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An extension of the ministry of Stone Oak Bible Church. Stone Oak Bible Church is located in North Central San Antonio, TX. We would love to have you join us.
Welcome to the SOBC Pod. This is an extension of the ministries of Stone Oak Bible Church in San Antonio, Texas. Got a new guest with me this morning, new to the podcast, definitely not new to our church though. I'm sitting with Kaitlyn.
Kaitlyn:Hello.
Craig:Hi, Kaitlyn.
Kaitlyn:Hi.
Craig:Kaitlyn serves as our worship director at Stone Oak Bible Church. Kaitlyn, how long have you and first introduce us to yourself, your family, do that.
Kaitlyn:Like Craig said, I'm Kaitlyn, Kaitlyn Davila. My husband is Randy Davila. You all probably recognize him from the stage or the sound booth. And we have two kids, Emerson and Evelyn. Emerson is almost seven, Evelyn is almost four this month.
Craig:Nice. Yeah. Big birthday plans?
Kaitlyn:Yes. Well, I decided to make myself a little crazy, and I'm doing two parties on the same Saturday back to back.
Craig:What? Yeah. Why?
Kaitlyn:Normally, up until now, their birthdays are so close together. I've been able to do their parties jointly together.
Craig:Okay.
Kaitlyn:But this year they wanted some just drastically different things. I couldn't make the themes match. Emerson wanted bowling and Evelyn wanted princesses. So same day, knock Yeah. It all out in one
Craig:Yeah, he is his father's
Kaitlyn:Yeah, makes sense.
Craig:Awesome. How long have you guys been at Stone Oak?
Kaitlyn:I think that we started attending summer or fall of twenty seventeen.
Craig:Okay.
Kaitlyn:We were you were still at Oh, Stuttgart no.
Craig:Oh, wow. Mhmm. Okay. So you've been with us at every single location then?
Kaitlyn:Yes. Yeah.
Craig:Yeah. Stuttgart Elementary was very first location.
Kaitlyn:Yes.
Craig:And you've been on our team as worship director since?
Kaitlyn:Officially since 2019. Okay. But I started serving on the worship team as soon as we moved to Bush. Didn't serve at Sonoke Elementary, so I don't know if that was early twenty eighteen, sometime around there. Seemed like it pretty quickly led into worship leader.
Kaitlyn:Yeah, absolutely. It was just as natural for me. It's what I've done for a long time. Yeah. Then I led unofficially for probably about a year, I think, or a little over a year maybe, and then officially became the worship director.
Craig:So you said worship is something that you've done before? Yes. What's that background look like for you?
Kaitlyn:I grew up in the church and I grew up singing and music. So my whole life has been in music and in church.
Craig:Why did you grow up in singing? My
Kaitlyn:mom's family is heavily involved in music. They all sing. My mom's father, so my grandpa was a Nazarene evangelist, and so I grew up at the Nazarene church.
Craig:And
Kaitlyn:very different style singing there. We did singing specials. Me and my mom sang on the stage at church all the time.
Craig:Did you guys do the offering time specials of whenever they're passing the plate?
Kaitlyn:And then kind of just a random, like, Hey, Kaitlyn's gonna be singing today on stage.
Craig:How old were you whenever you really first started singing and doing worship?
Kaitlyn:I would say I first started singing on stage at church when I was five. Wasn't doing worship, I wasn't leading worship, but I started singing on stage at church at that time. And then throughout my childhood or elementary years when I was in our kids' church, I would lead our kids, same age, just I'd be up at the front with a couple other other kids, leading them through Back in the day, did all the motions Then and into middle school, we started a worship band at our church with our youth group, which my husband Randy was on with me.
Craig:Is that where you guys met?
Kaitlyn:Yes. Yeah. His family moved to Texas when we were 13, and we were on that worship team together.
Craig:So you guys are like middle school sweethearts.
Kaitlyn:We started dating when we were 15, so technically high school, but
Craig:Yeah. Yep. Knew each other since
Kaitlyn:13.
Craig:Yeah. Incredible. So you mentioned something in there. You said you started singing, but you didn't start worship. How would you distinguish the difference between both of those things?
Kaitlyn:I guess there isn't really a difference. Right? It's all worship. I think I just mean more of, like, I wasn't leading worship
Craig:Okay.
Kaitlyn:As in I wasn't leading, like, a congregation Yeah. Through worship at that young of an age. I was worshiping by singing in church.
Craig:Yeah. What do you enjoy about worship? You've been doing this role for a while. What is it that excites you about just worship music?
