Suddenly, Chris Tomlin’s life has changed. Everything from kicking through the sticky hold of Georgia clay as opposed to the dirt roads in the great state of Texas, to joining with longtime ministry partners and friends to start a church, and even more recently, taking the steps down the aisle to commit to a new sort of ministry and leadership. Chris Tomlin’s life has changed. But how much? How far has someone like Chris Tomlin gone from where most of us live and minister as worship leaders of local churches? How different is the artistic approach of the guy that currently has a major hand in no less than half of the Top 10 songs most played in churches in America (according to CCLI)?
Recently in the midst of his newly embarked life as a married man, Chris Tomlin sat with us to talk about his experience as a writer and part of a community that creates devotional art and encourages worship. And even though the majority of this issue of Worship Leader is given over to the cultivation of “non front-person” worship leading, we suspected that even someone as notable as the writer of “How Great Is Our God” would be able to relate to the thoughts and realities found in releasing the voice of the local church. Can an artist with a worldwide impact relate to the local church worship leader? Read on to see what we discovered.
WL: In this issue, we are shining a light on the nobility of writing to express the heart of your local congregation. As a songwriter who is successful on a worldwide stage, how do you balance your approach-writing for a community of believers as opposed to CCLI or your next record?
Chris Tomlin: That’s really tough, because I have never really sensed that it was a balancing act for me. I mean really, I just love to write songs and love to write worship songs and love to get with my friends and write. For me, it’s that collaboration. Most everything that I’ve written comes from a group of people-two or three of us writing together. Even with my recent CD, I wasn’t planning to even make an album, but I had so many songs. And since I have been a part of the Passion Church, that’s what we have done for the last several years-gathered to together to write for the people in our church.
WL: But let’s face it, your songs move around the world. Do you take that into consideration when writing? Do your write for the world? Or is your focus simply for your community and the songs move out from there? How does that work for you?
Tomlin: I suppose for me, you know, doing those kinds of things, I don’t ever go in saying I’m writing for the world because only God can do that. It’s really his favor that takes a song around the world. So I have the larger church in mind, but really, I write for people; I’m thinking of our congregation, I’m thinking of our church.
And so probably the quintessential song on my new album is “All to Us.” It’s probably one my favorite songs I’ve been a part of, and that one was written for our church. The opening line of the chorus is about the “glory of your name, get the passion of the Church.” That holds everything together for me. That lyric is what my music is about, what our church’s worship music is about-the passion-and it came completely out of our church. It’s just a special, special song in that way.
WL: How important is it to have Louie a part of your songwriting? I’m speaking from the terms of should worship leaders have their pastors join in the creation of music for their communities?
Tomlin: Yeah, it’s amazing, man, it’s amazing. But hopefully your pastor gets it. You know what I mean? It is such a blessing to have a pastor that really gets it and has a heart for it and really sees your music ministry as an absolutely vital part of the church. And honestly, a lot of people don’t have that. There are plenty of pastors out there that are thumbing through their sermon notes while the worship leader is leading, and it’s unfortunate. And so I’m very blessed because of Louie. We’ve been in a relationship for over 15 years in a traveling ministry together. But there’s really no way you could just tell a pastor to get it. And your pastors may feel like they are not musical. But Louie will tell you he doesn’t know anything about melody, but he knows words and he knows the Word. If you’re a pastor, you do know about words and thoughts and the Word, and that’s all you need.
WL: What does collaborative songwriting look like for you, on a practical basis?
Tomlin: Well, on a really practical note, first we get a little dry-erase board. I get one of those out, then ask, “What kind of thoughts do we have today?” We write everything out and pray together and talk about what Scriptures are impacting our hearts. We, of course, write all of this out, then I ask them to play me something. And one of us will play a dog of an idea. That’s how we start, but that’s also another important thing; come with a couple of ideas. I mean it’s very hard-it is very awkward-if you come and you don’t have anything to work from.
WL: We have had you at the National Worship Leader Conference a couple of times, and it’s interesting because a lot of the people are clearly there to see Chris Tomlin. But you do a really good job of helping them take their eyes off of Chris Tomlin and focusing them on God. How intentional is that on your part?
Tomlin: Thanks so much. I mean I think it’s coming to the realization of a few things. But first, we have to remember that, no matter what, there’s always going to be a leader. God is going to use people. God is going to put different people on the stage at different times and give them different platforms for different things. And that’s just the way it has always been. We see this throughout the Scriptures. It’s not a bad thing.
But you also have to remember when you’re in front of people, no matter what sized church, they will be looking at you. The question is where are you going to lead them? If you lead them to yourself, you are doing them a huge injustice. That kind of leading will last about 10 minutes in people’s lives. And so, yes, there is going to be a spotlight. There’s going to be a light that is on you because you’re onstage and you’re leading. But what are you doing with that light? Are you accepting or reflecting that light? Our goal is to take that light and put it on the Lord. It might be as simple as every now and then backing off the mic and letting people realize that this is about more than what is coming from me.
Leading worship is more than a performance, you know? It’s about having presence and not performing. Having a presence is important because you want to lead people. You don’t want to walk up there in a kind of false humility, and just close your eyes and look at your feet the whole time and never engage anyone, because that’s not leading. That’s not leading at all. But you also don’t want to get up there and be a Vegas lounge act where you’re just a performer.
It’s a tough thing to simply talk about. Sometimes, that type of thing just needs to come through experience. It’s all about maturing. The best way you can learn is by doing it. You know, you don’t learn to play piano just by reading about it; you learn by putting your fingers to the keys, sitting there, and playing it.
I’m so thankful that I had a little church growing up where I did in Texas. They just let me get up there and play, even when I didn’t know what I was doing. But they always encouraged me. And I’m sure it was kind of hard on the ears for a lot of people. But that is leadership. Making a place for people to fall on their face. But learning how to get up as well.
