Episode 155 - Sandra Maria Van Opstal

Speaker 2 00:00:07 Welcome to that makes total sense. A podcast dedicated to exploring God's generosity and justice. I'm Alexis, Boetti a Christian aiming to ask good questions and encouraging you to do the same. Every one of us is wired by God to live out generosity and justice, but the how sometimes alludes us that makes total sense is a way for us to get together, posture ourselves as learners and challenge one another to practice generosity and justice in a tangible way every day. Okay. So Speaker 3 00:00:39 It's actually funny, Sandra, cuz I listened to the very first clip of our last conversation together and it was snowing in Chicago and you just told me <laugh> Speaker 0 00:00:50 That you Speaker 3 00:00:51 Guys are having a heat wave. And so it's probably feels pretty similar in Texas to, it does to what it does in Chicago right now, like in, in the high nineties, a hundred degrees, something like that. Speaker 0 00:01:02 Yeah. We have like 99 degrees and nine and like 99% humidity. So it feels like 110 or something like that. So, Speaker 3 00:01:09 Oh, that's stupid. That's really dumb. I feel like I you're living my life right now and I'm like, this is ridiculous. So, um, if you haven't figured it out right now and I'll send the link to our previous conversation that we recorded in January or something like that, um, I'm with Sandra van ol, I'm so excited. I just finished her old book. That's coming back out, um, in August the next worship, glorifying God in a device and in a diverse world. And I am telling you, I am pumped to read this for the first time in 2022. It's fantastic. Speaker 0 00:01:43 Why appreciate that? <laugh> you know, it's, it's interesting because, um, the book, you know, I, it's just, it's still living, you know, a lot of books, I don't know if y'all know this, but most books they have a year to sell and they're unless they, you know, become New York time bestsellers, you know, that kind of Peter out. But this book I wrote, uh, and was released in 2015 and it is being rereleased um, in the signature collection for inter university press as like one of the 25 books to celebrate their 75 years, their 75 anniversary. So I'm like, here I am with like GI packer, <laugh> Eugene Peterson, you know, like, oh, it's standard anal. But um, so I'm excited. I mean, I'm glad that it is answering questions that I had, you know, kind of was exploring maybe a decade ago, you know, eight years ago. And now it feels like the church is coming around to ask the same questions. Um, so I, I just think it's great that people are finally kind of asking the questions that are going to help us imagine something new. Speaker 3 00:02:50 Yeah. I wanna talk about that. I kind of wanna start there because the last time that you and I talked, you were on for your devotional for aids. And, and one of the things that we talked about then was that it's hard being a prophet. <laugh> like, it's hard being prophetic. It's hard seeing things that other people are not seeing at the time. And I'm reading this in 2022, it dropped the first time in 2015, like you said, and I feel like, oh, this was written for right now, this, this, this was written in, you know, in spring of 22 for exactly where we are right now, moving in. And you were like, no, like this is not, yes, it is still relevant. But you were seeing and experiencing a lot of this stuff that you wrote about, like you said, you're wrestling with this a decade ago. So I would like to start there and say, what were you seeing that maybe, I mean, just truthfully, not everybody was seeing the same stuff inside of like worship experiences in the church in America. So what were you seeing that prompted you to explore this a bit more? Speaker 0 00:03:59 Yeah. You know, I think the question for me actually came from like understanding myself as a embodied human being in a social location, in a context with an experience. Um, and then as I was growing in that like, oh, okay, like I, I am a, you know, a white Latina woman, you know, like Latina and heritage white racially, you know, um, I'm sure there's stuff in there, but white passing, so white, um, who, who has an education who grew up in this particular space, who is very American for her, you know, Argentine and Columbian cousins and, and, and not American enough for her, you know, white American friends, you know, so I was experiencing this and I was asking questions about like, what does it mean to be embodied as a person like that? We co we live in a place we worship in a place. Speaker 0 00:04:51 And then along with my studies in not only, um, music, but also in like anthropology of ministry and sociology and understanding kind of an interdisciplinary lens of the world that, um, you know, we speak language, you know, like our English or Spanish or Korean or whatever we speak, we speak language out of a particular context, you know, with values with, with certain worldviews that's, that's how those things are developed. And so I was like, if that's how we do, if that's how we speak, then imagine how we, how do we speak to God? How do we understand God, when we wanna tell God that we're upset, how do we do it quietly or loudly with tears or without tears? Um, what do our songs sound like? Um, everything from the type of, of, uh, scale that we use, you know, musically to, you know, what we do together versus what we say alone, you know, the pronouns that we use in our songs, are they collective or are they individual? You know? And so I was asking all these questions and I realized that the worship that I had been practicing within, um, a primarily white evangelical or Protestant space was had a, a set of, of rules and codes and culture that carried with it. And so if we were diverse truly, and we had all these different ways of expressing ourselves, why was the worship all the same? That was the question I was asking. Why does worship look the same? Speaker 3 00:06:24 Yeah, that's a good Speaker 0 00:06:26 Question. And, and should it, and should it like, so the question, why is it like this? Right? And then the question is, should it be like this? And then my answer was no, of course. And then the, then the next question becomes like, what could it look like then? And so I wrote the book out of my 10 to 15 year experience as a worship leader, working globally with other worship leaders and pastors and musicians, and, you know, theologians around like what, what, what could worship look like Speaker 3 00:06:59 Sandra? I, I have to say I finished the book this morning and I mean, this as a compliment, it gave me more questions than answers as I start to explore my spaces, right. As I am going on that journey myself also as a Latina, but white passing woman, you know, there's some similarities, there's lots of differences. And I began asking more and more questions as I was, um, as I was reading your book, um, because we each do have a social location. Right. And when I talk to God, I love that question. Like, when I talk to God, if I'm mad at him, what does that sound like? What does that look like? You know, I look to the Psalms to give me permission, to be mad at God and, and language sometimes to be mad at God, but just when I'm mad at my husband, it doesn't look the same as when someone else is mad at their husband. Speaker 3 00:08:03 Right. So then it's kind of, for me, like, but like one of the things that you bring up and, and I didn't