[Ep08] Fostering Musical Growth in Churches w/ Composer and Liturgist Greg Wilbur

In this episode, Magnus Gautestad and Greg Wilbur discuss the role of music in churches and how it can empower evangelism and worship. They delve into the importance of creating music that reflects God's attributes and how different styles can be integrated to unify the body of Christ. Greg emphasizes the pastoral role of music leaders and the need to balance excellence with inclusivity, encouraging growth and participation within the congregation. The discussion also touches on the potential of music to connect with people spiritually and the importance of nurturing creativity within the church community.

Throughout the conversation, there is a focus on the beauty and power of music in expressing faith and connecting with God. Greg highlights the value of utilizing the talents within the church community, encouraging growth and unity through music that resonates with different generations. The conversation emphasizes the idea that beauty in music is not about perfection but about genuine expression and connection with God. It concludes with a call to explore and appreciate beautiful music as a means of spiritual enrichment and connection with the divine.

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Transcript

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On our journey to empowering the music that the church makes today, it is important to see people who are actually doing things that are moving us in the right direction. I have an incredible guest today that will be speaking about what we can actually do to empower the music the church make today and how we can think about the attributes of God and how the artists can share their voice to bring in a lot of empowerment into the in church and in evangelism. Let's tune in. There's a war in our churches between modern and traditional music. But the question is this, can we creatively integrate the best of both worlds to unify the body of Christ and glorify the Lord more fully? Join us on this podcast as Christians from various stands share their voice and come together to develop new creative arrangements and compositions that will help us to worship the Lord more fully and to empower evangelism. I'm Magnus Gautsstad, and welcome to SDG Music Radio. It's a beautiful day, a day with harmony in order. It's a day where we can connect with wonderful music, but not everywhere. It's like that. There is a war in many places, in many churches that are splitting up over the music. But on both ends, there can be a lack of beauty, a lack of vitality. We are here now to empower the music that we see now and really asking, what is the future of the music that comes from the church, the music we bring into the church, the music we bring out to the church? I'm here with somebody who has a lot of thoughts about that and a lot of experience with with beauty and music. So Greg Wilber, how are you doing today? Doing great. Thank you. We're going to jump into an introduction here. So like we usually do, to get some background. And also, when you're listening to this, think about also the steps and the positions he's in. And just think, if you're an artist, is there something you can do to move towards some of these roles where you're able to have a bigger influence? So that's nice to get to know all guests, but I'm also reading this up so people can understand there is actually a lot of places where you can work toward to have a bigger impact with the gifts you've been given. Gregory Wilbur is the Chief Musician and Liturgist at Cornerstone Presbyterian Church, PCA, in Franklin, Tennessee. He grew up in Mississippi as a pastor's child and started playing for worship when he was in high school. In college, he served as choir director and music director of the local Presbyterian Church, where he began to compose choral works and congregational songs. Reforming the worship of God's people has been near and dear to his heart. After he moved to Nashville in the early'90s, he served at various area churches in choral, arts, and congregational roles. He continued to compose music for these congregations and to write and speak on issues of worship. Very important. He is in the founding President and Dean of Students at New College, Franklin, a Christian classical college in Franklin that he helped to found. In addition to writing congregational worship hymns, he also composes choral and orchestra works. He has written numerous articles about worship, the arts, and education, as well as several books, including Christmas Spirit, a family guide for Advent, and Glory and Honor, a leadership biography of J.S. Bach Greg lives in Franklin with his beautiful wife, Sophia, and lovely daughter Eleanor. So let's jump into, let's say, a polarizing question, but also a protective question. What type of music gives glory to God, and what doesn't? Great question. The music that gives glory to God is that which comes from a heart directed towards him, primarily in terms of first steps, because God can take our most pitiful and inadequate sacrifices and bring honor to himself. The deeper part of that question would be those things which most reflect his own and glory, and order, and attributes. So that's something to aspire to, but at the same time, knowing that all of our efforts are going to be inadequate in some form or another. So that's a dual answer to your question. Well, I like it. It gave us some room for further reflection. And I think a lot of the growth actually comes from us thinking through it ourselves quite a bit. For a church leader of music, a leader of music in churches, what is your main advice to them? You obviously have a lot of experience in this. In 2024, as we're recording this interview, what is your main advice? I think some of that, doubling on what you just, the first question, too, is I think the primary understanding My primary understanding of leading in worship, of preparing a worship service, of choosing a particular music is for the sake of pastoral ministry to the congregation. I have a friend that says that his role as a church musician is to help people die well, that you are equipping them and preparing them for the spiritual journey. It's a formative thing. There's a very much a pastoral role of of what you're doing. There's