Welcome to Church in the North, a podcast by ministry leaders and for ministry leaders. I'm your host, Chartrand, and I'm joined in studio with my sparring partner, Dresser. Good morning, Geoff. Rob. And, we're gonna have a conversation today about worship, and we'll get into that in just a moment.
Rob Chartrand:But thank you for all of you, for jumping in on our conversation today. And, before we dive in, I just wanna remind you that if you like what you hear on our podcast, share your comments or hit that subscribe button for more great content from North Of The 49th Parallel. Also, we welcome suggestions or questions, and you can email us at podcast@briarcrest.ca. So, Geoff, we're talking about worship today, but, I think before jump we into this conversation, this is our an in studio conversation we're having today, so we're not gonna have a guest. It's just you and me, sparring back and forth.
Rob Chartrand:Before we talk about worship, I think we need to talk about your credentials, your qualifications to actually talk about this subject.
Geoff Dresser:So I can make arguments from authority. Okay, that's great. Yeah.
Rob Chartrand:So talk to us about, your past experience in worship as a volunteer and as a worship pastor.
Geoff Dresser:Yeah. So I think, I guess we should define our terms.
Rob Chartrand:Okay. So
Geoff Dresser:conversation, as I understand it Worship and song. Yeah. Song worship. Yes. The sort of the act, that part of the gathering of the church where they sing and worship and sort of the order and the sort of the arc of the entire service.
Geoff Dresser:So that is Yes,
Rob Chartrand:because all things are worship.
Geoff Dresser:Yes, everything is worship. Romans twelve, one
Rob Chartrand:and two
Geoff Dresser:is worship. Yes. Yeah, I mean I grew up in a very musical family and doing church music was a big part of my childhood. My dad led the choir and led the hymns back when they called it a song leader, not a worship leader. And then when I was a So I grew up singing hymns and four part harmony in a good old Baptist church.
Geoff Dresser:But then when I was a teenager, I learned that guitars were cool, so I started playing guitar. And then around the 90s sort of this contemporary worship thing started happening where you could actually bring your guitar to church and there were songs being written for guitar that were sort of, I mean, that had been happening for a couple decades already by the 90s, but they started showing up in my church. So that Vineyard movement. Yeah, Vineyard movement, I remember The Maranatha? Maranatha Purple Ron Cannoli?
Geoff Dresser:The Maranatha Purple Book, man. I had all the courses, the course numbers in that memorized. So I started being a member of worship team in the 90s and then by the early 2000s, I was up there leading the praise band, we called it back then. Oh, evolution. Yeah, the praise band.
Geoff Dresser:And then I was drafted during the worship wars and I had fought on the contemporary side. And this was all as a volunteer, but I was basically leading or sort of the key ministry leader for the worship ministry in our church for gosh, the last, I mean twenty years, like more than twenty years. And then God called me into full time ministry in about 2000, Oh man, I should have looked up my CV at this point. Yeah, guess it would be 2005 would be around Yeah, called me into full time ministry. And I'd done my undergrad in electrical engineering, which, you know, not directly applicable to worship ministry.
Geoff Dresser:You could
Rob Chartrand:fix guitars.
Geoff Dresser:But yeah, I mean there's a lot of technology in worship these days, so it has come in handy. But at that point I went and did my master's at the Institute for Worship Studies down in Florida, sort of a distance ed thing, you go down there for intensive a couple times a year. And then like five years ago, I guess I did my doctorate and I did it at IWS as well. And I did my doctorate in worship studies and did my thesis during COVID and wrote my thesis on online worship. And then for the past seven, eight years, I've been here at Briarcrest teaching about worship.
Rob Chartrand:Wow. So you were here teaching while you were working on your thesis? Yeah, that's correct. So you were a worship pastor at Grant, is that right?
Geoff Dresser:At first in Ottawa at Cedar View Alliance Church. Right. And had was there for five years. I had three really great years there. And then from there we moved to Grant Memorial Baptist in Winnipeg and was there for seven years, think, roughly seven years.
Rob Chartrand:And
Geoff Dresser:then the next move was here to Briarcrest.
Rob Chartrand:Yeah, and you're still a worship pastor in a church while you're doing your work in
Geoff Dresser:the academy. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, I'm part time at Victory Church in Moose Jaw as the worship pastor there. So longtime listeners who remember Dan Godard, he was the lead pastor there. So he my boss there and he would always cringe when I would tell people that, yeah, the worship pastor at Victory, that's my side hustle.
Rob Chartrand:Well, we'll have to get Dan back on the podcast podcast at some point, once he's more settled into his new role there in Calgary. Okay. So let's talk about corporate worship in song and, let's lean into some topics that our listeners are probably very familiar with and topics that can sometimes be controversial or can, certainly lead to discussion. Let's talk about song selection. How do you go about choosing your songs for worship?
Geoff Dresser:That's a great question and there are a lot of factors go into it. And so my confession is I just want to choose the coolest songs so that we are the coolest church
Rob Chartrand:in the That highlight your voice. Yeah, I mean that is a temptation.
Geoff Dresser:How do we choose the songs? Mean, sort of the underlying goal when I'm picking songs is that I want songs that are gonna help people engage in worship. So I want to make sure that we're picking songs that people like to sing that are So singable. Singability is a factor and songs that people enjoy
Rob Chartrand:is also a factor. So, hedonism is top priority for you
Geoff Dresser:Christian in song hedonism, you can talk to John Piper about that one. I want people to engage, so it's harder for them to engage if it's songs that are boring to them or that they're sick of singing. And this really does depend on the context of your church. When I was at Grant, let's just say there was less of an appetite for new things and innovation than there is at Victory. At Victory, I get, know, at Grant, I would get feedback about, you know, I didn't know why all these new songs.
