The following is a transcript of Episode #1 of the Doxology Matters podcast, “Sing a New Song”.
Our desire is to help Christians think deeply about God’s Word as we praise Him.
Pastor Keith: Hi, I’m Keith McMinn. Welcome to this first episode of Doxology Matters, where we desire to help Christians think deeply about God’s Word as we praise Him. Today I’m joined by my good friends Joel Arcieri, worship director at Coastal Community Church, Yorktown. Joel, good to have you, man.
Joel Arcieri: Thank you. Thank you.
Pastor Keith: Looking cool as always.
Joel Arcieri: Appreciate it.
Pastor Keith: All dressed up nice. Got your beard groomed.
Joel Arcieri: You know, you got to – I don’t know what I was going to say.
Pastor Keith: And we’ve got Matt Carpenter, worship leader and pastoral assistant at Reformation Christian Fellowship. So glad to have Matt –
Matt Carpenter: Happy to be here, man.
Pastor Keith: – with you. Tell me, just quickly, how long have you been at your church?
Matt Carpenter: I’ve been at my church for about two years now.
Pastor Keith: And your undergrad was at Boyce College?
Matt Carpenter: Yes, sir.
Pastor Keith: What was your degree there?
Matt Carpenter: Worship and pastoral studies. So imagine a BTS degree and a whole worship degree smushed, and they call it one degree.
Pastor Keith: Now tell us what BTS is.
Matt Carpenter: Biblical and theological studies.
Pastor Keith: Fantastic. Joel, where did you go to school?
Joel Arcieri: Undergrad I went to Christopher Newport, and then for masters I went to Liberty University. I studied psychology for my undergrad and marriage and family therapy for my masters.
Pastor Keith: I would imagine – we’ve never talked about this – but I would imagine having that degree and that training really helps you pastorally care for the flock.
Joel Arcieri: Oh, yeah. It’s funny because anytime I do anything music outside of Coastal, someone be like, “Oh, did you go to school for music?” And I’m like, “No, I did it for psychology.” They’re like, “How did you get – why are you in your job and not counseling?” And the Lord’s always placed upon my heart a desire for music and to see the church sing well. But I also want to see people changed by the Word of the Lord, privately as well as corporately, and so that’s where the counseling came in.
Pastor Keith: Man, that’s great. And God’s given you guys monster talent and gift. And we know every good and perfect gift is from above, nothing from within ourselves.
Joel Arcieri: Amen.
Pastor Keith: So we’re pumped to have you. Just want to read a Scripture as we get started. This comes out of Psalm 33. Sing a new song – “Sing to him a new song; play skillfully on the strings, with loud shouts.” We see in the Psalms, that we’re exhorted to sing a new song. And what that looks like for us is that we sing songs of – maybe some that have been written by Andrew Peterson, Chris Tomlin, Keith and Kristyn Getty. But I heard a message one time by Mark Altrogge about fostering songwriting in the local church. I believe it was that a Sovereign Grace worship conference. Tell me how you, in your local church, try to apply this scripture.
Matt Carpenter: I think before even the church can begin to have some sort of songwriting ministry is to acknowledge and understand that the command to sing a new song is that; it is a command. I think a lot of churches just assume that this is just as is a fun side project, that this is something that other churches can do. But we’re commanded in the Scripture – that you just read – we’re exhorted to sing a new song. The first part about doing that is just getting the ball rolling in general. My heart, at least for my church, and I assume probably for Joel’s church, is that there would be lots of people writing songs. We’re starting, I think, going on an uphill battle with most churches, because we’re in this culture that music is – new Christian music is something that comes to me rather than something that I’m commanded to do.
Pastor Keith: Right, we’re living in that consumer age. A word to your point, living in a time where there is – it’s the best of times, and in some way, it’s the worst of times. I believe that’s Dickens. There are so many songs being written for the church. With so many songs being written, why did you guys determine that it would be good to write an album of new hymns? Joel?
Joel Arcieri: Well, so going in that same vein as what Matt was talking about, there’s that tension of a lot of people are writing great songs. You might think you’re adding to the noise, but it came about from our heartbeat for the local church, first and foremost. You’re asking a question about why is it important that you in your local church foster a culture of songwriting, right, or at least singing new songs. Because we had that heartbeat for our own local bodies, that we would want them to sing new songs, and Lord has gifted both Matt and I in writing our own music, as we started to kind of work together, we said, “Well, if we’re going to do this together, let’s do it for real.” And let’s do it in a way that we would write songs not just for our churches now. So it’s not just RCF or Coastal. Now it’s, “Hey, we have countless churches on the peninsula that we could write songs for. Or what about the world?”
Matt Carpenter: What about the world?
