(upbeat music) - Welcome to the Church Front Worship and Tech podcast. I'm your host, Luke Jackson. - I was sitting in a graduate class and I had a professor say one time, he said, you know, you need to know all the books of the Bible, but you need to master one. And it was just kind of a flippant off the cuff remark, but it just nailed me because as soon as he said it, I thought, okay, the book I need to master is the songs because I've been telling others to immerse themselves. And I thought I did. I mean, I read the songs, pray them, even wrote worship courses based on the songs, but I'd have to admit that there were a number of songs that I had no idea what to do with. I think we know, if we look around, we can see that there is plenty to pray for. And that's what I love about the songs that we don't always get in church because we tend to talk sometimes about the spiritual life in churches as just me and Jesus. The songs taught me more than anything else to look around and pray for others because so often there's a lot of personal prayers, but so often they're communal prayers or it's me or it's us or it's the poor that we're praying for or those who are suffering from justice. And he's really looking out for others. - Hey and welcome back to the podcast. In today's episode, we have a great chat with a good friend, Rory Nolan, about his new resource for worship leaders using the Psalms. And in church front, we really believe that if you don't know the basics of the faith and if you're not familiar with what the scriptures say, it doesn't really matter how great your tech is or how great your building is, you'll be unable to lead worship effectively in your ministry context. So every church we work with, that's one of the first steps. We focus on pastoral clarity and making sure that the worship leaders and tech directors both know and understand that they have a pastoral role in their church. That's right, they are pastors. They lead people and are tasked with making sure they have what they need to grow in their walk with the Lord. And in Rory's new book, he gives a lot of practical ways to leverage the Psalms in an anti-Christian world. And this could really be a great resource for your team. They're brief, straight to the point chapters that help give us language and tools to have when we come to God in prayer for our teams, for our church, for our family and for the world. There'll be a link in the description so that you can pick it up for yourself, but we're excited for you to get this into your hands and your team's hands. And if you're new here, church front works with churches all over the world these days, helping them gain new skills with our online courses. We also help get churches custom roadmaps to accomplish their specific nuanced goals. And we walk alongside them every step of the way through our coaching and consulting program. And our team has helped a lot of churches upgrade their technology or transition into new spaces through our integration services. If any of that sounds like something that would help you grow as a leader or take your ministry to the next level, check out churchfront.com/apply to hop on a coaches calendar to learn more. That's churchfront.com/apply. I hope you enjoy my conversation with Rory. Rory Nolan, welcome to the church front worship and tech podcast. - It's really good to be with you, Luke. - Rory, thanks so much for hopping on a day. We just had the privilege of having you at the conference last year, I believe, and that was excellent. And we had lots of positive feedback. You really kicked off our conference. I mean, you were speaker number one, and we had just raving reviews that people loved having it framed within this pastoral heart. And so we love Rory, we're big fans. And I'd love for you to introduce yourself to our audience if they don't already know who you are. Why don't you give us some insight who you are, what you do, what you're up to these days? - Sure. I spent most of my ministry years, most of my life, actually, in music and worship, and mostly on the leadership. And mostly in megachurch settings as well. And I saw I've been a worship leader, a ministry leader, a songwriter as well. I've had some songs published. These days, what I'm doing is mentoring worship leaders and writing books. And I meet with worship leaders one-on-one. And I also speak here and there at conferences and at colleges as well. And I'm also a trained spiritual director. So I also offer spiritual direction for pastors and artists and worship leaders. And so I'm busy into the leadership development side. I mean, that's one of the things in this season of life that I'm very adamant about is investing in the next generation. - I love it. And one of the things that we, I mean, you have an extensive library of published books and content. So, I mean, I would encourage folks to just check out the Amazon list under Rory's name because there are some pretty incredible resources if you are in any kind of ministry position. But specifically in the worship and tech field, a lot of these resources will speak to you. When was, what was the first book that you guys put out under your name, Rory? - As the army artists back in 1999, it's 25 years. - And just got a revision, right? Just got an update. - Fairly recently. - Yeah, we came out with the 20th anniversary edition and it gave me an opportunity to update it and to add some things that I had been teaching along the way. And so, yeah, I was really