Chris Bright 0:06
Welcome to the thinking church podcast with me, Chris Bright. Every week, I'll be speaking with a church leader, ministry strategy and getting to grips with not just what they do the thinking behind why they do it. So without further ado, let's get on with the show. Well, my guest today is Lee Baker and Lee bake. Lee Baker is the worship director at 12. Stone church in Atlanta. Lee, it's so great to have you back on the show, man. You doing well?
Lee Baker 0:38
Yeah, doing great man. You guys. Okay?
Chris Bright 0:40
Yeah, well, all goes over in the United Kingdom, it's all all is well, where we're keeping goods. We're quite happy because COVID restrictions was COVID is still here, the restrictions are not. So that's good start. It's that feeling of freedom is is pretty good. So
Lee Baker 0:58
happy if you do, man. Yeah, that's awesome.
Chris Bright 1:01
Well, thank you so much for speaking to me today. I really want to pick up with you about worship and vision. And well, as you know, thinking churches, what about church strategy? But I've also been a worship leader now for 20 years, which is way longer than
Lee Baker 1:22
I feel, yeah, I'm right there.
Chris Bright 1:25
You know, you just start and suddenly 20 years goes by, and there we are.
Lee Baker 1:31
Yeah, I know that people would put up with me this long
Chris Bright 1:33
I've got the same feeling. And, and what I realised, I mean, I probably have always kept those two areas of my life, I never thought they mixed. You know, they just thought that, you know, worship was one thing, strategy was another thing. And you know, never the twain shall meet. But I'm actually starting to investigate more of this thought that they might be more linked than I first thought and that there's, you know, if we want to get a vision from God, we've got to allow him to speak to us. And I really like you to help me develop that further. So I help me and help me think about how we can link worship and vision and putting those two things together.
Lee Baker 2:16
Yeah. I love this, actually, we've been having conversations about this recently. And I've always defined vision is like, God gives you this. For some people, it's like, they they may see a vision, like a picture in their head of something that God wants to show them. You know, here, I think we're talking a little bit more about what do we what do we feel like God wants us to grow the ministry that we oversee into what's the ideal situation, like, if we were to say, Man, I have a, I have an idea or a vision of what I see ministry looking like at, at our church in five years, or 10 years? Well, we're in an interesting season as the as the Big C church, you know, not just 12 Stone, not just you guys, you know, but like, the big church, because there's a lot of cultural change going on. There's a lot of generational change going on in the church, we're going through a long term transition to have a new senior pastor coming in, who's 20 years younger than our founding pastor who's always been the senior pastor for 35 years. So there's a lot of I feel like there's a lot of churches going through a generational change of pastors. And obviously, cultures change. My brother and I were having a conversation the other day, cuz I'm a teenager. And you know, that's, that's new for us. And so my brother and I were talking and my brother said something really, really brilliant. He said, You know, my parents went to high school in the 1970s. And, and so they're, I feel like their childhood, or high school years weren't that different than mine. Like, I was in high school in the 90s. And they rode around in their cars with their friends. And we rode around in our cars with our friends, and we went to movies, and they went to movies. But now my kids, childhood high school years are so different than mine. Like the world's just changed, and they have phones, we didn't have phones, they have the internet in their hand, you know, they there's all this stuff going on. It's so different. And we don't know how to how to parent it. And so the way that relates to what we're talking about is, I feel like there's a new vision for the church, just like there's a new way to parent. Now the issue comes in when, like vision should always be the oldest thing. You talk about strategy all the time. I think you guys are awesome at that. So you have vision, and that's the thing you want to achieve. It's like you see what's possible and you have the conviction to get there, you know, and so you have the vision and then you have the strategy, which is the way you get there. It's like the the how well then you have the structure, which is like your staffing and your systems and all those sorts of things and vision should always be the oldest because This vision needs a strategy to reach this vision. And this strategy needs a structure to employ that, that strategy, what I find out is we're trying to achieve new vision with old strategy and old structure. And it's really you, if your vision is your newest thing, you're probably in trouble, because you're probably trying to achieve a new vision with old strategy and old structure. And so we've been in this process, even if like, okay, we have this fresh vision, because we have, you know, a new senior leader coming in, we're post COVID, and the world's different, you know, all this sort of stuff. And we realised we were in that that boat about six or eight months ago. And so we've spent the last season trying to get, okay, we have this new vision. Now let's get strategy down here. And let's get a new strategy for a new vision. And then Okay, now let's do the new structure, new staffing, new systems