GYC 2017: Arise

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Generation. Youth. Christ. (GYC)

Music in Your Sphere: Max the Potential of Music in Ministry

William Guthrie

1. The Song of the Spheres

This message was presented at the GYC 2017 conference, Arise, in Phoenix, Arizona.

For other resources like this, visit us online at www.gycweb.org.

If you were expecting to hear William, I am sorry to disappoint.

William had had jaw surgery a couple weeks ago and they haven't quite taken out the brace yet, so he's a little difficult to speak, so I'm filling in for him this morning.

He was the gentleman that was just passing out all the cards, so he's been helping with everything on the back end here.

And you'll be hearing from several of us here on the committee this morning and this afternoon.

We are excited to be able to share with you.

This is something that we're obviously passionate about.

And we're excited to be able to work with you guys.

I'm guessing most of you guys are musicians.

So we're going to have several sessions, including 1 on Writing music.

I want to encourage you to think of questions you might have.

We're going to have a way for you to submit questions by text.

Probably after this meeting, we'll have that set up, and you can text questions in.

We will have some Q&A time after several of our sessions, as well as tomorrow morning will be a panel where we will take questions from you.

We'll be addressing things, several things with regards to how to deal with conflict in music, and then we'll take questions from you guys as well.

So think of those questions, write them down.

We want this series to be a little different than what you might have imagined.

A lot of music seminars are more focused on good and bad music, and that's a good thing to understand, but we also want to talk about the practical side.

How do we use music more effectively to finish the Lord's work, to share the gospel.

So that's what we're going to be focusing on with this series.

However, it is important to understand that there is such a thing as bad music, and understand how that bad music came about and what its effects can be if we fall into using it in our endeavors to use music for ministry.

So all my life, I have heard the terms good music, bad music, worldly music, earthly music, heavenly music.

It was created to be perfectly good in every way.

I can remember as a young boy, I thought music was the most amazing thing ever.

I would go outside where no 1 could hear me, and I would sing make-up songs, never sing the same tune or the same lyrics twice, always on some new musical adventure in my own mind.

And My parents had this Sony stereo system, had 2 large speakers, and I would put them on the table and put it on something like Beethoven's 9th, and I would turn it up just loud enough that I could feel the orchestra with the speakers on either side of me.

And it was the closest thing I could get to that experience you get when you're in the concert hall.

You're on the front row, and you can feel the cellos instead of hear them.

So I would listen to all the music I could get my hands on.

1 day I was digging through a box, and I found a box of CDs that I hadn't seen before.

I hadn't heard it played in our home before.

So I, ever curious, stuck 1 in the CD player, what is this all about?

And what came out of the speakers was quite exhilarating to my young mind.

I had not, it was a little different than what I'd heard at church or in our home before.

And I remember the feeling that it gave me.

I felt like I wanted to sit extremely still and jump up in excitement at the same exact time.

And I was listening to this music, my mom came into the house and she's like, what are you doing?

I showed her the CDs that I found, I was all excited and told her what I had found and she looked at me with a chuckle.

She's like, oh you found my my old pile of naughty music.

She had apparently tucked it away and forgotten about it.

That was the first time that I recall realizing or hearing the concept that music could be in some way bad or negative.

And it was quite jarring to my young mind to think that such a wonderful thing could be in any way bad.

I don't recall exactly what music was in that box, but apparently it had some elements that led my mom to set it aside because of the negative effect it had on her spiritual life.

And As I grew older, through the gentle education of my parents and my Heavenly Father, I began to understand what that experience was, what it was like to have music affect my spiritual life, affect my desire for spiritual things negatively, and also for it to inspire and encourage my spiritual life.

I learned that some music could actually enhance my walk with the Lord and make me want to study the Bible more, make me want to pray.

And I also, as I grew older, I learned what it's like to not just enjoy music that inspires me to go to God, but to share music that encourages someone else.

I remember several times early on when I would give a special music at church or something and someone's face would just light up in the audience.

And maybe they'd come up to me afterwards and say, you know, that's just what it was.

And, But they'd say, you know, that song, what you said in that song was just what I needed to hear today.