Kaitlyn:We'll probably talk about this here in a little bit, but I just love the aspect of the lyrics, like the words. It's super important to me what we sing. Naturally, I'm just a musical person, so it's the biggest way that I worship. It's the most comfortable, easy thing for me to do because I naturally want to sing all the time or to play music in general. But I enjoy being able to pick the songs that I sing personally, that we sing at church, and discern what glorifies God.
Kaitlyn:I also enjoy the team aspect of it. I've always liked being on a band, so I love being able to spend time with our worship team and get to share that experience with them.
Craig:Yeah. Let's take a step back and hit through, you have an interesting career outside of what you do at the church. You do minimal hours at the church. I say that you do maximum hours at the church with minimal pay, a little bit different.
Kaitlyn:Was gonna say not minimal.
Craig:Yeah, you have a full time job though, and you've been doing kind of in a specific sphere of work for quite a while. So take us back to college. What'd go to college for?
Kaitlyn:My degree is in music therapy.
Craig:Okay. And you went, was it TWU?
Kaitlyn:Yes, Texas Which Woman's
Craig:is Denton, correct? Suburb of Dallas. And you went for music therapy?
Kaitlyn:Why? Like the typical kid in high school, what am I gonna do after high school? What am I gonna go to school for? I always wanted to do something in music. I didn't know what that would be.
Kaitlyn:I, for a long time, thought the only option was some type of performance, music performance, which I didn't really want to do.
Craig:Whenever you say music performance, you're cutting CDs and you're starting a band.
Kaitlyn:Or more, because I'm classically trained. So through high school and college, I sang classical music. So it could have been more classical type performance or
Craig:Like opera?
Kaitlyn:Not opera. People that I went to school with did opera, but
Craig:Have you ever done opera?
Kaitlyn:I have sung songs that are from operas, but I
Craig:Have you ever yodeled?
Kaitlyn:No. No. It's not my style.
Craig:Okay.
Kaitlyn:But classically singing is, you know, in all
Craig:different That means nothing to me. What do you whenever you say classically singing, what does that mean?
Kaitlyn:I don't know how to describe it. I'd have to show you.
Craig:Whenever you would
Kaitlyn:probably just think opera, but it's
Craig:not Whenever I think of classical, think of, like, Beethoven.
Kaitlyn:Yes. Like Ave Maria, things like that. But a lot more songs and a lot of different languages.
Craig:Okay.
Kaitlyn:So I, yeah, I didn't know what that would look like, but I originally applied and got into UNT for vocal performance. My main instrument is my voice. I wasn't super thrilled about it. I was just like, Okay, well, this is where I'm going. And I remember towards the probably middle of my senior year of high school, I was in my voice lessons at school with voice teacher.
Kaitlyn:And she asked me if I had heard of music therapy, and I hadn't. So I was like, No, what is that? She kind of explained a little bit to me. She didn't know how broad it actually was, but basically she said it's a field where you can use music and help people in some way, which I've always wanted to be in some sort of a helping profession. I've been an empath, a helper my entire life, so I always wanted to do something in that regard.
Kaitlyn:I'd thought of counseling, I'd thought of other avenues within those kinds of career fields. When she told me about it, I went and did some research and quickly found out this was something that could pair my two passions together. I could use music and I could help people in some way. So then I ended up applying to TWU and got in there and started my degree in music therapy.
Craig:What's a degree in music therapy look like? Is it It's You have two different kind of fields there that you've mentioned there. You've got the music side and you've got the therapy side. Yes. You've got the skill of kind of music and you have the skill also of counseling.
Craig:Mhmm. So, like, class wise, degree wise Yeah. What does that actually look like?
Kaitlyn:It's about 60% music based. So learning instruments, learning theory.
Craig:How many different instruments do you play? Can you play right now?
Kaitlyn:Can I play right now? Yeah. Piano, guitar, other string instruments similar to a guitar, like a ukulele. Those are the primary ones I play right now, but in college I learned all kinds of instruments. I took four semesters of piano there.
Kaitlyn:I also started learning piano from the age of five as well. We took a semester of guitar. I played the auto harp, which is an instrument probably nobody knows what I it played the accordion. I played
Craig:You played the accordion. Where's this skill been the whole time?
Kaitlyn:Two semesters of accordion with
Craig:Two my two semesters.
Kaitlyn:With my two roommates who we
Craig:practiced Do you have our an accordion?
Kaitlyn:I do not, no. Okay. I borrowed one from school. My friend loved the accordion and ended up buying one, but I don't think she has it anymore.
Craig:That's fantastic.
Kaitlyn:And then we had to take like a whole semester of percussion. So think of any percussion instrument down to a cowbell, down to a shaker. Like, we had to learn.
