All too often, pastors and ministry leaders are so busy with the details associated with Sunday morning worship that we forget the most important aspects of our gathering. In this episode, Joseph Crider and James Cheesman considers not only what’s at stake on Sunday mornings, but also some often-neglected keys to biblically-sound corporate worship.
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Joe Crider 0:06
I’m really honored today to be spending some time with a dear friend and brother, James Cheesman, and we’ve known each other for a little while, and we’ve had several connection points. One of the connection points is he’s one of our students. He’s in the PhD program. Another connection point is he’s an alumnus. He graduated here with his Masters of Music. And then also, we connected a couple years ago in New Orleans, when Pastor Bart Barber was leading the convention, and you led all of the worship, and we, our Southwestern Acapella, came in and helped on one of those days. And then last year, we kind of switched that around a little bit. We did the lion’s share of the worship, and then James came and helped us. But we have had such a great time connecting. And James, thanks for being here with us.
James Cheesman 0:59
Sure! It’s an honor. Thanks for inviting me. Thanks for inviting me to be a part.
Joe Crider 1:02
Today, I’m gonna ask James some questions, and we’re just gonna have a little dialog. And in the topic that Beka and I talked about and we just thought maybe would be helpful. And by the way, James and I have not spent any time together, this is not like a pre-planned interview. This is truly on the cuff. But one of the things that we wanted to hit is the idea of a vision for Sunday morning gathering. And so James, if I could just start off with this question, and this is again, cold for you. But do we need a vision for Sunday morning worship? And if we do, tell us a little bit about how you approach that?
James Cheesman 1:49
Sure, that’s a great, great question. I believe we do need a vision for Sunday morning worship. I believe it’s important to capture the importance of the day. It’s the Lord’s day. We’re called to gather together. We’re called to not forsake meeting together. And we’re called to worship the Lord. We’re called to worship the Lord corporately. So I think it is important to have a vision for what we’re doing on Sunday morning. I think it’s important to consider biblical worship principles. I think that’s where we should start. What does the Bible have to say about why we gather and what we do when we gather on Sunday morning? And I think it’s also important to consider the task of leading your church. “Church” is the the word is ekklesia, right? “Called Out.” We’re called out to gather together. And the local church is so important. And each local gathering is that local, called-out body of believers. And so it’s important to have a vision for your context. There’s biblical principles, and then there’s obviously your own local cultural context. And so I guess my first answer would be, it’s important to have a vision of what the Bible has to say for your people on Sunday morning.
Joe Crider 3:13
Yeah, that’s really good. I really like that a lot. And I think even as long as I’ve been doing this, and we’re going on close to 40 years now. I think the the stewardship and the weight that I feel on Sunday mornings is that that sense of somewhat urgency to help people realize that that we’re facilitating a divine dialog, between the Triune God of the universe and His redeemed people, and we get to do that. And sometimes I think we get so caught up in the minutia of the musical things, which is, I’m not diminishing the importance of musical excellence, that’s not at all what I mean. But we miss the opportunity for people to see their lives, the story of their lives, in the grand story of of the gospel, and as we present that gospel through worship, as we present that reality of the contour of the gospel and worship. And I think when you talk about that, it’s almost the idea of a macro view, right? Of this is what worship is. This is what we get to do on Sunday mornings. And then the micro view. This is our local church, and that that really becomes a key for us. And I think I feel that weight more now than I ever have in all the years I’ve been leading worship at First Baptist Church of Benbrook to help our people realize that they’re really stepping into that story and seeing their lives in light the story, their lives in light of the gospel. And that’s so vital. So when you think about that macro vision of worship, what would be some of those biblical principles, what would be some of those things that you’re aiming for in that vision on Sunday mornings? What would you say some of the things that you’re really wanting to hit on that Sunday morning?
