The Megachurch Worship Monopoly, Part II

ELIAS DUMMER, JULIE ROYS, SHANNON BAKER, PhD

JULIE ROYS 00:04
Hillsong Church has been embroiled in a steady stream of scandals exposing sexual and financial misconduct and a toxic and exploitative leadership culture. So, should we still be singing their worship songs? Or should we be rethinking everything, including our worship sets? Welcome to The Roys Report, a podcast dedicated to reporting the truth and restoring the church. I’m Julie Roys. And this is part two of my discussion of a groundbreaking new study on modern worship with two study collaborators Elias Dummer and Dr. Shannon Baker. Elias is a singer songwriter who’s also worked in marketing and research. And Shannon is a postdoctoral research fellow at Baylor University who’s studying contemporary worship. In part one, we explored how almost all the top worship songs being sung in churches across America are produced by just four mega churches. They are Hillsong, Bethel, Elevation, and Passion City Church. It was a fascinating discussion exploring the history and development of the modern worship movement. And I encourage you if you haven’t already, go back and listen to that podcast. But in part two, we talk about the scandals these incredibly influential mega churches had been involved in and what that means for worship pastors and congregants. Ours was a very lively discussion, and at some points, we disagreed strongly. But I believe we generated more light than heat. And so, I’m really excited to share this podcast with you.

But first, I’d like to thank the sponsors of this podcast, Judson University, and Marquardt of Barrington. Judson University is a top ranked Christian University providing a caring community and an excellent college experience. Plus, the school offers more than 60 majors great leadership opportunities and strong financial aid. Judson University is shaping lives that shaped the world. For more information, just go to JUDSONU.EDU. Also, if you’re looking for a quality new or used car, I highly recommend my friends at Marquardt of Barrington. Marquardt is a Buick GMC dealership where you can expect honesty, integrity, and transparency. That’s because the owners there Dan and Kurt Marquardt are men of integrity. To check them out. Just go to BUYACAR123.com.

Well, again, joining me to discuss some of the difficult issues surrounding the worship industry, and the songs that we sing every week in church, are Elias Dummer and Dr. Shannon Baker. We pick up our discussion with my explanation of the conundrum I feel in singing worship songs produced by mega churches like Hillsong, which seem so corrupt.

This worship was making Brian and Bobby Houston, the founders of Hillsong, rich. It was enriching their son Joel, who was heading up Hillsong worship. In fact, Joel Houston wrote The Stand. And I watched the video, and it was from 12 years ago, I watched it last night. And honestly, I am even now thinking about it. It’s hard for me, because that song, I remember singing, right? I remember being moved by that song. And I’m seeing people on this video clearly impacted singing worship to the Lord. And yet right now it turns my stomach. There’s no way that the people at the top didn’t know what was going on, and what they were participating in. How do we process so much of this? Let’s just look at Hillsong first, and let me just ask you Elias; today, would you play a Hillsong song at your church?

ELIAS DUMMER 03:39
Without hesitation.

JULIE ROYS 03:41
You would play one?

ELIAS DUMMER 03:41
Absolutely.

JULIE ROYS 03:42
Okay.

ELIAS DUMMER 03:43
I think if you start to go down that road, you may as well rip two thirds of the Psalms out of the Bible. David was an accused rapists for all intents and purposes.

SHANNON BAKER, PhD 03:54
And murderer.

ELIAS DUMMER 03:55
And murderer. Paul, once upon a time murderer. I think it’s also really easy to look and see a shared last name and assume that everything Joel did, it’s an impossible game to win. And we’ve all worked in and alongside larger institutions. And while there are cultural facets that play out if that’s very true, I think the specifics matter. The sort of Whack a Mole boogeyman thing doesn’t work because it is so often distraction to solving the real problems. I’ll give you a really specific example. In the Hillsong documentary that came out a couple of years ago, I guess now, the last episode of that documentary, the focus on the assaults and the cover ups. That was really the meat of what that thing should have been the entire time. And probably because of the way that Netflix distribution deals work, they had to make three episodes. I’ve been in the media world we all know how this works. They made three episodes out of a one-episode, important conversation piece. And what they filled almost an entire episode with discussions about manipulative music. When in reality, not manipulative music most people would consider to be bad music. Like we literally go to music to be emotionally manipulated. We go to all music for that purpose.

