Partnering With the Spirit to Bring Out What the Text Is Really Saying

[00:00:00] Like there are themes that I have authority to talk about because I've walked through them that I can I can't bring scriptures back to that point and I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing

[00:00:14] It's just might not be well to put it bluntly, it might be a lazy thing I might be not preparing because I'm having confidence in my own ability to bring it back to a theme

[00:00:24] Rather than going the extra mile and really partnering with the spirit to flesh out what the text is saying And if my theme can partner with that great, but I'm ultimately submitting to the text Not the other way around Hey, welcome to the Expositors Collective podcast episode 334

[00:00:45] I'm your host Mike Neglia The voice that you heard is our guest for this week I had a really great conversation with Sam McCabe Some or many of you might know Sam as a recording artist and as a musician

[00:01:01] But he is also a somewhat regular preacher at his church Restoration Church would forest in Texas This conversation is going to be especially interesting To those of you who are more musically oriented or want to think through the relationship between the preaching of the word

[00:01:23] And the worship of the church But also even if you're not a musician There's some really excellent stuff in there about those who preach occasionally Many listeners to this show preach week in, week out, Sunday after Sunday

[00:01:41] But I do know that there's many who also are preachers occasionally Maybe once a quarter or once a month And Sam gives some very specific insight on how to prepare for a sermon over a long stretch of time So that's going to be beneficial for you

[00:01:59] All right, and make sure you stick around until the very end Because I'm going to let you know about some cool stuff expositors collective is doing with our upcoming video training course And also a trip that we're taking to Campalla, Uganda, Africa

[00:02:17] All right, here's my conversation with Sam McCabe All right, hey, welcome. Welcome to the expositors collective podcast The real deal speaking with the Sam McCabe or a Sam McCabe That's true I'm so happy to hear a band thanks for having me on the show

[00:02:42] Yeah, well, just to skip the small talk and get straight into it Sam, what was the first time that you ever taught the Bible in public? So I think I was 18 I was the youth worship leader at a small church in the area and our youth pastor

[00:03:03] Well, so I was sitting by myself my house like watching a movie and all of a sudden I just had this I don't know this message just felt like it dropped into my heart

[00:03:14] And I was like, oh, so I just ran over to my computer and just typed out this one page kind of thought And I sent it to a buddy of mine and he was like, hey, this is really good

[00:03:23] You should send this to your youth pastor and see if maybe he'll let you share on a Wednesday night And so I emailed it to him and he really liked it I don't think he made any changes This is like 2010, so it's been a minute

[00:03:37] But so I got up on on Wednesday night and preached First time and it was public speaking has never really been an issue For me, I enjoy that So I didn't have any nerves in that regard But it was still a very new experience for me

[00:03:57] Okay, I'm in a sentence or two. What was the message? Did you remember the message? Not really, I remember the message It was a message on repentance I know that and giving your life to the Lord I think as a lot of probably young preachers struggle with

[00:04:18] I struggled with my own handful of youthful zeal And so I was very fired up and tend to lean towards cynicism a lot Going to church camp every year and seeing the same people Myself included give their lives to the Lord every time

[00:04:35] They're started to grow in me this desire or maybe this idea That like, hey, I don't know if this is how it's supposed to happen I think like I don't know if we're supposed to be walking down the aisle every year

[00:04:49] Like I think that's actually evidence that something isn't changing Underneath so I wanted to preach a message that kind of But through all of that, you know, I remember I remember saying the verse and revelation The whole I stand at the door and knock

[00:05:06] As this kind of call to repentance And we had about like 60 kids in the youth group that night I think And you know it was It was one of the youth groups were like on Wednesday night when there was an alter call

[00:05:19] The youth pass would get up and say like, is there anyone who wants to give their life to the Lord? I'll wait and it would be like five or ten minutes of kind of just waiting To see if anyone would come forward which was always awkward

[00:05:36] But I asked at the end of this sermon I was like, hey, does anyone want to come forward and repent And all 60 kids, I think came to the front And so that was an interesting experience Yeah All right, so sounds exciting

[00:05:53] Sounds great that combination of you know, youthful zeal And I think each of us, no exactly what that is, you know I was preaching it 1819 full of zeal as well Telling everybody to repent And the difference between you and me Sam is like

[00:06:11] Nobody repented when I told them to So there was an anointing that maybe you had to call those people to repent Yeah, it was something always remember Especially because like I think I was fired from that church within like two weeks Oh, just okay, you know

[00:06:36] I'll start up a lot of stuff But yeah Well, okay, so you have and I You know, I'm sure I would have mentioned this in the introduction You kind of known in the like musician space, the Christian artist space

[00:06:51] And I've heard you compared to having kind of a Keith Green like vibe Or zeal And he was the You know, for those who don't know You guys got to stop this podcast and go check out Keith Green

[00:07:07] You got to know your roots for those who are listening You are unfamiliar with Keith Green Great man, yeah very very zealous But then also had kind of a like that zeal Can also have kind of an age or a sharpness to it as well

[00:07:21] And musically you've been kind of compared with him And then it seems that in the pulpit even in those early days Some could talk up and about now But is there still that kind of age that to constantly be Commitual towards like reassessments, re-engagement and repentance?

