 Hey guys, I'm so glad to be here. I do an appointment. Makes it sound like I've got a scheduled dentist appointment up here in Michigan. I miss my Carolina one. Caleb, thank you for that. No, I actually have a meeting. I love church. I am at church and just full in with church back home. So I actually do have a two o'clock meeting about our weekend programming back home. So that was, I didn't wanna cancel on that team because I help lead that meeting. So I'm just gonna FaceTime in with them. But so that's just to kick things off. That's a little bit about me. I love church. I love serving in church, probably like many of you guys. And I've got a wife, Beth. We met in school. I went to school to study music and ended up studying this girl that turned into my wife. And I was up. Let's do this thing together. We got two kids, Jo and Adelaide. She's amazing at, Beth, my wife is amazing at helping just organize our home and parent while I'm away. I don't, I love, I'm a homebody. So like, I'm so glad to be here with you. But I also am like, I've missed them so much when they were home, but I come back. I kid you not. I came back from being on the road a bit a few weeks ago and I was folding some clothes in Jo and my son's room, he's eight. And I was folding some clothes that he and I brought up and I was putting him in his drawer and he was like, dad, that's not how Marie folds them. I was like, who's Marie? And he said, Marie, Marie Kondo. She's apparently this lady on Netflix. While I was away, Beth, my wife taught my eight and six year old how to organize our home even better by watching this Netflix show. And he comes over and folds his own clothes. I'm like, I'm good with that. Like that is amazing. You can totally put your clothes up, fold them however you want to. So that is a millennial thing if I've ever heard one my eight year old telling me, Marie doesn't do it that way, dad. So I've been in Elevation Church. That's where I'm from, our team's from. Been there for 12 plus years serving with Pastor Steven. He and I actually met in high school when we started playing in bands together in high school. So I knew him first as a worship leader and songwriter before church. And then we stayed in touch through college. And so when he went to start the church, it was kind of an easy decision, long story, but an easy decision at the end of the day on me and Beth's part to join. And it was amazing. And the reason I tell you I met him years ago because it'll come into play. He and I and our team do a lot of writing together. And I think it's a unique, a bit of a unique thing that a lead pastor would be so involved in songwriting. He wasn't always in our church, but again, I knew him as like the songwriter before I ever imagined him as a pastor or a preacher. So it felt natural when about six or so years of the church he got involved in writing and having that creative outlet. But I'm gonna jump right in and hopefully today's session provides value for you. Hopefully it provides some insight. I am not coming with the ABCs or the three tips on how to write an amazing song or how to write a crazy hit song. I don't have that. All I know is our context and we write for our church. And so I'm just coming from a place of like, this is what we've learned. This is not, I've not gone to school to study how to songwrite. I don't feel qualified to teach on here's how to, you know, kill a pop song. Here's how to kill a country song. I don't, I'm not coming with that. But what I am coming with is just experience of us writing for years and making a lot of terrible music. And then learning along the way and finding songs that do in fact work for our church in and out of seasons. So I thought it would be cool if we talked about four C's today. You know, when you guys, I don't know if you remember this, women, you may be a little bit more clued in like when I was searching for my wife's diamond and talked about like, you got to pay attention to the four C's of like a diamond, right? You remember there's like clarity, cut, color, and carrot, of course carrot. There it is. So I thought for our songwriting session, we might talk about, you know, it's a bit, songwriting is a bit like finding a gem, finding a diamond. It's like uncovering all these different things. I don't think one is at least in my experience has ever just been laying out there in the middle of a field or God hasn't just dropped a song in its entirety in its full like out of heaven. Here you go. This is everything. It's always felt like an uncovering in a search and okay, this part is right. Got the color right, but the cut's not exactly what you want it to be. Okay, you got the cut, right? But you know, the carrot's not all there yet. So the four C's, I guess that we can shape this up today. The ABC's always be connecting. I wanna give them to you up front. Connecting, collecting, collaborating, and correcting. So those again, the four C's for today's purposes of songwriting, connecting, collecting, collaborating, and correcting. You know, we were, a few years back, we had scheduled this writing session at church and we showed up and like normal we're just kind of chit chatting and getting ready to dive in and we opened with prayer and asking God to bless our session, right? That's God to, God would you give us a song today? And we felt that God said, you give me a song today. I've given you all the tools. I've given you the ability. I've given you a lot of things to help shape you know, and offering for me and offering to me. So like, how about you get to work today? And I've found that so often songwriting is like that. It's like, no, this is, we all have skills and ability and gifts and talents