Beyond Sunday
Beyond Sunday
Multisite Update: What Will Worship Look Like?
NW Campus Worship Leader Kevin McClure joins Peter and Dan to discuss the value of worship, his worship style, and what people can expect during worship at our NW Campus.
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Hey, there Can King's family. Welcome back to another episode of the Beyond Sunday multi-site podcast. I'm Dan Hoppin, the director of small groups here at Can King's, and I have two very debonair gentlemen with me here today Peter Bay, the director of our Northwest Omaha campus, and Kevin McClure, who is our new director of worship and tech. Guys, welcome to the show.
Speaker 2:Thanks for having us. What is do you say, debonair?
Speaker 1:Debonair. I think it's a fancy way to say handsome.
Speaker 2:Whoa with a V or a B Debonair.
Speaker 3:Debonair. Yeah, just like that.
Speaker 1:And if it means something else, then I apologize.
Speaker 3:I meant it as a fancy way to say handsome.
Speaker 1:I probably should have googled it before we started this.
Speaker 2:I'm not much of a words, guy, I believe you Now that we're off the rails.
Speaker 1:I'll get it semi-back on the rails. Kevin, it is such a joy to have you on staff, a because you're talented, but B and more importantly, we I've realized we have several things in common. We are both fans of the Chicago Cubs, which for better or for worse. That's the case.
Speaker 3:So far this year, it's for better, yes, which is nice.
Speaker 1:We are both enjoyers of a good glass of whiskey.
Speaker 3:That's right.
Speaker 1:That's right. And we just happen to have the same favorite pizza in Oma. Not just same pizza restaurant, but the very pizza, Same order.
Speaker 3:Yes, the hot honey pepperoni pizza.
Speaker 1:From Virtuoso Pizzeria in Benson it will change your life, change the way that you look at pizza. Peter, have you had it?
Speaker 2:I have not. I'm more of a little Caesar's hot and ready type.
Speaker 1:Peter.
Speaker 2:No, little Caesar's. I don't know they're taking line anymore. What was it?
Speaker 1:Pizza, pizza, pizza pizza. Yeah, that little guy I should have known that.
Speaker 2:Do you know that there's a little Caesar's arena? How?
Speaker 3:many in Detroit.
Speaker 2:Yes, detroit, where the Pistons of the Red Wings play. How many hot and ready's have we sold for an arena? That's amazing.
Speaker 1:I mean, they are popular, I guess. But yeah, you'd have to sell a bunch of $5 pizzas. All right, let's redeem this thing and get it back on track. I suppose we should actually talk about important stuff. We can talk about food more off the mics. Yeah, fair. But Kevin, first I just want to start off and give people, just you know a little bit more of an introduction to you. I said your role off the bat You're the director of worship and tech at the Northwest Campus. But what does that mean? What are you going to be your duties at Northwest?
Speaker 3:Sure, yeah, so, with worship and tech, that's basically those are the words that we use for music and the technical production elements that we have on Sunday mornings. That's really oversimplified, but that's a really easy way to kind of look at it. So I'm overseeing everything that happens on Sunday morning during our gathering, in how we are communicating, in the songs that we're singing, in all of the musical elements and transitions between certain things. That's kind of my role is to oversee that gathering time, our services and make sure that everything works as it ought to.
Speaker 1:Nice. Now you have led worship here at King and Kings before. You're not a stranger to King and Kings, we know who you are, but obviously it's one thing to lead worship every once in a while to become, you know, a full-time staff member and someone who's leading worship every week. So, Peter, as you and Julie were thinking through candidates and then interviewing candidates for this position, what was it about Kevin that made his skill set just such a perfect match with what you were looking for?
Speaker 2:Yeah, First off, I'd love to take credit for this, but I really can't. So part of the magnitude of bringing on a person like Dave Owens I mean we get to see it on Sundays and the advances we've made in worship but part of it is also he has incredible connections amongst our city, amongst the country, with worship leaders, and so he was the one that really led that charge, and so I'd go to him and say, hey, who are the people you're talking to? And he was naming these people and he said Kevin McClure. And I was like Kevin.