think I would go here this soon, but one of the things that you bring up that was really one of these questions for me, is worshiping in song in solidarity is how you is, how you put it, which is wonderful. Um, with people globally, even when those populations are not represented inside of our local congregations and how that can be valuable for us as worshipers. So I know that's like kind of a little bit out of like, you know, not very strategic question, it's kind of like out there, but I'm like, but that was one of the places that I hadn't really thought about. Yeah. How you bring this up, you know, but it, but it's the language that you're saying, like, I don't, it doesn't look the same as when I do this as when my Korean brothers and sisters, or when my, you know, Ghanaian brothers or sisters do this, it looks different, but I may not have, you know, Ghanaian people in my church. And so, Speaker 0 00:08:59 Yeah. You know, it's interesting because, you know, <laugh>, the Psalms are an interesting thing. You know, like when I, when I learned the Psalms, I learned them in, uh, a, a, a Latina Catholic contexts. Cause that's where we congregated a local parish that was Spanish speaking, growing up. And then later on, in more kind of a Baptist Protestant, you know, expression of, and whenever I heard the Psalms, you know, in, by Midwestern white Americans, they always sounded so like, not like soft and like, you know, I don't know, like ethereal and kind of floaty. And now that I'm actually familiar with middle Eastern culture and near Eastern culture, and I'm familiar with Hebrew as a, you know, post seminary grad, like, I'm like, you know, the Psalms didn't sound like that. There were, there was like hella yelling in the Psalms. Okay. Lots of yelling in the Psalms, lots of emotion, if, you know, like follow the Hebrew poetry, like the rhythm and the rhyme of the poetry feels kind of like the, it will tell you, um, like how fast to say it in certain places, you know? Speaker 0 00:10:00 So it gives you a sense of the level of anger that people carry the level of distress and hopelessness and, and longing, you know, that people had. And then when we read, it's like, you know, I long for the Lord and my heart pants for water. So my, and it's like, no, like, as like, as I'm like, I'm thirsty, God, I'm thirsty, you know, like, so there's all this stuff in the song that you're just like, oh God. Um, so I think, um, hearing scripture, hearing scripture through those passages, um, let me hearing scripture through those cultural lenses actually kind of sanitized expressions, like anger and lament and grief and horror and distress, um, which is, isn't only in the Psalms itself in the book of lamentation and most of the prophets mm-hmm. So when I go to my husband and my partner and I tell him, like, I'm mad about what happened today. Speaker 0 00:10:58 I'm like, oh, this, this world was so hard. There's so much going on in the world. I'm just like, it shouldn't be this way. Right. And I'm pretty much like, you know, like low key yelling at this point, like, right, right, right. It shouldn't be this way. Um, you know, you know, whatever was happening that day. And it sounds with lots of emotion and screaming and crying and, um, about this thing that we call life that feels hopeless sometimes. And yet we are invited to find perseverance and resistance and hope in it. And so I think that kind of emotion, like if you're taught that your anger is expressed to God in a compressor, then you worship God in a compressor. Okay. You know, like you literally don't allow yourself to, um, to come to God in your natural that, which is odd because some of us grow up in cultures that are very, I mean, many of us, us very expressive. And then when we come to God, we're like, you, I don't know what happens to us. We're like, we become, we become disembodied to our own selves. You know, Speaker 3 00:12:03 We get like a praying voice. Right? Yeah. I Speaker 0 00:12:05 Hate that voice. Speaker 3 00:12:06 I hate, you know, it's Speaker 0 00:12:07 For sure. Reading voice, it's the praying voice. Speaker 3 00:12:09 Yes. Yes. It's the praying voice. It's like, yes. It's like, my kids make fun of me. Like we made fun of my mom. Right. Like whenever we're irritated and I'm like getting onto somebody at home, I know no, no other parents do this, but when I'm using like my serious mom voice and then the phone rings, right. And I'm like, Hey, you know, like, like they hate that. Right? Like it drives the nuts cuz they like, one of these does not fit here in this space. And so it's like, it's like the praying voice, but we do that in worship. Speaker 0 00:12:39 We do that in worship, not only in how we express ourselves, but in what we feel we're allowed to say or write or, or, or reference or, um, you know, what, we're, what aspects of God we're allowed to talk about or, or name. Um, so it it's both in the way that we pray in the way that we preach in the poetry that we write in the songs that we sing in, whether or not all the things are happening, you know, solely like if worship could happen with only your head, like if you're in a worship service and you basically could be ahead in the room and not be a full body. To me that says a lot about your cultural location of worship, you're, you're probably in a Western context is my guess, because so much of it happens with talking, hearing, thinking. And so little of it with your body, which most of the world actually does. Speaker 0 00:13:33 It's, you know, it's what you do with your body in a room. That's how you move about, it's how you understand yourself in relationship to, to other people and their embodiment, you know? Um, and so anyway, those are all things that I think about in worship. It's like there, there are things that impact the larger question beyond like whose culture does this song come from? And it's more like, what are we saying about God and how are we interacting with God? Um, you, you asked the question at the end and I forgot what it was. Um, Speaker 3 00:14:03 Oh, it's something about like seeing in solidarity with people who may not be inside of our congregation, they're not represented, right? Speaker 0 00:14:09 Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So it's, it's interesting because, um, there is something so profound that happens when you step into someone's story and see things from their perspective. I think, uh, you know, psychologically it's called empathy, you know, like being able to see to, um, to acknowledge and name, um, an emotion or an experience someone else's having and to be able to stand with them in that, you know, not solving it, not necessarily even feeling what they feel, but just acknowledging that they're feeling that thing. And so, um, I, I think that, you know, worshiping in solidarity with other cultures as our brothers and sisters invite us to do so I think those things allow us to, to experience life from their perspective to use words we would never use, um, in worship, you know, <laugh> um, to express ourselves in ways we would never express ourselves in worship, um, to see what might happen in our own liberation as we do that. Speaker 0 00:15:11 So I remember like so many times I would go to congregations, um, let's say particularly very put together, you know, kind of reserved white Midwestern congregations. And I would tell 'em, Hey, as we sing this song, we're just gonna, we're gonna sway. We're