and experience and years that we are bringing and all these things are parts of what we're bringing together to help you know, shape a new sound and shape a new song and shape a new offering to give to God. And so hopefully today is just another building block for you on your journey of writing and to jump in with connecting, I think again I mentioned that what I'm coming with today is just our context and we write for our local church. Like that's who is in mind, our people are in mind like the people of Elevation Church and specifically, we have several campuses, specifically even the people, I think that I'm seeing weekend and week out at even my, you know, localized campus. I'm picturing like the one guy, Rick Parker who's always there, you know, on Sunday morning and Saturday night. And I'm picturing is Rick going to relate to this song? Is Rick going to connect with this lyric? And I think that's important wherever you, I mean we're all here at a church conference, obviously to be empowered as church leaders. So I'm assuming we're all writing for the most part maybe for our church and maybe some of you are writing out in other contexts as well. But I think it's so important to be able to say I one am in touch and connect and in touch with the people of my church to a point where I know what's going on in different ones of their lives. I'm in touch with the people of my church to have a pulse on, okay, like this lyric, I'm not writing a song to try to put a broad brushstroke over the global sea church. That's not what I even feel called to do. Nor do I feel like our ministry is called to do as a worship ministry who is writing songs. We feel like God's hands been on some of our songs and God's breath on some of our songs because we have remained focused on we're gonna write with who's right in front of us and for who's right in front of us. And so I just wanna encourage you like to have that pulse of what's happening in your church, know what's going on in your community. Don't be interested in writing or so concerned at least with writing this timeless song as much as you're concerned with writing a time lease song. Like God, what in this season are you wanting to say to our people? What in this season are you wanting to say? And of course to me, like are you, you know, moving on a little bit, does this song connect to you? I found personally, I can lose sight sometimes in the revision process of songs that a song loses even its personal connection to me. So let me just encourage you always go back and have this like checks and balances in place where, hey, am I still resonating with this lyric or does it feel kind of like, no, like it doesn't connect with me in quite the same way. Is it feel a little half hearted? There was, we were writing this song here is in heaven years ago and we had gone away for a week to write and I was at a Starbucks actually on the morning we were leaving early and Starbucks is where the song began. God gave me the atmosphere is changing now for the spirit of the Lord is here. I think I was listening to a Bethel album and I just felt the melody and the lyric come for the verse ended up writing the chorus and bridge over the next 24 hours and thought the song was gonna end on the bridge, like thought we were gonna be done with the song and that was gonna be it and not bring it kind of back down. And I felt a bit, a bit fine with it. And when then we started talking, well, do we need to wrap it with like a verse or something? It didn't quite make sense to like wrap it at the end of the song by singing the atmosphere is changing now. You know, like you state that up front and so we were just worshiping through the song, singing it after it had been finished and Pastor Stephen actually was in the session and he just randomly throws out a miracle can happen now for the spirit and that line arrested me and to me it took something that was, I thought was finished and was kind of like, okay, this one's got a bow on it. It's good to go. I think you want those magic moments and that checks and balance you want in place is like, as I go through, do I always feel this sense of like in the writing stage at least the sense of like the magic or this sense of being like immediately just, immediately resonating with the song? And the last thing I'll say about connecting is for those of you who are worship leaders here and under a lead pastor's vision, make sure that your writing and your art is connecting to your pastor's heart and vision or is at least submitted to where your pastor is wanting your ministry to go. I feel like that the ultimate, one of the ultimate signs of humility is when you can submit your personal preference to a larger vision. And as artists and as creatives, so often like that's one of the hardest things to do is to submit your art to someone else's maybe preference or maybe opinion, but certainly submit your own preferences to a larger vision and I can just speak on the principle of it that I really, really believe that God will always honor that. And I think at the end of the day, like if your pastor does want to be involved in at least the process of seeing songs, hearing them before they go to platform, before they go in front of your church, then value that opinion, value his input. And I think it's so important for you to have checks and balances simply from either your lead pastor or someone else on staff who can just check your theology too in your writing. So you're not bringing a song in front of your people that hasn't been checked out from a theology standpoint. So just having some of those things in places is great. So that's connecting, making sure you're connecting with the