[00:07:37] Yeah, I would say so. I mean, I just preached You know, as of the day we're recording this I preached yesterday at our church on the Lord's Prayer And how Jesus in the way of Jesus is a counter-formation away

[00:07:52] To the ways in which the world wants to form us And kind of walked to spend the first half of the message Walking through how the world forms Or deformed us and how Jesus through the Lord's Prayer

[00:08:02] Align by line is intentionally forming us back in the right direction So, baked into that idea Was a heavy call to kind of repentance, realignment Allowing God to recalibrate How we interact with the world How we interact with God, how we interact with ourselves

[00:08:19] So yeah I would say that that theme is very much Still there. Ah, well so that's a consistency between that first sermon And then the one that you preached yesterday Maybe the next question is like Well, so there's been that constant notes

[00:08:36] But what has changed over the years And then maybe even what's changed for the better Like how have you grown as a preacher from 18 Up until now? Well, I would say, you know, maybe you can identify with this as well When I first started preaching

[00:08:51] I would type out a bunch of notes And but it was just bullet points And some people can thrive off of like bullet points I cannot And so I got up thinking I had plenty of material And by the time I was done

[00:09:04] I've, I've only been talking for 12 minutes And I have like a third when it was so I think over the years Just reading a bunch of books Learning from other preachers Whether that's like kind of in person And asking questions or whether that's just

[00:09:19] Learning by curiously through listening to other people It's helped me fleshed out where I know how to I know how to take up 40 minutes in a way that Think in hold attention And there's no 10 minute window Like where people can check out, you know And then come back

[00:09:36] So it would say growing in kind of knowledge And how to have a form of sermon Is definitely there I'd also say like You know when you're 18, 1920 years old and super zealous And think you know absolutely everything There is to know about theology and all that stuff

[00:09:52] In my own life the Lord led me through a lot of dark nights Of the soul To where I think now when I talk about repentance I'm able to talk about it in a way That also includes my own constant need for repentance

[00:10:07] Rather than kind of talking down to people Yeah, so in 2015 My wife and I resigned from our jobs As a youth and in adult pastors to go Be a part of a church planting team and Israel So we went there for a month

[00:10:21] Came back to the states and the organization That was going to send us kind of imploded And so we had to go get jobs Which was really disillusioning for us Because we were a part of a like a charismatic church That really was Into like prophetic words

[00:10:35] And stuff and we had been given a lot of prophetic words About going to Israel So they're aimed with everything Falling apart this disillusionment Of Can I hear God? Did I hear God? Does God even speak any more? Do I believe any of this?

[00:10:53] And then a few months later we found out We were pregnant with our first child Only to have that in an estuberth At the beginning of 2017 And so We had a few years of real Real trial And real difficulty That I think in both my wife and I

[00:11:11] Was lent to a I think tenderness of heart When we do share now When we do like yesterday when I was preaching There were moments where I said stuff that was very hard But I was able to say it in a way that was like Graceful I guess

[00:11:27] So I don't know if that makes sense I think tragedy is kind of maybe mature a little bit So Yeah Well thank you for yeah ladies into those Different like very pain points You know And I think that when there's I think when there's

[00:11:47] 18 year old preachers and 19 year old preachers Like you were and I was just yelling at people to repent You know But yet nothing bads ever happened in our own life And like there's not kind of The empathy that comes from even personal loss or suffering Yeah

[00:12:03] That's a bad A bad combination Real without kind of that personal experience of Yeah just the tenderness of loss And not so Yeah not having a walk through You're talking about is

[00:12:17] You know you just can't carry the authority of what you're saying in a way that you can On the other side of You know hard things Yeah Yeah and man just like last week I Yeah, I've appreciated a funeral for a baby

[00:12:35] That was lost at 36 weeks and just You know I'm sorry I'm sorry a fresh you know Sorry for your loss you know Incredibly hard Yeah, yeah Okay, what's next on the list Yeah, it's hard man like hard Yeah, it really is It is

[00:12:59] Well next year on this list of questions I'm supposed to talk What's next? How does it work? It's a kind of a combination of Like a worship leader Who also preaches Most of the people that I've Interviewed on this show Our people that preach week can

[00:13:19] And week out But that's actually not you so you preach Yesterday as we've heard about But it was months Between yesterday's sermon a quarter. It's about once a month for me. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So, so what's that like? And again,

[00:13:35] you have a lot of responsibilities. It's not like you're sitting around doing nothing between those. But how do you find the process of having let's say three months to think something over before you delivered in public? Yeah. So I knew, let's see, I knew in December

[00:13:55] we had a teaching team meeting where we mapped out the next two years because we're going through Matthews. So we'll get to the end of chapter 14 at the end of this year and then, you know,

[00:14:05] it's 28 chapters. So it's just another 14 next year. So we mapped out what each of the texts were going to be and who's teaching what? So I knew I was teaching on Matthew 6, 5 through 18.

[00:14:17] And let's say, I preached it on March 24th. But I knew it at the beginning of December. And so I was like, you know what? I'm just not, I'm not going to do any sort of prep anything

[00:14:29] until January. And then in January it got to the point where I was like, okay, I'm just if I'm thinking about it and like a thought crossed my mind or something like that,

[00:14:39] I'll just put it in my notes app and I've labeled it Lord's Prayer sermon. And then with my schedule, because I do a lot of songwriting and traveling for that, I knew I was going to be gone a lot in February.