But that experience, that experience taught me, or at least began to teach me, the power that music can have for good or for bad.

I hope you walk away with some tools to help you with your musical ministry.

This first 1 is just gonna lay the groundwork.

Annie is going to be talking about music in your local church, how to use it more effectively, song services, that sort of a thing.

She's got some, I've seen some of her presentation, I can't wait to hear the rest of it myself.

Session 3, Singing of a Better Land, Ariel is going to talk about music in evangelism.

How can we use music more effectively to actually reach people outside of our churches, outside of our sphere of influence, people who would probably otherwise never be interested in a Bible study or coming to church, but maybe music can capture their attention.

Session 4, James is going to be talking about creating Heaven's Music, how to write music.

He's got, you got to come to his session, I can't wait for you to hear some of the stuff that he's got for us.

And then tomorrow morning we're going to, we're going to talk about, we're gonna have a panel and we're gonna talk about how to deal with conflict in music.

How many of you guys have been working with people in music and you don't agree and you don't know what to do with that?

We're going to talk about what's some practical things we can do to address those moments of conflict when we don't agree, we don't know how to come together in our music ministry.

And we're also going to take questions from you guys, anything that we haven't answered at that point we'll try to address in that panel.

Annie Moretta

2. The Power of One Song

This message was presented at the GYC 2017 conference, ARISE, in Phoenix, Arizona.

I am presenting the second seminar which is the power of 1 song and kind of what I do on the music committee is I help out coordinate song services, Kind of do helping out with backstage stuff.

So people usually don't see me unless I'm actually unless You're back there.

And it's been quite the Experience, as you've seen already, caleb, he's the 1 Who heads our committee.

And it's been a trip from 1 moment to the next, and we just love working with people like you guys.

And so, kind of what we're going to be covering in this session is the power of your local church ministry and how we've worked in the past, how we have done our types of song services and how we have used our principles, these different principles from the Bible to keep us moving forward in whatever we do.

My goal for the seminar is first to inspire you and hopefully that you may continue to gain more knowledge and kind of be able to assimilate your own experience with music to how you can use it for church and also I also want to show you how we have worked with song services and for those of you who do not know me which I feel like it's a lot of you I'm an undergraduate student at Andrews University I was a music major up until this semester and I switched for more pre-professional reasons, but I loved it.

I was able to get more experience in music.

I play violin and I've been involved in my church ministry and other churches.

Wherever we go, there's always someone who asks us to, I guess musicians, if they see you with a violin, if they know that you play the piano, I'm sure you guys have experiences in 1 way or another, they ask you to sing, they ask you to play, they ask you to do all sorts of things.

I grew up kind of playing, involved in music.

My parents actually had us start out with piano and we kind of grew up in that environment where we didn't think that we could let it go.

They didn't give us that time to really think about, you know, well maybe this is a time to let it go sort of thing.

They just wanted us to keep playing music as far as we could.

So, you know, kind of experiencing that world and coming to this type of world.

And I really thought I wanted to do music in my first year of college music education.

But I quickly realized that that was probably not my calling because of the kind of outside experience that we get and it's almost competitive in some ways and what I love to do is I love to minister through music to people all around me and my passion has been sharing Christ through music and sometimes like I am speaking today.

And before we begin, how many of you guys were at the last seminar that Caleb gave?

How many of you guys are currently involved in your local church ministry?

And I guess brass and the rest of the orchestra.

So we'll do a recap, but first let's have a word of prayer.

Dear gracious and heavenly father, I wanna thank you for a beautiful day you've given to us, a beautiful day to learn about you, to serve you in what we do.

I wanna ask you, please bless what we do.

I wanna ask you, please help us to learn more, help us to hear your word, and help us to do your will, Lord.

We want to be here to minister for others, Lord, to share your passion, share your love for all of us, and to show what you have done for everyone here in this room and in this world, Lord.

I just ask you please help us to be more like you in our music, help our music to reflect the music that you would like us to have, and that we may have an effective ministry to bring others to you.

I want to thank you for each and every 1 of the people who are here and that you may please be with my voice and please help me to only share your words and your name I pray, Amen.

