Bob Kauflin: Yes. But you can be decent and in order and still communicate through your face, through your countenance, through your gestures, through your bodies, that we love Jesus Christ, that we love what He has done for us. That we are amazed that we get to be called His own
David Zimmer: Welcome to Sound Plus Doctrine, the podcast of Sovereign Grace Music where we explore what the Bible has to say about music and worship in the church and encourage those who plan, lead, and participate in their Sunday gatherings each week.
DZ: Hello and welcome to the Sound Plus Doctrine podcast. My name is David Zimmer.
BK: My name is Bob Kauflin.
DZ: It is great to be together today continuing to talk about physical expressiveness.
BK: Number three. This is the final episode of…
DZ: Yes. Season five. We’re done.
BK: No, no, no, no.
DZ: That’d be great.
BK: Of our podcast on physical expressiveness.
DZ: Yes. So we’ve spent two episodes already talking about that. You can go back and listen to those but this…
BK: Can I say it? Tell ’em what they were.
DZ: Yeah.
BK: First one, 10 problems with your church’s physical expressiveness. Two, what the Bible says about physical expressiveness.
DZ: And you addressed each of those. Yeah.
BK: Yeah. Yeah. And the first one is really just concerns and questions that people have about physical expressiveness on a Sunday gathering that, that’s what we’re really focusing on.
DZ: Yes.
BK: Yeah. And then trying to deal with those questions and concerns last time, but then the question always remains, so how do you… Great, great, great, great, great. But how do you move from one place to the other?
DZ: Yes. Right.
BK: So, and I’ve seen some of this done badly. You know, people would say, well, I think I myself, I remember at one point, this was in the ’80s, I guess, getting the revelation that you could dance to the Lord. And I thought that’s what you do if you’re gonna be engaged with, as you’re singing to the Lord, you need to move your feet and your body. And so it didn’t matter what context I was in.
DZ: Yeah.
BK: Small group, big group, didn’t matter, non-Christians, Christians, didn’t matter.
DZ: It is your dance floor.
BK: It’s my dance floor. And so I’m just gonna be dancing on…
DZ: Don’t dance. Listen to the podcast. For sure. Don’t watch it.
[laughter]
BK: So yeah. It’s not just that sudden break that that’s focusing on the wrong thing. That’s just focusing on what’s happening physically.
DZ: Exactly.
BK: What’s happening physically is preceded by something that’s happening in the heart.
DZ: Yes.
BK: So we never say to people, “sing it like you mean it.”
DZ: Yes.
BK: Or you, “jump higher for Jesus.”
DZ: Right.
BK: I… You go ahead.
DZ: Well, I was just gonna say, yeah, if you feel convictional about this, like, yeah. Okay. Yes. All right. This makes sense to me. You don’t want to turn into the song leader that’s come on, lift Him.
BK: Yeah. Yeah. The cheerleader.
DZ: The cheerleader. You can do it. You can do it. Lift ‘em high. Lift ‘em high. To the sky. To the sky.
BK: Yeah. You don’t wanna do that.
DZ: Oh my goodness.
BK: And I had a friend who one time did that in a church meeting and just, it’s horrible. I mean, it’s just…
DZ: Right, ’cause it’s forced.
BK: It’s forced. That’s right.
DZ: That’s what it is.
BK: And God is not looking for forced worship. Sometimes non-Christians have this perception that God says worship me. Like He just commands it. He does command it, because God is everything good. God is everything beautiful. God’s everything true. So, and He’s God.
DZ: Yeah.
BK: He’s… We’re not. He’s God.
DZ: Yeah.
BK: So to say, “worship me,” puts us in line with reality. And it’s the smartest, most beneficial thing right now and eternally that we can do is to worship him.
DZ: Yeah.
BK: We can’t worship Him. So Jesus came to worship God for us, and now, we received the benefits of what He did here on earth. So it’s wonderful. Nevertheless, it’s… You want to say something?
DZ: No, no. I was just gonna say, how do we lead?
BK: All right. Yeah. That is a great question. So, got four points. Make it easy. First thing, if you’re gonna… If you’re leading a church and you’re saying, I’ve talked to a lot of people who have asked me this question. My church, they love the Lord.