gonna sway back and forth, you know, and just like, follow me and we're just gonna sway now, we're gonna clap now we're gonna sway and clap. Okay. Okay. Now I'm gonna add the words to the song. We're gonna keep swaying and clapping. You know, if you get lost, just look around, catch up again. Um, and it's not to, to, to mimic or to tokenize, but it's to invite people into the experience of what happens when they're singing and swaying and then people all of a sudden like, oh, I, I felt so awkward. You know, like that was, that was weird to move my body during worship. Speaker 0 00:16:01 And then the question would be like, well, that's interesting that it's weird for you to, to, to feel strange or out of the ordinary to move your body in worship when so much of the Psalms invite us to movement. Why do you think that is? You know, so I think you begin to unpack why we do the things we do when we enter into other people's experiences, you know, to, to invite college students. And I share this in the book, but to invite college students in a time where there was so much, um, anti, um, Muslim, like Islamophobia, like anything that was an Arabic or anybody that was brown was a terrorist kind of, you know, that, that, that era, which I don't think has passed, but it was, it was actually stronger back back, if you can imagine back in the day, um, and to invite them to sing songs that exalt the name of Jesus in Arabic was very, um, it was profound, you know? Speaker 0 00:17:03 And then when I, when the, when the, the conference I was leading, when they asked about the lyrics, I said, I would like the script. I would like the actual Arabic script up there underneath the English, you know, pronunciation in the same way that we do for the Korean and for the, um, Mandarin songs. Like I want that up there. And I remember like getting a, like, kind of, not really pushback, but questions about that. And I was like, it's very important for me that students see the script flying across the jumbo screen for them, because it will, it will disrupt their broken thinking and it will invite them to imagine a church that is more than English speaking, American and white. And so I think that's why those things are important. They develop our imagination. Speaker 3 00:18:03 Yeah. I love how you talk about that in the book. Like, um, so most of the book is written, um, which I loved, which was basically like, it's a, it's a, it's a, the entire thing is a metaphor with food and table and dinner and everything. And I loved it so much. Um, cuz I'm part of this food degeneration that you, that you describe there, but, but it's also, um, lots in addition to the concepts and the theories that we'll kind of talk about a little bit more here. There's lots of practical, um, lots and lots and lots of practical. Um, I don't wanna say tips cuz they're definitely not. That's definitely more than tips, but just like practical things that worship leaders can do to, and that being a good example to invite people, to join them and not just singing in a different language, but to, to put their thoughts in a different place, to put their try and put their hearts, um, you know, in a different place and that it can be something very, very simple, like even in this description that you just gave for us, it can be even sometimes you say, even say 30 or 60 seconds of an explanation, instead of we're gonna speak in Arabic. Speaker 3 00:19:13 Now we're gonna sing in Arabic down <laugh> you know, but what, what is the goal of that? You know, like you really bring a lot of that out of how worship leaders can help us as congregants to enter into some of those spaces in solidarity with our brothers and sisters that we can do inside of worship. That's a really, that's really unique, you know, um, to, to that worship setting. And, and I would say it's good to have the translation, but even just thinking like what you were saying, I was in a group, uh, a few months ago, we'd been, we'd been meeting regularly on zoom and we had someone with this who was Lebanese. He was a Lebanese immigrant and the leader of the group asked him to pray for us. And if he would just pray for us in his heart language, you know, if he would just pray for us in Arabic. And I had no idea what he was saying and he didn't translate and, and, and most of us, myself included, we just wept <laugh> right. We just wept because as you, it disrupted us in a really good way to hear one of our brothers who had a completely different experience with Christianity and religion and family, um, pray for us, pray for our group, um, in a language that as you say has kind of been presented to us to mean something very, very different than that. Speaker 0 00:20:40 Yeah. Yeah, for sure. I mean, I think, um, we just need help. <laugh> I think we need, we need help beyond stating what is not working or beyond stating what we don't like. I think we really need some help to imagine what could be in the church period in the area of discipleship, in the area of worship, in the area of just being a neighbor in our communities. Like, and sometimes it's not like what I offer in the book and what I've experimented with over about two decades. It's not necessarily even that I think it's the right way of doing it or the best way of doing it. I'm just trying something else. You know? So I apparently I'm like high on strategy, but through a form of strategic, um, like kind of strategy called trial and error, like, like obviously it's exactly what it sounds. Speaker 0 00:21:36 It's like you imagine something, you try it, you, you basically learn from it and you pivot quickly. I think in the, in the project management world it's called like being agile. Apparently my, my husband's a project manager. So he is like, this is like the agile method. I'm like, that's like the Latina method. That's how we do things all the time. <laugh> why is it not called the Latina method, you know? Right, right, right. Um, where you just don't, you don't, you don't, you don't become so overwhelmed by the fact that things aren't as they should. And that you just end up stopping, you just end up doing nothing. You just end up completely disengaging from your faith, from the church, from worship, from like, if what's, if what you're doing right now, for example, in your own private devotional time is not working for you. Speaker 0 00:22:20 Okay. Like throw it out, try something else, you know, like, but, but don't stop, you know, continue to tell God you wanna connect with God, you know, like express that longing, like try something else, you know? And so I think the book is a journey for me of working with other leaders globally, um, and, and take, you know, rooted in the scripture, asking the question like, well, what else could we try? And so let's try seeing a song that we know that was written in a context of comfort and security of, you know, I mean, most of our worship songs are written in some nice studios somewhere by some, you know, executive jingle writers, um, alongside of some worship leaders and taking a song that we all know that was written in a place of incredible privilege and displace that song, take it out of there and put it in a different context. Speaker 0 00:23:19 And so, for example, um, there, there are songs that, that, um, refugees and immigrants all over the world sing that are American Western songs. They come from our hymnals, they come from, um, you know, our, our Spotify accounts. They, they