[00:14:50] And so I did a lot of prep in January. But typically that's a typical, a lot of times if I have two or three months to prepare for a sermon, I won't do anything the first month. The second month

[00:15:01] is just kind of getting like, I'm just going to throw everything on a word document. I'm going to get as many quotes as I can. I'm going to read books on the topic. I'm going to,

[00:15:14] I bought, I forget who is the guy who edited it. But it's like the entire volley. It's like a biblical commentary where he's pulled together all the church fathers and what they've said about

[00:15:24] a specific verse. A, C, C, N, C, the ancient Christian commentary on the New Testament. It's so good. Yes, I haven't. They're all right here on my bookshelf. So I'll pull together with that stuff.

[00:15:37] I'll listen to a few sermons like on YouTube or something or I'll look on the podcast app and just essentially I use that month to kind of just saturate myself in the material and then pray through

[00:15:50] okay, God, like what are you wanting me to say out of this text? And then I'll pull up another word document with with the original kind of dump next to it. And then I'll just kind of copy and

[00:16:03] paste what I feel like is going to fit into the sermon that I'm going to preach. And so then I'll kind of ride a rough outline. I use different highlighting on word to show like this is

[00:16:15] going to go with this. This is going to go with this and then I transcribe my messages. So I type it out as though I'm talking it usually there between 3,000 and 3,500 words. It's

[00:16:30] I landscape a word document to columns 0.4 inch margins on the side 1.5 space and I'll do four pages of that. And then I'll have my wife read it over and she'll tell me if I said anything stupid or

[00:16:47] if it needs editing which it always needs editing. And one time when I showed her a message she was like, hey, all of this is really good but you should copy this section like you should

[00:16:56] move this section over here and move this section over here. It's not as linear as it should be or could be. So that's been really helpful to bounce stuff off of her. And then I'll usually

[00:17:05] bring the pulpit into my office and practice it as though I'm doing it. Like 3 or 4 times just so I can... There's been times where I haven't done that and I don't realize it until I'm preaching in

[00:17:19] front of people. This doesn't make as much sense as I thought it did in my head when I was typing it out. So and I'll also feel out points where I can kind of go off the page a little bit and I'll make

[00:17:30] little asterisk on the page. Or I can jump off and tell a personal story or little anecdotes. So yeah, it's every sermon looks a little different depending on how familiar I am with the text but in a general sense the prep process looks the same.

[00:17:47] Yeah, okay. And on a side note how stochery you in December when they broke it up and you got the Lord's prayer. That's a great passage. It was. So I was, you know, when I was in that meeting

[00:18:04] I thought, okay, I'm not going to vie for any passages. I'm just... I'm just gonna sit back. We had a few guys that I'm like, okay, I know that you should be the one teaching a specific patch and they were like,

[00:18:17] hey, can I do this one? And we were all like, yes, please. But for me, I'm like, I'm just gonna hang back like, you know, and our pastor because he knows I'm really into like kind of spiritual formation type stuff.

[00:18:30] And so when he was kind of divving out who's doing what? When we got to the Lord's prayer, he's like, Sam, I think it'd be really good if you did that. And internally when I saw the breakdown of the

[00:18:40] weeks, I was looking at that one going, man, I really hope I get this one. And so that was really great. I was really, really stoked about that. Yeah, because it's in my wheelhouse.

[00:18:53] Yeah, yeah, and also even, you know, to just pray the Lord's prayer every day for the, you know, like that even counts as a sermon prep, you know, to some degree. Just, you know, internalizing it,

[00:19:05] thinking through it, you know, because even there's stuff in the, and the sermon on the mountain, that is tricky. So you got a nice, for sure. Nice. Yeah. And again, the Lord's prayer, I'm sure

[00:19:17] is not as sanitized and cute and easy as we all think about it. I'm sure there's challenges even in there that you've unearthed. But I think that's a problem too. It's not a problem.

[00:19:27] But it's like there's an over familiarity with it. Yeah. That that maybe the difficulty and prep work is trying to present a passage in a way that people don't just check out as soon as you start talking

[00:19:41] about it, because they think they know like last year I did a sermon on Psalm 23. And I'm like, I think it was really good. But I'm like, in the prep work for it, we could, this is one passage

[00:19:55] of scripture that most of the room could probably recite by memory. You know, it's like talking about John 3 16. How are you going to talk about it in a way that captivates people? But also not

[00:20:05] given to the temptation to say something so fresh that you actually say something that's not true. And so yeah, yeah. Yeah. There's a lot of tension with familiar passages like that. Okay. And is there? So those are some of the like there's advantages and there's disadvantages

[00:20:23] to preaching once a quarter. Yeah. What do you think that the hardest part of preaching once a quarter is? Do you can I said like you might think about it a bit almost too much and I don't

[00:20:33] want to put words in your mouth. But yeah. So the difficulty with having that much time to prepare as you have plenty of time to second guess, like with the sermon that I talked about with Psalm 23,

[00:20:45] I had written and rewritten that sermon like in transcription form five times because I just kept going, no, I don't know. I don't think so. I don't think this is the one. And then the one that I ended

[00:20:56] up using, I wrote two nights before from scratch just sitting in my bed. We had more of the rings, the extended editions on and I just my wife was sleeping and I just pulled up my laptop and

[00:21:07] and just started typing. And so I would say having that long of a runway, you can get in your own head about what you're going to say, which is why I tried to not prepare for like the first

[00:21:17] month if I have like a window because I don't want to get in that mode. I would say the other difficulty would be that you know, just in transparency. I think it can be easy to overestimate

