric Lincoln & Lawrence H. Mamiya
• Jesus And John Wayne by Kristen Kobes Du Mez

This episode is sponsored by Planning Center, an all-in-one church management software made to help churches help people. You can organize your ministries and keep everyone on your team communicating and aligned around what's going on.

As a worship leader, good communication is key to building a strong worship team. You can cultivate relationships while ensuring everyone has what they need to successfully prep for your services.

But why not take it up a notch using the chat feature?

Built right into the Services mobile app—which, by the way, you should totally download if you haven't already—chat helps you coordinate all the service details with your team. Plus, you can have fun while doing it!

No more juggling emails, group texts, and multiple apps to ensure your whole team is aligned. Chat will simplify your communication in one convenient place through the Services mobile app. And everyone can ask questions, request prayer, or join the banter in real-time with one another.

The really cool part about chatting with your teams? Team members are dynamically added or removed from conversations as availability changes!

So if your original bass player suddenly declines (why is it so hard to find a bass player, anyway?), your newly scheduled bass player is automatically added to the chat conversation.

All of your chat conversations stay in sync. No more outdated group threads or irrelevant messages! So what are you waiting for? Download the Service

• Calvin's journey as a worship leader
• The reality of starting music later in life
• Why we shouldn't be afraid of frequent new songs
• Why diversity is important
• How the Christian music industry needs to change
• Why God still has a plan for you
• The struggle of weight and image as a worship leader

• Show Sponsor: Planning Center
• Aware Worship
• Instagram.com/calvinnowell

This episode is sponsored by Planning Center, an all-in-one church management software made to help churches help people. You can organize your ministries and keep everyone on your team communicating and aligned around what's going on.

As a worship leader, good communication is key to building a strong worship team. You can cultivate relationships while ensuring everyone has what they need to successfully prep for your services.

But why not take it up a notch using the chat feature?

Built right into the Services mobile app—which, by the way, you should totally download if you haven't already—chat helps you coordinate all the service details with your team. Plus, you can have fun while doing it!

No more juggling emails, group texts, and multiple apps to ensure your whole team is aligned. Chat will simplify your communication in one convenient place through the Services mobile app. And everyone can ask questions, request prayer, or join the banter in real-time with one another.

The really cool part about chatting with your teams? Team members are dynamically added or removed from conversations as availability changes!

So if your original bass player suddenly declines (why is it so hard to find a bass player, anyway?), your newly scheduled bass player is automatically added to the chat conversation.

All of your chat conversations stay in sync. No more outdated group threads or irrelevant messages! So what are you waiting for? Download the Services app and start chatting!

• When David first noticed the politicization of American worship music
• What David liked and disliked about the worship industry, as an insider
• The musician similarities and differences between worship music and Wagner
• How Hitler co-opted Wagner to serve his political agenda
• Why it's not crazy to consider how worship music can serve authoritarian regimes
• Paying attention to how worship music can manipulate a room
• The difference between empathy and worship
• Healthy and unhealthy triumphalism in church
• Debrief of the Charlie Kirk memorial and what we can learn from it
• Pro football/College football and racism
• What to do if you can't stomach singing popular worship music in church
• A true definition of Christian persecution

• Show Sponsor: Planning Center
• David Gate
• The Soundtrack For American Fascism is Worship Music by David Gate
• A Rebellion of Care: Poems & Essays by David Gate
• Nested in Tangles by Hannah Frances
• Baby by Dijon

This episode is sponsored by Planning Center, an all-in-one church management software made to help churches help people. You can organize your ministries and keep everyone on your team communicating and aligned around what's going on.

As a worship leader, good communication is key to building a strong worship team. You can cultivate relationships while ensuring everyone has what they need to successfully prep for your services.

But why not take it up a notch using the chat feature?

Built right into the Services mobile app—which, by the way, you should totally download if you haven't already—chat helps you coordinate all the service details with your team. Plus, you can have fun while doing it!

No more juggling emails, group texts, and multiple apps to ensure your whole team is aligned. Chat will simplify your communication in one convenient place through the Services mobile app. And everyone can ask questions, request prayer, or join the banter in real-time with one another.

The really cool part about chatting with your teams? Team members are dynamically added or removed from conversations as availability changes!

So if your original bass player suddenly declines (why is it so hard to find a bass player, anyway?), your newly scheduled bass player is automatically added to the chat conversation.