come from iTunes and they take them in their own languages and they sing them for the purpose of reminding themselves of who God is and what they're going through. And so there's a song, oh my gosh, it's like a hill song song. I have no idea. I can't remember what the song is anyway. But, um, it has this imagery of like people walking through rivers, you know, and I'm like, what does it mean when an immigrant and a, or a refugee is actually literally walking through rivers? What, what does it mean for them when they are singing that? And they're saying, God is going to, um, provide for me and protect me as I am going through this experiment as I'm going through this experiment, uh, you know, like, what does it mean, oh, here it is. Speaker 0 00:24:32 It's hill song, oceans the song. And it says, um, it says, um, spirit lead me where my trust is without borders. Let me walk upon the waters, wherever you would call me, take me a deeper than my feet could ever wander. And my faith will be made stronger in the presence of my savior. So when they're singing spirit lead me where my trust is without borders. And they're literally at one mm-hmm <affirmative> let me walk upon the waters while they're crossing them. What does that do for them in their experience? So if it's a song, if you wanna, if you don't wanna freak your congregation out, or if you don't, you know, you're not willing to learn new songs or whatever, then maybe we take the very songs we have been singing and we say, what does it look like to have empathy for my immigrant refugee brothers and sisters. And to believe that God is trustworthy when the nation that I'm fleeing and the nation that I'm going to is not safe, what does it mean to trust that God is going to listen to me when I call upon God's name? Speaker 0 00:25:59 When I am walking through this experience with my family, and I don't know how we're going to eat or live or survive this experience, what does it mean that God is my healer and is going to comfort me and deliver me and heal me and rebuild my faith in God when I've experienced incredible violence on this journey, what does that mean? So I think as we are connecting with God, we can have an experience with God ourselves, that empathy and connection with brothers and sisters, who we intercede for and long for in the context that we can do this in the context of worship. Um, and so that would be an example of like, I mean, there's dozens of them in the book. There's tons of them we could talk about. But I think instead of just saying, you know, these songs don't work for me or this doesn't work for me, or I don't like this, which I have plenty of things to complain about in the worship industry. Um, what if we reclaimed things, pivoted things and adjusted things, and then just got rid of some things, um, and then created new things. What if we could create new ways? That's, that's what I'm about. That's what I'm excited about. Like, what is the new way then? Speaker 3 00:27:34 This is like, I'm, I'm telling you, I'm like, my mind is being blown right now. I, I told Sandra before we started recording that I'm actually at the helm to lead worship this coming Sunday. So I'm, I'm just this sub, right? This is only, only the second time that I've, you know, kind of been left in charge of this kind of thing. But even this it's like, that's what, that's, what I mean was it's leaving me with questions. Right. And so questions about the theories and the concepts, but questions, like, what does this look like on the ground? You know? And, and I, and I love what you're, um, what you're suggesting, um, what you're suggesting by that. It reminds me, so in the book you talk about, Speaker 3 00:28:15 It's one of the threads, and now I'm, when we talk about solidarity, you talk about standing with people, not, not, um, merely standing next to somebody, but help me standard. There's like three, I'm sorry, I read this on PDF. So I'm like looking at my notes here, but, um, I'm like you, you're asking three different, three different questions as we enter into worship. So it's about community. It's about solidarity. Um, oh dear. I've lost the other one, but let's just take, let's just take those two things. As we, as we talk about worship in community and worship, like entering into solidarity in worship, one of the things that I have noticed that I think, what could it look like? Right. What could it look like? We've touched on solidarity with our global brothers and sisters I'm I'm into like, learning from the church previous, right? Speaker 3 00:29:21 Mm-hmm <affirmative> I mean, what, what do our historical church parents, what did worship look like for them? What are some of those prayers? Like what, how can we learn from them as part of our church community, you know, moving forward and, and how do we do this in a diverse setting? So one of the things that I think I hear a lot is I just wanna be able to connect with God and worship. And you talk about that a little bit in the book, right? Like, so, so I wanna be able to do this, but what you're suggesting is not that that's not important, but that that's part of the picture when we are planning worship when we're experiencing worship and when we're moving forward as a community in worship. Speaker 0 00:30:13 Yeah. So I, I, I do think that what people to give, to give us the benefit of the doubt as human beings. I do think that what we're saying, when we wanna, like, when we say I wanna connect with God, I think what we are, meaning what we're on a good day. I think what we're meaning is I wanna have a powerful, intimate, personal experience with my creator. I think that's what we're saying. I think what we end up practicing though, is we wanna create God in our image. So God comes to me in the ways that I like to experience God, um, in ways that make me comfortable in ways that soothe me. So I think in, in some, in some aspects, I think most of worship, I think most Western individualistic worship is just the practice of self soothing. Like we're all like small children who are like rubbing our ear or like sucking on our thumb or like, you know, rubbing the blank on our face. Speaker 0 00:31:20 Like that's really what I think most Western individualistic worship is. I think that's what most of it is. It's self soothing. And I understand that we live in a hard world. We're traumatized and, and it's difficult, but the reality is we have a collective, we are a collective community and we have a collective, um, mission that we are on to proclaim and to demonstrate the good news of Jesus Christ and a broken world. And we will never get there. If all we ever do is self soothe. We will never get there. If that's what we're doing all we'll end up doing is remaining the same because we're unwilling to go to God and to hear God in ways that God wants to be seen. And in ways that God wants to be heard and in the, in the goals and kind of, kind of like reason that God, you know, created us, which was to participate in the renewal of all things we're supposed to be participating in, rebuilding a world that is just in compassionate and, and livable for all people, for the flourishing of all people. Speaker 0 00:32:33 It's not supposed to be about us. And so if worship, and if our like desire to quote unquote with God is only our desire, desire to put a pacifier in our mouth, then that's never going to get us anywhere. Um, except you know, to where we're at right now, honestly. So