Speaker 1:McClure, Like because you've been a friend of King of Kings for a while.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I remember we ate tacos together years ago on Wednesday night, so you've been around a little bit, but I didn't even know like Kevin McClure was even a possibility.
Speaker 1:And so I was like would you like you?
Speaker 2:think Kevin would come and Dave was like just relax a little bit, like I'm talking to them.
Speaker 2:And then we ran into each other at a within reach event. Within reach is a movement in Omaha amongst many churches that say we believe our city is reachable for Christ, and there was a an event happening and we ran into each other and got to chat there and I left there with like low expectations, like because I didn't know where you were in your season, but also like, huh, this would be super, super fun, yeah. So, lord, do what you're going to do and fortunately, god let. In that way. He came in the interviewed and I was really impressed one by just like them on a fun we could have with them, to by like his thoughtfulness when it comes to worship and Working with others, and three, most importantly, his love for Christ. And so when when you accept it, man, we we had a little party in Julie's office.
Speaker 1:So it's good times when you say thoughtfulness when it comes to worship, like what does Kevin display?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So the question, one of the questions I was throwing to Kevin was like, as far as worship, music and and worship in general, what are your, what are your values? And he had three right off the bat. Well, which one I was impressed by that, like that he knew he had thought about this enough to know. And it was like artistry. So that was the third one you mentioned, but artistry. And then I'm kind of going from like, oh, the ones that really stood out, kind of least important to most important, but I love them all, because I love having a musician who's artistic, who can take a song, sing it in a way that we all recognize the melody but it's not. It can grab us a little differently at times. So that was sweet. And then a second one was it has to be singable, which for me. I taught choir and I that's my degree is K through 12, music education, and if people are not able to sing, they feel like they're a spectator.
Speaker 2:Yeah so that's really important that his third value was that had to be gospel centric. I had to be biblically accurate, fairly important and, and I yes. Yeah, but you'd be amazed how many people will just sing these songs. It'll be like what? What did we just say yeah?
Speaker 1:right, what's?
Speaker 2:going on here. So those really stood out to me, that type of thoughtfulness also. He has so many man, your your knowledge just for, like, theology and doctrine. He was asking these questions. I didn't even know what he was saying. I had to lean over to Julie and she'd like translate to me. He'd be like I don't even know what you asked about, like like what is king of kings? Thoughts on Ecclesiastical exegesis times. I was what is he even saying so? But it was impressive to me like he's thoughtful not only about his craft but also about Just what it means to walking, be walking as a Christian in God's kingdom here on earth today.
Speaker 1:Gotcha. So on the last Multisite podcast that we recorded, we introduced the entire Northwest team that was going to be over there. Kevin, you were obviously a part of that episode and I want to dive in a little bit deeper to something that you that you mentioned on that episode. You you talked about building a culture of worship that is biblically based, in In gospel-centered, that has beautiful artistry but is also highly Participatory. Can you unpack that vision a little bit more for me? And Peter probably Expounded on a few of the things there, but what did you mean by that sentence?
Speaker 3:Yeah, so this is my one of my very favorite things to talk about, because it's a Great way to break down something that is a little bit. Number one it's nuanced. A lot of different people do things slightly differently. But also, number two, it's kind of hard to articulate, like if you were to go to the average Christian and say what is worship, they would typically look at you with a little bit during the headlights.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they're like.
Speaker 3:And then they would, you know, try to explain, and it can just get really kind of Messy in that, like, if we don't give some kind of clear Articulations for these things, it can really kind of throw us off and take us off focus and we forget what really is important, we forget what, what our priorities ought to be, and so I love talking about this. So when I say gospel centered and biblically based, that's pretty straightforward. If the gospel is not present in the songs that we're singing and in the things that we're saying Between and throughout songs, why are we singing them? If they're not biblically based, where's the power coming from? That's, those are the two, like I would say, most foundational elements for Christian worship is that they would be Centralized on the gospel and they'd be founded upon the word of God. The next one, being artistic and creative and beautiful, is that it gets a little bit subjective. Different people find different things more or less beautiful. However, we can see that there's certain principles throughout Scripture that God would say are beautiful, and without going way down that rabbit trail, I'll just kind of go broadly.