[00:21:29] your skill level because you have so much time to prepare. It's like every sermon that you have like I feel like every sermon that I've done in the last year and a half has been a home

[00:21:40] run with our church because I had so much time to give to it. Oh, I see. Okay. Yeah. So you overestimate your skill level. Yeah, because yeah any preacher given three months with one

[00:21:53] message could probably do pretty good. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. So it's it's not it's hard to gauge growth. You know, because it's like if you work out once a quarter, it's like,

[00:22:07] you're not going to, there's your mind as well. I'm not doing it. Go with preaching. I think it's difficult when you don't get as many touches because there were times there were years of my

[00:22:16] life where I was preaching two different sermons a week at our youth group when I was youth pastor and then at our young adults meeting. And that was really great, but that was also really

[00:22:27] difficult in terms of the prep work. There would be times and it was a charismatic church so you could kind of get away with this. But like there's times where you just you knew the passage

[00:22:35] and you're not going to do any prep work. They're just going to get up and kind of riff for 30 minutes and you know, I'm I definitely my views on that have changed a lot over the years. But

[00:22:48] yeah, going into a place now or I'm only doing it four or five times a year, I feel good about it because the prep work makes me feel like I'm taking this seriously,

[00:22:58] because I would say the difference between me now and me 10 years ago at the CARES MATICTRACH I was that was I actually think preaching is like a really important thing to steward.

[00:23:08] You're getting up and and giving God's word to God's people, you know? And so if you're not putting in the time to prepare and to see God and to pray it's like what are we doing?

[00:23:22] And so that has the long prep time has given me time to do that. And I think if I were to get back into a mode of doing weekly, you know, I'd have to be a lot more disciplined than I am now with my

[00:23:35] time, but it does make me feel for pastors who have to do that weekend and week out because it's a lot. Yeah, and that's that's most of the guests on the exposures collective,

[00:23:47] but I know that when we have we do have you know, by vocational or you know, guys in your position that are way and a lot of hats, you know, on on church stuff, but yet doing a ton of other stuff,

[00:23:59] I get really good feedback. Some people have said that like even, you know, to hear the schedules of some of these preachers of art, just how the church is and they have, you know, layers of

[00:24:11] assistance and helpers and they have like essentially 38 hours a week devoted to sermon prep people say that's so unrealistic and actually it's kind of like, it kind of bums me out and

[00:24:22] never have that much time. So it's great to hear kind of like your long runway and the way that you're that notes up for weeks upon weeks through things in there, even the ability to write something

[00:24:34] out early and just yeah. So there's a cool thing and appreciate even your, you know, that's helpful for a lot more people than you know. Mm-hmm. Well good. Okay, now you, you talked about in some traditions, you can just get up there and just riff for 30 minutes. And

[00:24:56] can I just interrupt you? I said all that stuff, I still consider myself a charismatic and I love charismatic. I wasn't kidding you, that is I love all of that. And I was raised Southern Baptist

[00:25:07] too, so I'm a little bit of a month, but yeah, I was not dogging, there's no dogs to, you know, the charismatic, I love all of my just, you know, I am a charismatic, I am a charismatic too.

[00:25:19] I may, I'm a cowboy chapel charismatic, which is code for not that charismatic. But yeah, believe in the charismatic, ongoing, you know, gifts at the spirit, I'm all for it. And I'm absolutely well prepared, exagetical sermons and you honor the spirit of God by giving careful

[00:25:40] attention to the book that he inspired and you serve as people well by communicating this, like with all you have, instead of just riffing 30 minutes. I think we both can agree on this.

[00:25:50] Yeah, you can do both. Yes, yeah, charismatic for good sermons. Yeah, that's what we're all about. So let me, let me quote you, so you, you've that this, I should have thought that one

[00:26:03] on an Instagram reel that I thought was really good. You kind of gave kind of a list of like kind of preaching sermon prep, I don't know, thoughts that you had. And one of them you said this,

[00:26:14] if a preacher doesn't prepare, they end up saying the same thing over and over, regardless of the passage. So yeah, riff on that. What do that mean? An unprepared preacher is going to say the same thing no matter what what testament, what passage, why is that?

[00:26:33] Well, to be honest, I'd like to disclaim a lot of what I say with like, I don't know a ton about sermon sermon writing all my kind of stuff. So there's a degree to which

[00:26:45] I feel out of my depth even being on this podcast, but I would say, I think from what I've seen, a lot of people have kind of core messages for their life and it's easy for us no matter the

[00:26:58] passage to read that core message into the passage. And that's not to say it like, if you're preaching on God being with us through pain and you're preaching on Psalm 23 for instance, it's like, hey, that's low hanging through, that's right there. But I was just trying to

[00:27:18] say that if you don't take the time to actually prepare and figure out what the text is trying to say, you're going to make it say what your kind of default message is with your life. So yeah,

[00:27:30] hope yeah again I can be totally wrong with that, but I've seen that happen in a lot of environments where I know like for instance at the charismatic church I was at, I know that the

[00:27:41] pastor who was there didn't prep a whole lot for their sermons and no matter what the passage was the sermon kind of the landing point was always the same and I noticed that for myself too,

[00:27:52] I have a few messages that are just kind of in here that no matter what the passage is, I can figure out a way to bring it back to that. Yeah, yeah and there's there's a,

[00:28:04] yeah, I don't know where I got the idea of the phrase, you know, I think we do have yeah sovereign themes in our lives. Like a sovereign theme is like it's like God's work to