glad to be able to update that a couple of years ago. - Yeah, well, I'm curious if we can even pivot before we chat about the most recent book. What were some of the findings or updates that you hoped to include in that Art of the Artist revision? - Well, for one thing, I felt like a lot of the examples that I used reflect the worship, the way we did it back in the 90s. And so that's definitely something I wanted to update. And even though, you know, I did a lot of changes, the basic material is still there. And what amazed me too, I mean, the whole thrust of that first book is developing character in the life of the artist, the church musician, and the church worship tech as well. And I, you know, looking back on it, I feel like we've had some really wonderful advances in worship world and in tech world. You know, over these last 20 years, over these last 20, 25 years, but the more that I see how things change, the more I also see that one thing we still need is there's a need for us, us artists and our tech people to all be people of godly character. And that remains the same. And so a lot of it, I shortened some things because, you know, when you write your first book, you tend to be a little bit verbose. In fact, I'm reading this, you know, Luke going, oh my gosh, I wish I had just condensed that part. And so the update is a little better read, I think. And so those are some of the basic changes. Yeah, excellent. I still need to pick up the revised edition because I have my college edition, which was one of our assigned readings that I thought spoke very well. I mean, in my college years was thinking, yeah, it's got to be its character development. It's not so much, you know, if you don't start with character development, your tenure in a ministry career is going to be pretty short. And so I'm thankful for the resource and obviously would encourage folks to go check it out. It's great. It's just a great read and even speaking the original content there. So, and then you have another one that's transforming worship. Tell me, tell me about kind of the heart behind that because that's one that I have not picked up yet. But what was kind of the journey like getting into that space? Transforming worship, the first two books were about character and the life of the artists and the worship leader and the next two books were about worship. And then for transforming worship, I was able to put those two passions together and worship and character, a godly character, spiritual formation. In fact, the subtitle of the book is planning and leading worship as if spiritual formation mattered. So, it's a call for the church to return to a biblical theology of gathered worship and for us to even start asking their conversation, start asking those questions and get the conversation going. How does God desire to be worshipped? Most of us, you know, we wrongly assume that just because we like the worship that God does, you know, and I'm embarrassed to admit, actually, I've been involved in this for so much of my life and it wasn't until very late here that I've really started to probe that question. Because I think most of us, we get a job or a position at a church, and so we lead worship according to the way they want us to lead worship or the philosophy of that church. And what it boils down to though is most churches do not have a fully-orbed theology of worship. And so that's what kind of drove me to do the research for the book and to really dig deep and, you know, to really get out. What does the Bible say about gathered worship? Yeah, yeah. I think the miss there for folks who don't have a kind of theology of worship or a philosophy of worship for their gathering is that they don't really have a checks and balance system to assess whether or not the gathered church and really the worship services at large are accomplishing the goal of discipleship or mission or whatever you might put in that church kind of mission statement. Like if you don't have some of that kind of honed in as a worship team or as a tech team, then you leave kind of just in maybe a fog of like, I don't know. I mean, it sounded good. But did the songs that we sing, did the liturgies that we practiced, did the prayers that we read or prayed? Like did they actually do what we wanted them to do? So that's that resources. I mean, it's got to be a staple in folks' bookshelf as well. So yeah, again, check out Rory's page on Amazon wherever books are sold because he's got a wealth of knowledge to share with leaders. But we want to have him on today because you're releasing or you have released by this point, it's out. I mean, the book, by the time people hear this, we'll hear or we'll see it on the page as well. So tell people about the new book, Fighting on our Knees, Praying the Psalms. Yes. Fighting on our Knees, Praying the Psalms in an anti-Christian world. And the purpose of the book is to call and equip Christians to pray the Psalms in three, especially in relation to three areas that are under severe attack, severe, severe spiritual attack these days. Our families, our churches, and the culture at large. And so the book gets right down to it because we're basically talking about spiritual warfare here. Yeah. And what's cool though is that the Psalmists were all over it. And the word enemy or enemies occurs over 90 times in the Psalms. Wow. And you're just like, wow, do these guys like nobody like them? Or are they bad guys or what? And it wasn't a bad reflection on