Speaker 3:We want to make music that sounds excellent, that creates opportunities for people to express their emotions in a healthy way, not be manipulated by them, but to be able to be a part of something that's actually happening musically. So we want the sonics of the songs to really draw people in and to be someone that they can then participate in, which is the last one is that it'd be participatory, and I like to use the phrase sing-alongable. We say singable in some contexts but like singable and sing-alongable are a little bit different things. Something that's singable if there's a pop artist that they can sing these crazy runs. That might not be singable for me or for anybody else, but I can in a way sing along with it because I can just enjoy it. Even if I'm not the greatest singer or I can't sing like that, I can still sing along with this person.
Speaker 3:And so we look for ways to say, okay, what makes a certain song sing-alongable to the average Christian or the average visitor, whatever it might be? And we try to instill those things. So making sure that we're singing songs often enough that people learn them and know them. Making sure that if we are singing an older hymn, we're trying to find a way that it's sung that most people would remember it by or be intentional with. We're going to change it, but we're going to be patient with teaching that to people, all those sorts of things.
Speaker 3:There's lots of detailed elements that go into all that, but those are the key elements. For me when it comes to leading worship is. I really want to emphasize all of those things and put those in their proper order, and so I would even maybe go as far as to say that being participatory is probably more important than being artistic, but they stand in tension with one another, especially for me as an artist and a songwriter. I'm willing to go as far as to say those are pretty equal things. For me. They really are subject under is it gospel centered? Is it biblically based? Let's make sure that we're getting the things right that need to be right first, peter I don't know why you described Kevin as thoughtful.
Speaker 1:He hasn't thought through this at all. He's not well spoken. He doesn't have a clear vision Like this guy's just all over. No, that was extremely well said, like I'd vote for you for president right now.
Speaker 2:A lot of times you want to find people to join your team who are kind of the antithesis of you and so thoughtful people are great for my team.
Speaker 2:I could just be erratic and whatever. But no, yeah it's. And I noticed that when you led worship two weekends ago. Well, when you guys hear this it'll be further back, but when you led worship and you had both, like you did, a modern version of a mighty fortress as our God and they had some new touches to it, but it gave some of the some of those old Lutherans in the crowd like, oh yes, our fight song, let's go, and but it was also sing-alongable for the rest of us who grew up on it or who didn't. So, yeah, I see that in the songs you choose.
Speaker 3:Thank you.
Speaker 1:Now, Peter, for the message each week at Northwest Campus. We're going to get a chance to see and hear from whoever's giving the message at I street each week, whether that be Greg or Mike or Zach or anyone else, and that that's going to be broadcast. But for the worship portion, we wanted to have somebody live in that position. What was the thinking behind that? Why was it so important to find a director to be live for worship?
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely, and really for all of our portions, minus the message itself. It'll be live Right, live hosting, live communion and baptisms and just kids programming and student programming and all those things connect groups. And for the message itself, it's broadcasted. So I did have some people say that like well, couldn't we just pipe in the whole service? But here's the deal when you come and step into a worship service, it's always going to be better if you feel like you are part of it and not an ancillary or like distance from it or like that.
Speaker 2:There's this big imaginary curtain between me and God, and when you are seeing along to the radio, that's fun. But when you are, you have someone up there who is leading in that song and other people that you know, and then you get to sing along with the people around you. It's a community act unlike any other. If we had 100 professional floutists, they could make one sound that you would be like is that one flute? Yeah, like they could drop 50 of them and you wouldn't even know. All right, we'll see you in a minute, bye, bye, bye, bye. But every voice is unique, and so to provide an atmosphere where each person with your own unique voice gets to proclaim and sing out to our Lord and Savior is a really important community act that we have to have. I don't know that you can endure too long without it.
Speaker 1:That's what I said, kevin. Is there a particular music style or worship style that you gravitate towards or like? How would you describe? Like when you're leading worship? How would you describe that worship service?
Speaker 3:Yeah, so it's kind of fun that you asked that question. I, years and years and years ago, when I was in college, I had a friend who came up to me and he said man, when you lead worship it's always so aggressive. And he meant it in a positive way. It was like it was a kind observation about my leadership style on the platform and I had never heard that before, but it was something that I was like. I think I kind of like that.