people, connecting to your pastor's heart. And second one, collecting, I'm gonna kind of breeze through some of these and then open it up to a bit of Q and A at the end as well. So hopefully we can just make sure we're hitting as much as possible. But collecting, always be generating and getting ideas. I've got so many voice memos. I'm sure you're similar. It was so many awful voice memos on my phone, usually at any given time where I'm just collecting ideas and I'm collecting this thought. A lot of times they're in the midst of like my kids screaming in the background. Yeah, a lot of times they're in the midst of just the craziest noise or I'll be in an airport and just like quickly hum like eight seconds of something because I don't wanna forget it. And there's so much noise. I'll share a few of like our starts in a bit where something started as a memo. But I don't see these like starter voice memos as a waste. I do see them as a way. Like I never feel like they're, when I look back, I'm like, oh my God, there's like so many collected on here that just seem like a bit of, they're a waste, they're taking up space on my phone. And I don't see that they're being used. But I think innately now, at least having been writing for years now, I've seen so many ideas lead to this next one. And we talk about for building something, you have scaffolding at every new layer, right? And so we talk about, is this maybe a scaffolding idea? I think all this is a way somewhere. Like this idea is gonna lead to that idea. That idea may come back three years from now. This idea may all be like really terrible but maybe 5% of it or maybe just that one word actually spawns this one. But I think like just taking the pressure off of yourself, whether you're in a session with others or like a collab session with others or with yourself, taking the pressure off of yourself that like the whole song idea needs to come and be completed in its entirety, like in one session. Or you're gonna have a complete song in a matter of two hours. I think like that very well may happen but at least take the pressure off of yourself that it's supposed to happen or that's the way songwriting does happen. I haven't found that to be true in most cases. And I listened to this podcast and the writer is, have you ever heard of this? A few of you, so write that down just if you're interested and it's just another tool. And the writer is the name of the podcast. It's a songwriter, he's been doing it for a long time named Ross Golan and he interviews other songwriters and it's just pop songwriters, country songwriters, just people who have been doing it in the game. It's not a Christian thing, so disclaimer. They're just, they're writing in their fields but they're writing some of the largest pop hits and so of the last, like however many years and so he's gotten Ryan Teter from OneRepublic on there, he's got Busby on there, Benny Blanco and I was listening to this one just yesterday on the flight on the way up with Greg Wells who's been around for, I don't know, 20 years or so producing and he produced like, Apologize by OneRepublic like 10 years ago and produced Katy Perry's Teenage Dream has co-written with Katy and Adele and everything. So, and Greg Wells, this guy, this writer was saying, most days his writing amounts to absolutely nothing. Like 90% of what he does never feels like it sees the light of day. But if you're always collecting this idea, the principle of always just putting in the work and always collecting the ideas, that principle is going to work for you because you don't have to feel like you're generating ideas from scratch every time if you haven't picked up a pin or sat down at a piano to write in three months. So if you're always writing like Stephen King's as he writes 360, how many days are in a year? However many days they're at 65 for. He writes that many days. Like I've seen it in print where he's like, I even write on Christmas Day. I think what he's just saying is that he believes so much in the principle of writing for the sake of writing or that book by Stephen Pressfield, The War of Art. He said, Stephen Pressfield says, it doesn't matter if I wrote anything worth anything today as long as I wrote today. So I'm just saying all that today to hopefully relieve some pressure from you that you're probably going to come out of a session one day after one day or come out of a session even after one week and you have something amazing. And again, obviously very well could happen but I think people that have been doing this for years and decades have found that to not necessarily be the case but what does help them is just the consistency of putting in the work and the consistency of creating and to reinvest the dividends basically of that creative momentum. And I think sometimes you can even write a high of like creative momentum. So like sometimes we've found like we're writing a, we're in the midst of writing a song or finishing a song, finishing a session and let's say we were gonna stop at eight PM or something. There's certainly been times where we're like, we're so like freaking amped about like whatever we did. We took that and jumped off into one other idea that we had the smallest start because we wanted to just like ride this momentum and then we carry that momentum as long we ride that way for as long as it happens. And I know that sounds probably fundamental but I just I'm trying to give you like any little trick or trait like when you feel like a bit of the magic then try to chase that magic and go as far as it'll go and then like be okay. Like when it lets up and trust that, all right. You know, the next day I'll get back to work and we'll see what