Geoff Dresser:I didn't know what's wrong with the old songs. And at Victory, the feedback tends to be more, when's the last time we did something new, man? Like can we get some more new songs in the repertoire? So yeah, I'm looking for songs that people are going to engage with. I want songs also that are theologically You
Rob Chartrand:dodged that bullet, man. Was about to go in.
Geoff Dresser:Yeah, I know. Dress a napalm. I know, you senior pastors are all the same, so I know how to deal with this. Yeah, songs that speak truth and that tell an authentic story of who God is and what he's done for us and give voice to a right response to who God is and all that he's done for us and all that we have in Christ Jesus. So, that's how I'm picking songs.
Geoff Dresser:On a more practical level, I just had a meeting with our worship leaders to of whittle our song list down to 30 songs. Okay. Which doesn't seem like much, that 30 song list is something that we, I mean, we've sort of looked at it. Here's our current playlist and we're looking at adding three or four new songs over the summer and then we'll renewing it. But I have found, and in talking to other worship leaders, that if you have a song list of like 200 songs or something like that, then I mean you can go through the whole year and only repeat a song two or three times.
Geoff Dresser:And so to a new person coming to your church who's trying to learn the songs, you're making it very difficult for them. And also, I've just found that with a smaller number of songs than my roster of musicians, musicians, they're they're gonna be playing the same songs more than once. They're gonna know them better. Rehearsals will run better and you can spend time, like in the rehearsal, really making that song sound great rather than trying to, you know, you're teaching the whole band new songs every time when you've got that
Rob Chartrand:huge song list. So you're essentially, you're creating your own liturgy, essentially your song liturgy for your local church by limiting the selection of songs. Right? And I can see where that's we've done the same. Like in the last church I was in, my wife Karen was the worship coordinator.
Rob Chartrand:There's the church that we planted and we had to cut down the list or we called it culling the herd. So kill off the sick and the lowly. And the reason why is like somebody would pull out some song from way back when it happens to be in planning center and it happens to be in the song select. Right? So it's there.
Rob Chartrand:That means I can use it. And they pull it out and they're scraping off the dust bunnies and they're singing it and nobody's singing with them because nobody knows this song. For that worship leader, I mean, that was an amazing song that touched their heart twenty five, thirty years ago. And Lord, I lift your name on high or whatever. And nobody gets it, right?
Rob Chartrand:And so it does make it difficult then to create an engaging worship experience if they don't know what the song is.
Geoff Dresser:Yeah, with that huge song list, I mean, you cannot expect your congregation to learn those songs. I introduced this back when I was at Grant and my, I mean I had a great group of worship leaders, so they were like, okay Geoff, because it's you, we will give this a chance. But they were very skeptical. But after three months of reducing that song list, they were all big fans. They said, Man, rehearsals are running way better.
Geoff Dresser:And they noticed more engagement because we were repeating the songs more often, so the congregation was learning them. And one thing I remind my musicians is that, say for a typical week, I'm listening to the song a couple times while I'm choosing songs and then we'll go through the song, I don't know, three or four times in the rehearsal. So I'm up to like six times, and then I run through it a couple times. So we've played the song 10 times before the congregation has even heard it. And so then we're sort of sick of the song, or tired of it, before the congregation even learns to sing it.
Geoff Dresser:And I mean, we're picking songs for the congregation to be able to engage. And so, and they cannot engage if things are unfamiliar, if they're trying to learn a new song. We can sort of relax and engage in worship when we've got songs that we know. Which, I mean, you talked about these old throwback songs. I mean, like Will, I think my rule at one point, when I was at Grant, and I think I've told the worship leaders in Victory at Moose Jaw as well that like pick, you can have one song in your set that's outside of the 30 song playlist if you need it.
Geoff Dresser:If there's a good reason like, oh, think this would be perfect, a perfect tie into the sermon or whatever. And so sometimes a worship leader will pick like an old throwback song. And when you do that every now and then, if it's not so old that no one Everyone's forgotten
Rob Chartrand:There's it. An extra chorus, you bring in the chorus, don't know the chorus.
Geoff Dresser:This lift that can happen in that, but
Rob Chartrand:There's a familiarity with that.
Geoff Dresser:Yeah, exactly. And we need familiarity to be able to engage in worship. If everything is brand new and everything is novel, then we just get to the point where we're disorienting people. And they pull back and they're like, okay, what's going on? What's next?
Geoff Dresser:Rather than sort of building that trust with them where they can engage. So, okay, so you talk about singability, you talk about
Rob Chartrand:ability to engage, you talk about theological correctness. And so you narrow this song list down to say 30 songs, but you can have all of that and still be missing something because what you might not have is theological breadth in that. So what do you do about things that are often lacking in modern worship? So lament, confession, and even the value of incorporating worship that's part of our historical traditional church that still has value for today, like old hymns that still have legs?
Geoff Dresser:Yeah, I mean that is a great question. And if you just sort of let the Spotify algorithm pick your songs, there are certain kinds of songs that become really popular. Sort of the quasi therapeutic power ballad worship songs. I mean, those are
Rob Chartrand:With a great bridge that builds.
Geoff Dresser:Yeah, I mean, songs become popular. And I mean, the challenge that I've always had is that, like with our liturgy, we take sort of a Psalm 100 or Psalm 95 sort of funnel style, where we're going to start with uptempo, joyful, declarative Songs of ascent.
Rob Chartrand:Yeah. We're walking up to Jerusalem.
Geoff Dresser:Yeah. And those joyful uptempo songs are really hard to find. You know, I find And then when one does come along, like Praise, we just play it
Rob Chartrand:to deck and then now everyone's like, please don't Wouldn't it play be that good just to go back to good old days three fast, three slow sermon and we're out of there? Well,
Geoff Dresser:Well, mean, you look at sort of that vineyard style worship and a lot of contemporary worship is organized around You can look at it very cynically by saying it's organized by tempo. Yeah. And that we just start up tempo and get slower. But I mean, look at that enter his gates with thanksgiving, enter his courts with praise, that sort of order is I mean, that tempo makes sense. And it's helpful for people if we come in with joy, up tempo, get their attention and bring them to that point.