[00:28:14] deepen to us. And then there's even like an authority when we speak about one of these sovereign themes. And so we do want to steward that well. Yeah, however like also I think that if we're truly

[00:28:30] like expositing a passage like the tone of the of the the scripture should that the tone of the talk instead of just like oh well here's Sam Sam always is going to end up talking about

[00:28:43] working out or this or that or you know like that yeah kind of like the reading of scripture before the message could maybe prepare people for what to expect more than who the preacher is

[00:28:55] that Sunday where it's like oh well they're always like you know they're always going to talk about the rapture of the church or they're always going to talk about raising godly kids or they're

[00:29:06] always going to talk about having morning devotional like it's always going to come back to these you know hobby horses that they're always there. Yeah so there's tension you have a sovereign

[00:29:16] theme in your life but also you want to let god's words set the agenda for the the the summer Sunday. Yeah I mean I think I think it's at the end of Romans but Paul talks about like I'm

[00:29:28] not going to talk about that which Christ has not done in me. And so our third thing is that like I think we have like there are themes that I have authority to talk about because I've walked

[00:29:41] through them that I can I can bring scriptures back to that point and I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing it's just might not be well to put a bluntly it might be a lazy thing. I might be

[00:29:56] not prepared because I'm having confidence in my own ability to bring it back to a theme rather than going the extra mile and really partnering with the spirit to flesh out what the text is saying.

[00:30:08] And if my theme and partner with that great but I'm ultimately submitting to the text not the other way around. Yeah thank you yeah that was so so so well put yeah yeah there's there's some

[00:30:22] yeah a person that I know and I've I've listened to him preach yeah quite a bit and just it always ends up coming back to when he was in Bible College 15 years ago you know like everything that it always

[00:30:34] like you know there's like the stories all kind of wind up to there and you know and it's like okay cool but we're not on that Bible College and no one in this room has been to Bible College

[00:30:45] and that's like so yeah there's other ways to be approaching this or even applying those to the people that are actually here instead of just that kind of golden time in your life.

[00:30:58] Yes yeah totally agree. All right so it's been yeah great to talk about like kind of be the occasional nature of your preaching but yeah kind of references earlier in the conversation

[00:31:11] but like what you do other stuff at church you are like leading worship or playing with the worship team probably most every Sunday so yeah as the worship leader as the worship pastor you

[00:31:25] you are like serving the church in that way kind of as a well I was gonna say as a support or as a response to the preaching of the word kind of how do you understand your role as a musician

[00:31:38] or as a worship leader and how does that connect with the teaching and preaching of God's word. Yeah I mean I used to so I was I was leading worship prior to preaching and so

[00:31:52] and I've been on both sides of the fence of this like I've heard preachers say that worship is in order to prepare your heart for the word and I've also heard people on the worship

[00:32:02] into the argument go well there's only gonna be one thing we're doing for all of eternity and it's not sermonizing it's worshiping so you know I think the sermons to prepare your heart for

[00:32:11] worship I would say that both things should function to fix people's eyes on Jesus and so that's kind of my goal going into worship so I try my wife and I both passed through the worship

[00:32:27] ministry here and we try on a weekly basis it can be easy to have a setless full of songs that are that have got in the song but the song is actually about me and so we are we're trying to curate

[00:32:41] what songs we play because we want to fix people's eyes on Jesus and I believe that in doing so we are preparing people's hearts for the message and so I don't think necessarily want to

[00:32:53] subservient to the other I think they both you know they both work in harmony or at least they should there will be times where like our past sure will kind of soft suggest songs for us to do

[00:33:07] and you know if they're but we kind of both we both trust one another enough to go like hey I'm not feeling that song and he'll be like great like don't don't even worry about it

[00:33:22] like it was just a thought and there will be times like for instance we're approaching Easter where he was like hey here's this song that I've really been listening to it's really been

[00:33:31] impacting me out like what do you think about doing that and it's a song that my wife and I already love we haven't played it on a Sunday though that we were like oh yes let's do it like and we

[00:33:41] played it last Sunday and it went off it was it was awesome and so we don't go into setlist planning thinking let's play off what the message is going to be per se there will be exceptions to that rule

[00:33:56] but like for the most part we don't our goal is to just fix people's eyes on Jesus and then kind of he'll take it from there so because I think for me like we're on this kind of like in

[00:34:08] the vein of what the message is going to be this is just personal preference this is not like a theological opinion it just feels overproduced to me it feels like we're making a production out

[00:34:19] of the whole service as opposed to like hey we're gathering to worship Jesus so again that's personal taste but okay yeah all right we all have our personal taste and my taste is a little

[00:34:35] little different than yours on that but that's that's just fine yeah yeah that's just I'm hoping to be in wrong like I love here and other people's opinions about stuff like that

[00:34:44] because you know I'm definitely not the authority on any of these matters I just can give my two cents but yeah yeah that's awesome well hey listen I invited you on I want you to talk

[00:35:01] yeah and you know for what it's worth you know one of my main worship leaders here can you know he kind of leaves a little bit more towards towards you and I'm like well so do

[00:35:12] that note I will say that like I do think I do think worship pastors should honor the pastor like so if the pastor has a certain like kind of philosophical viewpoint of how these two

[00:35:26] things should work and you're on staff at that church I think you should probably listen to them now our our pastor was a worship pastor for like 20 years so he gets both sides of it