happens then and then the day after that. So collecting just be collecting ideas all the time be routinely creating the next one, collaborating. I mean, this one's pretty straightforward. There's just no reason not to be collaborating with others in my experience at least and don't wait for someone else to prompt it. We collaborate all the time. The song, we have a song, a newer song called Here Again and I knew what the song was meant to be about when it was beginning. So that song actually started when my mom was passing a couple years ago and I started the song when she was in, she was in ICU for like the last, for like 10 days before she passed and I saw this interesting thing. Like she was unresponsive in the last 10 days and it felt like she was obviously present in her body, but not necessarily in her mind and in her spirit. And so she had like kind of one foot to me, like one foot here, one foot in heaven. And I was watching her kind of just look a little, like suspended like in between two places, right? Like so she was just kind of in between two places. Like so she was just kind of caught in between and began writing some lyric down during that time and melody and ended up writing a few verses, set it down for a few months and didn't come back to it until maybe three or four months later. And it was good for what I thought, but I brought it to a session and the lyric was, it was about being caught in between and the lyric was meet me in the middle. Where, something like a find me in this lonely place or in this hurting place, meet me in the middle. And here's what collaborating did. So I sang through the verses and then Pastor Stephen, who was in the session, he was like, so what's the objective? Like what are you wanting to say? So I explained just the, I feel like, what's it feel like when we're caught, when we're in this like in between state, we're not here, but we're not there. And so he's like, okay, well, let's not say it so on the nose. Let's not say like meet me in the middle. Why don't you say, can't go back to the beginning, can't control what's tomorrow. Okay, that's way better. That's so much better. And I think like that's the beauty of collaborating, right? Like you can just bring other people around a message and they can hopefully help like fine tune or in that case like, you know, kind of re-print the lyric altogether to open the song. But I just don't think there's any reason for you to not gather around other people and just see what might come out and surprise you and captivate you differently. And the last thing I would say is correcting. So the fourth C. So, you know, I mentioned this is about like, kind of like a diamond hunt and I guess, a bit of a archeological, archeological dig. And I think it, for us in our experience, songwriting is just taking work so much of the time. Like it's not been, in some cases, it's not even been an enjoyable process. Like it feels like this excavation, like you're digging for something. I said, you know, a lot of times things haven't fallen out of the sky, but you're just uncovering this and you're digging for that and you're excavating this part. And I do feel like we kind of have mental models that we have talked through as a team and staff back home. And I feel like as one of the songwriters on our team, like my mental model is like an archeologist, like, okay, this helps set my expectation. Like I'm going to get out there and just get to work. Like I'm not going to find it sitting on top. And it's not gonna come across that way. And correcting lyrics, correcting melody, revising, and revising and revising again is I think so, so key. And so I don't know like your experience and we can jump in in just a moment to some Q and A and maybe you can let me in and ask anything. But I don't know, early on in writing, I just thought like, okay, where we leave the session, like that's gonna be the song. Or if we're sitting with a song for a couple of weeks, that's it. I can tell you like some of our songs have been revised for 12 months, 18 months, and it feels laborious and it feels tedious and it feels like this isn't gonna turn into anything, let's give up on this. And that was the case with a song called Resurrecting. We rewrote and rewrote for nearly a year and a half on that song. And we didn't know at the end of the, like we tried it in front of our staff. One version that was totally different. We tried it in front of our church even that didn't have verse four finished yet. And it just, I think having a tenacity and willingness to not give up until you feel like, this thing is connecting. This thing has something that stirs me inside. Me personally, as a leader, or this thing I've heard from people, they connect with this lyric or this melody. I think there's so many like different ways to look at melody writing or like, said to be top line writing. And there's so much to cover about songwriting in general that I just don't think we'll have time at all today, nor do I feel like completely qualified to do it. But I think like what I have learned is that, okay, like the other night we went home, we were pre-proling, we're getting ready to record a few songs in a few weeks. And we were doing some pre-production on some songs. I came home, I always do and show it to Beth, my wife. And I'll sit there and watch her as she listens to the songs for the first time. And I'll be looking for like, ooh, I'll be looking for like, ooh, I like that. And she is musical, but not like a ton. And so that's kind of like the perfect little bit, right? Like she, I'm just looking for a reaction. And if I don't see a reaction in a spot where I really was thinking there might be a reaction, then