Rob Chartrand:Outer courts, inter
Geoff Dresser:Yeah, courts, outer all courts, inter courts. This is a solid biblical order of worship to bring us into that point of where we're ready for an intimate encounter and to narrow that focus. But yeah, we have a hard time finding good, declarative praise songs that are upbeat and joyful. Those ones don't seem to become the big worship hits.
Rob Chartrand:So how do you then How are you mindful about ensuring that songs of lament or historical songs are part of your curated list?
Geoff Dresser:Yeah, I mean that's where taking the time to create a list that has balance is important. And what I tell my students is that the Psalms are our model for, I mean, Psalms are the hymn book of the Bible. Two thirds lament? And yeah, so, I don't know, not two thirds.
Rob Chartrand:I think two thirds Psalms are lament, aren't they?
Geoff Dresser:Yeah. No, I think praise Psalms are still the most most Psalms are prey, but the second most common genre is lament.
Rob Chartrand:Okay. I'm going to Google it. Okay.
Geoff Dresser:You're to Google it. Okay. Google it. All
Rob Chartrand:right. But while we're doing that Yeah.
Geoff Dresser:So anyway, there's huge variety among the Psalms. There are happy ones, sad ones. There are those Psalms of Lament. You're right, nearly half
Rob Chartrand:are Psalms of Lament.
Geoff Dresser:Okay, yeah.
Rob Chartrand:So that's a lot more than we got.
Geoff Dresser:Yeah, that is. And the Psalms of lament thing is a very tricky one. So I am, you know, if you know of a church that is doing that well, I would love to talk to
Rob Chartrand:Well, that think for some historical churches it's just part of the liturgy. You know what I mean? Whereas for us
Geoff Dresser:For churches that have a Psalm every Sunday, they'll get through those. And our, yeah, contemporary worship, I mean, every style has strengths and weaknesses and definitely lament is something that contemporary worship has not figured out how to do well.
Rob Chartrand:Yeah. Well, was talking to someone important in my life, my wife, and she's of course a worship leader and she organizes the worship at our church in Moose Jaw. And she's like, I don't like, we're talking about lament and she's like, I don't want to come to church every Sunday and lament. Like and I said, well, but there are some people that actually need it. Like, you know, it might be there, but there might be some Sundays where you you will want to come and and lament and, and whatnot.
Rob Chartrand:But I think she's right. I think, like, if you had lament every week, every every Sunday there was at least one dirge song that was in there, that might create a problem. But there's probably more creative ways to incorporate lament into your service where it doesn't have to be a three and a half minute song.
Geoff Dresser:Yeah. And I, yeah, I think there are ways to do that. I mean, Lament is close to my heart. Actually, you know, plug for my EP available on Spotify. I wrote a song based on Psalm 88, which is like perhaps the lamentiest of all the lament Psalms.
Geoff Dresser:And so I set out to, you know, I wanna write the world's most depressing worship song ever. So that was sort of my goal with that. But it's not a congregational song. I have sung it in services. Always people come up and say like, it is, especially for people who are going through a time where they're confused and working through just a dark period in their life, like it can be so important to just give voice to those and to offer those honest feelings up to God.
Geoff Dresser:But yeah, that's not something that we do really well in the sort of the contemporary worship side of things.
Rob Chartrand:Yeah. And I mean, true Christian lament contains hope, right? So we're not talking despair. We're not talking, you know, there's there's no no hope at all. We're we're talking about appropriate framed lament.
Rob Chartrand:Yeah. With, you know, Jesus coming through in the now or in the hereafter at some point. So you talked about, the Spotify algorithm and maybe the dangers of that in choosing your songs for you. Give riff a little bit about that. What do you what do you mean by that?
Geoff Dresser:Yeah, I guess the You know, what becomes popular is There's sort of two sides to it. The Sort of on the one side, if something's becoming popular, like I tell my music production and songwriting students that hits don't just happen. Something becomes a hit because it's connecting with people. And so, that's a good thing. And so, if there's a song connecting with a lot of people, well, that's something worth paying attention to on the one hand.
Geoff Dresser:On the other hand, I mean, look at the Psalms as our template, and the Psalms have, John Whitfleet uses this analogy of teaching children what to say. Some things come naturally to children, you don't have to teach a child to cry. Saying ouch comes. Saying things like, know, mine, that's good or I'm hungry or help, those things tend to come naturally. Things like I'm sorry, not as naturally.
Geoff Dresser:Things like thank you don't come as naturally. So I think those things that come more naturally, which are still good things to say, it's good to say, ouch, or it's good to say help when you need help. But I think some of those things drive what becomes popular. And the powers that are controlling algorithm, they're trying to drive engagement. They're not trying to create a well balanced diet of worship songs for your church.
Geoff Dresser:Those are different things that are happening. So just sort of understanding what the algorithm is doing. And so it's going to leave out songs that your church needs that maybe people don't just like to listen to on their drive or whatever as much.
Rob Chartrand:Well, so if you follow the zeitgeist of culture and worship culture Excellent use of the
Geoff Dresser:word zeitgeist This very is a pretty classy podcast. You
Rob Chartrand:could actually paint yourself into a theological corner, like you and a very narrow one. Like you could miss so much of what it means to be a follower of Jesus. And a lot of a lot of the popular songs as well happen to be, you know, first person singular or you know what I mean?
Geoff Dresser:Or Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's exactly those those declarative songs don't tend to be Yeah.