I think even about like, let me give you an example, like the song that the, the song that we sing, or by the way, I don't really like the song, just so you all know, but you know, uh, here we go. I'm just gonna use it cuz it's in front of me. If you're gonna sing the song oceans by hill song, <laugh> happens. Um, you'll the song says the song has a lyric. And I think about like this, the lyric says, and I will call upon your name and my sole rest and your embrace because I'm yours and you are mine and that's fine. Speaker 0 00:33:23 That's, that's true. You know, but what if we were to take that lyric and invite our community, whether it's a small group or our family, if we're just doing this at night, you know, um, or our congregation, what or ourselves even just individually, what if we were to invite ourselves to, to see this promise as a collective promise and to pray for all of the victims of gun violence in our society and all of the people who lost loved ones during COVID, because people were unwilling to follow protocols that the, that the, you know, that the CDC gave us. And we were to understand how these pandemics of gun violence and COVID have ravished communities of color across our country. What if instead of ourselves, we thought about that and we invited people into prayer and we sang these lyrics and we will call upon your name, keep our eyes above the waves. Speaker 0 00:34:28 Our souls will rest in your embrace for, we are yours and you are ours. What if we sang that God loves us. You know, Jesus loves the little children, all the little children of the world. <laugh> not just my kid. Um, but all the kids. So if we were to invite a congregation to just sing that refrain over particularly young people in our country that have suffered so much, I mean, I went to a, a graduation yesterday, a junior high graduation. And I heard from the valedictorian, what I heard at a couple other, um, valedictorian speeches this week at different graduations in my community, they have lived through so much these kids, they, they don't know a time where their families have not been hunted down by ice. They don't know a time where they had a, a political figure in the highest place of authority who has actually advocated for their community. Speaker 0 00:35:35 They have lost so much financially practically, and like just family network because of COVID in their community. And I I'm hearing their speeches and I'm like a 13 year old should not have to be talking about this kind of stuff. But 13 year old should not have to be addressing gun violence and the loss of friends in their graduation speech, no 13 year old in my junior high experience in the suburb was talking like this, you know, like, um, and so I thought about them and I thought, what if we were to condition AKA form disciple people to understand that our flourishing is really about our collective flourishing, not about your individual family's acquisition of wealth and safety. What if we prayed and we will call upon your name or we are yours, right. What if that was our song? Um, I think we would have a generation of people that, that actually cared, um, about their brothers and sisters in our own country, as well as around the world. So I fundamentally, I think worship disciples us, whether it's in our car, on Spotify or in a congregation or small group, I think what we sing in what we rehearse with our lips, um, and with our bodies reinforces values and beliefs that we have about who we are in this world as God's created. Um, and as people who are supposed to be, um, seeking Shalom. So I think we're worship is a place where we can imagine together. And it's sad to me that so few people get to influence that, you know, Speaker 3 00:37:34 Let's talk about that, cuz that that's where my mind went. Um, you know, there was, I'll say talking about worship as discipleship, so I'll just take it to, I mean, you and I touched on this the last time we talked, because I had said, Hey, I'm a Latina woman. Who's never actually read a devotional by a Latina woman until I read yours. Right. 40 years old. No, probably wasn't 40 at the time, but anyway, but you know, like whatever and, and this is part of it. So I I'm like, I don't wanna play devil's advocate, but I will a little bit and say it's, it's, what's forming us and shaping us and also kind of feeding into confirmation bias in a way it can, if the only voices that we're being formed and shaped by inside of worship look exactly like best with experiences exactly like ours, right? Speaker 3 00:38:32 Like, like if, if we don't know anyone, if we don't worship with anyone, if we don't have neighbors or make a point to be in contact with anyone who's ever had an issue with ice or, you know, like that, that experience doesn't have that chance, I don't have the chance to be formed by that experience. Um, and then, and one of the things that I actually really enjoyed about your book is that when you talk about, um, kind of each of us have what we kind of think is normal, right? The PB and J of our own world, but that it's not just like white Protestants who have this, like we can all kind of be in that trap of thinking that our thing is the normal thing. And then we end up not being influenced, informed by people who are outside of that norm, whatever it is. Speaker 0 00:39:25 Yeah. And that's why I think food is such a great way to talk about that because man, do we love eating? So, um, my husband always says like, if I am what I eat, I'm Mexican, you know, he's a white guy from Wisconsin, so he is not Mexican, but he's like, I am wanna eat. I'm Mexican. It's true. He pretty much puts Chila se and lime on everything. Nice. Speaker 3 00:39:44 Tell him to come here. I'm ready. <laugh> yeah. Speaker 0 00:39:46 So, so, so I think that's, you know, I liked the image of food because it helps us understand. So in the, in the book I talk about this, you know, assessment, this, um, assessment they give to kindergartners basically as they're entering preschoolers, as they're entering into school and they, they give us assessment in California and it was like to ch to, to test your aptitude, you know, your intellect and aptitude. And so one of the questions on the test, oh, anyway, they give the test and they find out that like, there's a group of kids that excels on this test and there's a group of kids that does not Excel on this test. And any of us that have worked in education or psychology, we know that there is gender bias, ethnic bias and racial bias in every single test. But what we found out was that, you know, immigrants are really stupid. Speaker 0 00:40:33 Um, you know, because they don't, they didn't know how to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. So all these immigrant children, like they couldn't list out the basic steps of making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. And the reason is because none of us ate peanut butter and jelly sandwiches growing up, we had kiss at the, we had samosas. We had like, um, rice cakes with, you know, hot, you know, with hot sauce on them. We have all sorts of other things, you know, like in our homes, um, not peanut butter and jelly. So, you know, if you're gonna test the aptitude of a bunch of small children in a, in a state that has its much diversity as a state in California has, you're gonna have to have a different question. Um, and so I think that is that, that practice of normalizing things and actually