And so, it is a tricky thing because we engage music, we love the art, the art does something in us psychologically, neurologically, and emotionally. And then we come out of that, inferring upon its author all kinds of trust, and goodwill and assumption, in most cases, that may or may not be fair. Like, O Holy Night; people love O Holy Night. I might be wrong about this. But I had heard it was written by a guy who’s not a believer at all. So, we have to be really careful with assuming that art and its author always have this direct relationship to its use. I think we’ll be sorely disappointed in the Bible’s authors; we’ll be sorely disappointed in the authors of the Psalms, and we’ll be left with very little to do if we’re looking for humans that aren’t complex to create art. May as well the AI do the rest.

JULIE ROYS 06:07
A lot there. Let me push back a little bit. Because I hear the David thing all the time, right? I think one of the things we forget about David is that he was punished. His firstborn with Bathsheba was killed, the Lord took his life. We also forget that David repented. And I haven’t seen repentance from the Houston’s.

ELIAS DUMMER 06:30
But we don’t strike the pre repentant Psalms from the Bible.

JULIE ROYS 06:33
No, but I’m saying what we see in David is someone that the Lord called a man after his own heart, and part of being a man after his own heart, was how he responded to sin. And he was very repentant in what happened. And when I report these stories, people often say, what are you hoping for? I’m hoping for repentance. I’m not hoping for things to burn down. I’m hoping for the leaders to repent. I have yet to see it.

ELIAS DUMMER 06:59
You and I are on the same. I mean, my wife and I had this conversation not too long ago. I’ve had eight senior pastors in my life that I’ve served under or alongside. Of those eight, three are no longer pastors because of something related to sexual sin or adultery or similar things. So, it’s not like I don’t understand what it means to see the scale of the problem. That’s not what I’m saying at all. What I’m saying is, we can’t take for granted like, what is it that Joel Houston is supposed to be? It’s a leap, for example, to say, because this happened at the top, and they share a last name, it must mean that he knew what was going on, it might.

JULIE ROYS 07:37
if you look at the whistleblower documents that have come out, the enriching that was going on, was throughout the entire organization.

ELIAS DUMMER 07:45
And I’ll give you an example, the reporting on that scandal about a month ago, I believe, indicated as one of its big whistleblower elements, that Hillsong had paid a million dollars in royalties to Joel Houston. And this was treated as one of the negative components. The crazy thing about that is Hillsong was legally obligated to pay those royalties to Joel Houston. They were collected through ASCAP and BMI and these sorts of things. And Joel and Hillsong as the song publisher, now we can have a conversation about that. But Hillsong as the song publisher couldn’t keep the money, it had to go to Joel.

JULIE ROYS 08:20
And that’s the way things were set up. I will say right now.

ELIAS DUMMER 08:22
That’s how songwriting works.

JULIE ROYS 08:24
I don’t know why that wasn’t happening, as I understand, with Vineyard when they were doing it.

ELIAS DUMMER 08:29
It’s kind of that’s a different conversation, then. Yeah, yeah, question of whether songs are tracked. And whether the whether $1 exists, that’s never the question. Somebody somewhere made a few bucks. And in the days of Fanny Crosby, it was the hymn publisher who made the money, and it just didn’t happen to flow down all that often. So, there is and always is money in the distribution of goods right? Now, our relationship to that I’m not taking that for granted as good. That’s not my point. My point is that we want to say, the way it is now is uniquely evil. I think it’s different. And I think it’s complicated. And I think if we don’t deal with the specifics, then our efforts to deal with what looks like the problem end up being a little more than hot noise and white noise, that we never deal with the real thing because it’s too easy to dismiss. And Hillsong is filled with examples where that documentary was a perfect example. Somebody could go and what are you talking about? Listen, all music moves me. And then the credibility of the documentary is shot. The documentary has spent an hour talking about something that’s easily dismissed before addressing a thing that’s very much a problem.

JULIE ROYS 09:38
I’m not arguing that. Yeah, and I’m not arguing in favor, I think Hillsong there’s been a lot of documentaries made and they’re made by organizations that, frankly, don’t understand half the time. The media organizations they may be trying to do their job, or they may be trying to sensationalize.

ELIAS DUMMER 09:54
But there’s a lot of information missing.

JULIE ROYS 09:56
But there often is, and this is my thing with so much of the media when they report on evangelicalism. They don’t understand evangelicalism, they don’t understand the church. And so, they don’t, I don’t think they do it well, and they often miss it. And sometimes they do it very well. But sometimes they don’t.