a lot of implications of that in terms of... One of the primary ministries of any church is the worship service. Not women's ministry, not youth ministry. It's the worship of God. All other ministries flow out of that. Because of that, what you do in worship then needs to be reflected in that. In terms of engaging the congregation and growing them as well. So your different categories of... If you were thinking about in terms of what type of sermon should a pastor preach, would the advice be, preach only the things that the congregation is comfortable with, that they want to hear, that they know already, and that, as Paul talks about with Timothy's, scratchers their itching ears? Or do you teach truth in such a way that they have to wrestle with it and stab their toe against it, and it grows them in grace. I think the same thing is exactly true with regards to liturgy and with regards to the music that one does. That it shouldn't just be things that they're comfortable with, things that they're going to hear anywhere else in the world, things that they already know, but that in a careful and guided way, you're actually leading them and growing them in an understanding of beauty and an understanding of goodness and understanding of who God is by text and by the music itself. And then the other aspect of that would be, what is the way in which you convey that music in church? And I think there's a big difference. I've been a member of a church in which more contemporary and the music was so loud that I couldn't hear myself sing and did not feel very much a participant. And not always knowing when there was going to be a key change or a bridge or a repeat. I've also been in situations with an organ and brass in which I haven't been able to hear myself sing. And because of the arrangement of the brass and organ, I wasn't fully aware of when I was supposed to sing. And so it's not just one necessarily style issue. In both instances, I think there's a huge miss on what it in terms of encouraging the congregation. And so there's a different esthetic then with regards to worship. How you play the piano for a piano recital versus how you play a piano with regards to encouraging a congregation to sing And what arrangement you would use would be two very different things. If you're doing something that confuses the congregation, then you're losing them. And so if you add a bridge or you add a key change or how you play a guitar, how you play an organ, there's a difference in how you engage the congregation. So there's an esthetic difference, even with regards to percussion. What does it look like if one uses percussion? I think there's a big difference between keeping a beat, creating a creating a mood and adding color. And usually it's that order, keeping the beats primary, creating a mood and adding colors to throw it. I think in some ways, you could reverse that in the context of worship, and that creating color, maybe adding a bit of a feel and keeping a beat would be down the road. Because ultimately, if all we're doing is mimicking what you can hear on contemporary radio, in the pop rock world, that's already being done. What is it that the church has that they don't have, that the world has? I think the goal is not to emulate that, but to be distinctively in the context of worship who God has called us to be. We need to reflect that in the music that we sing and how we sing it. That's a very strong point. I think there is a lot of people like me out there that are now looking at the world around them, the flatness of the world, if they are an unbeliever with the modernism and all the pessimism and all of this, or Or even in some churches that are either dry or just very superficial. They're looking for that transcendence. They're looking for something deeper. That was my heart. When I was doing transcendental meditation and was getting off that life, that rock and roll life and the partying and all of that before I came to Christ, the last thing I wanted was to step into a place which felt like the world I came from. I didn't want it to be a completely different alien place because in one way, this is our home. But I wanted definitely something that was different, that was a little step out of the world that I knew. That's when I went to church. There was music. There was a little bit of strangeness to it, but it was an attractiveness to it, especially now when the world is becoming more and more, it becomes more and more difficult to just take a neutral stance. That the church has that little bit of edge. This is church. This is some Church building and a church room and church music. There's a sense of timelessness that something at least doesn't just shift with the wind in here, but there's constantly also new life and creativity, which is constantly poured into this place. As we build, Continue this conversation, sometimes we get into, well, when we're setting boundaries, there is one music that's more evangelism, but we would never put that in a worship service. Then it's like, why not? Aren't we always worshiping, even when we are playing a concert outside the church? Isn't that also in one way a worship service? Who are you really playing for? Are you playing Loving your neighbor? Or are you playing God the one on the front road for you. To clarify that question a little bit, what difference is in music for evangelism and music for worship should there be, if any? Within within the context of a worship service or within the context of life overall? Well, if you are a seeker friendly church, I guess that bleeds a bit into one thing. You can take the question as you want, but I'm thinking specifically is the music that new composers and arrangers make for the life inside the church building and what we encourage musicians to go out to do in the concert venues. Yes. I think ultimately, I would agree with the idea that the worship service is primarily for God's people, and that God is calling his people before his throne on the Lord's Day. Unrelievers are welcome, but they're not the primary audience. That's not the primary. Even Paul talks about the fact that maybe they will see the goodness and beauty of God and have that opportunity to respond. From that standpoint, and I think this is true outside in the world, that it really is beauty that is an apologetic, that