All of your chat conversations stay in sync. No more outdated group threads or irrelevant messages! So what are you waiting for? Download the Services app and start cha

What is the future of worship leading? How important are worship leaders and how will that role continue to develop in the future? No one really knows, but it's worth reflecting on. My guest today is Martha Munizzi - veteran gospel artist, songwriter, worship leader and co-pastor at epic life church in Orlando. This is an interesting conversation because Martha has the perspective of a worship leader and a pastor.

We talk about the tension of excellent worship experiences as it relates to church growth and simple congregational worship where the voice of the people take center stage. Practical ways to do simple worship without losing excellence. We talk about the beauty of gospel music and where it's headed. How to empower young worship leaders and what the older generation can learn from them. We also hear the story of how Martha brilliantly forced her way onto my podcast. It's kind of hilarious.

• How Martha got started in music
• Why Martha decided to write and pursue gospel music
• Why worship is so important
• How to empower younger worship leaders
• How to simplify worship in a production-heavy age
• The future of Gospel music
• The story behind Martha's new project, "Church is Revival"

• Show Sponsor: Planning Center
• Church is Revival by Martha Munizzi
• Epic Life Church
• Martha Munizzi website

This episode is sponsored by Planning Center, an all-in-one church management software made to help churches help people. You can organize your ministries and keep everyone on your team communicating and aligned around what's going on.

As a worship leader, good communication is key to building a strong worship team. You can cultivate relationships while ensuring everyone has what they need to successfully prep for your services.

But why not take it up a notch using the chat feature?

Built right into the Services mobile app—which, by the way, you should totally download if you haven't already—chat helps you coordinate all the service details with your team. Plus, you can have fun while doing it!

No more juggling emails, group texts, and multiple apps to ensure your whole team is aligned. Chat will simplify your communication in one convenient place through the Services mobile app. And everyone can ask questions, request prayer, or join the banter in real-time with one another.

The really cool part about chatting with your teams? Team members are dynamically added or removed from conversations as availability changes!

So if your original bass player suddenly declines (why is it so hard to find a bass player, anyway?), your newly scheduled bass player is automatically added to the chat conversation.

All of your chat conversations stay in sync. No more outdated group threads or irrelevant messages! So what are you waiting for? Download the Services app and start chatting!

Justice - when you hear that word what do you think of? The word carries some baggage in the church today and has become highly politicized. Too much justice talk and you can be dismissed as Marxist, woke, or a proponent of the "unbiblical" social justice gospel. But if you can remove yourself from cultural baggage, read the Bible with fresh eyes, and look at the life of Jesus, you see justice everywhere. Justice was central to the life and mission of Jesus. And it should be to his followers as well.

One of the best books I've read on the topic is a new book by Joash Thomas called The Justice of Jesus: Reimagining Your Church's Life Together to Pursue Liberation And Wholeness.

Talking about justice shouldn't cause us to draw tighter partisan political lines. It should cause us - as Joash says - to be politically agnostic, except on behalf of our marginalized neighbors.

This is an eye-opening conversation. He talk about how colonization has shaped the Western church to resist justice. Why we need more teaching on justice and not less. Why it's important to diversity our theological influences. And some practical ways any local church can pursue justice.

Joash is a kind soul with a deep understanding of justice and Christianity in the global south and what we can learn in the west…from followers of Jesus all over the world.

• How "wokeism" and "Marxism" have become deflective tactics to keep us from facing the truth
• Why the Evangelical Church needs more teaching on justice
• How colonization and colonialism has shaped us to resist justice
• Why it's good for our formation to diversify our theological influences
• Why Christians should be politically agnostic
• Practical ways the church today can pursue justice

• Show Sponsor: Planning Center
• The Justice of Jesus: Reimagining Your Church's Life Together To Pursue Liberation And Wholeness by Joash Thomas
• Joash Thomas website
• Joash Thomas instagram

This episode is sponsored by Planning Center, an all-in-one church management software made to help churches help people. You can organize your ministries and keep everyone on your team communicating and aligned around what's going on.

As a worship leader, good communication is key to building a strong worship team. You can cultivate relationships while ensuring everyone has what they need to successfully prep for your services.

But why not take it up a notch using the chat feature?

Built right into the Services mobile app—which, by the way, you should totally download if you haven't already—chat helps you coordinate all the service details with your team. Plus, you can have fun while doing it!

No more juggling emails, group texts, and multiple apps to ensure your whole team is aligned. Chat will simplify your communication in one convenient place through the Services mobile app. And everyone can ask questions, request prayer, or join the banter in real-time with one another.