All right, so for those of you who were not here, I'm just gonna do a quick recap.

And you know, even though there was a 15 minute break, it's probably something that we needed to go back into, and a lot of these things have to do with church ministry.

And Caleb talked about his personal experience with music, how music has affected him in his life.

He also talked about Lucifer and Satan's experience with music and provides an example of what can happen when we don't commit our music and our attitudes to be wholly submitted to God.

He had then asked the question, what is the motivation for you to do music?

What is the motivation for me to do music?

Is it so that I can show other people how good I am?

Is it to show other people that I am just, you know, a person who has all these talents and gifts?

Or is it actually to bring others to Christ?

And that's the question that we have to constantly ask ourselves.

As a musician, I kind of experience the whole idea that when you're up on stage, when you're up front, it feels like everything is for show.

It feels like it's very easy to slip into that thing where it's like oh well I'm the 1 who's directing music I'm the 1 who's playing this I'm the 1 who's doing that and that's where we begin to have our big problems.

Kind of going back to history and what I like to do.

And I remember in orchestra, we played these massive symphonies.

And there was just always so much work, so much competition.

I'd go home, practice for hours and hours a day.

And then it came to song service and it came to our local church and we practiced the night before we practiced right before church and it wasn't because we didn't have time it's more like oh well you know we can play that if I can play the hard stuff I can play the easy stuff And that was kind of how I began to think of it.

And I had to realize that ministry in our local church is so important.

It's so, so much of what we do is involved in not only just music, but in the rest of the worship service.

It's involved in when people go home and maybe they don't remember the sermon, maybe they don't remember exactly what the pastor said, but they may remember that 1 song.

They may remember that 1 hymn that you sang for song service, and that is such a beautiful thing.

And we chose kind of this name because the power of 1 song is so evident.

You can almost always, I don't know if you guys have had this experience, I know I have.

I know intricate power presents in just 1 song.

It can affect you emotionally, it can affect you intellectually, and it's been such an intricate part of the worship service.

Lucifer played a large role in directing and singing praises to God.

We know that from inspired scripture, And we know that there were problems.

It was almost as if the first major sin was associated with music.

And it was as if that slipping of pride is so easily, you can so easily come into it.

And we always imagine what it would be like to listen to this type of heavenly music.

You know, whenever you hear a mass orchestra, a mass choir, combined under the leadership of a conductor, I usually hear the words, you know, this is what heaven must sound like.

This is what heaven, you know, if we were in heaven right now, if we heard the angels, this must be it right now.

That's probably the closest thing we do have to heavenly music.

But we do know that Lucifer took his position and used it as a pedestal for his own glory, giving us the beginning of the plight that we have today.

And this shows that, you know, it can be so, sin can be so closely associated with music, pride, and how we deal with different things.

You know, Kind of going back biblically, 1 of the first biblical mentions of people singing in a group can be found in Exodus 15.

If you guys have your Bibles, it'd be great if you guys could turn to there.

So in Exodus 15 we find that Moses and the children of Israel sang, this is what it says, sang to the Lord and spoke, saying, I will sing to the Lord, for he has triumphed gloriously.

The horse and its rider he has thrown into the sea.

The Lord is my strength and song, and he has become my salvation.

The Lord is a man of war, the Lord is his name.

Pharaoh's chariots and his army he has cast into the sea.

Ariel Hinkle

3. Singing of a Better Land

You So we started a couple minutes late, but I just wanted to give time for more people to come in because everyone's kind of trickling in.

Before we start, I'll just tell you briefly who I am.

My name is Ariel Hinkle, and my husband is Taylor Hinkle, so you all probably know him, but you don't know me, but now you do.

And Genesis is our little 1, and then we're expecting a boy next year.

But I am blessed to be able to be part of the Music Committee and to be part of this exciting opportunity to share a seminar with you.

And we're gonna be singing or speaking today.

It's called Singing of a Better Land, but specifically we're going to be talking about the role that music plays in evangelism.

And you'll see why that is important here in just a few minutes.

I'm going to start and then Caleb's going to take over on the second half sharing some more practical aspects of it as well.