DZ: They sing loudly.
BK: They sing… Well, not every church.
DZ: Oh, really?
BK: Yeah. So I’ll do a Worship Matters Intensive where 15 guys will come and we’ll spend five days together. And we’ll always at one point ask what… Rank your church. You know? Physical expressiveness and engagement and yeah, some will say they sing really loud, but not physically expressive. Others neither. Don’t sing very loud, not physically expressive. So what do you do? What do you do?
DZ: Yeah. Yeah.
BK: First thing I’d say is model what you believe. And actually you’re already doing that, probably. But the church is gonna learn best from your example. I was in a church not too long ago where I think the band wanted to be an example, but they weren’t really, none of the musicians were really singing the one of the… Yeah. One of the instrumentalists was singing harmony, would only sing harmony. They wouldn’t sing otherwise. And they really didn’t look that engaged. But they’re singing great songs, amazing songs.
DZ: Yeah yeah.
BK: But the example wasn’t there.
DZ: Yeah.
BK: And so the example we’re looking for is not just enthusiastic or celebratory you’ll see a lot of examples on YouTube where everybody’s just like.
DZ: All celebration.
BK: In your face and yeah, so happy. And you think, wow, do I have to be like this every time I sing? No, you don’t.
DZ: Yeah.
BK: But you do need to be engaged.
DZ: Yeah.
BK: And you do need to be natural, and you do need to be consistent.
DZ: Yeah. Well, and it, I mean, your face reveals so much of what you are internally processing and externally reacting. It’s like, it’s not just your hands, you know? I mean, we mentioned that in the previous podcast, but it’s not just clapping hands, lifting hands. It’s… There’s an engagement in your face.
BK: Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
DZ: Yeah.
BK: And we haven’t, I’m thinking we haven’t talked about clapping hands specifically. But there is clapping that is done after a song that is totally appropriate when you finished, yeah, when you finished behold our God seated on his throne, come let us adore Him. Okay. Yeah. Like what went down.
DZ: That’s the end.
BK: Yeah okay. We just adore Him when we sing, but no, not at all. No, that’s a totally perfect time to say yes, Lord. We thank you. You are great. You are glorious. Thank you. That you are God. We are not. It’s shouting. It’s clapping. That’s totally perfect. It’s not disorderly. Why? Because it’s rooted in the reality of the fact that we just sang about that God is seated on His throne, that God eternal is humbled to the grave, that He bore our wounds in His flesh so that we could be forgiven. That’s all the things we’re thinking about.
DZ: Yes.
BK: So why wouldn’t you respond with shouting and shouts of acclamation and those kinds of things.
DZ: Well and it’s confusing, when we clap for the soloist, but we don’t clap.
BK: That is confusing. Yes. We didn’t finish talking about clapping. There are times when clapping is inappropriate.
DZ: Yeah.
BK: When it’s done after every single song.
DZ: Yeah.
BK: And I’ve been in situations…
DZ: The ballads… Into roaring applause. We talked about that on our new album. Even with Unchanging God: Songs from the Book of Psalms, there are songs that just ended and…
BK: It was very quiet.
DZ: Yeah. We didn’t need to, there wasn’t no…
BK: No one responded. Yeah.
DZ: There wasn’t, It didn’t need to be okay. No, no, no. Now. Bring it in.
BK: Yeah.
DZ: Like you’re some stock audience. It’s like, no, we, whatever it is that we’re responding to…
BK: Yes.
DZ: We’re gonna be engaging.
BK: Yes.
DZ: And that might change.
BK: It’s why I’m not a fan of, getting your stock clapping audio when you do a live album, and we just put that in at the end.
DZ: Yeah.
BK: Because it’s different. But that is a technique. It’s been done I think, some producers have used it on some of our albums. But I don’t prefer it because there’s a different kind of response to different kinds of songs.
DZ: Yep.
BK: But I was gonna say, you often have that one or two people who, when we see your face.
[applause]
BK: It’s like, are you kidding me? Really? No, not now. Not now.
DZ: But you’re right. No, that’s again, intentionality. Are we on the same page? Are we tracking with what’s going on?