James Cheesman 5:27
Well, first of all is remembering what we’re commanded and commended to do good. And I think of some passages like like Paul’s letter to Timothy, where he says, devote yourself to the public reading of Scripture good. And I think of Colossians 3:16 to let the word of Christ dwell in you richly as you teach and admonish one another with psalms, hymns and spiritual songs. I think of the call to remember the Lord at the Lord’s table and taking the Lord’s Supper. And I think of the importance of the opening the Word of God every week to hear the preaching, to hear expository preaching, and sit under the Word and be discipled. And so I think those are some of the big picture things that we’re commanded to do. You got to start there. You got to start with your big building blocks of that. We have to have the word of God saturating our worship service. Not just the sermon, either, but that’s why I say to start off with that Timothy, is devote yourself to the public reading of Scripture, even beyond what the preacher is about, which is, that was another big building block is preaching. Singing, that we’re singing the word of Christ. And I said the Lord’s Supper. Obviously, when you can celebrate baptism, I think that’s a part of Sunday morning, when possible, by all means, yes. And then, also prayers, you know, praying and that, like you said, the dialog that we’re communing with the Lord of the universe through Christ by the Spirit. And so prayer, the prayers of the people. And, I mean, we can go through countless scriptures about about prayer, sure, and drawing unto the Lord. So those are some of the big building block pieces, if you will, that I think are part of that macro vision.
Joe Crider 7:20
That’s really good. I’m really glad that you brought up the Colossians 3:16 verse, let the word of Christ dwell in you richly as you speak to one another in psalms, hymns and spiritual songs. It’s really interesting. I think if we could think through a vision for Sunday mornings, one of those is the the reality that we really don’t gather around music. Anybody who’s been in a class here has probably heard me say this, and I’m not trying to repeat myself, but I do think this is a really important principle. As you talk about those principles, I don’t think God would call us to gather around something that is that changes so frequently over time. I don’t think he would gather call us to gather around something that is so different in so many different cultures at this point, I don’t think you would call us to gather around something that we all have our different playlists in our own pockets. In other words, there’s not a music magic bullet that’s going to just gather everybody. Now, that’s not to diminish the importance of music. I think it elevates it. We gather around Jesus Christ, who never changes in His Word that doesn’t return void. And when we do that, then our music has that much more impact and that much more meaning. Music where we’re moving into what Paul admonishes, the Colossian church, and then, in a beautiful way, the Ephesians church, right? Don’t be drunk on wine, but be filled with the Spirit, as you teach one another in psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs. I think that’s worship in Spirit. Ephesians 5, and in truth, Colossians 3. It’s just kind of that beautiful way to look at it. But then our music has a purpose, then our music has a responsiveness, not to the music itself and not to the leader, but to the One, to our self-revealing God. And that’s the beauty of that. And I’m so grateful. If the Word doesn’t saturate our worship, then the question is to who or what are we responding? And I’ve seen a lot of worship leaders over the years be cheerleaders, and I just don’t think it’s quite their role. And I think their vision is something that I think maybe is a little different. So, what do you think are ways that that you have found that have been really effective for those at Farmersville, in communicating vision, what are some different ways that you’ve been able to to help communicate vision, a vision of worship, and vision on a macro level, and vision on a micro level.
James Cheesman 10:24
So when I first came to Farmersville, which it’s pretty amazing, coming up on 10 years. In May 2015, after graduating. So really early on, I think probably I had a few weeks off before starting. I wrote a blog post, and I have a website, so I can, you know, do that and share and try to use that. So I wrote a blog post about, oh, I should have remembered the title of it, and if I’m gonna bring it up, but it was basically about, about our worship needs to be Christ-centered. And it was about our worship service as a whole, being Christ-centered, but also our songs. I remember what it’s called. It’s called Songs Saturated with the Gospel. That’s how I said it. Because I wanted to both kind of just share some thoughts I had been thinking, but then also have this as something that my new church could read, you know, as they’re getting to know me that this is like, this is very important to me, that it’s not so much about– I mean, I love music, and I can talk styles all day and appreciate some of these styles. But I wanted to put it in front of everybody that my philosophy is that we should sing songs saturated with the gospel. Whether they’re those are hymns that are ancient, or whether those are hymns that are new, or, you know, contemporary songs you heard on the radio, if it’s saturated with the gospel, that was that’s my number one criteria for our vision. So I shared that with a blog post. And then very early on, also, I went through with our choir and our band, which we’re rehearsing. At the same time, I went through Isaiah 6. And how Isaiah 7 is how I model my worship service flow, and has been for years.