The really cool part about chatting with your teams? Team members are dynamically added or removed from conversations as availability changes!

So if your original bass player suddenly declines (why is it so hard to find a bass player, anyway?), your newly scheduled bass player is automatically added to the chat conversation.

All of your chat conversations stay in sync. No more outdated group threads or irrelevant messages! So what are you waiting for? Download the Services app and start chatting!

One of my goals with this podcast is not simply to talk about the spiritual but also the systemic. One could argue that the two are actually intertwined. Can Christian spirituality thrive in the midst of a toxic system? Is it possible to be formed opposite the ways of Jesus while using the name of Jesus? These are important questions to wrestle with and hold up to cultural Christianity today. We must talk about the cultural systems we are shaped by. That's not divisive or an attack of the enemy. The truth always shines a light. And the truth will always lead us to greater unity, even if some systems we've held dear need to come down.

Part of being a faithful follower of Jesus in the world is paying attention to what is of God and what is not. And that's why I wanted to have a conversation with my friend Phillip Joubert. Phillip is an artist with Common Hymnal, one of my favorite Christian artist collectives out there right now. They are making music that is a refreshing counterpoint to popular Christian music today. It's Jesus AND justice. It's praise AND protest. It's worship music that is rooted in the goodness of God but with a grip on the reality of our world. Phillip is a truth teller. A prophet, you might say. The voice of someone who spots trends and speaks with moral clarity and biblical conviction.

• Why praise and protest are needed in our spiritual formation
• Why worship culture tends to be tone deaf
• Why we need to decolonize our theology of success
• A different alternative to an industry of worship
• The importance of understanding whiteness as a culture
• Why America needs to be seen as a religion
• Thoughts on Bad Bunny and rival Super Bowl halftime shows
• What we can learn from the Maverick City controversy

• Show Sponsor: Planning Center
• Phillip Joubert
• Common Hymmal

This episode is sponsored by Planning Center, an all-in-one church management software made to help churches help people. You can organize your ministries and keep everyone on your team communicating and aligned around what's going on.

As a worship leader, good communication is key to building a strong worship team. You can cultivate relationships while ensuring everyone has what they need to successfully prep for your services.

But why not take it up a notch using the chat feature?

Built right into the Services mobile app—which, by the way, you should totally download if you haven't already—chat helps you coordinate all the service details with your team. Plus, you can have fun while doing it!

No more juggling emails, group texts, and multiple apps to ensure your whole team is aligned. Chat will simplify your communication in one convenient place through the Services mobile app. And everyone can ask questions, request prayer, or join the banter in real-time with one another.

The really cool part about chatting with your teams? Team members are dynamically added or removed from conversations as availability changes!

So if your original bass player suddenly declines (why is it so hard to find a bass player, anyway?), your newly scheduled bass player is automatically added to the chat conversation.

All of your chat conversations stay in sync. No more outdated group threads or irrelevant messages! So what are you waiting for? Download the Services app and start chatting!

• Matt's early years of punk band drumming
• How Matt connected with Joel Houston and Hillsong Church
• Staying childlike as a worship leader
• How to overcome insecurity
• The making of Matt's first solo project
• Matt's favorite Hillsong song he's been a part of

• Show Sponsor: Planning Center
• Interlude by Matt Crocker
• Matt Crocker

This episode is sponsored by Planning Center, an all-in-one church management software made to help churches help people. You can organize your ministries and keep everyone on your team communicating and aligned around what's going on.

As a worship leader, good communication is key to building a strong worship team. You can cultivate relationships while ensuring everyone has what they need to successfully prep for your services.

But why not take it up a notch using the chat feature?

Built right into the Services mobile app—which, by the way, you should totally download if you haven't already—chat helps you coordinate all the service details with your team. Plus, you can have fun while doing it!

No more juggling emails, group texts, and multiple apps to ensure your whole team is aligned. Chat will simplify your communication in one convenient place through the Services mobile app. And everyone can ask questions, request prayer, or join the banter in real-time with one another.

The really cool part about chatting with your teams? Team members are dynamically added or removed from conversations as availability changes!

So if your original bass player suddenly declines (why is it so hard to find a bass player, anyway?), your newly scheduled bass player is automatically added to the chat conversation.

All of your chat conversations stay in sync. No more outdated group threads or irrelevant messages! So what are you waiting for? Download the Services app and start chatting!