Speaker 3:So for me, worship, if it's not earnest and honest, then I always kind of wonder well, what are we doing?
Speaker 3:You know, there's a worship leader, worship artist that I follow that he's kind of relegated a little bit to the songs that are a little bit more hype and he's actually kind of come out and shared.
Speaker 3:Like, I don't really care much for the happy-clappy songs personally, but they have an important place in our gathering and I kind of find that for myself that I'm like, okay, if it's happy-clappy and that's it, it probably doesn't have a place in our worship services.
Speaker 3:However, if it serves a purpose and it's earnest and it's honest, then it absolutely does. So I can sing and lead an upbeat song that has a lot of energy to it, because I actually mean what I'm singing and what I'm saying, the same way that I can lead a song that's more of a power ballad of sorts, in that same earnestness, because that's what's important to me as a worshipper, and so I just lead out of the overflow of that. So yeah, I think aggressive was an interesting word that my friend used, but it's kind of been something that stuck with me now for a long time. Then I'm like, yeah, I would probably use words like earnest now, now that I'm a little bit more mature and have a better vocabulary. But I think that's what he was really getting at too was to be aggressive in our worship is to actually mean it.
Speaker 2:So he wasn't mean like head banging, Maybe a little bit of that too, you got the hair for head banging.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's true.
Speaker 2:But was your like? How long have you had this long hair?
Speaker 3:It was before I had this long of hair.
Speaker 2:Oh, OK, yeah yeah, got it.
Speaker 1:That's funny. So obviously you have a very public role on Sundays and it's pretty easy to see what you're doing, but throughout the week, when it's not, you know, go time on a Sunday morning and we're, you know, praising God. What are your roles and responsibilities?
Speaker 3:Yeah, so throughout the week there's a whole lot of prep that goes into the hour we spend together on Sunday. So anything that has to do with programming or planning resourcing anybody on our team that's part of my job. So none of that can start before seeking the Lord. Obviously Maybe it's not so obvious, but I'll say it because it should be and eventually is you spend time with the Lord, you know, in your devotionals, you spend time in prayer, you're seeking the guidance of the Holy Spirit and the vision of the Holy Spirit more than your own, and then, as the Lord is leading you, he's also leading others. So I'm also looking into what is being preached on any given Sunday, what scriptures are being taught out of, so on and so forth, and so I'm spending a lot of time building something that works as a frame around the central message of our Sunday, and so that can come along with. Thankfully, we have so many helpful staff members at this church who focus on all the tech and the gear and all the stuff. That is a little bit beyond me, because I'm primarily a music guy, that I can spend the time to work out okay, how could it look, how might it work? Well, and I can sit down and kind of give some vision for that and then entrust some of the execution for those things that are beyond me to be done well, and at the same time, I can take the things that I do know well, such as music, and I can say, okay, we're doing these songs. What arrangements should we do? How should we adjust them to make them more artistic and creative? How could we be mindful of how sing-alongable it is and who should lead what part? We have several incredible vocalists at this church that I can tap to say, hey, would you actually lead this song or this portion of a song?
Speaker 3:So there's a lot of in-the-weeds kind of planning that all leads up to a rehearsal on Thursday night, which then gives you a good springboard into Sunday. Ideally you're done after Thursday and you just are waiting for Sunday to come. That's not always how it goes. Sometimes there's adjustments that have to come on Friday and what have you. But as a general rule of thumb there's a lot of front-end work that comes to resourcing and empowering the people that serve on the worship and tech teams that once you get to Thursday, then everybody's kind of they know what they're working on, they know what they need to do to be totally prepped for Sunday. And then I'm overseeing everything that happens with load-in and set-up on Sunday mornings as well, which that's a whole beast of its own, but it's a lot of action at that point, which is nice. It's a little bit less of the get-it-already and a little bit more of a alright. Now let's start doing the work of putting it all together.
Speaker 1:I have no idea how I'm going to do it, because it doesn't really apply to my daily life very much, but I want to work the word sing-alongable into my daily speech as much as I can, because every time you say it like I feel like my mood improves like 5%. I'm just like sing-alongable.
Speaker 3:That's just a fun word. I think it's in Psalm 99. So if you just pull it out, you can use it.