usually that's a sign or I take it as a gut. Like, okay, we gotta figure that out. And the hardest part I think to me is like, so is it the lyric? Is it that the melody should have gone up and we took it down or the melody went down and we should have taken it up? But that's all part of the digging. And you just don't, I think you keep at it and be willing to go another week or another six months. And I, you know, hopefully that's what takes something from good to great and in your case. And so I wanted to, for instance, I'll come to the altar. This is where the song started for us. We had this idea sitting around for quite some time. It's coming up here in a minute. So this isn't 4-4, time signature 4-4. One, two, three, four. I don't know why I'm singing so poorly. Just barely whispering into the, so that's in 4-4, right? And I had the idea, Pastor had this idea that sat around for quite some time. We kept trying to write it right around it. My life be an altar. Your life laid down my sacrifice. And it was like, what does that mean? That's like super heady. And, but we gave it a go for quite some time. And it was in 4-4. But can you hear? Oh, come to the altar. And so again, months and months and months. We finally were about, we had sent it to someone else to try and write something to it. And we were eventually away for a session. And throughout, well, what if it's in, why don't we try it in 6-8? My life be an altar. And what, okay, maybe the lyric is the thing that's just like not connecting because it's just too complicated. So what if it's like an invitation song? Oh, come to the altar. And after 18 months of trying to make this work, then we finished the rest of the song in a matter of a couple of hours. Because when he was like, I'm gonna put it in 6-8 and try this invitation. And I said, oh, well, if you have that idea in 6-8, I've got this idea I've been working on that starts. Are you hurting and broken within? And it was like, this thing just came together. But you just don't know that until you just decide to stick with something and finally something will unlock or maybe you're in a room with somebody different and they're like, oh, well, if you're gonna do that, I've got this. And I swear there's some like little magic part of, and I'm using magic, I'm not like, I understand the Holy Spirit. I keep saying that, I'm just gonna clarify. I just kind of use that as the symbol or the, but I, man, sometimes I'm like, there's just some moments that like it wasn't meant to happen until this like group in this room or this, this might like, you had to go through this even to get to that melody or you had to go through this to even understand what that lyric meant. And so just stick with it or certain songs may never even come out. This was resurrect, this was resurrecting like early like it wasn't even anything. So you have different chords from the ashes of defeat, our rise in victory for the resurrected King has resurrected me. So really all we took from that after, that was maybe version one, I won't show you version two and three that led to the, to the final thing. But we were like, okay, well, if we're gonna chop all this stuff away, what's worth keeping? All right, resurrected King, resurrected me. Okay, let's keep that and let's change the chords. That was the chorus, maybe that lyrics, not meant to be in the chorus, maybe the lyrics meant to be in the bridge. The, here's the chorus, I think, of resurrecting. It was so complicated. Here's the chorus of resurrecting at one point. So many words already. Not done yet, got another one for a chorus. So we sat, that's like, I think one of the versions we put in front of our church and we're like, man, why aren't they like getting with this chorus? And I'm like, because it's like a verse. There's a hundred lyrics in the chorus. So we went from that to your name, your name is victory. But sometimes I swear like, when I used to hear like Chris Tomlin, you know, put out songs that seemed like the guy next door could have written them. I was like, man, that joker. He just sits down and God gives him the simplest song for the global church and it just happens. And it's just so simple. And like my six year old could have come up with that melody. That's the way I used to feel. And then I realized, no, Chris Tomlin works his tail off because what happens is you start with all this stuff. And if you're willing to whittle away and whittle away, simplicity is extremely hard to actually accomplish in most cases. Like it is so difficult I think to get something down whether spoken in its most simple form or communicated in its most simple form or the melody started doing this and you had all these runs and then you were like, oh no, maybe we just need to go from dot to dot and go, you know, one, three, four, three instead of one, two, three, five, four, one, seven. It takes so much work at least in my experience to get there. I've got several more silly little ideas in start so that I could show you, but I think you get the point. So just don't give up on collecting ideas or correcting your ideas, stay in the revision process, stay in it with melodies, stay in it with lyrics. And I really just believe in what God is doing right now with worship songs that are coming from churches and from local voices and local sounds and houses that are placed in different parts of the country and our world. And if you're in the midst of writing right now, just please be encouraged to stick with it because I believe that you're meant to give an expression to your people that no one else can. I really believe that Hillsong is giving songs to their church and the global church or reckless love clearly was