Craig:Wooden blocks.
Kaitlyn:Yes. Like all things. Fun. Congos, all kinds of instruments.
Craig:Okay, so you hit the musical side. Talking about the therapy side, what
Kaitlyn:So the rest of is 40% of the degree is based in psychology. So we take Psychology 101, we take all those psychology classes that progress through We learn about the DSM-five, which is the book that has all of the diagnoses in it. And we learn about all of the diagnoses in-depth. And then that's arranged because music therapists can serve a wide array of populations. Music therapists can work in school districts with kids with disabilities and helping with learning, helping with speech, helping with behaviors.
Kaitlyn:And they can work in hospitals with people who are going through procedures, with kids who are in the hospital that are sick, helping with pain management, anxiety, helping the parents to cope. Some music therapists work in psychiatric facilities. Some could be day psychiatric facilities. Some could be inpatient psychiatric stays, using music to just help with whatever their goals are. And then I went into hospice work, so I worked in hospice.
Craig:Why'd you go that route?
Kaitlyn:Initially, I went that route because it was an opportunity for me to get an internship. After you finish your degree or your school work, you are required to do a six month internship.
Craig:You say you're required. Who makes that requirement? Is this like a national thing or is it like a
Kaitlyn:It's a certification board.
Craig:Okay.
Kaitlyn:So you have to meet all the requirements, the education
Craig:For music therapy?
Kaitlyn:For music therapy, yeah. At the end, you do your internship. In Texas, there aren't a ton of them, and there are almost none that are paid. I was able to find an internship here in San Antonio that was a six month paid internship. Paid, I say that loosely.
Kaitlyn:It was a stipend, so not a lot, but it was something. And I was newly married. I say newly, we were probably two years married, but we were young. Got married when we were young. You know, we needed any type of
Craig:income And that we could your marriage story is also incredible. How Randy graduates from high school. Yep. And tell us his story. Where's he going?
Kaitlyn:He went into the Navy right out of high school. High school's kind of used loosely as well. He was homeschooled. So whenever he turned 18, he signed up for the Navy. Like I said, we started dating at 15, so we'd been together for three ish years at that point.
Kaitlyn:And I knew he wanted to go into the military for a while, And so he shipped out to boot camp. When he turned 18, I saw him off. We were long distance, actually, a long time after that. We were long distance while he did boot camp, then as he started his career in the Navy, and I started college.
Craig:Yeah. And you guys got married and he shipped off how soon after?
Kaitlyn:Yes, we got married. I was 20 and he was 21, and he came home for the wedding about three days before we got married.
Craig:Yeah, that's not stressful at
Kaitlyn:We got married, and he stayed for, I think, maybe three days after the wedding, or four days after, and then went back to Florida, which is where he was based, and shipped out on deployment a a week and a half ish after we got married for ten months. And I went back to college.
Craig:Okay.
Kaitlyn:Yeah.
Craig:Yeah. Welcome to marriage. It's gonna be great. You're gonna set up your home and all the fun things you think about marriage. But for you guys, was like, we got married and then we don't see each other for ten months.
Kaitlyn:Yes. That's hard. Yeah, we didn't live together until I finished school. So he got back from his deployment and he did some mini deployments after that, so he was still going back out on short little trips. And then when I finished school, I moved up to Florida for about five months, and then he got out of the military, and we moved back here.
Kaitlyn:I say home, was my home. It was his home, but he's not from Texas. We moved back to Texas and then we moved to Austin, which is where I was when I started my internship.
Craig:Good place for music.
Kaitlyn:Yeah.
Craig:Lots of therapy needed in that city as well.
Kaitlyn:Yes.
Craig:But a good place for music. So you do this internship and the internship is geared toward hospice care.
Kaitlyn:So
Craig:it wasn't on your radar, but it was available for you. Walking in, tell me about that. Did you love it? Did you hate it? Was it just an internship or did you fall in love with that
Kaitlyn:sort I definitely fell in love with it because I've stayed in hospice and still in hospice now over twelve years later. I went into it excited. I wasn't necessarily nervous. I think I've always had a good grasp on death. It's a very taboo subject in our culture, but I firmly believe it shouldn't be because we need to be aware of what our life is gonna look like and we get to be in charge of that.
Kaitlyn:We get to make choices and it's an empowering thing. I had had a very minimal exposure to hospice. My grandfather was on hospice whenever he passed away. I saw just a very little bit of it before I went into that internship, but I very quickly fell in love with it. Whenever you do your internship, you have a supervisor.