Rob Chartrand:Become important because they their music is worship is not just intended to be, like you said, this therapeutic personal engagement with God, but also they are a teacher. And we can miss the gospel and end up with like Jesus is my boyfriend songs.
Geoff Dresser:Yeah, and I mean, and the nuanced thing is, you know, I've heard lots of times like, oh, all these personal pronouns in this song, like it's not a very, but you know, the Lord is my shepherd, I shall not I mean, personal pronouns are It's not the balance. And the Psalms again are our model for what that balance should look like. Yeah.
Rob Chartrand:Do you think sometimes in our desire to be accessible to people with accessible language, we often miss the nuance of say the gospel or theology. But by making it like this is the Jesus is my boyfriend kind of song. Like it's very accessible, very personal, but there's not a lot of content in that. And when I say content, mean like theologically rich truth.
Geoff Dresser:Yeah. I mean there are I think worship music in the last thirty or contemporary worship music in the last thirty years has really grown up. And so there are like songs that are firmly in the contemporary genre that are being written today that are rich theologically. But it's up to us as those of us who are curating the repertoire for our church, we need to seek those out and look for ways that, like fresh expressions of a very simple gospel, but ways that continue to make it new and fresh and accessible to the congregations that are the people that are coming to our churches.
Rob Chartrand:So what role should the senior pastor or the lead pastor play in helping with the selection of songs that are part of the because not everybody has a PhD like you, not everybody has the same theological training, like a lot of our worship leaders in local churches don't. Right? And if they don't have guidance, they might just lean into Spotify because where do I go? Right. So, and so what's the role of the senior pastor in all of that?
Geoff Dresser:I mean, like it when my senior pastor says, gives me specific song requests because like I love knowing that we're on the same page, that this song is gonna be sort of a bull's eye for what the message is gonna be, whether that song is like leading into the message or coming after it. Though I have had, I mean you talked about sort of the dusty old, you know, the 40 year old chorus that I had a lead lead pastor for a while who would suggest, oh man, there's this great Gaither song, could we do this as the closing song? And I'd be like, oh. But I appreciated it. And he and I, like he'd realized that his song choices were somewhat dated.
Geoff Dresser:And so I would often suggest, well, about this song that's maybe a little more contemporary or fits in a little more with our style of worship that has the same themes. And so we would go about it that way. But I mean, I think definitely the lead pastor should be setting the vision for like what are we trying, what are our goals in the worship service and what are we trying to do? And working with, whether he's got a worship pastor or a team of volunteers to work together to achieve that, to achieve those goals. And I mean, I think there should be some give and take there.
Geoff Dresser:And it's, I mean, you, I just find worship leaders like to have some autonomy in choosing the songs. And so it should be some kind of collaboration.
Rob Chartrand:Yeah. Well, I think it's the responsibility of the lead pastor, senior pastor to frame the larger vision for worship and for the weekend service, the Sunday service or whatever that encapsulates and creates the sandbox for then the worship leader to be part of it. But also on the other hand, I think the worship leader shouldn't say to the lead pastor, hey, stay in your lane, buddy. This is my because the weekend worship service is like, it's the one place where the gathering of the people of God come together. And so there is a responsibility, tremendous responsibility as a lead pastor to shepherd that, to give oversight to that.
Rob Chartrand:And the majority of the service is actually not the sermon, it's led by the worship person. And so that's a tremendous responsibility, right, and a giving of authority away to somebody. And so I think you're right, it has to be collaborative. But on the other hand, I don't think elite pastors suggest abdicate responsibility to the worship pastor. Like, I think that's a bad thing.
Rob Chartrand:Like even a song selection. So I've had worship pastors working with me on my team and the tremendous relationship with them worked really well. And we would often call the herd on the song selection. And then I would I would say to them, you know, we need x number of new songs every four months. And and let's because our list is getting pretty old here.
Rob Chartrand:And that's the natural state of churches is it's really hard to keep on top of newer songs that are coming out. And I would say before you introduce them to the congregation, come, let's sit down, you bring them to me, three or four and let's talk through them. And for me, it's mean, singability and we actually set a set of values similar to what you've got. Right? Singability is great.
Rob Chartrand:But if it's not theologically correct, we're not going to introduce this song to our congregation. Like it's just so so we would do that collaboratively and then it would spill out from there to all the other worship leaders. And then you would say, this is the list, but they would also get feedback from other worship leaders, give us new songs, introduce them. Right? And so there was this kind of collective coming together around it.
Rob Chartrand:But at the end of the day, I still wanted to have the ability to say no to a song as a lead pastor.
Geoff Dresser:Yeah, absolutely. And I would, yeah, I think that a lead pastor should that veto on songs. I mean, found, like we've talked about the theological integrity of a song, and one of the nuance things about it is, like I can't say that I've ever come across a popular song on CCLI or on Spotify or whatever, that's like outright heresy. Right. Error.
Geoff Dresser:Error or subject to interpretation where it's maybe not precise and so it could be interpreted as air. And I think sort of how generously you want to interpret certain songs is, I mean, that's a more nuanced thing than a song that's coming
Rob Chartrand:We're out talk about reckless the
Geoff Dresser:love right now, Yeah, aren't I mean, that's a good one to talk about. Yeah. And that's an area where calling God reckless you can make an argument that that is theologically incorrect. You could also say that hyperbole is a valid literary device. And the Psalms are full of hyperbole, but not referring to God.
Geoff Dresser:Not his character. Yeah, not God's character. So I personally love that song. And it came out when I was at Grant, but at Grant it was not on our playlist because, I mean, a couple of reasons. One was I just knew my congregation and I knew that there would be people who would not interpret it generously as just a valid literary device as wow, this is very vivid poetry, I
Rob Chartrand:love this. Like they would not look at it that way. And the other part of
Geoff Dresser:me was like, man, I already got enough problems. I don't need to give myself another problem. So for pastoral reasons, it was not on our list. But did it at, man, when I was leading worship at men's retreats or other places, I would lead that and just incredible response to that song. So, I mean, there's where, I mean, a lot of that depends on your context.