them. It was just a reflection of the fact that for most of Israel's history, they were the minority. They were oppressed and they lived under an exile for most of that time. And so they were always on the outside, on the peripheral of society and outside looking in. And they were always trying to figure out how to live as believers in a pagan culture. And then you fast forward to today. And I think we find ourselves in a very similar situation as our secular world becomes more secular and actually looking more pagan. And some of the moral issues of our day are just really thrown in our face. Christians are starting to find ourselves on the outside looking in. And so the same prayers that really sustained our Hebrew ancestors can sustain us in the same way. Yeah. I'm super excited about this resource. I wonder if you can even shed some light personally. What has your journey been like with the Psalms? I mean, if you think of your Christian life, like shed some life as to how the Psalms have either ministered to you, been confusing to you or encouraged you even in your own journey in leadership or even just as a follower of Jesus. Well, it's funny, Luke, because I've always told worship leaders to immerse themselves in the Psalms. And David is the guy that I have related to, probably most. You know, since I was young, it's like David's my guy. And I just, you know, he's an artist, but he's also, you know, a warrior. And he was a dancer and a poet, a songwriter. I just feel like I identified with him in so many different ways. And then I was sitting in a graduate class and I had a professor say one time, he said, you know, you need to know all the books of the Bible, but you need to master one. And it was just kind of a flippant, off the cuff remark, but it just nailed me because as soon as he said it, I thought, okay, the book I need the master is the Psalms, because I've been telling others to immerse themselves. And I thought I did. I mean, I read the Psalms, prayed them, even wrote worship courses based on the Psalms. But I'd have to admit that there were a number of Psalms that I had no idea what to do with. And it's like some I didn't understand at all, and some I just avoided. And so I thought, no, I, you know, I don't want to have this love-hate relationship with the Psalms. I need to really immerse go deep with them. So that started actually an eight-year journey. And I wrote for eight years, I don't want to make it sound like I do this every day, but it's the project I kept coming back to, you know, between all my other projects. And I wrote a commentary, verse by verse, commentary, devotional, and all the Psalms, all 150 of them, you know, took me eight years. And at the end of that, I looked at what I had and I thought, what is the thing that stands out to me most? And it was that the Psalms that my study of the Psalms, my deep dive into the Psalms, improved my prayer life. Because what I found was that I would say the Psalms allowed, and many of them are prayers, so I would be praying these aloud, but they would serve as a springboard for more prayer. It's like I didn't, you know, get to the end of the Psalm and then say, amen, the Psalm kind of aroused or made me think of some people to pray for or some things. It opened up some issues, you know, for me. And so I was really struck with how the Psalms deepened my prayer life, and especially in regard to praying about things that are going on around me in those three areas, especially my family, the church. You know, the Psalms are always praying on behalf of Israel, you know, the Old Testament church, the Israelites. And then they were always the, you're looking out at the culture around them and, you know, praying about what's going on around them in the culture. And that just struck me how relevant the Psalms are, even though, what, like, 3000 years ago that they're written, how relevant they are to today in how, what a resource for prayer that they can be for all of us. Yeah, that's exceptional. I mean, I think as I listen to more and more kind of, I like to listen to guys like my grandpa, you know, I like to kind of, I just hear, I want to hear their spiritual journey. I want to learn from the things that they wish that they would have done or that they have just kind of seen as constants over their own lives. And, um, I mean, I'm a, I'm a young, I think I'm a young dad of two toddler age children. So I've, I've got some years to go where I want to just learn from those who have gone before me. And time and time again, some of those gentlemen in my life always are saying how helpful and impactful the Psalms have been in their, in their walk with the Lord. And so the constant there is, you know, it's not to be ignored. For, for my perspective, I want to take that and kind of run with it and adopt that earlier, uh, as, as early as I can. So, and as a worship leader myself, I find I do a lot of work with the Psalms and we do a lot of call to worship in our church and, um, and kind of prayers of assurance or, um, you know, prayers of supplication together. And, and so I think the role they play in not only, you know, my life, but also the gathered church is huge. And I wonder if you can just kind of speak to the worship leaders who are, you know, using Psalms in their gatherings. Like what, what stuck out to you in terms of the battle for the family that would, that you would encourage maybe the worship leader who's, you know, leading worship of their congregations. How, how