Kaitlyn:So I had an established music therapist who was supervising me. When you start out, you're with that supervisor all the time. You go with them to their visits, you observe, and then you slowly take on leadership, take on patients, and then midway through your internship, you're on your own and handling your own caseload. I would say it was probably my first patient that she gave to me where she never saw this patient, I only saw this patient. It was an older gentleman, probably in his 80s.
Kaitlyn:He lived in an assisted living facility. His family was involved, but they lived an hour and a half away. So they only came to see him once a week, every other week to bring him more supplies, snacks, food, and things like that, visit him for a little bit. So mostly it was our hospice team that was going in to see him. So our nurses and our hospice aides and our chaplains, our social workers, and myself as a music therapist.
Kaitlyn:And he had dementia, and he couldn't really remember a lot about his life. He knew that he had a family. He knew that he had been in the military. He had a picture on the wall of him and his wife, and he couldn't tell me her name, though. He loved Frank Sinatra, and so I would sing Frank Sinatra with him for thirty, forty minutes.
Kaitlyn:And one day I was singing Fly Me to the Moon with him, and he just started to cry. I continued to play this song, which is another thing that people often don't feel comfortable with, right? If someone starts to cry, someone might think like, I Oh, I should should stop singing. But really, the goal is to let them feel whatever they're feeling. Let them express what they're expressing.
Kaitlyn:Don't try to cut short that emotion. So I continued playing the song with him, I got to the end of that song, and I just let it be quiet for a few minutes. And then I asked him, What made you emotional today? And he looked over at that picture of him and his wife on the wall, and he told me her name, and he said, I remember her name, and told me, Thank you. And it was just a moment.
Kaitlyn:He went right back to not remembering things and not knowing things, but he was able to have this moment of clarity and a moment of happiness. He wasn't sad, he wasn't upset, he was joyful. Yeah. And I remember sitting there and just feeling that overwhelming full body goosebumps of like, Oh my goodness, I just helped him with this. Yeah.
Kaitlyn:And I remember leaving that visit and I called my supervisor and I was like, I love hospice. Like, I love doing this. I love being able to be with people in these moments. And that was kind of just the beginning. There's so much more to it that I came to love.
Craig:Yeah. Music is one of those interesting things, especially whenever you see it with patients with dementia. They can often forget so many things, but there's something about music that, I don't know what it is, it just kind of sticks with us.
Kaitlyn:It's because it's wired differently in our brains compared to all other things.
Craig:Good scientific knowledge. So what does that look like to be a music therapist doing a hospice? What are you actually doing?
Kaitlyn:Yeah, that's a great question because a lot of people think that it's just playing music or people think I might play music from my iPod back in the day. So I travel around the city. It was here in San Antonio, we would go Our office was in Stone Oak, but we covered a 60 mile radius. So anywhere 60 miles around town we could travel to. So I traveled to patients' homes and I primarily took my guitar with me instead of a keyboard or things like that because it's just easier Portability.
Kaitlyn:To all of my sessions would start with talking, so not music. I would check-in with them, see how they're feeling, check on their pain, check on their physical. In hospice care, it's much more clinical music therapy work. So I am concerned on their physical comfort and those things and what's going on, but also their emotional, spiritual comfort as well. And so a lot of my visits would be talking with them about what's going on.
Kaitlyn:If there's family there, often family would join in on our sessions. And if a patient was in pain, then my goal would be to use the music to help ease that pain. It helps to do that because first, it's a distraction, right? It's a distraction from what we're feeling. But also, like you already said, music works differently and it connects us to other moments in our life.
Kaitlyn:And if I can use a song to help someone remember a memory, they can then start talking about that. That physical pain tends to decrease whenever you're expressing other emotions or remembering memories of joy. I would also use music to help with shortness of breath by playing music in a certain way. In the music therapy world, it's called the ISO principle, which is basically just meeting someone where they're at. So if someone was experiencing shortness of breath and labored breathing, I would start by playing a song, one of their favorite songs, in tempo with their breathing.
Kaitlyn:So matching their breathing. It's a form of validation. They can hear that someone else is matching what they're experiencing. Yeah. And then I would slowly shift the music and decrease the tempo, change the sound, make it calmer to help their breathing mirror that and bring their comfortability leveled
Craig:up. Interesting.
Kaitlyn:Yes.
Craig:So you're working with a team and you're coming in alone to You really don't know what you're stepping into, correct? Yeah. Okay. So you do the kind of clinical side of checking in with a patient. Yeah.
Craig:What's the musical side look like? Is this like DJ Kaitlyn? Do I just get to request whatever we want?
Kaitlyn:Pretty much. I mean, it's all an assessment. So I'm assessing their physical state and then I'm assessing their emotional state. And then it's almost like an interview of, tell me, what are your favorite songs? What are your favorite artists?
