Why Sovereign Grace Music Exists: A Conversation with Bob Kauflin & David Zimmer
VIDEO TRANSCRIPT
BENJAMIN KREPS:
Hey everyone and welcome to the Mark Prater podcast - where our aim is to connect our global family of Sovereign Grace churches with our executive director.
Mark, we are in an unusual location, actually in the lobby of Living Hope Church, and we are joined by some special guests for the podcast.
So we have with us, of course, the one and only Bob Kauflin and the one and only David Zimmer.
They're here in Middletown and they're going to tell us why they're here in Middletown at Living Hope Church. Why are you here, Bob?
BOB KAUFLIN:
Well, first, thanks for having us. It is a real joy to have you.
We have been doing a Prepare Him Room concert event for a number of years now, and we thought we should record this. We thought Living Hope Church would be a great church to record at.
The people here are friendly, they serve us, they just do a fantastic job, and all the gear is here. So we thought, Living Hope Church.
So we're here Wednesday and Thursday nights to actually catch it all on film and hopefully put it out sometime in the next year.
BENJAMIN KREPS:
Yeah, I was actually at last night, the first night of the concert, and it was wonderful. I wish it had continued for another couple of hours. I left, and I'm still buzzing the next day after the wonderful time of reflection and worship together as we remembered the Savior's birth.
It's been a real joy to have you guys here.
MARK PRATER:
Yeah, thanks for doing that. I can't wait to watch the video of what we'll see. Knowing I've been to Living Hope before, that'll be exciting. Thanks for taking the time during a busy couple of days to be with Ben and I.
By the way, I want folks who listen to this podcast or read the transcript to not only get to know you guys but also really understand what you do. So tell us, why does Sovereign Grace Music exist, and why is it connected to Sovereign Grace Churches?
BOB KAUFLIN:
That is a wonderful question, one that we never tire of answering.
Our mission statement is: Sovereign Grace Music exists to produce Christ-exalting songs and training for the Church from our local churches.
It's really birthed out of our family of churches. We were writing songs that no one was recording and we wanted to sing.
So that's where it started, with cassette tapes and CDs, and now we don't produce either. But we do produce music, and it's not only the songs that are the most important part of what we do, but the training.
So that's where the Worship God conferences, Worship Matters intensives, the different conferences we do, mentoring, and just those kinds of things all come in. David oversees what you would say is production and promotion. From your standpoint, what do you see as the connection with Sovereign Grace Churches?
DAVID ZIMMER:
Yeah. Well, I mean, it's so sweet to be back here at Living Hope since we've done Prepare Him Room here before. And we're actually doing Prepare Him Room across the country in Sovereign Grace churches. I think the beauty of that is we're connecting with our family of churches in each location. So I love that I don't just see Ben once a year. I saw him at the Pastors Conference, we got to catch up, and it's the same with the other churches we're engaging with. It's sweet to be part of a family of churches with the same goals: to see Christ magnified in our cities.
MARK PRATER:
Yeah, really well said.
BENJAMIN KREPS:
Yeah, I mean, it's a real joy, when introducing the concert yesterday, to be able to say these are friends. These are partners in the gospel. These aren't an outside band. These are members of Sovereign Grace Churches. What a delight that is. You mentioned the kinds of things that you and your team do to fulfill the mission of Sovereign Grace Music. Maybe give us a little more detail about a couple of the things that you do when it comes to Worship God or the Sound Plus Doctrine podcast, that sort of thing.
BOB KAUFLIN:
Didn't even mention the podcast. Yeah, Dave and I started the Sound Plus Doctrine podcast. We're just following your trail guys, just following your example, seeking to model what we do.
BENJAMIN KREPS:
They have more than zero production quality on their podcast.
BOB KAUFLIN:
Yeah. The songs we sing, what we've seen over the years, are the songs we sing; they come from a context, and they go into a context. So we never produced music just to get a song out there. It's to teach, it's to train, and it's to serve the word that's being taught. We write those kinds of songs. But the training aspects have to do with songwriting on one side.
We do different things to train songwriters. And then on the other side, it's the leadership. The Worship God conference is every other year. That's for whole teams, pastors, and anyone involved in planning and executing a Sunday morning service. We have the Worship Matters Intensive, which is 15 guys who come together for five days, Wednesday night through Sunday lunch. That's one of the most effective things we do. I do a bit of teaching there not as much as I used to, because it's a lot of conversation with guys in their local context, about their local context. Everyone leads, gets evaluated, and a real camaraderie develops.