does the family and kind of the charge there for battling for the family? How does that impact the worship leader in, in their corporate gatherings? You realize how important family is to the Psalmist because they talk about it a lot. And, uh, to answer your question, I think the best response I could have is, is to turn to Psalm 78 because that Psalm 78 talks about passing on our faith. And, uh, so that really caused me to do some soul searching, deep thinking about, okay, uh, my, my grandkids, you know, how can I, you know, I, I tried, tried my best to pass on, you know, faith to my sons. And now how about the grandkids and how about the next generation? And, um, you know, what can I do, you know, to be praying for them and investing in them in this passing on our faith? That's part of our, of our Hebrew to heart our Christian and Christian Hebrew tradition is to pass on the faith. And, um, the Hebrews were very adamant about doing that and it started with the family. It's like, you know, they didn't just depend on what was going on at the synagogue, you know, the rabbis, you know, to take care of it. It was actually the father's responsibility to take initiative, uh, you know, in as far as instructing the children, um, spiritual things. And so that was very convicting for me. And, uh, I hope that's convicting for others, but even as worship leaders, uh, for us to accomplish, you know, family worship and, or there's a, there's a family time that you lead, you know, we're really good at leading our churches. You know, how about leading our families as well? And, you know, stepping up to do that. And even, you know, outside the family, you know, our church family is, you know, is the, the other family that we minister as worship leaders. When we use the songs and first of all, I'm thrilled to hear that you're using the songs like a call to worship perfect. I think that's great. And, uh, I hope this encourages more. Uh, you know, your listeners hearing you do that and me talk about it, encourages them to do it more often. But I would also encourage us to, um, know the context. Uh, this is why I wrote the book. Know the context of some of these songs. Cause, you know, I'm really good at pulling a line out here and there. Yeah. And, um, but then, but then neglecting the context and that, you know, it's not a sin. You don't, you know, wrong with it, but you just give a deeper understanding. Uh, for example, um, some 51, the opening is, you know, open my lips. Oh, open our lips, Lord. You know, mouse should be clear your praise. Um, I have used that as a call to worship. And yeah, it sounds really up in positive, right? Mm hmm. Well, that actually comes from a penitential prayer of penance. You know, David has just messed up with Bathsheba and he's, you know, he's beside himself and he's on his knees. And I wonder if his, his thought process at that point was God. I am just so wrecked right now that I can't even bring myself to, to praise you. I need you to open my lips, dear Lord. And every time I hear that now, I think of those sitting out in the congregation who might, you know, when, who might have trouble jumping in, you know, that in a certain morning because, you know, maybe life is not going so well for them right now. And just to be able to say, Lord, help me to, I don't feel like worshiping you today because things are not going so well and help me to worship you. And so I think there's another side to that, that line that we keep pulling out that, but there's other lines like that, that I have really, when I see them in context now, I see them totally, you know, can completely different. Mm hmm. Well, and I would imagine too that that can be a teaching slash discipleship moment for, you know, the, the worship pastor, worship leader of that morning to encourage people with the context that, you know, these, these stories and these Psalms of David, especially thinking of his kind of life story, it should be an encouragement to us to just allow us to put words on our mouth of praise to God, regardless of how we come in, regardless of how we show up, regardless of the week that we've had, it gives us language that is God honoring and also humbling, you know, as a, as a Christian to just rely and to, I don't know, to just be able to express verbally our dependence on God. And, and so it can be, you know, understanding the context in that can be such a tool for us even to, to coach or to teach our congregations. How did you, when you were writing, you know, the commentary and the devotional and when I think even as a leader as you were studying some of this stuff, like what were some of the resources that you used for understanding that context in the Psalms? Did you have a good commentary that you referred to or was there kind of an area or a pastor that kind of led you in that journey or was it just kind of time in the scriptures over and over again? Well, yeah, I have, you know, behind me like two shelves of books just about the Psalms, so that's my starting point. But I also pulled in some articles that, that I found that peer-reviewed articles and I stayed with a couple of commentaries, you know, kind of as the mainstay, but also I wanted to dove, dove back to, you know, some of the ancient writers as well and grab their commentaries to kind of give us an idea of how the church in its infancy was, you know, interpreting some of these passages, and then some recent Psalms as well. Spurgeon, I pulled him in because I