Geoff Dresser:And if you're in a church that has a rich history of singing hymns and loving hymns, well, that hymn genre, the sort of faithful declaration of theological truth, that is a high value in that genre. But in contemporary worship, that's not as privileged as sort of authentic, heartfelt, authentic expression. And so, just like we don't interpret different genres of scripture with the same of criteria, I would not interpret a hymn with the same criteria. A Mighty Fortress is Our God is a crappy contemporary worship song, right? But it's a great hymn.
Rob Chartrand:It was a great bar song apparently. Yeah. So reckless love, I'm gonna weigh in. I I wouldn't for pastoral reasons, I agree with you. Like, 100%, I wouldn't introduce it.
Rob Chartrand:For theological reasons, I wouldn't introduce it either. God's love is not reckless, only seemingly so. So when you look at nine the 99 and the one, and why would he lead the 99? That seems reckless. Right?
Rob Chartrand:But it's not reckless. God's faithful and thoughtful and mindful and infinitely wise. You know? And so for me to say, it's kind of a word creep thing happening. Like, he's he's God's love is not reckless.
Rob Chartrand:It's it's faithful. And so it's for me, the theological accuracy of that is is is really important. Seemingly so reckless, but not. So whenever that song comes up and I'm in the congregation, we're singing it, I just replace the word reckless with faithful and I sing it and feel I'm okay with that.
Geoff Dresser:I can
Rob Chartrand:get away
Geoff Dresser:with that. Yeah. Well, I'm more of the artsy fartsy type, so I'm okay with
Rob Chartrand:Sloppy wet kisses then. Hey, you're good with sloppy wet kisses?
Geoff Dresser:No. Sloppy Why not? Come on.
Rob Chartrand:Oh, how he loves us, it's like, it's just a metaphor.
Geoff Dresser:Yeah. Again, I never like, I was again, for pastoral reasons, I mean, there's lots of vivid imagery in the Bible. Sloppy necks.
Rob Chartrand:Shit's got
Geoff Dresser:so much. But sometimes, mean, as poetry So here's the thing, as poetry, it's like, oh, that image really makes me think. That's good poetry, something that makes you think. Even if you disagree. That's great.
Geoff Dresser:Okay. Now you sing this. Like, that's it's different. Like, woah, woah, woah. No.
Rob Chartrand:Well, an unforeseen kiss. Right? Maybe. Like, that's how they changed it, but that's better Yeah.
Geoff Dresser:But I just I mean, I also think, like, there's 80,000,000,000 new worship songs come out every week, so surely you can find something that isn't I mean, I would Yeah, I typically didn't do those. Alright. Those songs. Though, I mean, I mean, I'm more in favor of Reckless Love, or I have more a bigger tolerance for those literary devices I guess than maybe you do. There's other ones I
Rob Chartrand:would be much more happy to use, misinterpretation problem. Yeah. And and that's the biggie. And and if I a believer a non believer comes in and they think God's love is reckless, you know, you know, like Mhmm. In other words, thoughtless, random, without care, like, that's reckless.
Rob Chartrand:Reckless. A drunk guy tripping over everything as he walks through the bar, that's that's reckless. Right? A guy, you know, treating or misbehaving, you know, it's it's just not it's yeah.
Geoff Dresser:A guy who would let let his own son be be murdered to save me, you know, that's That
Rob Chartrand:seems pretty thoughtful and wise and Well, look up the dictionary definition of the word.
Geoff Dresser:Well, I mean, is, yeah, like how we, mean, we've got a, we're interpreting these things differently. And that's where, and as much as I like that song, and I've had myself very meaningful times of worship with that song, if you were my lead pastor and you said, no, we're not gonna do it, I would be totally okay with Right. That would
Rob Chartrand:It's not a hill to die on at the end
Geoff Dresser:of the day. Exactly.
Rob Chartrand:Yeah. There's lots more, great songs that we could sing. Okay. Let's turn the page to another issue. Let's talk about click tracks.
Rob Chartrand:Okay. So, is there ever room for a church or congregation to use those? Well, first of all, explain what they are, like the using music tracks and then is there ever a place where a church could use them?
Geoff Dresser:Yeah. So, those of you who don't know, like a lot of churches that have in ear monitors, you have to have where the musicians are listening on headphones to themselves and the other musicians around them. If you have those headphones, then you can use something called a click track, which is just like a metronome, just a tick, tick, tick. And we'll get examples of these here. We'll put them in the podcast so you can hear.
Rob Chartrand:Chorus one, all in. What
Geoff Dresser:that metronome sounds like. So that's step one. And I've been, mean, we were, oh gosh, for the last fifteen years I think, I've been at churches mainly where we've had in ear monitors, and we have used a click track just to keep everyone on the same tempo.
Rob Chartrand:And it's really useful if you're in a large auditorium and there's clapping involved in a song, like the clappers because the sound has to go all the way to the back of the auditorium and back again, and the clappers can really start to control the tempo of the song if you're not careful. You need something to keep you all together.
Geoff Dresser:And typically as in most songs, the verse is sort of a lower energy, the energy level bumps up at the chorus.
Rob Chartrand:And you've to keep it slow.
Geoff Dresser:And most musicians will speed up a little bit. So then you end up But then you just keep speeding up. It's sort of like a ratchet effect. And then when you get back to the next verse, you're going too fast.
Rob Chartrand:It's like the song Come On Eileen, right?
Geoff Dresser:Yeah. Mean, there's a That is a song Those are great musicians that they can change tempos and stay together and still The groove on that song is still locked in. But for the vast majority of church musicians, having that click track, once they get used to it, is very helpful. And the vast majority of pop music today is played with in ear monitors and a click track. The next step is to have backing tracks where you can There are websites out there where businesses that can sell the backing track to a song.