for a new vision and all that sort of stuff. And that has affected us deeply. And is particularly in the area of of worship ministry. We're just going okay, God, like, what do you want us to do in this next season? I think if we if you think that vision is potentially unrelated to worship, we may miss out on developing some foundational things inside the culture in the ministry of worship inside of our churches that we need to build that are going to be foundational for the seasons that God is bringing us into in the future, if that makes sense. So like, for us, we were asking God, like how, because our vision as a ministry, as the worship ministry, is subservient to the vision of the church, when I'm really asking for when I say God, give me a vision for how we're to worship you. Give me a vision for the ministry of the worship Ministry of the church, what I'm asking is, how does our vision serve the greater vision of the church? How does the Ministry of worship visions serve the ministry of the church? And he's been super faithful in that, you know, we've experienced a lot of that over the years. But I think that every time the church has a new vision in the church goes through a new strategy and a new structure process. So the worship ministry has to do that as well. You know, we can't we can't not react like vision matters to the church. But vision doesn't matter to the worship ministry, you know what I'm saying? So I think it's important that not only do we have vision in worship ministry, but that we realise that our vision serves the greater vision of the church, we have to be really familiar with the vision of the church. And when we understand that to go in and go, Okay, how do we strategize? And how do we potentially restructure to achieve this thing? So I know, that may be like a lot, you know, in one little swoop. But does that spark anything that what you're thinking? Yeah, no,
Chris Bright 7:42
that's, that's completely on the lines of what I'm thinking. And I think I've just got this idea that I think worship is it's there's this sort of, to, almost, I'm trying to think of the right term to use it's, there's this two way approach where vision, like worship kind of, is almost like the engine room for vision. And then that vision then gets passed back to worship. And there's this interesting, dynamic that's at play, I'm starting to see, how does that work in in your church is how does? How does worship help? birth vision? But also then it? Like you said, it also sort of comes back?
Lee Baker 8:24
Yeah, I think vision vision is, if vision is absent of worship, in my opinion, if vision is absent of worship, it could just come across as an idea. And I think vision is so much more than an idea. And when vision comes to light in the presence of God, then it it's more than an idea. You know, it's powerful, it's, it feels eternal. It feels hopeful, it feels faith filled. You know, it's more than just like, oh, a pastor had an idea. It's like, No, God gave us this vision for what he wants to accomplish in in through his church in this world. And obviously, like, the ultimate vision is like, man, we want him to come to Earth. We want heaven to overtake things of earth, you know, and in all the ways but I think step by step, God gives us those incremental visions. And for us, worship is the thing that brings that vision to life, spiritually and eternally. Because we would never like share a vision with the church or even with our staff like is our current pastor Kevin, who's our founding pastor at 12 Stone, and pastor Jason who's who's coming in right now and they're kind of in this couple year transition. Even as they have shared vision with a staff it is it is never been absent of worship and prayer, like, you know, and those two things even even in like the programming of like sharing vision in a meeting or a service. It's always interwoven with Hey, you know, I was praying and God gave us this, let's pray over that, hey, let's worship let's, let's pray that he hears another part of the idea, let's worship, let's pray that we just actually finished seven nights of prayer in September, just earlier this month, and we were sharing all sorts of things we feel like are so foundational for our church in this next season. And then we would worship around those ideas and worship. Sometimes, sometimes you're worshipping, because you have faith, sometimes you're worshipping, because you need faith, you know, for for visions, and that sort of thing, you know, to achieve the things that God's put in front of you. And I don't think that we can do that outside of his presence. Maybe you can, but it certainly is better in his presence. You know, like when you're when you're just engaged, and you hear this idea. And then you get to spend time worshipping and the Holy Spirit's doing ministry in your heart and opening you up to maybe the depths of the idea that maybe you didn't, maybe you understand the vision, like mentally, but your heart hasn't attached to it, or your soul hasn't attached to it. And the great thing about worship is, it's all of those things. You know, Jesus said, the greatest commandment is Love the Lord your God, with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength. I think in worship, there's invitation to engage all of those things, our hearts, our minds, our souls, our stinks, or sometimes, maybe vision, just as an idea may engage our mind. But maybe not maybe not our, our heart or our soul, you know, or something. And I think worship just opens us up to that, and helps vision connect to our heart, more our soul more, you know, so that we can respond, you know, more deeply, I think in that so.