[00:35:38] so ours our relationship might be different than some other churches and there's a lot more fluidity in our opinions and our ideas that we throw out here and but that might not be the

[00:35:52] case you know if you're listening to this podcast that might not be the case at your church but I think we're called to honor the leadership of our church and so if your pastor

[00:36:02] feels a certain way about how that works and your own staff then you should feel a certain that same way so or at least some it do it not so well hey thanks for that you know

[00:36:13] last Saturday morning I thought of a great song that would really work well and I asked for it and I got told no sorry it's too late and yeah okay because like yeah so that's a that's a great

[00:36:24] point too yeah I was gonna say like yeah what should like I like music but I'm not a musician maybe most of our listeners maybe are in the same category what do people like me need to know about

[00:36:38] people like you and that be the title of this podcast I love that what should like be don't but people like you love it yeah but why are you the way that you are so for us it's helpful

[00:36:56] to know and and I get an inside loop because I'm on the teaching team at what are the teaching texts for the rest of the year so I would say from a pastoral side communicating with the people who

[00:37:08] are over your worship department hey here's kind of like a snapshot of what the next quarter looks like and here are maybe some songs that that I love that could go along with some of these

[00:37:20] as from from a worship pastor side of things we try to have the songs to our team the two like by end of day two's day of the week before that Sunday so like there have been

[00:37:33] times where we've had a song or quest on a Friday and it's like hey I don't want you to think I'm saying no because you know I'm being stubborn but like it's not honoring the of our team

[00:37:43] are players who learn these parts and learn these songs to give them you know 36 hours notice before they have to play it and so we try to we try to have open lines of communication like hey

[00:37:56] if you're gonna request a song for Sunday it needs to be on Monday because that's when we're having conversations about what the set list is going to be now I've been at churches where they

[00:38:06] plan set list for Sunday mornings for the entire month so again I think a lot of it can come down to just the rhythms of how that works in your church for us we send out songs by Tuesday the week before

[00:38:20] we send out planning center requests for all of our musicians so for instance the first week in March we sent out all of April and so we're trying to just work ahead because you know as with

[00:38:31] sermon writing if you don't plan ahead the actual experience of it can be a lot more stressful so we try to take all that out by just planning ahead and so yeah yeah so I think that's probably

[00:38:45] all I have to say yeah if you're a pastor just communicate a little further in advance to your team and if you're a worship pastor and you're and you want to honor everything just you know try to get

[00:38:58] your songs out at a certain time but also let your pastor know hey this is when I'm sending songs out so if you have an idea I would love to hear it but we also need to give our team time enough to

[00:39:07] learn it so it's not a train wreck in the service because that doesn't edify anyone and so yeah yeah it's again it's this harmonious relationship that you know but also if you're pastor suggests the song that's like really easy on like a Thursday then also be flexible like

[00:39:29] you know so yeah yeah you don't need to teach anybody any lessons you know yes but yeah yeah well I I by late in all those rules yeah it was Saturday morning it was like you know 26 hours

[00:39:42] notice and it was um rocket ages by a guest this modesty of my property oh no no yeah so just like you know I got it at that and it was like oh hey that reminds me of this you know

[00:39:57] and then you know okay well we actually have a new person playing on the team to the first time you know she's playing piano for the first time and so we've gone over the songs you know earlier

[00:40:07] already it would be unfair to her to add something new so anyway this is kind of the behind the things stuff that yeah certain worst of things have midweek or her souls too like we don't do

[00:40:17] midweek or her souls we just show up really early on Sunday morning and go through everything and so you know if your church does midweek or her souls that just throws in another variable unlike

[00:40:27] the wind song should be suggested in planned yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah and so um okay so we've been talking about yeah preaching and then now on to some of the even the behind the scenes just like church life

[00:40:41] of organizing these two things that are that feel kind of different sometimes the preaching and the and the the synchene but uh to quote you again you said you wrote this you said this I think

[00:40:53] preaching in a sermon prepping in particular awakens the same creative spark in me as songwriting I mean after all sermon writing is like long-form songwriting without the need for rhyme is and melody so like we've been highlighting the differences but you kind of written about how they

[00:41:11] they could be similar or at least in your mind in heart there is kind of a similar creativity yeah how is sermon writing like songwriting and then also how is it different yeah so I would say it's it's similar in the sense of your your crafting words

[00:41:31] and so in the crafting of the words you know same thing like with songwriting you know depending on the meter of of the melody you can't overload it with words that have a ton of

[00:41:44] syllables you have to you have to match the words to the meter of the melody and with sermon writing it's like how can I say what I'm going to say in a way that sticks with people and in a way that's not

[00:41:57] like kind of bloated with filler words so to speak like how can I get to the point so I think about guys and and this is I'm saying this from a neutral space so this is not like a

[00:42:13] the yay or nay on what I think about this guy but so Stephen Ferdig you know he's he is a songwriter and he writes most of elevation songs he's his name is not just on the credits because he's

[00:42:26] the pastor he is writing a lot of those songs with their team but if you also watch when he preaches his sermons are full of alliteration his his phrases most lyrical again whether or not

[00:42:39] you agree with the content of those things is another issue entirely but regardless that kind of stuff sticks with people because just like how you remember songs after hearing it one or two times

[00:42:51] if you can craft your words to be and maybe lyrical is not the best word because if you're not a musician that you could feel excluded from that analogy but if you can find ways to say things