But I cannot overlook how big and how much money is being exchanged. And when we talk about these four churches again, the whistleblower documents that were released what it showed, and it called the whistleblower themselves who came from within Hillsong this wasn’t an outsider, this was an insider, called something called the celebrity preacher scam. This whole, you invite me to your church, my church will pay you an exorbitant honorarium, then I’ll invite you to my church, we’ll pay you an exorbitant honorarium. We’ll give you first class or business class travel, we’ll put you up in the best hotels, and who’s the honorarium going to? It’s coming from the church from donors money, but it’s going to the particular pastor who’s coming to speak. And when we look at these four churches, here we go. Hillsong is a number one mega church that’s driving all of this. I would say, it’s so much of this worship music. Louie Giglio of Passion was a regular speaker at Hillsong, pulling honorariums between $5000, which may seem reasonable to $35,000 Australian dollars for each engagement. Bill Johnson, head of Bethel spoke at Hillsong least four times between 2019-2020 making between $5000-$28,000 a speaking engagement that’s in Australian dollars. Steven Furtick, of Elevation Church spoke at Hillsong, at least once. Again, these aren’t the whistleblower documents aren’t comprehensive of everything. it’s what was reported and what we have, but at least once was paid $14,000 to speak at Hillsong. But of course, we know Steven Furtick lives in a 16,000 square foot, multimillion dollar house. I am looking at that seeing in Scripture that you’re right, money isn’t evil, but the love of money is. And when you see these kinds of huge honorariums going to the head of these churches. And you see the kind of collusion when you’re talking about, you can say there’s nothing evil about that. But how much has money perverted, and this is the question, I guess, when we get right down to it, is how much has money and the love of money, perverted not just these churches and the way they’re operating, but the worship industry itself? Because let’s look at the four most powerful churches that influence the songs that we sing. And are they even living in a godly manner? How would Jesus feel if he came today, to those churches? Would he be flipping the tables? Would he be?

ELIAS DUMMER 12:36
Those are great questions. I mean, I think it’s a complicated space that we live in, and I Shannon hasn’t as much I’ve lived in that space for the last 20 years. There’s a couple of things to consider. This isn’t necessarily an apologist approach; I’m just throwing it out there. The way that the talent industry works, and the way that the music industry works, and whether we like it or not, that’s what we’re talking about here, talking about people who have managers and agents, and so on. And depending on their book publishing deal, depending on their record label deal, and how it all there’s people who have to share everything, it’s all percentage splits. So, if you are a speaker, and you have an agent, that agents probably taking anywhere from 10 to 15%, sometimes more, depending on their deal, you have a manager who’s taking 15 to 20%, sometimes more depending on the deal. And so, you’re looking at anywhere from a range of minimum 25% to 35-40%, going out the door immediately. So, every fee gets split, and then you’ve got costs on top of that. So even your $5,000 fee starts to look pretty unreasonable for the sort of black and white value that a speaker would bring to attending an event. And now that’s, of course, more true in the conference space than it is true in the local church environment. That’s a different ballgame. But at some point, it does get complicated and weird. You’re right. I will say in from my own life, I’m someone who has gone out of my way to set my life up so that I’m operating with integrity. To some people’s standards, I make good money. The reality is most of that money is made in my business ventures. So, what people don’t, it can be easy. And it’s helpful to have the real black and white documents, of course, but it can be easy to project onto Oh, the fees are there. Therefore, this is happening. When I think of Saddleback and that sort of thing, where the salary was $0. And his books were selling enough that the books bought his house multi times over. And Stephen Furtick’s case I know he’s often listed as a writer; we could talk about that. But at the end of the day, if he’s a writer on all of these big songs, to what extent is that the fruit of his work as a pastor speaker versus the fruit of his work as a creator and that sort of thing? I don’t know that I have the answer to that. I do share your discomfort with it. With the sort of sheer scale and the way that there is this ability to dictate the market when you have a big enough share of the market. That’s true in every market.