to be Frank with you, um, you know, peanut butter and jelly or a sandwich as like the norm of a, of like a, a, a daily, you know, like your, this is just like normal lunch, you know, know like you see like lunchbox, you see a picture of a sandwich on it. Speaker 0 00:41:36 All of that is bias. All of it. And to normalize one culture, actually when you normalize one culture and give power to what is normal, that's actually a form form of supremacy. And so white normalcy, white making things that are white, normal is just another form of white supremacy. So therefore CCM, contemporary Christian music, which is white written white location, white context, and white theology. If that is what normal Christian music is, then we've already practiced white supremacy in our categorization of our mu of our worship music. Speaker 0 00:42:19 We've said, this is normal. White people is normal. White songs are normal. White theology is normal. The pronoun I, and you, because it's all about a personal individual, silent, you know, intimate relationship with Jesus, nothing else, all those things then shape and form how the rest of us participate. We then participate in black gospel, worship music, Latina, worship music, global indie worship music. You know, like, I mean, anything else is othered hyphenated. I mean, we do this as well in theology. We do, this is with books. This is a black authored book. It's like, well, white people don't, this is a white authored book, but we all know it's white authored. Um, so I think, you know, with the devotionals, for example, that we wrote for the Enneagram, I was like, anybody could read the Enneagram, a devotional. It's just a devotional written by an Enneagram. Speaker 0 00:43:12 A, I mean, every single devotional that exists that is written by a white man or woman should have an engram number and their racial, um, identity written on it because all of these famous devotionals that are women's devotionals that are out there, don't say like white, suburban mom, devotional engram two, you know, they don't say that, um, they're just written from that. So then people are like, well, that's a, that's a devotional written, you know, or a, a commentary written by an African American. So I was just gonna get a normal commentary. Um, I don't wanna do like black gospel worship tape. I just wanna do like normal worship. Um, and what we mean is white, white people, white theology, white perspectives, white faith practices. Um, and by normalizing whiteness, we make whiteness Supreme, we center it and we make it the ideal. Um, and so that, that I think is a practice. Speaker 0 00:44:11 We need to be very, very careful about. Um, again, whether it's translating books in other languages and, you know, shooting them all over the universe or, um, just commercializing music, the way that we have so that everyone around the world is singing the same song. And we all think it's so glorious. Like, isn't it great that thousands of people are singing? How great thou art and how great is our God. I'm like, no, that's a, that is actually just a sign of colonization. That's what it is. Um, that is not great. Why are we not singing a Hindi song? Why are we not singing, you know, a Mandarin song? What is going on? Why are we singing this one? That is, it's a key to me of what is happening in our world. Um, and that people think it's wonderful is how sneaky white supremacy is. Speaker 3 00:45:04 Yes. To all of the things I'm sending. No one is gonna be able to see me, but I've shaking my head and I, oh, Speaker 0 00:45:10 I wish you guys could see us. It's so much Speaker 3 00:45:12 Action happening. It's so much, it's so much action. And Speaker 4 00:45:14 I will say that's because you've got two Latinas sitting here talking about stuff like this. And I'm like, I'm leaning back on my chair. My Speaker 3 00:45:20 Arms are flailing. And anyway, and that's just me. I mean, um, Sandra is a whole other thing. Speaker 0 00:45:26 So, so I would, so I would say that's, what's wrong, but I wanna say, what, what can we do? I think that's why it's important for people of color to write music. Yeah. I think that's why it's important for artists and activists of color to speak to their God experience of their experience of trying to find faith and hope in the midst of what they are wrestling with, to be honest, and to write music and poetry and, and to, and to, to create visual art that like gives us an idea of that story, I think is profoundly needed by the global church. And, um, you know, I have a, a sister in, uh, in, in South Africa we're, you know, not in all blood related, which can be seen if we're standing next to each other. But, um, we, we, we are like sisters and she has a son. Speaker 0 00:46:11 Who's an amazing artist, um, you know, spoken word, artist instrumentalist. And he created this song that is like it really, to me, to my Western years sounds almost just like a grown, it's like a three minute gro, um, that has some words in it, but I, I don't understand them cuz they're in a language I don't speak. Um, and when I heard it, I wept so much. Um, and I said, you know, I think this song is for young black and brown leaders on the west side of Chicago. I think this song is actually for them. It is a way of communicating their distress and their longing that I don't think they have in their language. Like I don't think we have that in our culture. Can I have this song? Like, can I take it with me to them? Um, cuz I wanna play it for them. Speaker 0 00:47:11 I wanna invite them into prayer through your son's song. Um, I, I don't know what it means. Hopefully, you know, not terrible, like there's something, but, but I, I really think it's for them. And so I think there are pieces that are missing in discipleship that can only be enhanced by decentering the, the American Western church, the British church, you know, the European church, the Australian church. Let me just say it by country, by country, by decentering the six largest publishing houses of worship by just saying we've heard enough from you. Thank you very much. Would you like to elevate our stories now? Would you like to elevate our theology now? Not just put us upfront singing your words so that you can make more money off of us, you know, cuz a brown version of what you're doing is still what you're doing. Um, so would you like to actually Deth throne yourselves so that we can take you into the next century, cuz we'd like to do that. Speaker 0 00:48:16 We have some thoughts about life in the world and God, and we think they're life giving and we think they're liberative and we would like to offer them to you and if they don't want to, that's fine. They can keep making their money cuz the empire will always exist, but we will make our songs. We will write our music, we will create our tables, we will speak our words. Um, and I think Jesus will be glorified through that. So that's, I think what I'm hoping and trying to do with this book, with the work that we're doing with chasing justice, with, you know, the, the coaching that I do for artists and activists is to say like there, there is a problem and we might not be able to stop the empire, but we can create an alternative space of flourishing that might not be seen or recognized or a felt need right now. But someday when this whole thing comes crumbling down, there will need to be a remnant. And I think we're here. So let's, let's not apologize for our