[00:43:02] I don't know in a condensed way but also in a way that conveys beauty like it like it's almost like poetry I guess so I think in song and in sermon writing I'm writing out just I'm kind of just

[00:43:21] brain dumping on word and then I'll take a phrase like I'll have these highlighted phrases within the sermon that I know like I have to say this and I work very carefully on crafting those phrases

[00:43:34] for instance yesterday when I preached on Matthew 6 5 through 18 and Matthew 5 and 6 he talks about don't pray like to hypocrites you know do everything on public to be seen and all that kind of stuff

[00:43:47] and I likened it to you know if you were with your spouse and your spouse was only affectionate to you in public so other people could see it and then you go back home and you get the cold shoulder that's

[00:43:56] creepy and unhealthy but I ended that phrase with saying that's unhealthy because you can't outweigh inner deficiency without word performance like so finding a phrase that encapsulates the message of

[00:44:12] what's being said in a way that's memorable I feel like is what I try to do in songwriting with every line of the song because I consider myself like a lyricist first that's the most important

[00:44:24] part of the song for me and so when I'm writing sermons I'm paying attention not to just like the overarching message of what I'm saying but I'm paying attention to every sentence and how I'm saying it

[00:44:36] and how that sentence is setting up the next sentence and also with songwriting it's like you know the chorus is the hero of the song like so you don't want to step on the melody of

[00:44:49] the chorus or you don't want to step on like the theme or direction of the chorus in the verses because you kind of show your cards before you should and I think in sermon writing there's a

[00:45:00] flow and there's a cadence to where you're trying to get to the crescendo of the message of what you're but if you lead off with that then it's like okay we've already gotten there so what's

[00:45:11] why are you still talking for 40 minutes you know so I think it's I mean and it's the same thing if you're writing like a TV show or a movie it's like there's acts that you know the

[00:45:21] stereotypical three act of movie you know learning how in writing your sermon's learning what notes were and how to flow the sermon where you're getting to this point at least for me

[00:45:31] and my sermon writing I want the last act to be hey I want us to look at Jesus I want us to see how Jesus is the fulfillment of what we're reading in the text you know I'm I said this in that

[00:45:44] Instagram real too like I'm not overly concerned with landing the plane with like three application points you know if there if that's low hanging fruit for the text then sure but I want people to

[00:45:56] be captivated by Jesus and so I do think that some of the onus is on me to communicate in a way that is beautiful you know so that I can assist in any way that I can in fixing people's eyes on

[00:46:13] Jesus so yeah I don't know if that answer made sense at all but so much yeah I you know I think it was I think John Piper said this for somebody but he said that um people don't really remember

[00:46:26] sermon they remember sentences and so yeah and so yeah so I what you're saying it's not about just like having a good sentence here or there but it's it's having a sentence that actually encapsulates what you're saying and doing so yeah an affordable memorable powerful way

[00:46:47] it's so much better than just saying a bunch of words a bunch of truth yeah and there's moments in the writing you know we're just like songwriting I know what I want to say but I haven't landed

[00:46:57] on the final version of how to say it yet and it's the same thing in sermon writing I know the point I'm trying to make but I haven't I haven't distilled it or refined it to the point where I'm

[00:47:09] like yes that's the one um that's the sentence that people are going to remember or that's the sentence that encapsulates this section of the sermon so in that regard it kind of hits that same

[00:47:21] part of my brain where I'm like you're really wordsmithing to try to to try to craft something that conveys the message in the most potent way possible yeah you know I was I was flipping through

[00:47:34] an old notebook of mine and it was almost kind of a little bit of embarrassing I guess because like for one whole page I was like writing and rewriting one sentence you know and it was about

[00:47:49] you know like in Jesus' wilderness temptation he shows us you know and it like something's something you know but I knew I had to say to summarize kind of this sermon into one little phrase

[00:48:03] and it's like again like one day I'll be getting gone and my kids will find that notebook and be like why couldn't dad just run his sentence but it takes the word and again as long

[00:48:15] way do you probably know that even more because I have a 40 minute sermon to get it right but you are trying to put it into a three and a half minutes song so certainly doesn't matter yeah

[00:48:26] yeah absolutely and and it's it's there's pros and cons to the three and a half minute versus 40 minute like 40 minutes you can say a lot more stuff but you could also just say you could

[00:48:37] also talk without actually saying anything a lot there uh whereas whereas with songwriting it's like unfortunately you could have a song that where you're singing but you're not really saying anything

[00:48:50] and so I think just keeping it in the forefront of the mind of like I'm I want to say something with every line um that's a priority for me yeah yeah well say I'm hey kind of our last question

[00:49:04] for everyone of these episodes is always like how are you currently trying to to improve so we've we've heard about your first sermon when you're 18 we've heard about your your last sermon from

[00:49:15] yesterday by the time what the next three months comes around in this year's time to to preach again like what's something you'd like to get to get better how are you trying to improve

[00:49:25] um so I noticed so we have two services at our church right now and I noticed like when I preached yesterday the first service I was a lot more kind of behind the pulpit and I was I was kind

[00:49:38] of looking down at my my notes a lot which I don't have a problem with and I don't have a problem in preachers do that because hey you spent time working on that like you know if you need

[00:49:48] to reference it by all means I want to hear what you've planned to say good point not the right betrayal you know but um but the second service because I had practiced it so many times and then

[00:49:58] I had done it in front of people I was so I was so familiar with the flow of the message that I was able to kind of walk around a little bit more on the stage and it just felt more like