speaks to a creator, that speaks to something transcendent, metaphysical, divine, that God exists. Even within the context of a worship service, the best evangelistic music is that which is true and beautiful because it leads towards that conversation. But even outside the church, I think that's still true because it's reflective of the way things are. I say that from the standpoint not that you've got to put Christian lyrics to songs, but that in and of itself, something that is done well, that is reflective of the beauty of order is itself a pointing towards who got it. I think there's an analogy. The way that a story works in terms of how we engage with characters and where we want the story to go in that sense of completion. There's always that sense of any story is a reflection of the story. It is a reflection from the garden, from Genesis to Revelation. There's creation, fall, redemption, and consummation. There's that arc there that you can see on all sorts of stories. This very structure of a story itself conveys the gospel. Now, unbelievers can take that structure and put in elements which are antithetical to the gospel, but the very structure itself still speaks to our longing to move the difficulties in the sin in the world, longing towards some resolution and longing towards those things which are beautiful. The same thing is true with music. L lyrics aside, the very structure of what makes music work is reflective of who God is. There is an evangelistic, there's a point of contact there with unbelievers just in that very nature. I think that makes a lot of sense. It's a message that we're both intellectuals and more creatives, if you can make that distinction, can come together and discuss something that we all understand. I think Any pastor listening to this that is not a musician yourself, you can still emphasize these attributes, and then the congregation will have even more ways of getting to know who God is. In my way, that has been a lot of my focus lately. It's just, okay, if I'm going to live with my awareness and walk with God and think about God and look to God and listen to God through his word and all of that, I just want to get to know God more and more. If I'm going to do the most important thing in my whole life is to love God, then I just need to know him more and more. I need to spend more time with him. So What we're talking about now, actually, at least for me, is sitting here right now, my experience now is that I'm getting to know God more. I know Jesus in many ways. I know the Holy spirit in many ways. I know God, the Father in many ways. But how can I know him and be with him throughout the day to deepen that love? I think in many ways, the music that we do and also the way musicians and artists are able to speak about what they do and how they are connecting and being aware of God can be a powerful way to anchor people in a more dedicated spiritual life. And there's tremendous potential there. Do you agree? I do. And I think God is at work all around us. And I think one of the most important things for us to do is to pay attention and to recognize that. And I say that from the standpoint of being able to have the spiritual eyes, but also the trained heart and mind to see those things. I had a student I was teaching Aspects, a music class, and a student who was very much into heavy metal. And we were talking about various aspects of music. The switch came on for him. And I I have him listen to various pieces, a speak with him by Argo Parate, which is captured his imagination. And he just kept listening to it again and again and again. So much so that after a month or two, he couldn't listen to what he was listening to before because it had changed him so much. He realized from a spiritual perspective what other music was doing to him because it gave him a sense of the ability to pay attention to music in a different way. And he was looking at different things. He was hearing different things. But I think having that sense of being able to talk about music as music, to be able to talk about literature as how that's reflective of the gospel, to look at art and structure of architecture. And those things are... Having the eyes to see those things and how they reflect the order and the beauty of God, it does very much train us in those ways. Well, I think you have a lot of important points, and I can testify that I can still remember a few years ago when I didn't really look up in the street. I didn't really look at the architecture. I didn't look at a painting for more than 20 seconds before I... I wasn't able to sit with music with many layers and take it in all at once. I can still remember that in in my early 20s, even after being a musician for many years. And there was so much more. Even after playing in all those bands for 10 years, there was so much more for me as a musician. There I was just waiting right there. But I needed somebody to train my ear and help my attention to open myself up to that. And so the one thing is for the creatives, how can we help those creatives? If you ever have a There's a sense that there must be some, is this really all it is? Is this all there is for me as a musician? There seems to be somebody, you see some musicians that are so into it. Some of these masters and virtuosos, they're just What world are they in? I think there's so much potential in through education and through teaching and through, like you're saying, stretching people and growing and maturing them to experience this amazing connection with God through beauty and through music. Just to take this in a bit more practical direction, because I love speaking about theology and philosophy, but my whole ministry is very much directed toward how we can reform music and how we can also let the artist be a part of making more church plants available and connecting more with culture transforming that culture for the glory of God. So how can Christians come together to make more beautiful and powerful music, both for modern and traditional churches? How would that be possible for big and small churches? I think one thing that I think is important within the life of a church is, as a musician, as an artist, I always have the tension of, I want things to be as beautiful and perfect as possible. As a perfectionist, I want that I desire that. At the