James Cheesman 12:23
So, Isaiah 6, I break it into basically four steps, which are kind of dual steps, so eight, but four. So the first one is revelation and adoration. So revelation because in Isaiah 6, he sees the Lord High lifted up, and he hears the angels respond, holy, holy. Holy is the Lord of hosts. So revelation and adoration is step one. Step two is confession and forgiveness. Because he cries out, woe is me. I’m a man of unclean lips, and I’ve seen the king, and I dwell among a people of unclean lips. But the forgiveness is when the Lord sends the angel, touches his tongues with that coal, and he says, Your sin is atoned for. And so that’s the next step, is confession and forgiveness. Step three is, I guess this is just one step, revelation of the Word, proclamation of the Word. And so once we have confession and forgiveness, then we move into the proclamation of the Word. And then the final step, four step, is commission and dedication. Commission and dedication, and that’s the Commission where he says, Here I am, Lord, or who will go for us, right? That’s the Commission who will go for us. Isaiah says, Here I am, send me. And so honestly, in Farmersville, and I’m okay with this, there are, there’s different views. As far as a vision for altar call, invitation, response time, right? Sure, should we weekly, be calling people to respond to the gospel, to accept Christ as their Savior, and so we do. We have an invitation as part of proclamation of the Word, but I see that as part of that commission and dedication, because for the person that has heard the Word proclaimed, their dedication is dedicating their life to Christ, that they would receive salvation and then live for him for the rest of the gathered church. There’s still a response. There’s a response that we need, just like Isaiah. Here I am, send me, and that’s the final step.
Joe Crider 14:37
That’s really good. So, in those kind of four or seven or eight. It really is beautiful how it lines up. If you think about in some ways, the four are the contour of the gospel itself, right? And I know Matt Boswell articulates it in His church of God, man, Christ, response. We also know it as you know creation, fall, redemption, consummation. There’s so many ways we can do that, but it is a beautiful contour, isn’t it? And I think so many times, when I was a young worship leader for years and years and years, I really thought that the gospel was something that was just tethered to the end of the sermon, when the pastor gave the invitation, and that was the gospel, right? And that was where the gospel was really proclaimed, and that’s where it worked. That’s where we sang, you know, Just As I Am, or, you know, one of the, one of the great songs, of the response songs, until I realized, wait a minute, this whole service is the proclamation of the gospel. Wasn’t it Spurgeon who said, I need to preach the gospel to myself every day. This is one of those things that is a reality, and for our people to be able to see that. Okay, so that’s wonderful. So it sounded like there too. I interrupted you a little bit. You did the blog to your church, and then you mentioned your worship and ministry team, right? So is that something that’s kind of an ongoing vision for them, that you’re constantly helping them to see what their role is? How does that work?
James Cheesman 16:12
Yes, absolutely. And I want it to be clear what our vision is, so that people know why we do what we do. We’re not just going there to go through the motions. I definitely spend the most time articulating that vision with the worship team which, at our church, is a choir and a piano, organ, rhythm section all together. So generally, have like, five or six players, and then the choir, that’s, you know, leading as well, which, you know, 20-30, for that week. So I definitely articulate it more with them. And then, then I’ll, you know, articulate to the church when possible, too, through like blogs or newsletter or emails or even Sunday morning, little sound, you know, clips.
James Cheesman 17:01
So another example recently of something about vision is we started last fall. We’re doing a hymn of the month, or a hymn song of the month. If you’ve been in church a while, like we did that when I was a kid, right? Not all the time, but, you know, sometimes it didn’t end the month. So this is not like I created this idea, right? But the this all started from actually reading a Trevin Wax article. You might have seen this. Did you see this Trevin Wax article about the accordion? Okay, so it’s a really cool article on The Gospel Coalition, and he talked about singing songs that have history and longevity. Okay, and I can’t remember the title of the article, but if you type in probably Trevin Wax accordion, you’ll find it because he was talking about how, you know, an accordion, you it expands to make that sound, there’s like this latent energy where you expand. So when we sing older songs or songs that have this longevity in a history, you’re kind of building off of this energy of not only the past of, you know, generations gone by, but even the past in your life, it’s really about the memories and what you’ve learned from that song at each successive time you sing. It’s this expansion. And basically he was talking about, like at Christmas Eve, how it’s so meaningful when we sing songs of the faith of Christmas Eve, Silent Night and Hark the Herald Angels Sing. And probably, if we didn’t sing those songs, you walk away from Christmas Eve feeling like I missed out. Yeah, because you missed that expansion.