JULIE ROYS 15:01
One thing, let me just when it comes to Steven Furtick, his name being on all the songs, interestingly, because I’ve spent a lot of time reporting on Harvest Bible Chapel. And James MacDonald was on some of those songs. Luke MacDonald was on a lot of them. I’m not sure what role they actually played on them. But I know when they set it up, you’re right, Vertical Worship, they will get a cut. I don’t know if they’re still getting a cut. I know they were. I also know that those contracts from talking to Josh Caterer who used to be a worship pastor there, but who had been in the music industry for a long time, before he became a believer, actually had a punk rock band. And he said, those were the most exploitative contracts he’d ever seen. In fact, he left because he wouldn’t sign it. But Furtick Yeah, he’s probably getting a commission on the music. Some might look at that and say, well, he wrote it, and he should be a part of it. Some might look at that and say, Well, isn’t that nice? He got his name on there, so he could get the royalty. There’s two ways to look at that.

ELIAS DUMMER 15:57
I do know that he contributes to some songs very meaningfully. I’ll say that. He’s not a writer.

JULIE ROYS 16:01
Okay. Let me say too, though, when you look at his house, we don’t know his salary, because they don’t disclose it. If you’re a secular nonprofit in the United States, you have to disclose your top wage earners. The only ones that don’t are churches. And why is it that a church, a religious nonprofit where you have people giving to God’s work, why should the leaders there be less accountable than your secular nonprofit? So, we don’t know what his salary is. But we do know that the people that set his salary, who are supposedly providing accountability, are other megachurch pastors. Who are the megachurch pastors that are setting a salary, and what are their salaries, what do they think is reasonable? And the fact that they won’t tell us there is no transparency. So that kind of transparency, like you’re teaching us some stuff about what’s happening in the music industry. But there is a lack of transparency across the board.

ELIAS DUMMER 16:51
I totally agree. And I think that’s part of what motivates us a little bit, is the idea that I think we operate with a sort of naive mythos of what worship songs are, and partly evangelicals and Christians, maybe not at large, but evangelicals certainly have this sort of allergy to talking about business in business terms. So, we’re drawn to using spiritually veiling language instead of discussing money as money.

I think for me, part of what motivates me in this, and I’ve said this to Phil Wickham, when he asked why we’re doing this, it is, at the end of the day, I think it’s important that we talk about what is true so that we can solve real problems with real facts,. It is really hard if what we’re doing is talking about these ideals we hold about the things and not treating the participants as human beings and not taking for granted that basically caricature which isn’t quite what you’re doing in this case. But I agree with you in transparency, we need to be talking transparently about how money works in the music business, about how royalties work about how we discover songs, but what we really think about that sort of thing, and what we think about where worship songs come from, and why. And if we can have an honest conversation about that, then maybe we can shape an industry which is going to exist in some form, into something that we all feel better about. But if what we do instead, just like with senior pastors, is prop up a sort of mythology of the thing, then we can’t do that. It protects the status quo. Now our team is a bunch of participants. We’re not trying to take this thing down. That’s not at all what we’re trying to do. I probably trust the Joel Houston’s of the world more than you’re prone to do. And that’s fine. But it’s not because I think the sun shines out of something. It’s just as simple as saying, I think our relationship to art is complicated. And the industry, which we’re all forced to participate in, in doing this is also very complicated. And naivety around that is part of what contributes to the degree of hurt that so many of us experience.

JULIE ROYS 18:56
Shannon, let me ask you, when we’re talking about some tough things, and I liked that this conversation has gotten real. I think it’s healthy to have this kind of back and forth. But as you look at scripture and principles, what should be guiding us as we do try to evaluate this industry and these kinds of issues that we’re talking about?

SHANNON BAKER, PhD 19:20
Yeah, I think the guiding factor for me, as I’m thinking about, I’ve also been a worship pastor at a church for a few years, is when we’re looking at all of these songs, I think, above all else, making sure that we’re selecting songs, wherever they come from, that have solid, biblical and theological truths that align with interpretation of Scripture, for your context, I think is the most important factor. And I think I’m being broad intentionally because there are churches that will use Bethel songs and have no problem with Bethel theology. And will use Bethel songs. Great if it’s edifying your church and people are coming to know Christ, awesome. Because that’s the goal, right is to have more and more people drawn to Christ. I know there are other churches that don’t agree with Bethel’s theology, and will not use Bethel songs, and they’re finding other songs, and people are coming to know Christ.