meant to be given to God's church. I believe that with all my heart that it was a message that God breathed on and meant to get to his people in the global church at large. But I also think there are so many songs that you can be working on and presenting and giving as gifts to your people that they'll connect with in a way that they won't ever connect to maybe one of our songs or Hillsong or any other one. And it's because it can be personal for your context and it can be from your heart to your people. And so hopefully that helps. We got, I don't know, 15 minutes or so. And if you have any questions, we could open it up here and you could ask whatever you'd like or we could shut it down. Yes. Yeah. So there's not like a special room necessarily or anything. We have a studio that we typically write at now. We have plenty of times gotten away for like a actual retreat more or less for a week and we'll get away and we'll like shut everything down. We'll try to shut phones down aside from capturing voice memos but like work turns off so that we can, it usually takes about a day, about a day of writing before we feel like creativity starts to kind of be unhindered a little bit or so we've done that. When we get together, I think energy is so important. Energy in the room, like the atmosphere. So encouraging like people to just throw out ideas. So if you're writing with two or four other people like really being okay, just encouraging any idea safe like no idea is dumb, throw it out, throw it out, throw it out. And I think like one of the worst enemies for us that we found is if an idea gets thrown out that's maybe like completely stupid is someone else saying right away, no I don't like that. Or I don't see that working because it feels like just from an atmosphere standpoint it shuts something down. And I don't know if like, I may not like that idea but if I don't let that idea maybe lead to this idea or that idea, then why am I shutting it down as soon as it's out of someone's mouth? And it just like songwriting is so vulnerable, right? Like so it's extremely difficult to build up already the courage to throw something out that you, you know, may have zero clue if it's good or not. And so I think creating that, you wanna, I mean right now for the most part we're writing with people at least one other person that we're comfortable with and then writing with some others it may be new or whatever. But I think like in the beginning stages we didn't have that obviously and we were building trust with one another and building but I think one of the things we did early on is like identify, man sometimes we just, I'm gonna pick up my guitar and march around the room and just shout this melody just so I can like lift the room because it kinda, well it felt like everybody just ended up doing this. Jotting our lyric thoughts down in our own head and no one was saying anything else because, and then we were all like just insecure. Cause we all, none of us wanted to share like our thoughts. And then that, and it's like, well what are we doing in the room together? Like we could do this at a home with our internal dialogue and our internal thoughts and our journal. So sometimes it just takes like a hard reset like all these things I think are worth doing. Like there's of course times where I've like gone over here to my own space and in an actual session and jotted something down. But I think like knowing triggers to help lift an environment or a session is good. And we just, I mean we just chase as many ideas and let's say like a good session where we always, we always come in with an idea. So we're never starting like from zero and just looking at one another going or like, does anybody have any something, anything? And no one has brought something. We always start a session knowing like someone's bringing an idea because it's just so like we found cause we have done that in the past and we found that it's like it feels a bit pointless to just try to create something if none of us have been doing the legwork ahead of time. So I think bringing an idea or multiple ideas to a session is very important. And in a good day, like a, I don't know, a perfect day like then we would, we've done anything from like demo and full, we usually try to like demo and full means on our phone or now that we're writing in a studio we usually just do acoustic piano and vocal demo. I have, in the last couple of years like I've, there may be, I'm sure there are like a lot of feelers here. I have leaned way more on like communicating an emotion in a, in a scratch tape, like in a first demo than like trying to get the, the mellet, the technicalities of a melody across. So early on, I used to really be nitpicky about if we had multiple worship leaders cause different campuses, right? And like, I really wanted them to make sure they heard all the melody in the demo so that they were singing it right when they were teaching it to their campus and their people. So I noticed though, like over the years, like man, my demo like, I didn't, I was feeling it way more in the writing session and then my demo lacks this like kind of passion and feeling. And so now, I mean, this is just for whatever it's worth but now I'm on a scratch demo. I'm shouting, like I'm wanting to convey like, I believe in this thought. I believe in this message. I believe in this melody. And I think, I think that's so important to try to communicate. So yeah, that would be a quick overview top to bottom. Yeah. We, we found like four seems max. I don't, I don't know that there's like a right number or a wrong number necessarily. I think it probably would be contextualized. But for the most part, I think like three