BK: Yeah. Yeah. So that’s a little bit about clapping, but model what you believe. Don’t root your practices in your tradition. Don’t root them in your preferences. Don’t root them in your personality. Root them in God’s Word.
DZ: Yeah.
BK: So you’ll have an answer for someone who comes up and challenges you. Why are you starting to be more enthusiastic or expressive? I think the best word is engaged. It’s just are you understanding what’s happening?
DZ: Right.
BK: Are you understanding who we’re talking to, who we’re singing about, what we’re trying to do? And one of the things we’re trying to model for people is these words mean something.
DZ: Yeah.
BK: Everything we do means something.
DZ: Yeah.
BK: And there is an appropriate way to respond to these things that we wanna model for you. So if you’re uncomfortable with that, it’s gonna look really fishy for you to start talking about how we need to be more physically expressive.
DZ: Yes.
BK: But you’re not.
DZ: Yeah.
BK: And again, just, well, so that’s the first thing. Just model what you want to lead people into. Not just outwardly, but inwardly.
DZ: Yeah.
BK: Second, teach your people what the Bible has to say about physical expression. It could be a sermon series, could be a sermon, could be a series. When we planted Sovereign Grace Church of Louisville back in 2012, I think it was sometime in 2013, we realized, you know what? I’m not sure people are as responsive as they might be. Not that they’re not engaged, but maybe they could be… Just show it more outwardly. It’d be hard to walk into the meeting and think, yeah, everybody’s really engaged here. I’m not sure. So CJ Mahaney did a two part series on Psalm 100. Sing, just can never remember. It’s just the simplest psalm. It begins, “Make a joyful noise to the Lord all the earth.”
DZ: Yeah.
BK: “Serve the Lord with gladness. Come into his presence with singing. Know that the Lord, He is God. It is He who made us, not we, ourselves.” Two weeks on that. And his point was that our praise of God is rooted in truths about God. It’s not just kind of pulled out of the air, but it is exuberant. And it is engaged. So we started there, and then over the following weeks, I would just make reference to things about, what we’re doing.
DZ: Yeah.
BK: So use scriptures like we mentioned in some of the previous podcasts. Psalm 108:1-2. “My heart is steadfast, O God. I will sing and make melody with all my being! Awake, O harp and lyre! I will awake the dawn!” That’s what we are called to be this morning.
DZ: Yep.
BK: We are not waiting for the music to do something. Jesus is already glorious. We can begin right now to lift our hearts and our voices to him.
DZ: Yeah.
BK: Or Psalm 40:9. We quoted that too. “I have told the glad news of deliverance in the great congregation.”
DZ: Yes.
BK: “Behold, I have not restrained my lips, as you know O LORD.” So he’s saying to the Lord, I’m giving it my all here.
DZ: Yeah.
BK: I’m not singing halfheartedly.
DZ: Yes.
BK: And that’s not only something we can model, it’s something that we need to teach people about this. This is meant to be something in which we are fully engaged.
DZ: Yes. And if I could just say like… I love that, that CJ is intentional about topics like this.
BK: It’s really helpful.
DZ: It’s so helpful. And just, you know, if you’re a pastor that listens to this podcast, I would just encourage you all the more to be modeling this. It’s not just the worship leader’s…
BK: Yes, yes.
DZ: job. You’re modeling it back to the worship leader and how you’re responding.
BK: Yes.
DZ: Are you reading your sermon notes? Are you preparing? Or are you engaged?
BK: Oh, that’s so good.
DZ: So yeah, just to encourage all of us as we’re seeking the Lord.
BK: Yeah.
DZ: And how we are modeling this for our people.
BK: And that’s a great point too. It’s not just the musicians up on the platform.
DZ: Yep.
BK: It’s any leader in the church who is visible to the rest of the church.
DZ: Yep.
BK: And I think that’s a good thing. Not to be a distraction. I like to sit in the front, again, not so people notice me, but because I wanna model this, I wanna show there’s not a lot of difference from what I would do on a platform, a stage, versus what I do in the congregation.
DZ: Yeah.
BK: Except I have to play the piano when I’m on the platform. But in terms of my wanting to engage and be responsive and respond appropriately, that’s all the same.
DZ: Yeah.