really liked his, you know, Spurgeon's a pastor at heart and he writes as a pastor and so I was trying to not only bring a theological perspective, but a pastor's perspective, and also an artist's perspective because these are poems. And when you understand that, and you are an artist, you see all the imagery in the Psalms, and it's like that kind of imagery stuff, we see beyond that. I mean, we see into that, I guess what I'm saying, and much deeper than non-artists do, I think, and because we love metaphors, and when we hear metaphors as artists, we tend to also, that kind of opens our minds a little bit more, it's even more, you know, more thoughts about that line or about that Psalm. So, yeah, I tried to bring in a wide variety. You know, I learned ancient Hebrew or biblical Hebrew as well. As part of my graduate studies, I did that. So I brought that back and was able to look at the original language because there were some times with the commentaries, there's controversy, which way, you know, which way do you want to go on this? So I wanted to be able to make an educated choice in those matters. And so I just tried to draw on as many different perspectives and commentaries and writers as I could. Yeah. As you kind of studied for, I'm curious about the church section in the book, "The Battle for the Church." I would love for you to share with listeners and viewers. Like, why did you feel like that was a topic? I mean, obviously, through reading the Psalms and seeing the repetition of how their use or how they're written for, but why did you feel the need to encourage or to include it in this book for today's readers? Like, what are the things that you're seeing in the modern day church that you feel like the Psalms are speaking to? I think I felt compelled to include that section, Luke, for one thing, because as a consultant in the area of worship, I've been pulled into a lot of conversations about the church over the years. And notice that a lot of them are negative, you know, and it's, you know, criticism of the church is low-hanging fruits. And so I get it, you know, having been a part of the church, you know, just almost all my life. Yeah, I've seen the church at its worst. And in fact, it amazes me sometimes that I'm still involved because of what I've seen of some really nasty, dark things. And yet, I can't get away from the fact that Jesus loves the church and died from a church. So that's why I'm a church guy. And I love the church because Jesus loves the church. And so when I'm seeing these Psalms that deal with the church realistically, Psalm 44 is basically a prayer for the persecuted church. And, you know, there's other Psalms that ask for, that ask the Lord to restore the church and to renew the church. And I love those songs because I feel that's what we need today. And so instead of bringing down the church, I feel like the Psalmist is calling us to pray for the church. And, you know, I mean, now when I'm pulled into negative conversations that are almost always negative, you know, at some point, you know, we need to say, yeah, let's pray about all these things. And the other thing that the Psalmist has taught me is that the church is us. And I noticed one of these, one of the things about these conversations that I was having is everybody would talk about the church like it's like it's them, like it's these people or those people over there or it's the staff or it's that. And I'm like, at some point, we have to realize that friends, the church is us. And the Psalmist gets that. And so that's why he prays. And that's why he's realistic about the church. I mean, he talks about it being broken down. You know, Israel's broken down. You know, her borders have been breached. You know, there's all chaos. And he's lamenting. And rightly so. But he doesn't stop there. He gets on his knees and prays. And that's, that's the, the example that I think they set for me. Yeah, you're, you're assessment of kind of acknowledging church as maybe a staff group is a kind of hits home because I, I do, I feel that convictionally in my own spirit. Just when you talk about a local congregation, most of the time you're kind of referring to the leadership of that church. You're not really thinking at least in my experience. I'm not really usually thinking about the embodied church of all the people who attend there. I'm mostly thinking about kind of the paid, the paid staff members that might be appointed to take care of it or to run services and things like that. What, what kind of prayers? I'm curious as to some of the rhythms that you would encourage because I know for me, I've read "Praying the Psalms" by, I think it's Donald Whitney, a great little kind of handbook short little read that kind of helps you just gain some of the muscle practice. But when you think about praying for the church, like, are there any kind of practices that you, that come to mind for you that you would encourage our listeners or viewers to consider specifically in regards to the church? Because I think when you pray for your family or when you pray for families at large, there might be some practices or postures that you might take with more of personal investment in those areas. But when you're praying for the gathered church, like the, your neighbors, your community, restoration, spiritual renewal, anything come to mind in terms of practices or postures rhythms that would be helpful for listeners to implement? One of the important facets of the book