Jenn Johnson’s Message to Worship Leaders
Alex Enfiedjian, founder of Worship Ministry Training, said some worship leaders worry that using Bethel Music songs sends royalties to Bethel Church. But Bethel Music President Jenn Johnson said the two organizations are “financially separate,” with royalties going to the worship leaders and songwriters—who serve at “eight or nine different churches.”
“So it’s not just one church that is a part of it, but [Bethel Church] is just where it’s based from,” Johnson said of Bethel Music. “The Lord has called us to serve this movement and this group of people as a local community and…we’re still here, faithful, serving the people of God.”
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As for what she’d say to worship leaders, Johnson expressed gratitude for their ministries. “My life was changed growing up in church and with the people of God singing the praises of God,” she said. “There’s just nothing like it.”
“It’s the best thing you could do with your life, if you’re a musician or a worship leader or a sound guy,” said Johnson, “is to give your time and your heart and your efforts and your gifts to the house of God and the people of God.”
Johnson said she and her songwriting team “ask the Lord what he’s saying from his Word and by his Spirit and [then] craft that into song for the body of Christ, for the edification and the exhortation and the purification” of God’s people. She’s thankful for “the global body of Christ,” she said, and for how God is “moving in different denominations.”
Johnson continued:
One of the biggest privileges of my life is getting to travel and be a part of those different expressions, that maybe we believe slightly different things, but that’s just details at the end of it. We’re not going to all be right when we get to heaven. Jesus is going to be like, “You were great here. Missed it there. Love your heart.” So when people stumble over belief, it breaks my heart a bit, [although] obviously, there are some things that are non-negotiables in the Word of God.
Johnson concluded by saying Bethel Music uses lyrics to direct people’s eyes to Jesus, “of who he is and what he’s doing and who we are through him. And that’s our goal, to connect people to Jesus.”
