Called To Music Podcast

Keith Elgin is a worship pastor, songwriter, and the host of the Worship Online Podcast, a platform that has trained over 150,000 worship leaders worldwide.

But his story does not start where you might expect. It starts with a quiet moment in his bedroom where he heard God say come home. That one moment sent him back to church, into a band, and eventually onto a stage opening for Chris Tomlin just months after he ever led worship for the first time.

In this conversation we talked about what it looks like to recognize the warning signs before burnout makes the decision for you, how having one hard conversation with your pastor changed the entire trajectory of Keith's ministry, and why ministry longevity is less about hustle and more about alignment.

Keith also shares his Worship Journal, a resource built around his personal practice of journaling through worship songs with God, and why he does not want to get to the end of his life and be a squanderer of what God gave him.

Ministry does not have to break you. This one is for anyone who has wondered if they can keep going.

Worship Journal

Worship Online Podcast

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Alex Enfiedjian is the founder of Worship Ministry Training, one of the most listened to worship leadership podcasts in the world with over a million downloads. He is also a worship pastor, teacher, and the creator of an online school that has trained over 25,000 worship leaders globally.

And he started it partly because he did not want to be a nobody.

That is the ugly origin story he shared with me and it is one of the most honest things a guest has said on this show. Because the Lord uses even our foolish desires to accomplish his purposes as long as we keep laying our lives down before him.

In this conversation we talked about why nobody trained us for this role, what happens when music is sticky but the people leading it are not pastoral, and the difference between leading like a producer and leading like a pastor.

Alex also gets into why worship leaders look to Instagram instead of the Bible to figure out 

what they are supposed to be doing and what we can do about it.

This one is for anyone who has ever felt thrown into ministry and figured it out as they went.

Worship Ministry Training Academy

Worship OS

Free 8 Essentials Course

Ideal Ministry Calendar Template 

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Tai Anderson is the bassist of the iconic Grammy Award winning Christian rock band Third Day.

He is also an entrepreneur, a speaker, and the author of a brand new book called Market Like a Rockstar.

This conversation was one of my favorites we have done on this show.

Tai's music journey began with a youth pastor who could have pushed him away from rock and roll but instead said come play in the youth group. That one invitation changed everything.

We talked about the early days of Third Day, the pressure they felt to cross over into the mainstream and why they said no, and the story behind Offerings, the album the label did not want to release that ended up being their best seller.

We also got into Tai's ROCKSTAR marketing framework and what it looks like for independent artists and worship leaders who are trying to build something real without a massive platform behind them.

This one is for anyone who feels called to more than one thing in music.

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Robbie Seay started a band called Zion in high school near Houston Texas, went to Baylor where he met David Crowder and helped plant a church, fronted the Robbie Seay Band on Sparrow Records with a Billboard charting song, and then made a decision that a lot of people would not have made. He stepped back from the spotlight to pour into other worship leaders through his work at The Worship Initiative.

In this conversation Robbie and Bryan talk about:

• How God pairs passion with ability and why that combination is not an accident
• What it was like to have the thing so many worship leaders are chasing and then lay it down
• The Musician Minister and Multiplier framework and why most worship leaders get stuck in just one lane
• Why the local church was always the through line even during the recording artist years
• The science of singing and why what worship leaders do matters more than they realize
• How tools like Sing for Churches and Psallo are helping worship leaders disciple their people all week long not just on Sunday

This one is for every worship leader who has ever wondered which lane they are actually called to and what it looks like to walk in all three.

Check out: Sing for Churches

Check out Psallo 

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What if the season you are in right now is not the waiting room for your calling but your actual calling?

I have been sitting on this one for a while because it is personal. It is about the lie that if you do not have a publishing deal, a record deal, a charting song, or a full time income from music then you are not really doing it. That you are just a hobbyist. That you are an imposter waiting to be found out.

In this episode I talk about:

• The imposter syndrome that crept in during my own season in Nashville
• What happened when music became my full time income and the get to became a have to
• The messages I got from all over the world when I relaunched Called to Music and what they told me about this community
• Why Paul made tents, David kept sheep and Peter kept fishing and what that means for your calling right now
• Why your calling is not on hold until your income catches up
• The freedom that comes from understanding that calling is never really about the income model

If you have ever felt like you were not quite there yet this episode is for you.

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Natalie Runion is a USA Today bestselling author, speaker, worship leader, songwriter and pastor who founded the Raised to Stay movement. She has been in ministry for over twenty years and built a community of over 200,000 people who are choosing to stay with Jesus even when the church has been hard.

In this conversation Natalie talks about:

• How she went from pastor's kid to worship leader to author and why God had to pry her favorite thing from her hands
• What she would say to the worship leader chasing the big church and the big song
• Why there is no greater place to be than trusted with the local church
• How Raised to Stay was born on a walk with the Lord out of a season of wanting to quit
• Writing songs for your congregation not for the industry
• What she learned about social media growth after a brain injury kept her off her phone for 90 days
• Why she sees her 200K following as a congregation not a fan club
• What it looks like to take your position on a birthing stool instead of a platform

This one is going to stay with you.

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Terence Fisher has been playing music since he was a kid beatboxing on street corners in Shreveport Louisiana. He went to Grambling State for music performance, started producing in 2005, built a YouTube channel and social media following that reaches hundreds of thousands of musicians across Instagram, YouTube, TikTok and Facebook, and he did it all by just showing up consistently and giving away everything he knew for free.

In this conversation Terence and I talk about:

• Why identity is the number one thing holding musicians back
• How he navigated the church world and the secular world without losing himself in either
• What it actually takes to build an audience as a musician on social media
• The rocket ship principle and why most people quit right before liftoff
• What he calls the skill of skilling and why it changes everything
• What gives him hope about the future of musicians and the value of what we do

This is one of those conversations that just hits different. Terence is humble, wise, practical and he genuinely wants to see musicians win.

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Teel Merrick found his way into worship leading because his youth pastor left him no choice. Fast forward to today — he’s the guy helping worship leaders and volunteers stop drowning in Planning Center so they can actually get to Thursday with margin left.

In this conversation Teel and I talk about:

• How God opened a door through a failed theme park purchase (yes, really)
• Why practical content beats inspirational content every time
• Periscope learning — his framework for getting better at skills without burning out
• AI in worship ministry — where it helps and where it can’t replace you
• Why less is the future of worship music
• Preferences vs. values — and why mixing them up will get you in trouble fast
• The insane volume of worship music being released and what it’s doing to local churches

Teel runs Worship Admin on Instagram and is one of those rare voices that’s just trying to help — no fluff, no paywall, just practical stuff you can use this week.

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Worship Admin Spotify Playlist

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This week three songs showed up in the same day. Three very different experiences with AI music. And together they told a story I wasn't expecting.

One made me wish I hadn't heard it because it was so good and so fast. One made me ask what we're even doing this for. And one reminded me exactly what this calling is all about.

In this episode I process honestly what I think AI music tools like Suno can and can't do for us as faith based creatives. Not anti AI. Pro calling.

Because God didn't call us to a perfect finished product. He called us to a life of making music for our Creator.

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What if the pressure to sound like the biggest worship churches in the world is actually working against your congregation?

In this episode I sit down with Kelsey McGinnis, writer for Christianity Today, professor at Grand View University, and musicologist who studies worship culture from a genuinely unique outside perspective. We talk about the history of worship music, why we're all a little timestamped by the music that first moved us, the real cost of chasing excellence over obedience, and why writing songs for your own church might be one of the most powerful things you can do.

This one is full of honest conversation and real hope for anyone who leads music in the church.

Called to Music. For everyone God called to music.

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