Geoff Dresser:And so you will have the entire band, tracks for the entire band. There'll be a drum track, a bass, piano, keys, guitar tracks. So you can have the entire track there. Then you also have a cue track where there's a voice in your head saying verse two, three, four, and then you know you know the verse, then when you get to the chorus, it's chorus two. And so you can set up this track and then you just follow the voice telling you, oh, it's time to do the chorus.
Geoff Dresser:Okay, let's do the chorus. And you can supplement your band with these other tracks to make the band sound bigger. And there are even, like some of the tracks will come with congregation, with a track of congregational singing, so you can put that through the speakers
Rob Chartrand:make Fuller it sound sound of singing.
Geoff Dresser:Or if your guitar player can't quite cut it, you can turn up the guitar track. And at my church we use tracks for a lot of songs. Now, the way I use tracks is that most of the time we just have the click and the cue going. And if there's like a sort of a pad sound, like a long sustain y synth thing or a sort of a repetitive percussion loop or something like that, I might have that up in the tracks. I don't like the idea of using like any of the background vocals.
Rob Chartrand:That's saxophone when there's no saxophone.
Geoff Dresser:Yeah, or having instruments that
Rob Chartrand:Where's that saxophone player? Don't think That aren't anyone
Geoff Dresser:there at all. So I don't like using that. I've played at churches where the tracks are up and sort of the track just, at points I've wondered, like, are we even doing here?
Rob Chartrand:Yeah, why don't we just pull up a YouTube video of
Geoff Dresser:the song and we'll sing along? And now, I'm I mean, again, it's not something that I I mean, I just find it distasteful to have all these backing tracks going. Like, I'd rather if it's just one guitar player or whatever, then I just want to hear the one guitar player.
Rob Chartrand:Yeah. Some songs, though, can't be played with just one guitar. Like, some songs are designed that
Geoff Dresser:Yeah. Yeah. Some songs It limits If your you've if all you got is one guitar player, well then you've to find songs that are going to work for that one guitar player. The thing that I have is the tracks can become a crutch because we we just have to listen to the voice to know what's coming next. Rather than being, I, you know, when I started leading worship, I mean we would have a roadmap for a song, But I would tell my musicians, well you gotta watch me and listen to me to tell where we're going.
Geoff Dresser:Like if we're gonna do a big course here, if we're gonna get quieter. And so as musicians, we'd be relying on our ears and communicating with each other rather than just listening to whatever the voice is going to tell us. Right.
Rob Chartrand:We use it at our church and what I like about it is, it's a page turner for me. So, especially if you're using both hands, like playing but these chords,
Geoff Dresser:just learn the song, bro.
Rob Chartrand:Well, it's not always though. And more songs are becoming more complex, right? And so as you're walking through it, it scrolls up and it shows And some songs are so long, they require two pages of a lead sheet, and so you've to turn the page and then you're flipping back. Right? And so for me, it's just like, oh, I do like it for that functionality of it.
Rob Chartrand:And we're a smaller congregation. One thing we don't have often is a drummer, right? To incorporate some percussion, it is helpful for us. But I agree, like if we added all these other things, we'll probably maybe do We'll do pads because that just creates an atmosphere that's just great to have underneath. But otherwise, you know, we don't we don't do much beyond that.
Rob Chartrand:Maybe a lead guitar line, but we don't we don't make it super we don't make it super loud. So we have that call and response.
Geoff Dresser:It's And the fucking reality is so much of pop music and even touring, I remember I Oh, what's the I went and saw Coldplay. I got tickets to Coldplay when whatever the Vita La whatever
Rob Chartrand:Viva La Vida.
Geoff Dresser:Viva La Vida was like, they were the number one band in the world with the number one song in the world and I could not wait to hear that string section playing that song. And so we got to the concert, no string section, it was tracks. And so it's just a standard part of pop music is backing tracks. And so I think like you used tastefully, I think that it's, again, it's more my curmudgeonly old man aesthetics. It's not a theological or pastoral thing at all at this point.
Rob Chartrand:This is a sidebar, what did the police do on tour? Because they were a three piece, but they would have keys on their albums. But when they were on touring, did they bring a key player or
Geoff Dresser:I've never saw the police, I would guess, I mean, that they would There hire were no tracks back then. Yeah. There weren't tracks back then. So they would hire a keyboard player who wasn't officially a part of that. Right, he
Rob Chartrand:was the nobody in the background. Or
Geoff Dresser:sometimes, I mean, you listen to some of those old live albums and I mean, the live sounds pretty raw because they don't have all the extra stuff that they have on the Right. That they have in the studio.
Rob Chartrand:Well, background my early in my faith journey was this charismatic Pentecostal background. So floor monitors, no inner ear monitors, so no click tracks. And we had lead sheets for sure, but I mean, sometimes it's just like, oh, let's sing this chorus again. Oh, and let's sing it again. Yeah.
Rob Chartrand:Oh, let's sing it again. Right? And so there's that there is this tension between the constraint of the formulaic song, which you get locked into with multitracks. Right? Versus the freedom to break out of that.
Geoff Dresser:You can be there are ways to to, you know, add an extra 14 bridges on the fly if if you want to.
Rob Chartrand:If you have good musicians.
Geoff Dresser:But you have to have good musicians, you have to have someone who knows In the back who can do that. Really how to use whatever, there are different applications that you can use to control the tracks, and some of them are easier to change things on the fly than others. So you can do that, but then that's requiring a new technical skill to be able to do this, whereas in the old days, I mean, like I enjoy, we did one song last week, oh, what was the song? Build My Life. And we didn't have a track, we had, we had a click track, and it was just guys follow me.