[00:50:11] more comforting now there is the the added layer of the fact that the first service is our live stream podcast service so like there's a little more pressure on that service said to like

[00:50:23] you know not flub but I think for me one of the things that I want to grow in is continuing to saturate myself enough in the material and in the text to where I'm not like

[00:50:37] anchored to the page necessarily but I can I can move in and out with a little more ease because I feel like for me it's it's important when when I'm listening to a preacher it's

[00:50:48] important that I feel like I'm connecting with them as a person as well and that there's some form of relatability but not like the secret friendly way but just like I want to know that you're

[00:51:00] also walking through this and if if I'm just staring down on my notes the whole time and reading off the page while what I'm saying might be good it's probably not doing that to the extent

[00:51:11] that I would want it to in terms of like making people feel that I'm also kind of walking through this and I like more conversational preaching which is why you know we were talking before

[00:51:23] we hit record about John Tyson like I love John Tyson stuff because it feels it feels very conversational and that's kind of what I'm what I'm trying to go for and so yeah I want to grow more and just

[00:51:35] being able to go in and out of the notes easier. Yeah so I mean tell me this is too to base but like you kind of like you want like the you want the second service vibe with the first service content

[00:51:53] exactly all right well yeah yeah and especially you have to wait three months in between between times but yeah well I say this has been yeah this is a great conversation this has gone

[00:52:10] yeah very very deep and very wide and a lot of things something that you know we mentioned kind of a lot you know is your music as well and do you have any any new music that's coming out so

[00:52:23] this is going to be released in July where could get the latest Sam McCain tunes yeah so I have a single that's that will have come out May 3rd called sovereign lord of slain lamb

[00:52:35] featuring Pat Barrett and then in June I have a song called Nothing Is Better featuring Leeland and and then in July I'll have a single coming out and August I'll have a single coming out

[00:52:47] and then I'll have a full album coming out at the end of August called The Death of Death and it's just um it's my attempt to try and keep a foot in both worlds in terms of writing

[00:52:59] corporate worship and writing singer songwriter music and they're all dealing with you know more conceptual theological ideas but in a way that's kind of rock and roll and so in the process of writing and recording we didn't really pay attention to a lot of like worship music norms

[00:53:19] we just kind of wanted to do our own things so to me it feels really fresh yeah and I think I think especially pastors I think sermon writers people who are teaching and making

[00:53:31] for lack of a better term content I think you guys will love this record because the songs like what I was just saying about sermon writing every line there's a throwaway lines

[00:53:42] it's very potent I look forward to it and for the listeners you know you got to check out pre-s of the modern age that's my favorite song of yours so far thank but I I haven't heard this

[00:53:53] new stuff yet and yeah I love the symbiology and rock and roll so if you can put those together that'll be a great thing yeah well alright well I think we've come to a conclusion it's

[00:54:06] not actually longer than I thought it was I just like talking to you hope that's hope hope you guys have listened all the way to the end well then I hope that this conversation

[00:54:17] and all the weird exposures collective help you to grow in your personal study and public proclamation of God's word now go download Sam's music okay well thanks so much for listening

[00:54:30] all the way to the end as a great conversation wasn't it well in the show notes you're going to find links to Sam's music the easiest way is to go to Spotify and search his name but there's

[00:54:43] other ways to find out more about him he's a great follow on Instagram as well he does a good job with the reels with kind of thought provoking content that is good for your mind and also

[00:54:56] stirs your heart well speaking of online content the exposures collective we are working on and are probably about to release our video training curriculum this is something that we worked on back in January and is nearly ready to be released it's a professional multi-cam footage

[00:55:19] proper lighting sound mixing all that type of stuff this is for those of you who maybe have attended our training events and then thought I wish I could have brought so and so along

[00:55:31] or for those of you who would love to come but we just haven't come to your area yet this is something that would be ideal for personal or even group use talking through many of the principles

[00:55:44] and practices and habits that we speak about in our in-person training event so make sure that you go to expositorscollective.com and follow along on various social media platforms because once this

[00:55:57] goes live we're sure to let you know also we have a manly list and those people who sign up for that are going to be the first to know about this great opportunity there's a link on our website

[00:56:10] that says join the collective and then you'll be the first to know when this hopefully very helpful very practical resource comes out for you and people that you're looking to train up to be the next generation of Christ centered expository preachers and then also speaking of

[00:56:28] training up expository preachers we're going to Africa we're going to Campalla Uganda in September myself I'm partnering with some local Ugandan pastors as well as bringing two preachers from the US we are looking forward to investing into the preachers the ministry

[00:56:47] leaders the Bible teachers in Campalla Uganda there is no charge for this event for those that are coming from around the nation or even the continent and that is something where you can come in

[00:57:03] if you would like to make a donation to enable a African leader to come and to be equipped encouraged and coached in his or her Bible teaching and abilities well in our show notes they'll be

[00:57:21] a link also there on our website as well there's a link to give towards the expositors collective this is not going to go to make me rich or upgrade my flights this is going to provide

[00:57:35] theologically rich practical Christ centered pedagogy to Bible teachers there in Uganda thanks for your care thanks for your support and I'll see you next Tuesday for the next episode of the expositors

[00:57:50] collective podcast this podcast is a part of C.G.N. Media a podcast network that points to Christ we are supported by listeners like you to help us create more great shows visit cgnmedia.org slash support