James Cheesman 18:48
So stemming from that article, we talked about doing hymn of the month and what the goal was. We talked about it in our newsletters. We wanted to have songs that our church would memorize. So sing at church, sing at home, and memorize to carry with them. Not that every song has to be that there are songs for the moment, absolutely, there are songs written for the moment that hit the church today, but we need some songs to carry with us. What song will you sing when you’re at someone’s bedside when they’re having their last breaths, right? What song do you sing when you receive bad news, and you need to go to the Lord in prayer, and you need to have something that will minister to your faith. To have those songs. So we started doing this hymn of the month, and we’ve so far. We did like in January. We did Be Thou My Vision. We did Hark to Herald Angels Sing for December. We did Amazing Brace was the first one. So we sang it all month, and at the end, I make the church sing it by memory or with a little bit of a prompt, like the first word of each stanza. And so casting that vision to people was something that I started with our team. And then I told the church ni a newsletter, and then on Sunday morning, brother Bart and I both talked about it.
Joe Crider 20:11
I love that. And I think what you’re doing as well is you’re developing a shared vocabulary among your church, and even in a more specific way, a shared vocabulary among those families as they sing those at home. And it becomes so much more than about the music. I mean, it becomes so much more than just the music, and probably ways in which people have sung those hymns and thought about the words in ways they haven’t thought about them, maybe ever. So that’s a beautiful thing. As you think about continuing to encourage your congregation in that way, any stories that have come out of it, any things that people have said to you, like this has really changed my view, or anything like that. Since you’ve been doing this?
James Cheesman 21:12
There was one really cool story I could share. So first month was Amazing Grace. And everyone was really, really, they were actually very excited that first month, I’m sure. And an Amazing Grace, obviously, is what we would hope we would know. But you know, you get to that third, second, third stanza, and it’s not quite as familiar, sure, but the cool story was, lady from our church, one of our deacons wives. She’s like head of our fellowship team. She said, James, I gotta tell you, last week, I had to go for an MRI, and I’d never been an MRI before, and I don’t like being in closed spaces, and so when I went to that MRI, I was just like, What do I how do I calm down? What can I do? What do I sing? She said, I’m gonna sing Amazing Grace. And she sang Amazing Grace in her head as she went through that MRI, and she said, that was great that I had that to sing, to sing to myself, and it helped calm me down, and it really helped me get through that MRI. So that was a pretty cool story from that.
Joe Crider 22:07
That’s a really awesome thing. I have a dear friend named Frank Lewis, and he was the pastor for many, many years at First Baptist Nashville, and we’ve known each other forever, and Frank does a ministry to pastors, and especially pastors who are going through really difficult times. And he always says, you need a scripture, you need a friend, and you need a song. And and nine times out of the ten of that songs a hymn with a deep theology that is somewhat of an anchor, right? And that’s the vision that I’m kind talking about, because it gives something for people to realize on on Sunday mornings that is more than just we’re here to follow this little set of kind of traditions. But this is spiritually forming. This is forming and shaping the spiritual lives of our people and so often I’m wanting pastors, and I hope pastors realize that, yes, the message, the sermon, is central to Christian worship. I think Luther felt like you shouldn’t even gather if the Word is not centered. But I think Luther also realized that pedagogy and doctrine and the shaping of of spiritual lives was going to come from what they sang and and I’m so excited and so anxious about helping pastors see this vision, not just the worship leaders. And it doesn’t surprise me a bit known Bart. It doesn’t surprise me a bit.
James Cheesman 24:02
It’s incredible. And I’ve always had that from him. We’ve had a great working relationship. You know, from day one, he’s always been very supportive of, you know, anything we’re doing, very supportive of the choir, very supportive of the song selection, you know that I pick, he’s just a supportive person in general. It’s all the mystery, but he definitely is very akin to me in our worship philosophy. And so it makes it so easy that I can teach and, you know, reinforce the philosophy, knowing that we’re, you know, hand in hand.
Joe Crider 24:39
That is the key, isn’t it? Be on that same page. We often tell our students a paradigm that they probably get really tired of me saying, but our theology informs our philosophy, which informs our methodology, if we’re if we’re methodologically doing things out there that have no rootedness, either theologically or biblically, then the question is, why are we doing them? What’s the reason we’re doing that? And I think your intentionality of that, your specific view of that is really helpful. Anything else you want to mention that that I haven’t asked about is certainly about anything with vision or and I’m not pressing it you, we you can probably tell the week, none of this was rehearsed. This is truly on the cuff, but I’ve really enjoyed this time with you. This is, yeah, you’re gonna have to do this at comprehensive exams again, but it you do what you just did there, you’re you’re gonna be in really good shape, because that that was well done, that was well done.