Geoff Dresser:We're gonna do it like the Apostle Paul did it, with just a click track, you know, no cues or backing tracks. But anyway, it was kinda nice just to be playing music again. You guys just listen to me, it's a simple song, we'll And so that's, you know, it's nice every once in a while to do that. Otherwise, I mean, we'll just get completely dependent on the click track and forget, as musicians, we should be listening to each other. And just to go back, I have an aspiration for my worship teams is that we don't have stands on the stage on Sundays.
Geoff Dresser:And that's a challenge for, and I have some musicians who, like they try, but I do tell them, if you're gonna just be playing wrong notes and wrong chords for the whole set, go ahead, use the stand. But the goal for everyone is to be without that stand because then, I mean, that'll help you listen. And also, then you can have your eyes up and be making eye contact with the congregation and with the other members of the team on stage and it's just a better, a much better vibe.
Rob Chartrand:Yeah. Yeah. Well, let's finish off with a conversation about an article you wrote recently. And we talked about one way to maybe your article talks about a number of things, but one of the things that does talk about is perhaps confession. You want to lean into that a little bit?
Geoff Dresser:Yeah. I mean, sort of the genesis of that article was when I was doing my master's at Institute for Worship Studies. When we were down there for our classes, we would have a daily chapel worship that was sort of an Anglican style of worship. And so there would be a moment of confession and then of absolution in that order of worship. And I found that I was just longing for that moment of confession.
Geoff Dresser:And then when the worship leader would declare that my sins were forgiven, man, like my heart would just like explode in joy and gratitude. And that was, like I was a contemporary worship guy, that was not a regular part of our worship. I remember just how powerful that was. And then as my studies continued, and we talked about sort of the order of worship, how the entire worship service should be a representation of the gospel, of the big God story, which is there's creation, fall, incarnation, and then recreation. And that gospel order is, I mean, if you look at the liturgy, you see that, I mean, if you look at the classic liturgies of the church.
Geoff Dresser:And you also see that order in, I mean, it's a scriptural order of worship. So if you see Moses and the burning bush, there's this burning bush, this amazing thing that happens that gets Moses' attention. So God sort of gets Moses' attention. But then there's this penitence element where it's like, Moses, you're on holy ground, take your shoes off. So there has to be that dealt with.
Geoff Dresser:And then there's, Moses gives or God gives Moses a word and sends him on the way differently. Moses is different when he's sent. And I found that as I looked at sort of the way I was planning contemporary worship services, that moment of, that penitential moment was missing. Sometimes it would get tacked on at the end if we were doing communion at the end. But I found that was missing.
Geoff Dresser:And at the same time I was beginning to write my novel and man, we're plugging all my stuff here, my novel Mountaintop available on Amazon. And so I was researching like story, like what makes story work? And so there's a Hollywood script guru named Robert McKee who wrote a book called Story.
Rob Chartrand:Yeah. He also has audio tracks of it as well.
Geoff Dresser:Oh, does he? Yeah, I'm sure he does. But he talks about how in a story, very early on in the story, there is something that happens. Inciting incident. The inciting incident.
Geoff Dresser:And the inciting incident is something that happens that creates an imbalance, that creates that tension, and that imbalance is the source of the energy for the rest of the story. It drives the plot. Yeah, drives the plot. So, Star Wars, Luke sees the video of Leia saying, Help me Obi Wan, you're my only That is the inciting incident that drives the rest of that story. And without that, know, the story doesn't make sense.
Geoff Dresser:I mean, in the article I think I used the analogy of Jaws that, you know, the inciting incident in Jaws is, you know, when the shark, whatever, swimmer at the beginning. And so, something must be done. And so that is what drives the hero. And without that inciting incident, then the story doesn't make sense. It's like, why does this guy hate this fish?
Geoff Dresser:So I look at sort of the gospel and the inciting incident in the gospel is the fall. That is the event creates this imbalance that drives the rest of
Rob Chartrand:The whole meta narrative.
Geoff Dresser:Yeah, of the story. And confession is the way in worship that the fall happened.
Rob Chartrand:And we become participants in
Geoff Dresser:this Yeah, we become participants in it. And just the way, like I mean, I would worship different, like my heart would just be naturally filled with this gratitude after I have confessed and received that forgiveness. Like I truly experienced that when I was worshiping during those chapel services at IWS. And I think that that's a hugely important part of worship, of a proper liturgy is to have that. And that's something that we as contemporary worship leaders, I think, to include that in our services.
Geoff Dresser:And I've got suggestions in the article of different ways that we can do that. But yeah, I just think that that is a A missing. Yeah, an often missing element of worship. Without that you can sort of think, well, what's wrong with God that he needs us to pump his tires for twenty minutes before get to the helpful, before I get some helpful life advice. Right.
Geoff Dresser:And I mean, you can look at Without that inciting incident, you can sort of misinterpret what it is that we're about on a Sunday morning. Yeah.
Rob Chartrand:I mean, in some settings, some church traditions, there is an element of confession, but it usually happens at the end of the pastor's sermon. Like it usually drives you to that point where you need to turn from this and turn to this and there is that element, but I think it does make sense to have it earlier in the word because you can't actually if you're sitting there in your sin, and you know that there's a disruption in your relationship with God and you're coming into public worship, you're going to have challenges getting through it, being participating in in the worship of God's people without that opportunity to, to have your sins, forgiven or absolved. I mean, you can probably work it out on your own, but wouldn't it be better to do it corporately?