that I haven't had a chance to talk about yet is the prayer exercises at the end of each chapter. And I put those in there really hoping that people don't blow those off. They just don't read the commentary and not go to the prayer exercises. And I list five, six, seven or eight choices and just choose one or two of those and go with it. And my hope is that people really do pray. I mean, that's kind of the purpose of the book is that people would pray. And especially pray for these three areas, you know, the family, the church and culture at large. And so when it comes to praying for church, again, there's some exercises in the book. But what I'm encouraging us all, especially as worship leaders and worship tax, is to pray for our local church, pray for your church and, you know, pray for the leaders, pray for the things that you know that are coming up. Pray for, you know, some of the people, you know, that are hurting and some of the conflicts that you're aware of. Pray to people, get along, pray that we all learn how to get along, that we follow, you know, sound doctrine. And pray for the church at large. You know what's going on, you know, because we see it, you know, across social media, you know, some of the challenges that we're up against, especially with the culture. Pray that we hang on to our Christian values, it's a culture that is eroding, you know, it's values and challenging our values. And, you know, I think we know as if we look around, we can see that there is plenty to pray for. And that's what I love about the Psalms, that we don't always get in church because we tend to talk sometimes about the spiritual life in churches as just mean Jesus. The Psalms taught me more than anything else to look around, you know, look around and pray for others because so often, there's a lot of personal prayers, but so often they're communal prayers or it's me or it's us or it's the poor that we're praying for or those who are suffering injustice. And he's really looking out for others. Now maybe he's part of that group that's suffering, but it's not just himself. And that really impressed me about the Psalmist and convicted me too about how much of my prayer life is really focused around me and listening from me. And for one thing, if you're a worship leader, I hope you're praying for your volunteers, you know, your worship team. You know, a lot of us, you know, want to see our congregations take the next step in becoming a worshiping community? Is it on your prayer list? Are the things we complain about on our prayer list? Are we just complaining about these things? You know what I mean? And so it's just we can go a lot deeper in the prayers that I think the Psalms can lead us there, but don't just read them and then stop. You know, is there anything in here that is motivating me or, you know, causing me to think, you know, I'd like to pray more about that, go with the Psalmist's Legion there. Yeah, I would love for you to, in that same vein, I'd love for you to speak to the chapter that I think was really, you know, impactful that you included is when leaders abuse power, you know, in the section about culture, you included a section in Psalms specifically 58, I think, is what I have on my notes that that is a story that so many of our listeners, and I know just so many leaders at large through, you know, if you're in ministry for any longer than a year or two, you're probably going to experience some church hurt at some level, some in some way, shape or form. And, and so I would, you know, I would love for you to just even share why, you know, in what maybe framework you shared that chapter and maybe some encouragement for those listening that might be journeying in then how the Psalms speak to that. I can think of a couple things that maybe I noticed, but I'd love to just hear your heart behind why you decide to include that, specifically in the culture and not in the church section, and maybe why you think it applies to our leaders today. I put it in the culture section, although it does apply to church. If you look at just the first couple of verses, verses here in Psalm 58, it says, do your rulers speak justly? Do you judge people with equity? No. In your heart, you devise injustice in your hands made out violence on the earth. And so when you look at that word rulers, it's obviously not just talking about leaders in the church. It really is talking about our government leaders and the next line is a tip off as well. Do you judge people with equity? Well, when you talk about having judges and rulers and leaders, that's the kind of thing that is government territory. And I was shocked, actually, to realize how often the Psalmist go into these political areas. And I'm not a political guy at all, but the Psalms have convicted me that, hey, I need to be praying about what's going on in the culture and in our politics, even though I still hate politics. I feel like I'm a lot more informed these days because I want to pray. And I've forced myself to be more informed because I want to pray. But I went there because I felt that the text actually was leading there. And that was a fun thing, actually, about going through the Psalms is not trying to make it go where I wanted to go or make it fit someplace, but actually start with what it's actually saying. And it's clearly talking about rulers and judges here at the beginning. People who are in leadership in the community, the nation, the world, you know, you could apply the same