So let's go ahead and bow our heads for a word of prayer and we'll dive in.

Dear Heavenly Father, we thank you so very much for this day you have given us and for this opportunity to meet together as your children with the desire to serve you.

And I pray that you will be with us now, send your Holy Spirit to be in this room with us.

Please touch my lips And I ask that it will be a blessing to those who hear what I say today.

We thank you so much in Jesus' name, amen.

All right, so we've all heard the term music evangelism.

What role does music actually play in evangelism?

This started to become a lot more clear to me a few years ago, actually at another GYC conference.

And I was in college at the time and a few of my friends and I were just, were able to share a special music together.

And I had another 1 of my close friends text me afterwards and she said, Ariel, thank you so much.

She said, that was just what I needed to hear and it really inspired me to really renew my faith in Jesus.

And when I heard that, I was kind of taken aback because I guess we always think about sharing music for Christ, but we never think about the impact it can actually have on a heart.

At least I hadn't truly thought about it yet at that point.

And I think that it's important for us to remember that that really is what music, and especially music evangelism, is all about.

And so today we're going to take a deeper look at how to make this possible in our own experience as well every day.

So step 1, the importance of music in evangelism.

Ellen White shared some insights that I think are very valuable on this topic.

And she shared how music can be a really big blessing for impacting hearts.

It says, song is 1 of the most effective means of impressing spiritual truth upon the heart.

Often, by words of sacred song, the springs of penitence and faith have been unsealed.

And then another 1 that I really think is powerful as well says there is great pathos and music in the human voice and if the learner will make determined efforts, he will acquire habits of talking and singing that will be to him a power to win souls to Christ.

And so if rightly used, we can actually use our voices and our musical gift as a power to win souls for Christ, which is what we really should be focusing on.

So music isn't just talked about in spirit of prophecy, it's also very prominent in the Bible.

And I think something that we all think of is the Levites.

And in First Chronicles 15, 16, it says, "'Then David spoke to the leaders of the Levites to appoint their brethren to be the singers, accompanied by instruments of music, stringed instruments, harps, and cymbals by raising the voice with resounding joy.

And so there were Levites whose only job and role was to provide music in the temple in the sanctuary service.

And so we know that it was something that was very sacred and important to God from that.

And of course, King David wrote thousands of Psalms and his son Solomon also wrote many songs and many of them are in the Bible for us to enjoy today.

And also the sons of Korah sang songs in the temple services.

So we have record of a lot of this being a very important part of worship.

Then also we're told in Christian Education, page 62, singing as a part of religious service is as much an act of worship as is prayer.

And that is, that's heavy if you ask me because we know prayer is so important and if music is also just as powerful it's something we need to take seriously.

So obviously music is very important in evangelism but then the question that arises in my mind is just how important is it?

We know it's important, but how important?

And I think that as musicians, we can tend to place music very, very, very high on the level of importance when it comes to evangelism.

And it's not wrong that we think it's important, but do we sometimes think that it's too important, is my question.

And, is music in and of itself a means of converting souls?

Because that's what evangelism is, right?

It's seeking to reach the heart and convert the heart for Christ.

The hearts of many in the world, as well as many church members, are hungering for the bread of life and thirsting for the waters of salvation.

They are interested in the service of song, but they are not longing for that or even prayer.

The Holy Spirit is working on mind and heart, drawing them to the bread of life.

They see everything around them changing.

Human feelings, human ideas of what constitutes religion change.

They come to hear the word just as it reads.

And how much more true is that of our lives today?

The world around us is constantly changing.

What people call religion is constantly changing.

And the reality is, music is important, but there is so much more to evangelism than music.

Evangelism isn't what you could call a one-stop shop.

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Series

Music in Your Sphere: Max the Potential of Music in Ministry

3. Singing of a Better Land

Transcript

Parent Series

Parent Conference

Sponsor

Recorded

Parts

1. The Song of the Spheres

50m

2. The Power of One Song

1h

3. Singing of a Better Land

1h 1m

4. Creating Heaven’s Music

1h 13m

5. When the Notes Clash

1h 3m

Sound Doctrine