is like a sweet spot for us. Three other like right people. A few months ago, we did a like three or four days straight with like four of us. And it ended up being really energizing and felt great the whole time. Two like has at times felt like it can, if you hit a wall, like if both of you hit a wall there's not that tiebreaker, right? Or not that third like kind of odd ball or just kind of crazy dynamic to throw in like, what if this was it? So two sometimes feels like it loses energy sooner than later. But past like, for instance, Pastor Stephen and I have written several just the two of us, but usually that goes back and forth and back and forth and back and forth for like weeks or months. Yeah. Yes. It was a podcast and the writer. Oh. Oh, war of art. Yeah, by Stephen Pressfield. Also not a Christian book. He has some just out there ideas, but yeah, but he, man, he's, he's quite, he says a lot about the enemy of creativity. He has a lot to say about the enemy of creativity, whether that's not putting like I'm mentioning in that part, not putting in just the regular consistent work or insecurity and how all these things obviously play into being an enemy of creativity. Yep. Yeah. So, I mean, we're as just church band as it can get. So like we have, we have like an image so to speak that like we have developed for, you know, whatever purposes over the years, but I just culturally even, I think like the thread for us will always remain like, we're all already serving at church for our context. So I don't know, like the album process of that particular, one was, one just, we have multiple worship leaders. It's the deciding and hearing what, what voice is meant to carry, what song, not every voice. And this is the case for a lot of our albums currently, not every voice that's singing a song had anything to do with writing it. I don't think that matters at all, but I also want that person whose voice is leading and carrying that song to believe in that song like they wrote it. Like I want them to have so much conviction about what they're singing. So that, that can be quite a process even now of identifying because it doesn't always just jump out like what voices, so obviously meant to carry this, this or that song. Sometimes it's hearing multiple voices. We just put out a, kind of like an auxiliary project called Paradoxology and we heard so many different voices on a lot of different songs because we intentionally went to the studio to just kind of play with that album, like just play around and just try stuff. But I think what comes along with that, and this is a whole other breakout session, but what comes along with that in church because we are as church band as it gets and just we're doing this together in ministry is it's a lot harder because everything is gray. There's no black and white of like, all right, well like Corey's obviously gonna carry this one. And you know, Stephanie wrote this song, she's obviously gonna carry that one. And like Chris Tomlin obviously wrote this one, every one of his album, he's obviously gonna carry this album. It's not black and white. And so it's there's so much gray and we all have like emotions and everybody is a gift to our ministry and playing different parts and I mentioned it's a whole other breakout, but like that can be a difficult process of like, because we're all also human and have hearts and have like everybody is for church first. But then when you just throw in a weird dynamic of like singing on an album, it can bring along a lot of things and maybe I'll sing this one, maybe I won't, maybe I'll sing on this album, maybe I won't sing on this album. And so walking through everyone through that, walking everyone through that is always not fun, but it's a part of it. Anything else? Yeah, yeah, a lot of, I think a lot of it would be message. So sermons that are that are being preached. I think it's important that always feel connected personally to something that God has been like revealing to me about my character just a few months back. I really needed to get something on paper that didn't feel like a corporate worship song at all to me, but it was something that I was just dealing with like when it came to feeling a bit in over my head and a bit unqualified for this or that. And so I jotted it down and I think those, I think it'll end up turning into a corporate worship song, but I think the reason I bring that up is to say like it is so deeply personal to me that it came from what God was dealing with me. I think that's also equally important. So it's a mix. I think, you know, like sometimes we have a lot of, we didn't own this last album, but we currently have like a bit of a hymn that's focused on the cross. We have one writer on our team named Jane who brought, we have a song on a few albums ago called Mighty Cross. She just brought one to the team that's like centered on the cross and it's a hymn as Mighty Cross is kind of a hymn format. This one's a hymn format. She's like really rich and kind of deep with like theology and does a lot of research. And so that's not coming from necessarily a message. It's not coming, but it's just coming from, you know, her wanting to have something that's really grounded. So I think we just try to stay well-rounded. Yes. Well, I think, yeah, that's a good question. For us, our objective is always serving our church in a corporate sense when it comes to like the main, like our main albums. So we're always having that as the starting point. I think we have been developing like what that sounds like for us for the last, you know, several years. I think right now we're like just starting to toy with, well, okay, so what does it mean for us to evolve