Geoff Dresser:Yeah, and I mean, it's such We see this pattern in scripture over and over again. I mean, Isaiah six is the other Yeah, Isaiah six. Big one, where there is And it's not like the only time we have to make a change is during that confession. Like Isaiah six, that penitential moment of the, you know, Isaiah confesses and then the angel takes the hot coal and Sending him up. Then Sloppy
Rob Chartrand:white kids. It's a sloppy white
Geoff Dresser:It'll cauterize the guy's lips. I don't know how that works. But then there's this dialogue of, you know, then the word comes and then Isaiah is sent out with a mission. So, is that part of accepting the call. But I mean, it's in view, you know, Romans 12, in view of God's
Rob Chartrand:God's mercy. Offer your bodies.
Geoff Dresser:Yeah, offer your bodies. So, we need to walk through that mercy and confess our sins and receive that mercy and then offer ourselves whatever the challenge is, whatever the
Rob Chartrand:So word I'm trying to think then for pastors who are listening in, how could this practically work out in their congregation? I mean, you've got, say, what's happening on Steinbeck, like where it's actually, no, turn to the person on your left and on your right in a triad and confess your sins to each other directly, which I mean, I've got some good family members who are devote followers of Jesus. If that would happen in a worship service, I'd be out, be like that just I'm not going to talk to a stranger about my sins or someone I barely know. Then the other one is maybe like historical kneelers, you know, you've the kneelers and the people drop to your knees and spend some time in confession and whatnot. Are there other ways besides those two that you could incorporate confession into?
Geoff Dresser:I mean, the way that I've done it most often in my current context, which is we're very contemporary, that's who we are, is I'll just lead a prayer of confession as the worship leader. I've got the liberty to do that. So, I mean, do have someone who will usually lead a prayer time after our sung worship set. And just last week I had confession as element there. In that prayer I go through where I sort of lead the entire church in confessing our sins and then thanking God for the forgiveness that we have in Jesus.
Rob Chartrand:So you're kind of, it's like leading a friend to Jesus. You're walking the congregation through those steps.
Geoff Dresser:Yeah, and it is, I mean, as I've done, I mean, I am praying the gospel in that, praying it for, as the lead worshipper and leading the church through that. I've also just thrown up on the screen, hey, let's read this prayer, let's confess our sins. Psalm 51. Yeah, let's read this prayer of confession together. And then that important, I think that important piece is some sort of declaration that in Christ Jesus your sins are forgiven.
Geoff Dresser:And we're less comfortable with that on sort of the contemporary side of things. But I think, like I love when I'm being led in worship when someone tells me, your sins are forgiven. Right. I mean, that is an important moment. I love hearing that, Yeah.
Rob Chartrand:So you are a pastor, you are a trained clergyman. And for you, when you're worship leading, that might be might come more easily. What about the congregation where, I mean, you've got somebody, it's a smaller church and they're not comfortable maybe leading in that way. I mean, are there other ways to incorporate confession?
Geoff Dresser:I mean, I mean having a, I mean, you could just direct a time of confession and I would not be getting people to confess to strangers. I think that could be fraught. I think you could
Rob Chartrand:bring in, go ahead.
Geoff Dresser:Yeah, just having something, let's read this together, and then let's take a few moments in silence and confess our sins to the Lord. And then someone who isn't comfortable pronouncing like the professional holy person, your sins you are could read any scripture that declares that our sins are forgiven. And know, for there's now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. I do want to encourage worship leaders to pick up that pastoral mantle to become more confident. And look, if in scripture and it's true, then you can declare it a worship service.
Rob Chartrand:Yeah. I think some people might be concerned that you're acting like a priest and because of you, you're the mediator as a priest declaring it and you're giving absolution, but you're not. You're just hanging on the word of God and you're saying, if your heart is truly penitent and you're truly asking Christ for forgiveness, his word is very, very clear. Your sin to forgiveness. As far as the East is from the West, I mean, God's going to wipe it out.
Rob Chartrand:So just I just know some of our listeners coming out of maybe those types of traditions would say, oh man, that that's that's seem a little, you know, theologically, out there. But it's not. It's not. So
Geoff Dresser:get over it
Rob Chartrand:people. It's not. So one of the other things you could do is, you can actually pick up go to Amazon and Google and look for some good books on liturgy. Like you can you can actually incorporate and liturgy is not mean, you know, it's liturgy is good tradition. There's a difference between tradition and traditionalism.
Rob Chartrand:Right? So tradition is the living faith of the dead, traditionalism is the dead faith of the living, right? So we're talking about good liturgy that congregation And so we did that in the last church I pastored is I bought a few books on modern liturgies that had all sorts of different prayers that the congregation could engage in. And that's actually makes it easier for your volunteer worship leaders. So this is where I think in a smaller church context, it's really important for senior pastors to lean into that worship experience and help people.
Rob Chartrand:And it's a teaching moment. You might have to spend some time teaching your congregation that's maybe never done that before. Like this is why public repentance is so very important. The book of James, confess your sins one to another that you might be healed. Right?
Rob Chartrand:So it's good for us to publicly confess our sins together in community.
Geoff Dresser:Yeah. Yeah. There's one called the Worship Sourcebook that I've used, has got great resources for those types of things.
Rob Chartrand:Yeah. Well, Geoff, this has been rich. I I hope we can have another sparring competition at some point having conversations about other things, but, so appreciate your leadership and worship at your church here at Briarcrest. And, looking forward to the next season of, of Church in the North podcast. So thanks for joining me this morning.
Geoff Dresser:Yeah. Thanks, Rob. This was great. Alright.
Rob Chartrand:You've been listening to the Church in the North podcast, a production of Briarcrest College. To learn more about Briarcrest, visit briarcrest.ca. We all know that when something is good, it's worth sharing, so why not pass on today's episode to a ministry leader or someone who will find it helpful? Also, don't forget to leave us a review, share your comments, or hit that subscribe button. We love questions and suggestions, so email us at podcast@Briarcrest.ca.
Rob Chartrand:And for more information about the podcast and our hosts, visit churchinthenorth.ca. Thanks for listening. Until next time.