And I think at the end of the day, yes, it’s helpful to know who the songs are by. I mean, Elias has already given a lot of contexts for maybe how to approach who the artist is. But I think for me, it’s really just important that whatever you’re singing is theologically true and aligns with good interpretation of Scripture. So, and I think what really comes down to that is some people would look at these four mega churches and say none of them do. They’ll look at all four of them and say, the songs, none of them are theologically true. It’s all heresy. Which, you know, that’s their prerogative. I think there are some great songs coming from these churches. But I would say for the ones who just blindly use the songs from these four primary contributors, just for whatever reason, maybe they don’t have enough time to listen for new people, or they just trust them. So, we’ll use whatever they get from them. I would just challenge to look for the songs that are maybe a little more hidden. Spotify makes it really easy. And whatever songs you find, just remembering too, yes, music can be manipulative, but making sure that the words we’re singing and that worship pastors are choosing for people to put on their lips and say before God, are theologically true.

JULIE ROYS 21:41
I’m trying to think the on the list that I saw, was In Christ Alone on there?

SHANNON BAKER, PhD 21:46
So that song was written before 2010.

JULIE ROYS 21:49
I was gonna say that would be an outlier.

SHANNON BAKER, PhD 21:52
It does appear it says there are a few outliers like that. In Christ Alone I believe appeared on almost every single list in the 2010s decade. So, there are a few of those songs that are still sung just weren’t new songs on our list.

JULIE ROYS 22:08
That would be one, I would say it’s theologically rich. But you’re right. That’s a good question. We haven’t really talked that much about the actual content of the songs and what’s happening with them. We used to have a joke, I know at our church, that there are meteorology songs, let it rain and let the winds blow and the song, and some of them have very little theological content. Although I will say too, one of the things I think that worship music gets really pounded for is people say, Oh, it’s just mushy, love songs. And when I look at the Psalms, that’s a lot of mushy love songs in there. And people would say, we sing them over and over again. And I’m like, What do you kiss your wife over and over again? Yeah, I mean, I think we forget that this is relationship with God. And I appreciate what you brought up there, Shannon.

At our we had a Restore Conference last year. And it was our second one that we’ve done, but it gathers a lot of folks that have been hurt or wounded by the church. And in our first one, I intentionally wanted to have worship there. I know there’s some people that will be like, when you gather people who have been wounded by the church, these are just all triggers for them, and some will go so far that we shouldn’t talk about God because they were hurt by the church. And if we don’t talk about God, and we don’t invite the Holy Spirit to be present, then we’re cutting ourselves off from the source of our healing. And that will be devastating to us. So, the first one we did that we actually had a band. The second one, I just really felt it was important to strip it all down. And so, we just had a guitar and the worship leader brought, he did bring somebody who played keyboards and would sing background, but it’s very stripped-down worship. And almost all of our songs were hymns. Because I did notice that so many of the worship songs today, for these people who have been hurt in the church, have triggers for them. But it makes me wonder but for the people listening who have been through sort of a church hurt experience, and they’re looking at these songs or even looking at how it can be done differently, speak to them. How should they look or approach this worship music that and I understand what you’re saying Elias. Handel’s Messiah, I don’t think Handel was a Christian even. And yet we worship with it. But yet I think now because of the current cultural moment that we’re in, with so many of these scandals blowing up, and because of people being wounded in those environments, what would you say to them when they say, I know a lot of them saying, I have trouble even entering into worship anymore, because of what happened to me.

ELIAS DUMMER 22:55
Sure. Yeah. That’s definitely a heavy thing to think through. And like I mentioned earlier, not something that I don’t personally understand exactly. My own main mentor in life is somebody with whom I have a complicated relationship in my mind. I think of stuff going on over in the UK right now as a really good example of the same sort of thing and people like Matt Redman are commenting on it. So, I think there’s this.

JULIE ROYS 25:17
And let me just for those who don’t know about that, we actually just published a story not long ago about Mike Pilavachi, who was the founder of Soul Survivor, which brought huge youth festivals, would bring in like 30,000 youth from all around mostly UK, but really all around the world. People would come from all over.

ELIAS DUMMER 25:34
It was hugely influential for me.

JULIE ROYS 25:36
And what’s coming out is that a lot of allegations that he abused these young men who were a part of the Ministry of Soul Survivor, and Matt Redman was one of the early people that came his worship music really became popular through Soul Survivors. Go ahead.

ELIAS DUMMER 25:52
Yeah. So, all that to say, I think there is often this kind of flattening of the question of experience of church based on the platform versus not the platform, that I don’t know if it works in reality. I think there is a pretty big gap between the senior pastor in the church and everybody else very often. And there’s just people have different roles to play, and they play them. And so, I think, experientially, that doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s going to be easy to be in a context where you’re experiencing something that for you is associated with pain and hurt. I can understand that. And I can understand needing to work through that. But at the same time, we’re human beings.