The Sound Plus Doctrine podcast was started just to address the issues that every church faces week in and week out, and speak to them from a biblical perspective. Because what we've seen is there's a lot of stuff out there. It can tend to be emotion-driven, or personality-driven, and just not rooted in what God has said.
Because every generation is responsible for taking the traditions we've received or the new things we're creating, and bringing them to the light of God's word, to have God's word rule over or govern it, say, "This is what you can do. This is what you should do."
So that's what we're trying to do in the podcast. And I love it, Dave, and I do most of them. Devon, my son, will join us every season. But we've heard great feedback from people that we wouldn't expect to be listening, who know how helpful it is.
DAVID ZIMMER:
Yeah, no, that's well said.
MARK PRATER:
Yeah. Okay, bonus question, I'm just going to pick up on what you just said.
You guys travel - you're in different Sovereign Grace churches. What would be one or two ways you would hope that we could grow in worship or the leading of worship in our churches?
BOB KAUFLIN:
David has just been to a few of our churches, so I think that's the first. You were expecting me to answer, but I'm going to have you answer first.
DAVID ZIMMER:
I think what's been sweet to hear is that guys who are leading worship in their local churches for Sovereign Grace are going to the resources we've provided, and that’s been serving them. That's a sweet thing to see that some of our guys are listening to the podcast, coming to the intensive, or bringing other people in their context to train them up in the intensive. I just think that's been sweet, because we do that to serve our churches. Just like you guys are doing this podcast to serve your churches if people don't know about it, well then it's not serving them. To bring awareness to our churches that, hey, we have these resources, we want you to take advantage of them. It's sweet to see that happen.
BOB KAUFLIN:
And the two things that come to mind as a result of that would be just the songs we sing really matter. I know that sounds so obvious. But I hear of some churches singing songs that are 20, 30 years old, which is fine, but not all of your songs, or most of them. There are a lot of songs being written now that we've written to serve, and others have written as well, CityAlight, the Gettys to serve what the body needs, what the church needs to sing.
So if you're just riding the wave of what was popular in the '90s, or, well, that's the other thing, whatever's popular now, it's just, you're really not serving your church the way they could be served. Colossians 3:16 says we're to let the word of Christ dwell in us richly. So that's one point: the gospel needs to dwell in us richly. It should affect us intellectually. It should affect us emotionally. It should affect us in what we do and the choices we make.
But then we're teaching and admonishing one another. So what are these songs doing? How are they accomplishing that task? The other thing, Mark, is that liturgy is a funny thing. Liturgy is the order of the service; that's the way we understand it. It's the work of the people or the work of Christ for us. It can be seen in different ways. We may not always appreciate the importance of progression. Liturgy is a progression.
And some guys will kind of lean hard into, "Well, we've got the right forms, then we're okay." And that's just not enough. Bryan Chapell has a book, Christ-Centered Worship, which talks about the congregation's capacities, what a congregation can take in? So if we're doing things that they're not taking in, we're really not pastoring them well. We're really not serving them well.
And one of the things I think we've grown in, in our church, just in studying, what are our meetings supposed to be? It's just about making everything connect. So I do a seminar called Mind the Gaps, making the most of your transitions. And I find that when I go to a church, there will often be these moments where I'm aware of what just happened. Yeah, right. What's coming?
And so just thinking hard and long about, "Why this prayer? Why prayer at this time? Why this song? What's coming out of communion?" Those kinds of things those kinds of questions can end up enabling you to serve your church much more effectively. So, that's the two things. Let me say one more thing: the holiness of your people.
MARK PRATER:
Amen.
BOB KAUFLIN:
Never, never tire of saying it is God is more concerned about your private devotion than your public devotion. We just did a podcast on this, Hard Conversations With Yourself.
We did a few Hard Conversations podcasts, but the last one is Hard Conversations With Yourself: Does my public devotion exceed my private devotion? It's just like that. So just keep pressing into that. Don't take someone on your team who is really gifted musically, but is really not passionate about the glory of Jesus.
MARK PRATER:
Yeah, really well said.