Speaker 1:There we go.
Speaker 3:Yeah, just read Psalm 99 every day.
Speaker 1:Okay, Psalm 99. There you go. That's my new daily reading. So obviously, on a Sunday morning you're not up there worshiping alone, You've got a team around you. So if there are any musically talented members of the Northwest congregation, is there a way that they can get involved? Are there tryouts? Do they reach out to you? What does that process look like?
Speaker 3:Yeah. So the way that it's working right now is anybody who wants to try out, they just reach out to me. We set up a time to hang out, play some music together, hear about their life, hear about what's the Lord doing in their life. And for anybody who wants to serve on tech, it's kind of the same thing. Let's sit down, let's hang out and, once again, because there's other worship and tech staff around King of Kings than me, luckily, we get to kind of share the load on that and we get to say cool, hey, this would be a great place for you to serve at I Street, at Northwest, maybe at both. If there's a need and really just comes down to well, let's hang out. I always feel like for me, my audition process over the years has gone from very specific and formal to like oh, you have a guitar, let's just go jam for a minute and hang out. I just I feel like I've got the spiritual gift of being a good hang and that's what I that's what I like to lean on.
Speaker 1:The spiritual gift of being a good hang, I would agree with that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so I like to lean on that a little bit in my in my auditions, Otherwise it gets to be a little bit stressful.
Speaker 2:Well, and that matters so much for a worship team? Yeah, because you're spending time not only with them on that Sunday morning leading worship, but also in rehearsal and also after production meeting on Sunday morning. And if, if, you're not a good hang and if they're not a good hang, like you're going to have a lot of time with bad hang. Yes, exactly. So yeah that, no one wants a bad hang. No one wants that.
Speaker 3:Right, no one wants that. So really, all it is is reach out, connect with me and we'll get all the details squared away from there. There's there's obviously onboarding and there's learning about like, what's the culture here? There's, you know, a manual of here's something that you can read, but all of that, in my opinion, is well, let's get the first thing out of the way and let's let's hang. So that's really, it's pretty simple for me.
Speaker 1:And when you say reach out, can people reach you at? Is it Kevin? At King of Kingsorg?
Speaker 3:Yes, you can email me, kevin, at King of Kingsorg. If you try to call me on my church phone, then leave a voicemail, but I probably won't read it, so just email me. That's probably the best way to do it.
Speaker 2:It transcribes into your email, though, so you'll get it there.
Speaker 3:Does it really it does, it's all good. No one's done that for me yet.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so no one's done it. I mean, I don't even know how to get into my voicemail anymore, but it comes from my email. So, yeah, it's like you'll see the words they say and everything, and the words get wrong. It's kind of funny.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's funny.
Speaker 2:And then you hear it yeah, so they could do that too. Kevin, you, you have a Spotify right, so if people want, to just hear some of your music and kind of hear your style. Or maybe there's a guitarist out there who's like Ooh, maybe I want to jam with him when. What's your Spotify that they could listen to your stuff?
Speaker 3:Yeah, you can just search my name, kevin McClure. I've got it's a little bit of identity crisis on my Spotify right now because I've got several years of being a worship artist and now within the last couple of years not that I'm opposed to being a worship artist, but I've just kind of re-ventured into a more general market kind of music and so it's not as worshipful in the same way, but it's still very much based and formed out of my faith and out of my life. So you might hear a worship song that we may or may not sing at church on Sundays, and then the next song might be a song that's like wow, this seems a little bit more sad and depressing, but that's just because you might just put it on shuffle and find that out that way.
Speaker 1:Very interesting. Well, this has been just a very small peek into the life and the role that Kevin is going to be taking on, and I highly encourage you guys like if you see Kevin at the I Street campus, just come introduce yourself to him and hang out like he's a really fun guy to talk to, and then, starting in October, obviously you're going to be over at Concordia Junior Senior High School at the Northwest campus. People will get to know you there as well. He's a really talented guy with a real passion for the Lord and, kevin, I just can't wait to see just the impact that you have at this new campus. I think it's going to be absolutely fantastic. Thanks so much, king of Kings. Thank you so much. Let's keep living our faith lives beyond Sunday.