existence. Speaker 3 00:49:23 That's so good. I can't, I can't think of anything else. I mean, I, I, um, yeah, again, I just wish people could see I'm just pointing at you while you're <laugh> while you're saying this just a brown version of what's being done. Um, you say in the book that Speaker 3 00:49:45 It's not a direct quote, you say tokenism pats itself on the back, but empowerment allows for influence. And I think if it, you know, if it were me having, just read this book and I, and I'm, and I'm reading the, the subtitle of glorifying God in a diverse world, I think what I would say is what in 2022, what I have seen is people doing exactly what you just said. We're gonna bring people up who don't look like colonizers. And I just, I don't know why being around an eight makes me feel a little bit eight. Like, I mean I'm married to one, so I'm, I'm, I'm gonna practice my eight skills here, but what I've seen is that we're what we're doing is we're bringing up people who don't look like colonizers to sing the colonizers songs. Yes. Sing and calling Speaker 0 00:50:43 That Speaker 3 00:50:44 Sing, sing that diversity, right? Yeah. Can I'm calling that diversity. Can Speaker 0 00:50:49 I tell you that, that happens to me yesterday during this graduation, but we all had to stand up and like do some Americany things that you have to do during graduations. And I was like, oh my gosh, all of these recent immigrants from central America and next it's not even like, it's a spec. I feel like they all came from the same town. I, I told my husband, I was like, they all looked like, I think they all came from the same town, um, a very specific, specific experience of immigration that was so traumatizing over the last couple years. And here they are like being forced, their children being forced to like sing the songs of the colonizers, you know, like pray the prayers of the colonizers. And I was like, this is so toxic and abusive. Um, and you know, I'm, I'm thankful that I live in a country where I'm allowed to pray freely and I'm, I don't negate all of that kind of stuff, but you know, you can love a space and also speak truth to that space. Speaker 0 00:51:41 Right. And I feel like, well, what's happening in that room is, is exactly actually what I see in worship. It's like common join. I mean, I've gone to so many multi-ethnic quote unquote churches that are led by white people, um, in white denominations where like it's all these young people of color up front doing the thing. And I'm sure they have some kind of agency, but we're also in so many ways made to feel like you should just be happy that you got in here. You should just be happy that you're in here. Like, you know, we found you, like we made you, you know? And so it it's like this really abusive, like patronizing disgusting kind of way that we're interacting right now with diversity initiatives. Um, I'm sure there are beautiful places out there. I have seen a couple. I'm not saying they're all bad, but so, so many of them are like, what are you willing to give up of yourself to get paid the white dollars to do your job? Speaker 0 00:52:39 And that's not just in worship y'all that are listening, you know what I'm talking about? So I think we have to be honest with ourselves of saying like, is this actually a place where I am thriving where I am contributing where I am? So yeah. Tokenism absolutely does that. It's like pats itself on the back, like look at us. Aren't we diverse. We have a woman. Look, we have a woman, pastor, look, we have a woman. She's a woman. She's the pastor, but she's not at all, you know, empowered to make decisions. The question is where is the actual decision making? Um, look at, we have a, a black female professor look at her, but you're traumatizing her at every staff meeting. You know, like, um, I mean, we, we do that so much, but to, to have a space where people truly say like, Hey, equity and inclusion has to do with inviting influence. Like this is ours. You are not a guest here. This is ours. How do we build it together? That's hard to do. That's very hard to do because power wants to hold onto power. Yeah. Um, and I, I don't think the music industry, honestly, like I'm just gonna put my cards on the table. I have been honest for the last 15 years about this. I was honest in my book about it. I think the music industry, you know, the worship industrial complex is there to make white people money. Speaker 0 00:54:03 That's what it's there for. It doesn't matter. Who's singing the song, who's got the microphone in their hand. We may make the percentage of it somewhere along the way, but it is a beast and it's not set up for our liberation. So I, I would say that if most of most spaces, you know, um, within the Christian industrial complex, it's like, if you don't fit, we discard you. And we just find the next person of color. Who's willing to jump through the hoops that we want them yep. To be in or squeeze into the outfit that we want them to squeeze into. So, um, you know, I feel like our, our future forward our way forward is to think of innovative, creative ways to build new tables could be even within institutions that exist, but within institutions that exist or, or outside of those institutions that are Liber that are life giving that are gospel freeing and to create and develop a theology that is connected to our own history as peoples of color, um, and is connected to the majority church right now, which is majority brown. So, um, I think that's where we're headed. That's what I'm excited about. That's where I wanna be. Um, not really interested in trying to resuscitate this corpse that we call, you know, American, white evangelicalism, I'm here for whatever true growth is there. And when, when I just can tell it's just like a dead body laying there, I'm not interested in it. I don't care what people pay me. I'm not gonna be there. Speaker 3 00:55:42 Sandra I'm, I'm excited about, um, I'm thankful for your voice. And I'm excited because, um, this, this glorifying got in diverse world in 2022, which is different in some ways than what you saw in 20, 20, 15, worse in a lot of ways. I think that maybe, um, you know, you could see the track that we're going down. I think I just, I don't have to say it, but, but I'm going to, but what I want people to hear is this is not about this diverse glorifying God in a diverse world that you're talking about in this book. And it's obvious from our conversation is not about having more black and brown people with microphones in their hands. This is about the body of Christ, looking more kingdom like in how we worship and how we fight for one another's flourishing and doing that in a worship gathering with music and songs. And all of that is a way to be representative of this, um, reality that we are working for in this spirit, right. It's not just about, well, if you just pass the microphone to the brown chick, then she can do something with it. Um, and if we think that's what it is, then we have really, really missed it. Speaker 0 00:57:08 Yeah. It's just so much more. And I, I, I think I wanna, I wanna give a picture of what I think it is as, as like, I know we don't have a lot of time, but I think it's important. You know, when I went to Uganda to visit with the mentor of mine, you took me to all these different churches. And of course I had to like stand up and say something in each of the churches. Um, and, um, <laugh>, he took me to see this, this show