But one of the things you just mentioned there is singing good songs or the right songs. Each year you guys lead an annual songwriter's retreat. Why do you have that songwriter's retreat? That's the first part of the question. Second part of the question, you just did your first Sovereign Grace Music Camp over the summer. Tell us why you did that as well.
DAVID ZIMMER:
Yeah. So, to the first question, we write songs because we're commanded to sing a new song. We can't exhaust the beauty of Christ and the expansiveness of his word and what he's communicating to us.
And we're also trying, that's a keyword, trying to write songs that specifically meet needs and specific themes. For preachers, when you're preaching, and you want a song that's going to pair well with what you're preaching, we want to write those songs. So we have specific themes and categories when we gather in Louisville with our songwriters.
And then we are striving to ensure that the next generation of Sovereign Grace writers has the training they need to write songs. And the best way to write good songs is to write a lot of bad ones, and have really nice people tell you how you can get better at that.
BOB KAUFLIN:
Not too nice.
DAVID ZIMMER:
Yeah, but not too nice.
So, we want to encourage writers in our churches hey, we want to help you get better at this. And so they're coming to hang out with us for five days and just be writing a lot, and we do training seminars. And so, it's just to see that continue, songs being written that serve our churches and the global church.
BOB KAUFLIN:
And we'd also love to see local churches encourage their songwriters.
One thing we can miss is the opportunity that songwriters in local churches have to serve the pastors who preach the word. They're in a series, and they think, "This could use a song." Write that song.
We will be happy to help evaluate and encourage those kinds of things. But don't wait for us to do that. We have a lot of resources on the Sovereign Grace Music site for songwriting training, a few of the conference messages, and look for songwriting. There's just a ton there.
But just doing it that's how we got started. We were writing songs about the things the pastors were preaching on. So we want to do both. Sovereign Grace Music exists as an entity; we produce albums and other such things. But what a wonderful thing it would be to see local churches encouraging that kind of fruitful songwriting in their local congregations.
MARK PRATER:
Amen. And the songwriter's excuse me, the Song Sovereign Grace Music Camp, talk about that.
BOB KAUFLIN:
Well, we did our first one this past year, had 12 individuals come, one from as far as Australia, which was just wonderful. And it was just a joy to be with them. And to be honest, a lot of it was just seeing them see, "Oh, that's what you shouldn't do. Oh, that's what you shouldn't do."
So, because that's what it is as a young songwriter: you don't realize that most young songwriters or young girl songwriters are doing similar things. We're trying to say too much. We're using melodies that are too weird. We're using imagery that's not quite biblical, those kinds of things.
So we've been talking about how we're going to follow up with that, like, should we do one this summer? Should we do another one? We're in process, but our goal is to talk about it, Relay with an interest meeting there, our goal is to find those that God has particularly gifted, to train anyone who wants training, but especially to find those that God has particularly gifted.
So we have Keaton Bunting in Florida, who's written two very popular songs for us, and she's in her early 20s, which is just great. We love that. We'd love to find more writers like that. But our hope is to train as many as we can.
BENJAMIN KREPS:
Excellent. Well, thank you, guys, for how you just pour yourselves out and think strategically about equipping and strengthening our churches, songwriting, and the camp, and all of these sorts of things.
We have benefited from all of that over the past few years. But you guys are also continuing to produce music for new albums. By the way, I might have to differ with you when it comes to selling CDs. There's a merch table over here, and the CDs were flying off the shelf to my great surprise. The vinyl I understand the CDs, I don't. So, give us a sneak peek what is the next album that you guys are working on?
DAVID ZIMMER:
Yeah, the next album is called Yours Alone.
They are songs I mean, all the albums that we write are songs for the gathered church but this is uniquely particular in some themes that we chose. So we have a song on communion and a song on repentance. We have a lot of each other's songs. We have a song on evangelism. And a lot of the language we use is corporate. And so I'm so excited about it. We filmed it, actually, in Pennsylvania at the other church.
BOB KAUFLIN:
Nick Kidwell's church – Valley Creek Church
DAVID ZIMMER:
Beautiful old church building.
And it looks like a Sunday morning. It's really unique. We hid all the cameras. We were trying to be really intentional about, if you just could peek in on what our Sunday would look like different generations, different races. Yeah, it's different, and it's just a really beautiful thing.