So, if I think about like, what it means to think about humans coming together in worship, there isn’t really another activity that’s as unifying, in a holistic sense, in an embodied sense, as song. And so, it’s difficult to think of something which would cause 300 people to pray the same thing at the same time and feel something about it. It’s basically music, that’s what we’ve got. There’s no easy answer to that question, I guess is what I’m saying. It just really is a difficult thing to work through. I think where it gets hard is when we start to want to remove anything that can be very difficult. I don’t know exactly how we do that, and then not end up with something which is as lifeless and soulless, and almost dualistic in a sense. We start to take the things like the one that gets raised a lot in my world is that question of emotional manipulation. Is worship music emotionally manipulative? And my answer is yes. And the reason is, what I said earlier. We look to music to do that thing; that’s music’s function is to move us. And the person who first sought to manipulate the music was the writer trying to manipulate themselves, in a sense. Like trying to bring about in them a feeling that conveyed the thing they were trying to put across. And it’s so easy to look at the people doing this and infer intent and infer sort of malice, where maybe it might exist, and it might not. And I wish there was an easier answer for this. But in my experience, there isn’t. It is just a complicated thing that is hard to wrestle through, if you’ve been through that sort of hurt.

I’m writing songs like this. And I was talking with my friend Chris, who’s in a band called Brain Collective. And we were writing a song together. And we were saying how it can be so hard to write worship songs, because every song is practically an existential crisis. You don’t have that when you’re writing love songs about your wife, it’s not the same. And so, it’s not as though the writers of these songs are lacking gravitas and are not wrestling with these questions themselves. They are. They’re often some of the first victims of it. And so, I think we need to be comfortable, or we need to at least do the work of seeing things for what they are and what they are not and approaching them as such. And yes, that can be like untangling a ball of yarn. But on some level, if we hope to still be around in this thing. That’s work we have to do. And it’s hard.

JULIE ROYS 29:11
I know for me, there was a period where I couldn’t listen to any modern worship. I’ve come back to being able to and I lead worship, just in a small context now. But being able to play some of those songs that have such positive connotations for me, where it says in Scripture, come back to the things that you did at first, and often those are those songs that are so meaningful, that first connected me with the Lord. And so, I found that very meaningful. Now, will I ever be able to sing an Elevation song again? Or Hillsong? I don’t know. Honestly, I don’t know. That would be really tough for me personally, but I hear what you’re saying. And I appreciate it. Shannon, any final thoughts on your part before we sign off here?

SHANNON BAKER, PhD 29:58
I guess my final thought would be our study focused on the 2010s decade. It focused on the previous decade leading up to the pandemic. The worship landscape now, the contemporary worship landscape now looks very different, and there is starting to be a shift. That is encouraging. There are new artists that are emerging. One of them seemingly has no connection to these big four. Her name is Charity Gale. She’s becoming more and more popular. Maverick City is coming up. Other names are becoming known whether they have associations to these big four are not. So, I would say, on an encouraging note, the 2020s, I think, are going to look very different than the past decade. And there are a lot of positive changes that I think are coming.

JULIE ROYS 30:48
Is there any chance that somebody who just writes songs and isn’t a great singer or performer, that their song will ever their worship song could ever be played?

SHANNON BAKER, PhD 30:58
If they’re not the one particularly recording it or releasing it themselves? I think they can collaborate with some people who are, and it probably will get known that way. But without, right now, I think unless you’re latching on to an artist that’s becoming popular right now without a connection to them, or getting and landing a big record deal, I think it’s very difficult. Which again, puts the burden on the worship pastor and the worship leader to take the challenge and the responsibility to seek out lesser-known artists who are writing great songs. You just have to look for them.

JULIE ROYS 31:38
And maybe within your church context, there can be songs that are just yours, and are happening being written by your own people. Well, Shannon, and Elias, thank you so much for this challenging discussion and for the insights you have from the study. I know it’s continuing to be released. I think you’ve released like three articles, which is releasing part of your study. But like a total of you expect about eight, right? So, we’re not even halfway through some of the unveiling that’s going to happen. So yeah, I look forward to that and to reading those. But thank you so much for taking the time today. Really appreciate it.

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