Chris Bright 11:32
Yeah, no, that's, that's really, really great. I love that thought. And so, as a bit of a develop this idea, I've been thinking about maybe some of the practical side of it. And what I've decided to do is in I started in the summer was, I've been starting to blog on the book of Acts. I know, it was a, it was one of those ideas that comes to you when you're setting your garden on a sunny afternoon, Sunday morning. And I thought, you know, what, everyone thinks that the book of Acts is, you know, if we want to look at how you How, how would you, how does the church get back to the biblical way of doing church, let's Well, let's have a look and see what's actually there. And so, I was blogging through being blogging through it, and I'm eight weeks in, and I'm still only in chapter four. And I think it's gonna take me a long time. I've been reading ahead. And in chapter six, I was, I was really struck by this, I can't wait to actually get up to chapter six to be able to blog on this, which is that the apostles promote the seven. And Stephen is obviously one of those, and their job is to wait on tables. And the, the reason what the reason that the 12 apostles give, is they want to find more time for in their, in their week for prayer and the ministry of the word. And I thought, wow, like, you know, how, you know, how much time of pastors, you know, church leaders, spending in, in prayer and worship, I think will probably come into that that categories as well until be an interesting one to ask for you. How, like, how much time have you found that worship is finding its way into your, into your working week? And, and if so, what what's been the fruit of that and starting from that place, because I feel like we've you know, the church of, you know, the last maybe 20 years, we've been really busy, which, you know, some of the stuff is really good. Sure. But we've that means that you don't feel like those kind of aspects have been part of our working week, I'll just say, how's that been for you? What have you found and, and what have you been learning along the way?
Lee Baker 13:44
Yeah, man. You know, in leadership and ministry, you're you're always making decisions, and you're always leading teams, and leadership and the business like what you know, what you call the business side of ministry. I think it wasn't very great in the 90s in the church, like the church was kind of an organised and maybe leadership wasn't as much of a priority. And so I think we reacted sort of appropriately and went like, Hey, we need to be more organised. We need to serve people better and we need to be better leaders. And, but leadership is so easy to package that I think that and sell and have conferences about and all that sort of stuff. I think maybe leadership took too high of a priority in the church, and it kind of jumped over discipleship and jumped over a couple of things and became this thing that we've, you know, almost idolised for, for some people. And while I'm, I'm a huge fan of leadership, I mean, we're a leadership church, and we love you know, growing and leading and loving people, but remembering like, I'm a pastor before, I'm a leader. I'm a Christian before, I'm a leader, I'm a child of God before I'm a leader, and all of those things drive me to prayer. I don't ever want to make a decision in my team. hears me say this all the time, but like, I don't ever want to make a decision that isn't prayerful and purposeful, and prayerful will always Trump purposeful. And what I mean by that is like, like whether we're selecting songs or building strategy, or whatever it is, I'm going to be prayerful about it. And my prayer times I mean, I'm with you. I've been in worship ministry for 21 years this year and like, my worship time, or my prayer time always involves worship. I see the two the same, like worship is part of prayer. Prayer is part of worship, you know, it's just kind of whether or not I'm like singing my prayers or speaking my prayers or whatever, but it's all kind of the same to me and, you know, that's a that's a daily thing for me. I can't make decisions without being prayerful because a lot of times you know, the the data the information goes like, Oh, you should make this decision. But as a leader, you just feel like the spirit or something's like leading you to go this way. And that's where like, the prayer hall kind of Trumps purpose, but a lot of times they wind up but sometimes they don't. And, and I want to be prayerful enough as a leader, worshipful enough as a leader, that I have enough faith to go I know that the data, the information, the purpose, the pragmatic things say that we should make this decision. But I just really feel like this, you know, like, we should lean into this and, and I'm grateful I don't I don't think I could be a leader because leadership involves so much decision making. I don't think I could be a leader without being prayerful. Might not I don't I don't see decision making in leadership apart from prayer. I'm not smarter. I think some people are smart enough to make decisions from maybe like that. I'm not that smart dude. It's like I'm like oh God, please help me I don't make this decision. You know? It's a man I just think that it's so key it's a daily thing I think for those of us who lead in church like walking in the you know that Thessalonians pray continually kind of mindset you know, when we're when we're in leadership situations and meetings or whatever. I don't know man, I can't I can't separate the two that prayerful and purposeful and prayerful Trump's purposeful has been part of my thought process and ministry for man years, so I just can't divorce the two