BK: Because nothing’s changed…
DZ: Yes.
BK: From when I’m on the platform to when I’m in the congregation.
DZ: Yes.
BK: Same, same thing.
DZ: Yes.
BK: And I love this 1 Peter 1:8, “Though you have not seen him you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory.”
DZ: Love that passage.
BK: And I’ll say to people, what does joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory look like on you?
DZ: Yeah.
[laughter]
BK: You know, I mean, just…
DZ: Yeah.
BK: Psalm 34:5, “Those who look to him are radiant, their faces will never be ashamed, never be covered with shame.” So if we’re not looking to the Lord, our faces may look like something else. So teach your people, what the Bible has to say about physical expression.
DZ: Good.
BK: And then third, address concerns. And talk about the culture you’re seeking to build. So, we’ve listed 10 of them. There are concerns that people have, some of them are legitimate. You don’t want your services to be disorderly. You don’t want people to be distracting. You don’t want people to be hypocritical. And address those. And certainly, you don’t want us, you don’t want people more focused on themselves than they are on God.
DZ: Yeah.
BK: Really, we should be thinking about the people around us, but mostly not to be a distraction, but mostly thinking about what God has done and for us in Jesus Christ and His glory in Christ, and how we should respond to that. And it’s not all celebration. There are times when we’re singing a song like “Shine Into Our Night” or “Lord, Have Mercy”.
DZ: Yeah.
BK: I think Matt Boswell and Matt Papa wrote one, Lord have mercy for what we have done.
DZ: Yes.
BK: [Vocalization] which is beautiful. You know, you’re not dancing in the aisles during that song, but you might raise your hands, Lord have mercy, Christ have mercy Lord have mercy on us. Just to say Lord.
DZ: For different reasons.
BK: For different reasons. That’s right.
DZ: Yeah.
BK: That’s right. But you’re engaged.
DZ: Yeah.
BK: And that’s what you’re wanting people to be. So address concerns that people have. Let ’em know, one that you’re aware of that concern, and then teach the people who might be offensive in those ways. But for everybody, we wanna say, look, this is the kind of culture we’re trying to build. One where we fear God more than what people around us think.
DZ: Yep.
BK: We’re thinking more about that. We’re thinking more about his worthiness. We’re more, thinking more about the riches of grace that we’ve received in Jesus Christ. We’re thinking more about the words to the songs we’re singing than we are. Well, I wonder what someone might think about me if I do this, if I sing loud or you know, whatever.
DZ: Right. Right.
BK: I remember watching, I think it was Carrie Underwood, I’m not sure. I’m pretty sure it was, singing a song. This was not on American Idol, but she was just singing a song. It might have been on American Idol. She came back to sing a song and it was a song to her dad, I think, I wish I had these details. But in the middle of it, she just got very emotional. And the comments afterwards were not, “Oh wow, what a drag that she ruined a good performance.” I can think of another example, maybe even better. My daughter, McKenzie was doing her senior recital. I did a blog post on this called Music is Great, Jesus is Greater.
DZ: Yeah.
BK: And this is where that phrase originated. She was singing a worship song, and God had done a wonderful work in her life that year, and it was about how God was, had delivered us, and she broke down in the middle of it. She couldn’t get through it, and no one said, “Oh, great. You ruined a good performance.” They were struck by how affected they were.
DZ: Yeah.
BK: So that’s the opportunity we have, every time we gather.
DZ: Right.
BK: This would apply to preaching this, you know, preachers who never show emotion, never show affections.
DZ: Yeah.
BK: I think they’re missing an opportunity to glorify God.
DZ: Yeah.
BK: Vocalists, instrumentalists. Those of us in the congregation, we’re missing an opportunity if we don’t give people an impression that Jesus has done a great thing.
DZ: Yeah.
BK: And He is God and He’s the Son of God, and He has changed our lives. We have this opportunity with our bodies and our voices to display that. One more illustration. You know, I’ve used this before when Julie comes into a room, I don’t ignore her. I don’t keep doing what I’m doing. And just kind of pretend she’s not there in my heart. I’m loving her, but I don’t want anybody to know.