same time, what does it look like to utilize the people that God has given you within the context of your congregation or your community? Is it okay to have a younger string player participate in the worship instruments on a Sunday morning who's not the best player yet, but they desire to serve. And this gives them an opportunity to grow into that. And so the goal is not perfection, but we're also seeing something more in terms of we're building up and leading people into their abilities and to growth over time, that we value that growth process, and we value our younger people within the congregation that we're actually training them and equipping them and giving them this opportunity to grow in that. And so there's that aspect as well. And I think part of where we get off track, or I've seen churches get off track, is that in a world of Amazon, we expect every website to work that way. You can't do that without a lot of money and a lot of resources. In a world of mass culture, we want every piece of music that we do to sound like it sounded like on the radio or on Spotify or whatever. It's not going to. I think sometimes I've seen churches aspire to something that was beyond the personnel and the people that God had given them. So either they hire people in, which is one approach, or they need to maybe take stock of who they have in their midst, who has God brought there, and to raise those people up. I think, and even from the context of what does it look like to create within your own church? I write music for my congregation. I have recorded a large number of that, and I put the recordings out. Not because I'm trying to become an artist in terms of writing hymns and service music and Psalm settings, but because that's just an added aspect of ministry. I write those songs because those are the songs that we sing within our context. Those are the things that relate to our community. If God can use those in other places, That's great. That's a whole other thing. That's different than thinking that we all need to sing the same songs. Maybe there's a budding songwriter, a composer, or a musician in the midst of the church that needs that encouragement. Maybe you're the only church that sings their song, but that's encouraging to them, and that builds them up, and that brings that very tangible gift that God has given that body to that body. The church itself isn't able to encourage that and benefit from that, as opposed to benefiting from somebody who is a staff writer at a music industry business in probably in my town, in Nashville, who's writing songs on the basis of making money. It may, objectively, in the moment, have better quality, but you've got a more spiritual connection and encouragement of someone within your own midst. Wow. Yeah. So it's balancing that wanting to make our offering to the Lord, the sacrifice to be as beautiful as we can, but also what does it look like to bring others along and to move towards that. Absolutely. Wow. That sounds like a wonderful thing to be a part of a church where God is making a new song. The Holy spirit is inspiring music among your mist. I think in that way, that's actually one way to unify the church, because if then the style is more, let's say, more classical, if the younger people know it was freshly created here, wouldn't that make all Also, this is something new? It is also beautiful. In a church with multiple generations, what is the timeless and what is the universal? There is certain elements which I've seen some videos on Instagram in Serbia, where they have a kindergarten where the classical orchestra is practicing. The children is going around and they love the music. They love it. You have that music in cartoons, right? And then you also have the grandparents sitting there and enjoying the same music. Isn't that unifying? Isn't the Bible full of images of we being a body? Isn't it the will of Jesus that we are working toward a universal church? Wouldn't beauty and that type of excellence would be have an amazing opportunity to bring together the best of different churches and come together. So that's just some rhetorical questions I'm throwing out there to those who are inspired to be here today. Let's end with an ending here of just how people can get in contact with you, because I've been listening to your music. I believe that just objectively, that the direction, that how things you're doing it is a role model for also other churches to develop. And again, if they have less means or whatever, there's always something that we can do with what we got. I think that's the thing about beauty, is that it just fits in that context. If you have a small little church and you're putting on huge orchestra music, it's not really that beautiful. If you have a little cabin and you have a two meter high statue in that cabin, it's not beautiful anymore because it doesn't fit. But there is something that each of you can do that fits your church. It's fitting to your means, it's fitting to your people. And that's, I think, where that beauty really comes together. But how can people find out about your music, listen to it, get to know more about your writing, things like that? Sure. They can visit my website, which is wilburmusic.com W-I-L-B-U-R-M-U-S-I-C. com I've got various recordings and sheet music and things, choral music available there. Wonderful. Well, I'm so grateful that you could come on here today and also the listeners that you're tuning in here. If you are now listening to this on the go, remember, we're also on YouTube, so head over there, subscribe, leave a comment to us because we really want to learn from each other here. This goes both ways. Join us on Instagram. We're there with highlights. You can follow and see which episodes that really grabs your attention and that inspires you. If you want to be on this show, you have a voice, maybe you disagree with some of our principles, you agree with them, you have more practical solutions of how we can actually reform and build up, then just email. Email us at contact@beautyandthefaith.com and I'll be glad to have a Zoom coffee with you and see where this can go. So thank you very much again, once again, Greg, for being here today. And for our listeners, have a beautiful day and take some time to listen to a little bit of beautiful music every day. God bless.