Chris Bright 17:15
Yeah, I wonder what can we do to start making time for church you know, what could church leaders ministry leaders start to do to sort of start carving out that time in their week that actually this now becomes a an integral part because I think I'm so much more awake to this idea that you know, I used to think maybe I you know, that's for outside of work time and that's that's your personal walk with Jesus? Actually, I'm actually getting more convinced that I think we need to find some more time in you know, if we're able to be on staff then obviously fantastic. But how can we find more time to carve out in our week? Well worship is, is you know, it's becoming the it's not a luxury it's a an every day, it's part of who we are. And it's it's you know, the catalyst for the ministry that we do. Yeah,
Lee Baker 18:11
I think I think it does start I think it's both and I think it starts personally because I don't want to make worship a part of my work rhythm that as a pastor if it's not a part of my life rhythm as a child of God, you know, and so I think it starts personally I was just reading in Matthew this morning in Matthew six where Jesus was saying like hey, when you pray go into your closet you know like like I think it starts there you know it starts in private we also just kind of one of our staff values is pray first pray often and so we don't we don't start a meeting in the worship department without prayer. And then we and sometimes we'll just stop in the middle of a meeting and then pray and we also have on wins days Yes, on wins most most campuses most of our locations on Wednesdays have a prayer time over their lunch hour. So like the campus staff and then they open the doors and people from the church and community will come in and they just pray for the hour every Wednesday and then our our worship staff our central worship staff. We worship through the set on Wednesday afternoons for that Sunday with like no time constraints know that we just were just kind of looking for like God is there something you want to Is there something you want to unfold in the in the worship set this weekend? Well, we need to kind of worship in preparation for the worship this weekend. So like, we take the set for Sunday and worship through it around he goes into meetings at one o'clock on Wednesdays and so most of the time, and we worsted through that just just four or five of us and may God always reveals some really cool things that we need to sit in or pray for a challenge to church on or things we need to sing again. Like they were gonna sit in that chorus or that bridge or Oh, we're gonna bring in a whole song we didn't even plan you know, maybe not a whole song but like a bridge or a chorus of something or a hymn or something. And God always informs us a lot in those worship times. So I think like, you, you, you become what you build rhythms around. Like if you want to be a prayerful church or a prayerful pastor, you'll build those rhythms. If you want to be all the way to like, man, if you want to be in shape, or if you want to, you know, have savings financially, like you're going to build rhythms and priorities around those sorts of things. And I think that requires you to like, zoom out and look at your calendar and look at those sorts of things and, you know, adopt some values and start to rebuild those rhythms. You know, I know a lot of leaders have great intentions, but intentions don't get you anywhere, you need to look at what you really want to become. What do you want to what do you want to be known as known for and, and build rhythms around that, you know, and that's, that's definitely I don't think we're doing everything right. But I think we've been at least mildly successful at building rhythms around, you know, pray for us pray often. Worship, personal worship, worshipping, personally, being a priority, worshipping as a team off the platform being a priority, you know, I just went to two or three camps, sometimes I go around and visit our campuses. And two of our campuses that I visited two weeks ago, I walked in their green room, and they just started singing, like we were in combat, I was in conversation with somebody and somebody started singing over here. And next thing I know, we're all worshipping in the greenroom, like right before we walk out on the platform, it wasn't like, okay, hey, it's time to time to worship time. So it was just like, naturally sort of, like started bubbling up in the room. And it was just fantastic. And I think that takes not just me, or not just one leader, but like a group of people really focused on, you know, building a culture like that. Just seeing it, and then building rhythms around it, you know?