that's like run on by the super famous, uh, east African actor who was like in some famous movie, I'll have to put it in show notes. Right. But they take all these people, groups, all the people groups that exist in Uganda, there's like eight or 10 of them. And they come together, these young artists and they show each other, all of their dances and their art. And they learn from one another. It's like a Institute it's like a artist Institute, uh, conservatory. And like, they, they put on this show every weekend. That's like the, uh, the, the, the courting rituals of different people, groups and the, I mean, and there's, there are so many colors and so many sounds and so many kinds of movement, like, I didn't know, bodies could move like that kind of movement, you know, and none of that was in church worship and any of the churches that I saw. Speaker 0 00:58:22 So I went to this church and I just said, like, I don't understand, like, this is, I went there and I was like, you all have such a beautiful culture, like an amazing breadth of kinds of cultures with people, groups and all that you're. But I come here and I see like, you're singing our songs and your stage, it looks like you use planning center. Your stage is set up exactly like our, like, and then, and then like African women all around east Africa and all the countries that are going to there, squeezing their voices from these beautiful large voices in these tiny little tiny hill song. Voices. I don't understand, like I don't understand. So I was like, I, I, I would love to see what worship could look like in a way that that is free of our trappings of our American trappings. Speaker 0 00:59:15 That's what I would look at. <laugh> my mentor was like, oh, you go there and you like yell. He's like, you go there and you like admonish and exhort, the people you're visiting. I'm like, I'm sorry. But I, I was so like, um, I know it was probably not very hospitable of me, sorry, but I was so overwhelmed by the beauty that was there. And I was like, it could be so much more like all of our indigenous ancestral, like beautiful cultural dances, instruments, colors, all of it, all of it is underneath the Lordship of Christ. All of it. Nobody made a hymnal, an organ and a very scratchy long dress. Like the, the attire of heaven. Nobody did that. Um, and so why are we not doing something different? And so I, I, I got such an imagination when I was there and I started to work with some of the younger hum African worship leaders. Speaker 0 01:00:21 And, and hopefully, you know, the movements that they're in, they're creating some new things that apparently to me, sound like groans, which is totally cool. Um, I, I would love to see that happen in our own country. Like I would love to see people just take off the trappings of whatever happened between the early church and north Africa and the middle east, and what's happening now. And just say, Europe was a season that was nice. All of our denominations are rooted in a culture. Every single one of them has a European culture it's rooted in. So therefore all of those traditions are rooted in those cultures and they're beautiful and they offer a perspective, but Christianity moved from Europe and it's time Speaker 3 01:01:19 It's time. Thank you, Sandra. Will you pray for us? I'm I'm feeling like that's, I'm feeling like that's the only way. Yeah. Only way to wrap this up, but I do want you to hear me say that I am, I'm really encouraged. Um, by what I read in this book, I'm really encouraged by our conversation and I feel really challenged. Um, there, there wasn't a ton of new necessarily information. Um, you know, when it came to some of the, the conversations that we've had about white supremacy and colonization, you know, and all of that kind of stuff. Um, but I will say that it is easier to deal with when I think that it's out there and it's all theoretical and it becomes much more. I have a visceral reaction when I realize, oh crap, this is actually in me. This is actually in my, yeah. You know, in, in, in my Q this is like, this is real close to home and that I actually have the ability to move forward with a new imagination. I don't have to be stuck in that. That's where I feel challenged. Speaker 0 01:02:31 Yeah, for sure. And I, and I submit the book to, as something that I wrote eight years ago. So before most people had that language in their mouth, I was already frustrated. Speaker 3 01:02:41 Oh yeah. <laugh> um, Speaker 0 01:02:42 And, and yet it still, it, it, it invites, it invites clarity. I think mm-hmm, <affirmative>, it invites us to continue to find clarity. Um, and then the Bible study that I wrote with it, which is not, is new. Um, so I just wrote that about six months ago. Um, it's a Bible study, uh, companion guide to the book. Uh, the next worship it is coming from a, from the context that we're in right now. I think it's asking us to look at scripture with fresh eyes on this side of pandemic on this side of uprising on this side of global environmental issues on this side of all of that asking us, like, what does gathering together to talk to God, look like now. Speaker 3 01:03:31 Yeah. And I didn't, and I didn't mean, oh, it's all old news. Oh yeah. What I meant was that Sandra will not let me or the reader. So just FYI, if you're gonna pick this up, she won't let me, or you just sit here with all of this information and not <laugh> move forward in a new, healthy kingdom direction. No, that's just, we don't get a pass. Speaker 0 01:03:59 Yeah. It's also just toxic for us to stay there. Speaker 3 01:04:02 Yep. Speaker 0 01:04:02 Um, it's not, it's unhelpful for us as human beings to keep all of that in our, in our bodies and not like, uh, move to some kind of action. It actually will impact us Speaker 3 01:04:14 Your book invites action. And that's where I was like, oh, I'm gonna have to do some about this. Speaker 0 01:04:19 Yeah, me too. All of us, all of us continuing on <laugh>. Speaker 3 01:04:24 All right. Sorry. I just wanted to say that. Thank you. If you could pray, I would just be, yes. God honored. Thank you. Speaker 0 01:04:29 God, give us, um, free us, give us creativity and joy in what it means to come to you as we are with freedom and with boldness and with courage to express our anger to you, to, to, to express our dissonance with what we experience in the world and to ask for more, to be like the persistent widow who just doesn't give up asking mm-hmm <affirmative> for what she thinks is just fair mm-hmm <affirmative>. And so make us persistent in our pursuit of justice and in our pursuit of, uh, of you mm-hmm <affirmative> of finding that justice and the only one who can bring it, um, as much as we try and as, as much as we wanna partner with you, we know that, um, peace and wholeness and wellbeing will only come when you are exalted on your throne. Mm-hmm <affirmative>. Amen. Speaker 3 01:05:28 Amen. Thank you so much. So we've got a Bible study that I will link as well as the signature collection that's coming out. Um, the next worship, glorifying God in a diverse world. Sandra AOL. Thank you so much, always. Thank you. A pleasure. Thanks. Speaker 2 01:05:44 The links for all the resources mentioned in today's episode can be found in the show notes, music, and podcast production by Seth. Boetti be sure to give us a review on iTunes and subscribe at your favorite podcast listening app, you can also visit us at that. Makes total sense.com.