Kaitlyn:What's your favorite decade? What's your favorite genre? Most of the time, when you and I are older, the music that we're gonna refer back to is likely gonna be the music from our 20s,
Craig:What's our primary gonna be your go to? What's your go to?
Kaitlyn:Mine will be a lot of emo music. Yeah, of course. What we'd listen to when we were 15, 16, 17 years old.
Craig:Some Blink.
Kaitlyn:Some Blink 01/1982.
Craig:Some Avril.
Kaitlyn:Yes. Yeah.
Craig:You just went to a concert on Saturday?
Kaitlyn:Yes. Yellow Card.
Craig:Yellow Card. Yeah. Great. Yeah. What is the, in your history as music therapist, what is the most requested song that you've sang?
Kaitlyn:I would say probably, there's probably a lot, like if I could go genre by genre and tell you like a most requested song, but what first comes to my mind is Fly Me to the Moon by Frank Sinatra. Okay. Because that's the population Yes. That I was working And anything kind of big band ish along those And John Denver, Country Roads.
Craig:Yes. That's what
Kaitlyn:it is. Which my husband would tell you is the same thing. He's probably heard that song a million What's
Craig:the most odd request that you ever got?
Kaitlyn:Odd request. I've I've been requested to like, I've played Stairway to Heaven. I've played songs that you wouldn't think one person with an acoustic guitar could sing. I've done, obviously adapted, and they always love it because they're like, wow, how'd you do that? But I'm sure there's some others.
Craig:Yeah.
Kaitlyn:Yeah.
Craig:So transition with me. How has music therapy, how has that influenced, given you perspective, just helped you in the role of leading worship for a church?
Kaitlyn:Well, I think a big part of my role as a music therapist, which I haven't touched on yet, well, I mentioned that I'm always assessing their emotional needs. The biggest part that I enjoyed from working with patients, which said I'm still working in hospice, I'm just not working with patients currently right now. So when I was still working with patients, my favorite part was actually the grief work. So talking about grief of loss of life, whether that's with the patient themselves, of them grieving, knowing that they're going to die and leave their family, or sitting and talking with the family, with their In loved hospice work, we continue to follow our patients' families for up to thirteen months, more if necessary, but-
Craig:That's an odd number. Why thirteen months?
Kaitlyn:It's what's regulated by Medicare.
Craig:Okay.
Kaitlyn:Yeah. And so we would continue to follow-up with them. Some people would go beyond that if they were struggling with more complicated grief issues, but I really enjoyed the aspect of being able to just sit and talk with someone and help them through this time. It's such an intimate time in anyone's Absolutely. And I enjoyed doing that with adult children, adult family members, but also younger children would sometimes be involved with our company.
Kaitlyn:We did a children's bereavement camp every year, every two years, and I always loved being able to do that part as well because I like connection. So I think, not that I'm doing grief work in worship, but it helped me to relate to people in all areas.
Craig:Yeah. You know, one of the things that you mentioned is there is an emotional side to music. And we can see within the life of the church that this can be unfortunately manipulated in some ways, specifically around music. The way that we choose to utilize music can be positive, but it can also have a negative effect. It's where we're driving towards an emotional response to the music, honestly, rather than the gospel.
Craig:How do we kind of fence around that? How do we protect that aspect of, you know, there are emotions involved and there should be emotions involved. We were created by God with emotions. Mhmm. How do we protect that though?
Kaitlyn:From like a large, a corporate setting, I feel like you probably can't protect everyone all at one time because you don't know what everyone is walking in the door with and what they're walking through. But a lot of my background is in that of knowing how to read how someone is receiving certain things. I think in our setting, a corporate worship setting, I wouldn't know unless someone came up to me and told me, Hey, this is what I experienced during worship today.
Craig:But
Kaitlyn:holding space for those things being available to to talk with people if if it brings something up. Also, there's an aspect of just worship in churches that some churches that you may go to will use those things intentionally to get a bigger reaction because they want to have a bigger emotion, because they want you to come back next week. Being cautious and knowing, having that discernment of the intention of who is leading the worship.
Craig:Yeah. It's an aspect of allowing emotion, but not trying to manipulate.
Kaitlyn:Push emotion. Yeah.
Craig:Okay. Let's talk about just your weekly rhythms of worship. Walk us through what does a typical week of prep look like? What are the things that happen behind the scenes that nobody really sees? Yours is, they say the word performance, but yours is a performative aspect of ministry.