principle to the church, but the original context is rulers and judges. Yeah, for sure that practice still applies, you know, for your leaders in a ministry position or in just your job. If you work in corporate America or if you're working at a public school, you've got leaders and directors that would, I think that God would want you to pray for in that space. Okay, my, maybe a couple more questions here, Rory, for you. I appreciate your insight on the book. I know after having talked to a couple of different authors in different spaces over the years, you always have the kind of outline for the book, and you always have kind of the main takeaways that are kind of broken out into these sections. I'm wondering what Rory's kind of takeaway or maybe, maybe one of the surprising takeaways that was for you as you studied the Psalms and that, like, what did the Lord teach you if it wasn't categorized in one of these four elements? Like, what was one that God kind of laid on your heart or encourage or challenge you with during your study in the Psalms? I think one of the things that the Lord really challenged me on was the topic I chose here is not a feel good topic. And I'm hoping that a couple other books come out of this. And, you know, one having to, the other thing I was very impressed with was how the Psalms really go into discipleship issues. And I never thought of the book of Psalms as a discipleship manual. Yeah, and then it kind of goes without saying, I was taking deeper in my worship as well. And, you know, if I was a really strategic publisher and book writer, I probably would have done the worship one first because that'll sell, right? It's like, but, you know, no, the Lord said no because this one fighting on our knees is what is needed today. And especially as I look around and the attacks on the family, you know, in our churches and on, you know, the culture at large, I realizing that God is, you know, saying, no, I, you know, this is what I want first. And so it wasn't an easy sell, you know, for publishers and because they wanted me to write books on worship because those will sell. And so I just had to stick to it in many ways. I felt like I had to fight for this book and, you know, to prepare to materialize. And it's also a bit edgy a little bit. And because I talk about lament and I take up the topic of the imprecatory prayers and, you know, and they're in there. And so you can't avoid them and especially in this topic. We need to learn how to pray, how to, how to lament. We also need to learn how to pray in a godly way and a biblical way in the imprecatory prayers. And so I devoted an entire chapter to that. So in many ways, this was the harder of the book, the harder the books to write. But I think it is actually one of the most urgently needed. Yeah. Well, and we can all agree that it starts with prayer, right? It's, you know, before we post on the Instagram or get online to make our voice heard, to make Kingdom impact, right? We need to be dependent on the spirit to actually move. And so prayer is the first step in that, I would argue. And so I'm encouraged that you are faithful to where you're being led and that that is the result of this amazing resource. Maybe one, maybe one last question here that I think a lot of people will be younger leaders. I mean, I've been leading worship since I was probably 14 or 15 and kind of a regular rhythm in my life, you know, weekly leading youth groups and then being in the main kind of sanctuary space of our church and leading on the team there and then went to college for it. And I don't know that it was until I was about maybe 25, 26 until I learned about kind of the imprecatory Psalms and, you know, what that looked like in the life of the, you know, the believer and from, from the context perspective, can you give some background as to what would be an example of those imprecatory Psalms and then how would a leader use that? How would, how would we engage with that in our own preparation for our worship services or even if you're guiding your people through it? Like what would be some of your, you don't have to dive into the whole chapter because there is a section devoted to this. But I wonder for our listeners just to our unfamiliar with that language, if we can shed some light on it before the episode wraps. Okay. Yeah, I'll just give you a brief. It won't do justice because it is a deep topic. But yeah, the imprecatory Psalms are the ones where the Psalmist is calling on God to make bad things happen to his enemies. And so right away, that presents a moral dilemma for Christians. And, you know, how does that square with Jesus' command to love our enemies? And yet the imprecatory prayers are not just limited to the Psalms we've seen throughout the Old Testament and the New Testament. Jesus, you know, he really scolds the, when he clears the temple, you know, he scolds those, you know, the merchants. And then he curses a fig tree. And, you know, he says, "Let's just a fig tree." Well, no, the whole point was what the fig tree represented Israel. Yeah. And as he cursed, he was cursing those who appear to have fruit but don't. And then Paul later on, you know, he says, he tells us to love our enemies. But then later he says, you know, "Woe to those who preach a different gospel that, you know, let them be a cursed." And, you know, he talks like that a couple other times. So you see this kind of language and in some of the Psalms, it's pretty graphic. Yeah. And it's