sonically and knowing that like usually when someone evolves sonically it's not received well at first until maybe years later. And I don't know that we'll do anything like that, but like at first when someone kind of takes a different step, I think a lot of times they're meant, like I would say John Mark McMillan, for instance, he's like meant at least in my mind to help carve out sounds that the global church will be and in writing style, writing arranging, that the global church, he's breaking new ground, he's kind of doing something different. He's a bit of like, you know, John the Baptist going before, if you will. And I just think everybody plays different roles and obviously feels different, you know, has different goals and objectives. Ours will always be to serve our church in a corporate sense. I think like how we end up, so we're not setting out in other words to write something that feels so deeply, or not deeply personal as much as like, we're not setting out to write a Christian music song. Maybe will there be an expression one day, like as an offshoot for what we're doing possibly, but I think like for elevation worship, as far as I can see, like that'll always be there. So I think, yeah, I, yeah, yes. I think my Enneagram type is a three. My wife thinks I'm a one. I relate to a lot of what the one description is, but I'm pretty sure I don't relate to a lot of it. So I think I'm a three. I'm right behind me as a six though. So I've got loyalists like just one number under. What is it, performer or something? I struggle. I struggle like, I'm not gonna have that thing tell me what I am. Whatever. Is it, yes. Yeah, a couple. We have a song on this last album called Worthy Worthy is your name, Jesus. And that chorus pastor, Steven actually wrote coming out right before his sermon, we were in worship. I don't remember what song we were doing. And he just came out with this piece of crumpled paper, set it on his like podium and literally this is like, if I could pull up the film tape, I would show you. This is what it looked like. He was like, you know, ministered for a bit. He was like, I was just backstage and I heard this song and it went Worthy is your... And he's given out, like we deal in number system. So he's throwing up the chords for our LJ or our MD. Worthy is your name, Jesus. LJ catches up, you deserve the three. Worthy is, and then he's like, no, six. That's how it was. And so it's happened a couple of times. Yeah, not much, but a few times it's kind of, it's kind of cool to see it happen. Yes. Yeah. You're just volunteering on your worship team currently. Is that right? Okay. Right, right. Yeah, totally. I think, I mean, there are some resources online. I'm not sure how, there would be one site called Praise Charts, I think, that might have, I think they do lead sheets, which would show you the melody. Like on a treble clef. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I don't know any sites off hand that necessarily do break it down from an orchestral sense. Maybe someone else does, but I think Praise Charts does it at least by lead sheet so you can see the top line. Hopefully, yeah. Yes. Yeah, that's, I mean, that's the trick I think every day is figuring that out. Truthfully, like I grew up in church. My dad was a minister. Is all I knew was like small local church ministry. I didn't have, I didn't have a dream at like 16 to be like at this place, like this certain stage or to do this certain type of album. I just, I don't think I was, I lacked aspiration. I just didn't have it. My context growing up was like, I love seeing my parents serve in local church ministry. And so I was like, I knew at 17 I was called to the church. I wanted to just do that. And if anything, man, some days I'm like, I mean, the Lord and I have conversations about this. So it's nothing new. But if anything, some days I'm like, Lord, I would like to just kind of, just be at a campus and go back to church and not do travel. I love, yeah, like I love my family. And that's not the reason I say Lord, not talk about it. That's not, I hope you don't hear me taking anything for granted, but I just, I love like serving people in the local church context and balancing this with that is extremely difficult. And it's not something I even knew to look for. I didn't have a context of it growing up. I don't have like necessarily like a model because I've, you know, I've been at church since the beginning too. So I'm not, I have fortunately some friends and other ministries that are further along, but it's not, I'm not in a, at least a church situation where I'm looking to people who have gone before me in our church that have done it before. And so I, I don't know, man, I may have so many thoughts on like worship and image and brands and everything. I don't think they're bad. Also think they can just complicate things. I have a whole lot of thoughts on social media. But it's, it's an interesting thing. I just, I think like honestly my, my answer at the end of the day is like, if I can just stay grounded focused on local church, still while I'm traveling, it's important to me that I'm getting ready to jump into this call back home with our programming team because they're relying on me and they're not seeing me like travel and be like, well, you know, we'll see what happens for the weekend. Chris was gone, so, you know, things back home didn't get taken care of. I don't want that to happen. So I think just staying grounded in that way, like honestly helps just keep me, keep me rooted and obviously helps move our teams forward. And just want to bring my, my family to church with me on Saturdays and Sundays. And so, good. Thank you guys so much.