Kaitlyn:And
Craig:with all performance, there's a lot that happens on the back end that nobody really sees. So what's a typical week look like as the worship director of Sonoke Bible Church? And what are the things that we never get to see that are happening on the back end?
Kaitlyn:I would say the start of my week for Sonoke Bible Church starts on a Monday, right? Because Sunday is like the final day, right? The performance. Not performance, but it's So Monday kind of resets. So Monday typically is when I'm going to be starting to look at what is the sermon for next week.
Craig:Okay, so you're starting with the scripture that will be preached for the upcoming Sunday.
Kaitlyn:Yes. Okay. And then I will start to, you know, I'll read through that scripture several times. I will probably go and look at some commentaries on it, look up interpretations on it, biblical interpretations through those trusted commentary. Really though, it's more just reading through it Yeah.
Kaitlyn:Over and over again. And then I will start to think of songs that relate to that scripture.
Craig:So you're almost like looking at main theme Mhmm. That the text provides. And then from there, you're thinking through other themes that either are identical themes. So if the topic is grief, you're thinking through what songs cover something such as grief. Yeah, morning.
Craig:What is the opposite effect of that?
Kaitlyn:Yes, Okay. So Mondays, I try to get all of my songs chosen by Monday. It doesn't always happen. Tried Tuesdays, my last day that I I don't wanna go past a Tuesday. I wanna have all my songs in our planning center list so that the band can see them there and get prepared for our rehearsal.
Kaitlyn:So once I have those songs picked, I'll get them all into planning center, kind of that more boring part of And the then I will, on Tuesday, Wednesday, myself at home kind of sing through them. I guess another thing I'll do on Monday and Tuesday is look at singability of what key should they be in. If someone else is gonna be leading a song, then I may have to reach out and ask them, Does this one work? Sometimes I will record myself singing the song so that I can then sing it back with the harmonies to make sure that the harmonies aren't too high or they aren't too low, someone else could sing the harmonies with Especially if it's a new song, then I'll do that. Our more established ones, I don't have to do that anymore because I know what key we sing them at.
Kaitlyn:But when I bring on any new songs, then that's kind of my process for that.
Craig:And then
Kaitlyn:Thursdays, we have band practice in the evening time, and the band comes together and we practice for about two hours.
Craig:Then
Kaitlyn:from there, it's kind of changed over the years. I used to We used to take our computer home with us, and I would do song lyrics on Friday or Saturday evening and get that all in to ProPresenter to have the lyrics for Sunday. Yeah. And then Sunday morning.
Craig:Yeah. Yeah. So how do you You mentioned something in there. If it's a new song, there's a little bit more work on your end that goes into it. How do you balance between singing familiar songs and introducing new ones?
Craig:What does that look like?
Kaitlyn:I feel like I probably used to have more I used to want to pick more songs back when I was first starting that would maybe be more familiar, I don't think that I really think about that now because I know the culture of our church, and they will learn a song. And it's about how you introduce it. So I typically will introduce a new song. I'll try to acknowledge that in our service so that they're aware of that, that it's a new one, that they haven't heard it before, so it might not be super familiar this week. And typically, I will either do that new song again the next Sunday or So the Sunday after within two weeks of introducing a new song, I will do it again, which I feel like some people would probably think that's repetitive, that's not enough of change, but that's how you learn.
Kaitlyn:You're gonna learn by singing it again. And then I also keep a playlist on Spotify where I will add all of our songs for the people that already know about it, then they will see that there if they're listening. Or people ask me from time to time, How can I know? Because I've been told, I don't know a lot of these songs with some of our newer people that come to our church, and I will refer them to that playlist of, Hey, download this and just listen to it when you're listening to music, and you'll start to learn.
Craig:And I'll put the link to the Spotify playlist in the description down below. If you're listening to this and you're wondering where that playlist is, just go to the description and you can click the link there to access the Spotify playlist. How do you find new music?
Kaitlyn:These days, I would say that I have a core group of bands or worship groups that I go to first.
Craig:Okay. Can you mention some of them? Who are the people that you're listening to?
Kaitlyn:Sovereign Grace, City of Light is a really big one, probably one of my favorite ones. The Gettys, Matt Boswell, those are probably the core of if you looked at our database of songs, a good majority are gonna come from those groups. Doesn't mean that there aren't others mixed in there, but a big part of my process and one of the main filters that I look through, or lens that I look through, is does the song have theological depth? So if I hear a new song or I'm trying to choose a new song, I am looking at the lyrics, which I don't know that I realized how closely music therapy kind of relates to what I do now, because in music therapy, we have a term that's called lyric analysis. And so you would do lyric analysis as a therapist, but you do that with your patients too.