[laughter]
BK: I will go over to her… First, you’ll see it on my face. You will see it on my face. Because thinking about her, knowing she’s right there with me is just, it’s gonna make me happier. And I’ll go over to her and I will kiss her and I won’t do that to say, well, look at me, look at how I love my wife. I’ll be doing it because I love my wife.
DZ: Yeah.
BK: And I’m not afraid of you knowing that.
DZ: Yeah.
BK: I’m not afraid of showing you that.
DZ: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
BK: So how much more?
DZ: Yeah.
BK: How much more? When we gather as those whom Jesus has set free, has rescued through His life and death on the cross and His resurrection, how much more would we not want the people around us, guests, the other church members, to know what that means? So that’s the culture we wanna build. Where that’s natural.
DZ: Yeah.
BK: Where people are free to respond in those ways. We want to encourage that. We want to say yes, this is a place where you can respond naturally. You don’t have to overdo it. Think it, and you don’t have to be in a straight jacket. You can respond naturally. Okay. Number four, in leading, aim at the heart, not the body.
DZ: Right. Right.
BK: Sing, pray and preach the glories of God in Christ. Aim at the heart, not the body. We don’t help people grow in God glorifying expressiveness simply by explaining it or telling them to lift their hands.
DZ: Yes.
BK: They have to see God’s glory in Christ as their ultimate goal. And that’s what we’re focusing on. That’s what we’re thinking about. That’s what we’re rehearsing. That’s what we’re reveling in. Is the church the only place where our bodies can’t express what our minds are comprehending and our hearts are feeling. ‘Cause sometimes it seems that’s what it is.
[laughter]
BK: It’s the difference between you finish a meeting and it breaks into fellowship. All of a sudden, people moving about the room just don’t wanna… Well, that’s because the meaning is decent and in order. Yes. Yes. But you can be decent and in order and still communicate through your face, through your countenance, through your gestures, through your bodies, that we love Jesus Christ, that we love what He has done for us. That we are amazed that we get to be called His own. So it’s that, it shouldn’t be so distinct that people can’t see that. So our goal is to help people hear, see, and understand the right things. Because our bodies, God gave us our bodies to glorify Him, to draw attention to the reality, greatness, and goodness of the God we worship. It might feel uncomfortable at times, especially when you start, especially when you realize this is a problem.
[laughter]
BK: I should be doing something, or it’s a problem for my church. I should be doing something. We should be doing something. We may feel, like learning how to swim or learn how to walk, it’s just like, feels so awkward. But over time, as we aim at the heart and not the body, we might find ourselves on our knees, broken over sin, we might find ourselves lifting a hand. I love to watch this. There have been memes done on this different things that…
DZ: Right. Holding a baby.
BK: Yeah. Yeah.
[laughter]
DZ: Field goal and all those. Yeah.
BK: Yes. I just found that in my own times with the Lord, I just started doing this. I just started, Lord, this is for you. It can be surrender, it can be thanksgiving, it can be a cry of need. It can be all those things. Celebration. Those are things that the world uses. Lifting of hands to do. But again, more than that, it’s the engagement to fully express the amazement we have at God’s mercy that Christ says, drawn us to himself through Jesus Christ.
DZ: Amen.
BK: I think our hope would be that this would move us to make every effort to engage with God, not simply with our minds. Not simply with our emotions, although those are crucial, but with our bodies as well.
DZ: Our whole being.
BK: Our whole being. And at times it’ll look different, different times, different churches, different cultures, in your life it’ll look different. But there’s no question that as the people that God has redeemed through Jesus Christ for His glory, that we should know God is worthy of our deepest and strongest and purest affections and that our bodies should show it. And that’s our prayer. And if you have questions about what we’ve talked about or comments, we’d love to hear from you. SoundPlusDoctrine@SovereignGrace.com. We pray this has been an encouragement and certainly has been fun talking about it.
DZ: Yeah. Thank you, Bob. And thank you for listening and thank you for following and subscribing and staying on top of what we have going. It’s just a joy to serve people, through Sovereign Grace Music. So thank you for what you’re doing, Bob. And…
BK: And you too, David.
[laughter]
DZ: It’s been good.
BK: You do a lot too. I just want to put that out. It’s great. Great being together.
DZ: Yep.