Chris Bright 21:42
Yeah, absolutely. And I think that when you say culture, I, what I am starting to see is there's, there's more, there's these kind of various, this culture of spontaneous worship that started to happen. It's seeming like you know, in the Worldwide Church, you know, there's I'm looking at bands, you know, the maverick city have, you know, have emerged recently upper room and Bethel and you know, great bands like that yourselves, obviously, that you're, you know, doing great things as well. And what I'm noticing is this, this kind of, there's this spontaneous worship. That's that's, that is very, it's, it's new. It's new to the broader church, especially new to the, you know, the wider, you know, worship industry to use a bad term. But, but that's, that's something that's new that's rising up. And I just wonder, what what do you think God's doing in the church at the moment through that, because it's definitely been this significant shift in the last maybe couple of years? It seems.
Lee Baker 22:40
Yeah, I think like having a teenage son and just, you know, we have a residency programme, we're around a lot of young guys all the time, young girls, like, I feel like this generation like we're, we're when we were, we were growing up in the church, the issue was the church wasn't really that relevant to us. Like it wasn't very connected to the culture, like I was in high school in the mid 90s. And sounds like we're close to the same age, like, we came out in church built very traditional and modern worship was a new thing. But like, a lot of the bigger churches, least churches that are the church that I attended, wasn't really embracing that very much. And, and so we are generation you and I tried to solve the issue of church, your relevancy. And in doing so, I think there were seasons that maybe we over produced and over programmed and over, you know, experienced, you know, and all that sort of stuff. And I think to the new generation, that started to feel a little inauthentic. And so I think the new generation, you know, my kids generation, early 20s, you know, Gen Z, or maybe feel like the church is a little bit inauthentic at times. And so I think some of these movements are like in an effort to, to achieve authenticity, we're just going to, like start worshipping, and just see where it goes. And that feels really real and unproduced, and on a, you know, experience driven and on prepared, and I think all that feels very authentic. And I do think that that connects with, you know, generationally, just just sociologically, I think that's why it connects spiritually, I feel like that, that it's not so much the spontaneity as the space to me, like, I feel like people are not, we don't have a lot of space in our lives, you know, and so space feels so counter cultural. We always have our phones we always have the information we always have the thing and so it's when you hit space, it feels so refreshing to us, because like, just to sit for two minutes and someone just seeing a repetitive prayer over and over again. You know, the worship, like you said, you know, the negative term in the worship industry thing like kind of had to bow down to music industry things and so songs are four minutes long for Christian radio and you know, all that sort of And so to have a movement coming out where there's a lot of space in the music, and the songs are 10 minutes long, and it sort of forces you to slow down and, you know, that sort of thing. I think that is pretty refreshing. I think that's pretty nice. You know, I remember music like that, you know, around the, here in America, the Brownsville revival in Florida in like the 90s. Not, I think that was kind of that way, like, there were long songs and long moments. And that was something that the charismatic church in the 80s and 90s, the vineyard movement, stuff like that, you know, they were doing that stuff back then. And then so it's not like, it's never been done before. I think the vineyard church was doing that in the 80s. You know, like, just space and spontaneity. And I think, now we're trying to find, you know, in the, at least in the Sunday morning context of church or the weekend context of like, a church service for the whole family. We're trying to find the both end in that, but I love what I love with Maverick is doing and, you know, upper room and Bethel and, you know, some of these other smaller ministries even are just exploring space. And, you know, opening things up a little bit, I think, I think it's outstanding, and I think it's right for this generation, to reconnect to the church. Through that, that style or method of of worship, you know, I don't know that one. Well, I feel like I kind of know, there, there's no, like better way to worship. It's just I think God knows how our, the condition of our souls and the world we live in and he goes, Okay, I kind of see, you know, he ministers to us by being kind enough to reach out to us and provide a way that we can connect with him, because he knows the way that we're suffering or the things that we're going through or how distracted we are or how worried we are. And even though worship is all about him, he's kind enough to let us worship in a way that our souls connect with. And so I think that that's something that Bethel and you know, some of these, some of these other churches that are providing the space are really doing well.
Chris Bright 26:58
Well, thank you so much for listening to this week's broadcast. This is only halfway through the podcast, and you can listen to the conversation by joining our members podcast, just go to our website, www dot thinking dot church and you can sign up to our members for cost, only costing the price of coffee promotes it's well worth doing. So why not get a coffee, listen to the podcast and learn something new. We'll see you again for this podcast next week. So bye for now.
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