Kaitlyn:It's how you can pull out from a song what you relate to, basically. So I use that process essentially in choosing whether or not I'm going to sing a song. Looking at the lyrics, just like I said, my process of setting up my songs for the week. I'm reading our scripture for the week, whatever pastor, if it's Justin or you or whoever's preaching that week, whatever y'all are preaching on, I will read that passage. Then I will look at the songs, and I will read the lyrics, and I'm looking for that theological depth.
Kaitlyn:I want the songs that we're singing to point back to God's character and the work of Christ and the gospel. It's really important to me that those songs point to Christ because corporate worship is a vital part of our worship as Christians, and we're not meant to do that alone. We're meant to do that with family, with community. And sometimes in church, that might be the only time someone listens to worship music. I don't want to sing songs that have a heavy emphasis on the self, ourself, or is a song about proclaiming things over ourselves or singing promises that don't come from God's word.
Craig:Okay.
Kaitlyn:So I want to
Craig:Can you think of any songs that would fit that category to give us kind of a a context of what you're speaking towards? Put you on the spot there.
Kaitlyn:Yeah. I I'd probably have to have more, like, thought to come up with a really, really, really good example. I one that came to my mind, which by no means is it a bad song, but Oceans. Like, you think of songs like that, where if you really look at the lyrics, what is it about other than kind of just the feel good of you're great, this is great Uh-huh. Kind of vibe.
Kaitlyn:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Good.
Craig:So you mentioned the the lyrical aspect of new music is one of the things you look at. What else are you looking at whenever it comes to a new song?
Kaitlyn:Oh, singability. That's also- How
Craig:do determine that, by the way?
Kaitlyn:Which is also something that I did in my everyday practice as a music therapist.
Craig:Okay.
Kaitlyn:Because the goal for when I was working with patients is for them to be able to sing along with me. Yeah. If I'm singing in a key that isn't easy to sing in, they're not going to be engaged and they're not going to be able to participate. Same goes for corporate worship. If I choose a song and I don't choose the key appropriately, and the song is way too high, or the song is way too low, or the melody is complicated, if it's moving too much, if it sounds just kind of funky, if there's a weird beat, if it is distracting, those things can take you out of the moment where you can't fully experience the worship or engage in the worship in the way that you want to.
Kaitlyn:So I think through all of those things when I'm picking songs as well, when I'm picking the keys that we're singing in.
Craig:Yeah.
Kaitlyn:So
Craig:one of the things I mentioned earlier, it is a performative ministry.
Kaitlyn:There
Craig:is a skill set that is necessary and needed to be a part of that team. Yet at the same time, you're trying to balance the heart aspect of those that are on your team more so than the performative aspect of the skill necessary to be a part of your team. Yours is one of those unique teams that not everybody that is in our church can necessarily be a part of and join because it is a skill based in many ways ministry. What qualities are you looking for in a worship team volunteer?
Kaitlyn:First and foremost, it's the heart. So where is your heart?
Craig:So everybody that cannot sing, you're now No. Able oh, okay. Never mind then. But that's the first
Kaitlyn:step It's a for line. It's a fine line. Yes.
Craig:How you determine that?
Kaitlyn:If someone comes to me with an interest in joining the team, I would say, well, back in the day, didn't really have a process. It was kind of like come one, come all, and we just got lucky that everyone had a musical skill. And it was also back in the day when we didn't have a rehearsal space, we didn't have a rehearsal outside of a Sunday morning. It was like, all right, well, show up, and I hope you have a good voice. I hope you can actually play the guitar.
Kaitlyn:And it worked out. That's God's faithfulness. But now I have a process, to say, in place of, quote unquote, auditioning. I don't love that term when it comes to worship teams because I don't want to ever discourage someone from serving, which would then lead to further growth in their faith and further discipleship of other people that they may come encounter with. And I've just had some experiences over the years of those types of teams where it's kind of more emphasis is put on how good you are, and that's never the goal, right?
Kaitlyn:I think Justin talked about it last Sunday. God does not care how you sound. He just cares that you praise. But like you said, there is still that element of performance, and you still want it to be quality because also if it's not, that's distracting. God might not care about the congregation The congregation, yes.
Craig:It can be very distracting. Yes,
Kaitlyn:yeah. I just remember at, actually it was the church that we went to just before coming to Stone Oak Bible Church, and I hadn't been heavily involved in a worship team for Well, a couple of I sang at an Episcopal church for a little bit when we still lived in Austin, but I wasn't really super involved. I kind of was just singing there. And so I'd been out of it for a little while, and I wanted to get back into it. I remember approaching their worship team, and I just asked, Hey, what does this look like?