very graphic. And so first of all, what we have to understand is that, yes, they're biblical, they're in the Bible. And what we also need to understand is never is it a matter of a personal vendetta on the part of the psalmist. It's not like he's, you know, taking his, he's like ranting against somebody who dissed him on social media or something like this. When you read the text, you find out that the person or the people or the enemy that he's alluding to is really anti-God and anti-God's people. And so it's basically evil forces that we're talking about here. And, you know, they're human actors, you know, who may or may not even realize it. And the whole, the important point here is that the psalmist never acts on his bad, his angry feelings. Never acts on him. For one thing, he's not in a position to act on them because he's powerless. That's why he's praying to God. He's God, can you take care of this? And as part of, you know, the therapy, and this is why the lemons and the imprecatory prayers are so spiritually fulfilling and also therapeutic because they help us. The lemons help us deal with our sadness and a godly way. And the imprecatory prayers help us to deal with our anger. Yeah. And, you know, even people who say, oh, I never get angry. I run across a lot of Christians like that. Yeah, right. It's like never getting in. Yeah, usually people like that don't realize that we can see their anger, you know, that just, it just comes out sideways somehow. And so it really challenges, first of all, to get angry about the things that are worth getting angry about. And 90% of the things that we get angry about are not worth it. You know, it's just like, get over it. Yeah, but there are things in this world that we should get angry about, human trafficking, you know, racism in all its forms and crime and injustice, you know, true injustice. These, you know, and poverty and hunger and all of the ills of society. Yeah, if we don't get angry about that, there's something wrong. And so the question is, what do you do with that anger? And, you know, do you just, are you in a foul mood? Well, I, you know, I started doing this thing where, you know, when I'm reading the news and I start getting angry, well, that's time for me to get on my knees. And that's what the imprecatory prayers invite us to do. And in the end, what I've discovered, and Paul talks about this in Romans when he talks about the lover enemies, but pray for them. Well, the imprecatory prayers show us how to pray for our enemies because they also demand that we give up our anger and that we not act in our anger, but that we leave everything in God's hands and don't hold grudges and don't seek revenge. And so we end up coming to a different place where we actually can't love them. In fact, Martin Luther in many of his, when he was talking about the imprecatory songs, he's like, well, I pray God that you either, either take care of them and judge them because, you know, deal with them because God has promised to judge evil or convert them, challenge them or convert them. And those are the two options. So I like Luther's take on that. That's good. I might, that's a, that's a good takeaway. Some of the probably kind of ring around in my head for a while, challenge them or, and judge them or convert them. And I think our prayers Christian should always be that they would be converted, right? That they would come to know the saving grace of Jesus and the loving care of the Father. So yeah, that's, man, so insightful Rory. And I'm so thankful for this resource. I know in just the book world, you just put a ton of time and years and just prayer and thought into this resource. So I want to encourage folks to go check it out. And like I said, at the time of this episode dropping, it'll be available where any major books are sold. And so definitely go check it out. It will put links in the description, the show notes so you can be taken right there. But this would be, this would be a great tool. Just to kind of almost like an assessment too on if you're a worship leader in the space, if you're planning gatherings, just in a kind of assessment tool of what kind of prayers you are praying in the middle of your services and teaching your people to pray and giving your people in terms of language to navigate their weeks with when they do come into contact with injustice or, you know, term oils in the family, things involving the localized church. So Rory, I'm so, so thankful for your work in this. Thank you so much for being on the show. If people want to connect with you or follow up with kind of other works you're up to and your journey anywhere they can connect with you online. And my website is heartoftheartis.org. Perfect. Yeah, we'll link to that in the show notes as well. And yeah, so thankful for your time. Thanks for being on the show today, brother. Appreciate you. It's great being with your little God bless. Thanks for listening and thanks to Rory for making time to be on the show. You can pick up his new book or any of his other resources with the link in the description. If you found this episode helpful or something that Rory said stuck out, give us a rating on Apple Podcast or share with your friends on social to help others find the show. And for your roadmap for worship and production ministry, including online courses, consulting and integration, head to churchfront.com. That's churchfront.com. Thanks for listening and we'll see you next time. ♪♪ [BLANK_AUDIO]