And so I'm really excited about that album. We're going to release them as singles, starting in February. And the whole album is coming out, I think, before the Worship God conference in July. Anything you want to add on that?
BOB KAUFLIN:
No, we're very excited about it.
Following that, we are working on a gospel scripture memory album, which is 24 scriptures or passages that walk through the entire gospel from creation to consummation. And just to read through them is a very edifying experience. We want to give not just kids, but families and Christians an album where, as you hear these songs, you're hearing the progression of why the gospel was needed, how it came, and what the fruit of it will be.
So I'm really excited about that. We're not sure when that's going to come out. We've involved a number of different writers Adam Wright of The Corner Room Music and Colin Buchanan over in Australia they're writing for us. We have these scriptures and it's just, you know, putting melodies to them.
But they're melodies that are moving and catchy and, you know, that make you want to sing these words so that word dwells in you richly.
MARK PRATER:
That's a great idea. Thanks for doing that.
BENJAMIN KREPS:
I can't wait.
MARK PRATER:
I can't wait.
BOB KAUFLIN:
We can't either.
MARK PRATER:
So when Sovereign Grace Music started 30, 40 years ago, no one probably thought that Sovereign Grace Music would have this growing, expanding influence not just in the United States but throughout the world.
And it's really been remarkable to watch the Lord lead that and to make opportunities for that. We could talk about a number of countries, but I'd like you guys to focus on the influence and impact Sovereign Grace Music has in Latin America.
BOB KAUFLIN:
Well, if you go on our YouTube channel, Sovereign Grace Music, the top 20 videos in terms of views, 13 of them, I checked the other day, 13 might be 14 are Spanish.
So, it was last year, or the year before, we started Gracia Soberana Musica, which is its own thing now, which Fabrizio Rodulfo leads for us. He's done a fantastic job. It goes back to 2013, 2014, when we recorded two albums with La Ibi in the Dominican Republic, where Miguel Nunez is.
There was a certain convergence of factors that caused those albums to explode in Latin America. And those songs are sung all over Latin America. Part of it was the production, the songs we had translated, as well as original songs. Jonathan Jerez was there.
It was just the Lord used it. He just said, "I'm going to make this something that has an impact." From that, we've been trying to follow up on all that fruit and produce albums that are very intentional in terms of they're not as produced. We're saying, "We don't want you to have big production necessarily. We do want you to sing the word of Christ, to let it dwell in you richly." We're going to have our first original Spanish album next year, based on the book of Ephesians.
But I didn't mention this earlier in terms of the connection between Sovereign Grace Music and Sovereign Grace Churches, a lot of those churches in Latin America came to know Sovereign Grace through our songs. When a pastor showed up, or somebody invited him to a conference in Juarez, where Carlos is pastoring, they would know the songs.
And then they'd see, oh, it's more than songs. It's relationships. Oh, it's governance. Oh, it's ongoing care. It's all these things. And so that, to me, is the ideal way for Sovereign Grace Music to be connected to Sovereign Grace Churches. And it happens in the States too. Some of our pastors are pastors because they initially came to a Worship God conference, an intensive, or heard our music somewhere.
And that's just a wonderful path that the Lord leads people on through the music. So that's happened especially in Latin America. So I can't name all the countries, but it's been so encouraging to see the Lord's kindness in giving us these opportunities to serve our Hispanic brothers and sisters.
DAVID ZIMMER:
Yeah, and because of its frequency of where that's happening, not only in Latin America, but to see that happening in Asia as well in the Philippines.
And we've been talking about using the phrase, "We write songs to plant and strengthen churches." It's that dual effect of what songs can do they can go before you to open up doors for that opportunity.
So man, that's just humbling to see that.
MARK PRATER:
It's encouraging to see, too.
BENJAMIN KREPS:
It is. We are a global family of churches, and so it is wonderful to hear about the expanding influence of Sovereign Grace Music globally not just here in the States as we partner together in this good work that God's doing.
So, thank you for the many years, Bob, that you have served us and continue to serve us. Thank you, David, for your important role and the way that you serve us in our family of churches. We're looking forward to another concert tonight. And look for that on YouTube, probably, I would guess, for the live performances of the Christmas songs from Sovereign Grace.So thank you, Mark, and thank you everybody for checking out the podcast.
We'll see you here next week, Lord willing. Bye for now.