Kaitlyn:I would be interested in serving. I have a music background. And instead of being met with that, Oh, that's great. I'd love to chat with you. I'd love to learn more.
Kaitlyn:It was immediately met with, Oh, okay, well, you're gonna have to audition, and you might not be good enough, basically. If they're not good enough, they might say no. And it was just like, they didn't know me. They knew nothing about They had never heard me sing. So it was already putting that, You're not good enough, where then my instinct was to be like, You don't even know how good I can sing.
Kaitlyn:Was I like, Nevermind. I never talked to them about it again. I didn't wanna be involved with any worship group that had that mindset.
Craig:So, yeah. Okay. So we hit the heart and then they kind of are a part of an addition of some sorts.
Kaitlyn:Typically what it looks like is I have an application that you'll fill out, which will tell me your background of your experience in music. How long have you been playing or singing? Kind of assess, can you just sing melody? Can you sing harmonies? What are your abilities there?
Kaitlyn:And then they'll join us for our rehearsal the first time or two. And this is different depending on the person. Some people are very eager and do have a lot of experience and are ready to go. And so maybe they'll come to one rehearsal and just observe, and then they'll come to a second one and do that audition where they'll sing. They'll lead a song, if it's an instrument, play guitar, whatever it is.
Kaitlyn:And then the next time, maybe they're on stage or maybe they're taking longer. We've had people join that don't have a lot of experience at all and minimal music experience in general. And so they may come to our practices for weeks, months sometimes, and before they go on stage when they're comfortable doing that.
Craig:Yeah. Yeah. Fantastic. Well, hey, it's been great chatting with you. Anything else that you wanted to discuss or hit before we wrap this up?
Kaitlyn:There was one more thing that I forgot to mention about kind of the weekly process and choosing songs for each week specifically. I mentioned that I will review our preaching calendar and see what scripture is being preached on that week, and I will choose songs that relate to that. But I just wanted to give some more info in-depth on specifically what that looks like. I try to aim for the whole flow of the service from first song to last song, including scriptures that are read, to relate to that scripture in some way or another. They might not all match it 100%, but there's elements of each song that can tie into whatever Justin is going to preach about that week.
Kaitlyn:The last song, always want to be the most closely related to it because it's our response. When we're coming, after we've just heard the sermon, I want it to be a reflection of what we've just heard and then kind of like a call and response. We've listened and now we sing. But a really good example of this was just last week when Justin preached on Psalm 100. Sometimes, I've been at Sono Bible Church for a long time, so over the years, I know Justin's preaching style very well.
Kaitlyn:I kind of can read a passage and know about where he's gonna go with it or where he's gonna land that plan at the end of his sermon. But some weeks, I might not know where he's gonna go with it. So I may send him a message and say, Hey, for Psalm 100, I said, Hey, are you gonna talk more heavily on the thankfulness and the joy and the worship and the singing? Or are you gonna focus more on the why? Like why we worship?
Kaitlyn:And his response to me was, Yes, I'm gonna focus on why. Why we worship God. And then he listed several elements he wanted to hit, like who God is, who we are in Christ, and why we worship. Or what he's done, sorry, what he's done for us. And so I took that theme and I shaped our service around it.
Kaitlyn:So our first song was How Great, which comes from Psalm 145, but very strongly declares who God is, which then led us into our second song, which was We Are Yours Forever, which is who we are in Then we went into communion, I chose Washed by the Blood, which is what he's done, so that we can then sing what Christ has done for us. And then at the end, after his sermon, we did praise the king, which is actually an odd pick for the last song. We typically do that earlier on in this service, but that song kind of encapsulated all of those things, but really why we worship to send us out for us.
Craig:It's one of those elements that we probably don't realize that it's there until we realize it's not there. Yes. Yeah. Like, if if we are singing on a Sunday morning and it's like, this doesn't fit culturally, it doesn't fit theologically with where we're
Kaitlyn:at Mhmm.
Craig:On that Sunday, I bet we would pick up on that. Yeah. But I think for most people on a Sunday morning probably have no idea
Kaitlyn:of those slowing things things. One I feel like people don't notice, but every now and then someone will come up to me and say, That song really went well with that sermon. I'm like, Thank you. Yes.
Craig:It's one those things that we don't notice until we notice. Well, excellent. Well, Kaitlyn, it's been great having you be a part of this podcast. Thank you for hopping on with me. Thank you for the way that you serve our church in leading us to the throne every single Sunday morning.
Craig:Appreciate it.
Kaitlyn:Thank you.
Craig:Stone Oak Bible Church, thanks for being a part of the SOBC Pod. Looking forward to seeing you the next time together.