Joel Arcieri: What about the world? I don’t think about the [inaudible]. But it came about from that, us thinking, “Okay, it’s not, ‘Are we going to add to the noise.’ It’s not, ‘People have already written songs about this.'” There’s countless songs now. Bob Kauflin said it, “Nowadays, there are more songs than there have ever been written in the history of worship music.” In today’s day, now. And so that’s that tension. Why would we write? Well, it’s because we’re not just going to write for our local church. We want to write the best songs that a church could sing for any church, regardless of where they are.
Matt Carpenter: This is also something that Bob has said, so I’m stealing this, but we will be singing for eternity. And there’s this truth that our God is big enough to be able to write new songs about Him.
Pastor Keith: Yeah, I’ve heard him say that.
Matt Carpenter: So if you’re coming up short about, “Okay, so what do I write about God?” It’s probably because you’ve hit a wall right now, maybe in your walk or you’re spiritually dry. We’ve experienced this ourselves, personally.
Pastor Keith: That’s great. I appreciate what you said about, first of all, writing for the local church, of caring for God’s people. Pastorally caring for the flock is a huge and really a sacred trust that we have. Each week we step onto the platform is caring for their souls. Tell me a little bit about what was your vision for the album? There’s eight songs on the album, and this is your first album together.
Joel Arcieri: Debut.
Pastor Keith: Debut album. That’s kind of funny isn’t it. Then Saturday you have the release concert. Is that what you’re calling it?
Joel Arcieri: Yeah, Night of Worship, Worship Concert.
Matt Carpenter: The terminology sometimes, I think, can bug people if we call it a concert, but let’s just let the cat out of the bag.
Joel Arcieri: Because it is participatory. It is. There are going to be slides so that you can sing along, not just –
Matt Carpenter: Yeah, we want you to sing.
Joel Arcieri: “Take a seat while we play at your face.”
Matt Carpenter: Yeah, that’s not what we’re going to do there.
Pastor Keith: Well, we walk this tension of what we do in the arts. It’s a performing arts, but it’s not a stage and audience. It’s using the gifts that God’s given us to set the banquet of God before the people and give them vehicles to sing. So, what’s the vision of the album that you have?
Matt Carpenter: If I can, add a word?
Joel Arcieri: You don’t have to ask, just go.
Matt Carpenter: All right. I’m just going to go then. Part of this album is – half of it just kind of happened. It’s not like this most super deep theological reason for the album, but that is a part of it. God’s sovereignty was clearly on display in just Joel and I meeting through the monthly worship leader lunch. But a lot of it, even the songs that ended up being put on here, there was this overarching theme of just the goodness and graciousness of God. Even the first song, “Our God Delights to Hear Our Prayers,” the disposition of our Father being warmth and delighting in His people coming to Him and humbling themselves in prayer through the blood of Christ. Then ending the album with, “So Good to Me,” and then having right in the middle the apex of God’s grace to us shown in Christ’s sacrifice on the cross. “Gracious father, you’ve forgiven us.” Now there’s other songs in there that aren’t necessarily so focused on that, but that’s one thing that we kind of noticed as these songs came together is, “Oh, this is a little bit of a cohesive theme,” even in the midst of something that was kind of spontaneous.
Pastor Keith: Do you think any of that is drawn out of maybe what you see as a lack in the current church’s diet of songs?
Joel Arcieri: Well, yeah. We’ve done, “Our God Delights to Hear Our Prayers,” now three times at my church, at Coastal. And the amount of people that have come up and said, “I’ve never thought that God delights to hear my prayers.” Right? Just that thought of, the Lord delights when I pray to Him. Obviously, the guy who leads our prayer ministry was very happy. He was like, “It’s my anthem.”
Pastor Keith: Sing that song again.
Joel Arcieri: I was like, “I wrote it for you.” But it’s true! I think my drummer one week said, “I never thought” – so the chorus is, “Perfect peace amid the flood, sweet communion with our God. What a privilege it is now to come, to Him who hears our prayers.” He said, “Man, that line, ‘What a privilege'” – and then coupling that with, “Our God delights to hear our prayers,” he said, “That just really was sweet in my walk, in my faith.” And for a lot of people that was – they never thought about that. I think part of it is there is a lack of – some of the songs that we’re trying to write are addressing a lack of diet in some of the songs that are in the local church. But also things that are going on in our lives as well as our local church’s lives. Right?
I think all three of us could say our churches don’t really excel in prayer when it comes to rejoicing in prayer. I think Charles Spurgeon says, “The man that loves God more, becomes more like Christ and delights more in prayer.” to me, when I read that phrase, I’m confronted with my own inadequacy in that. I’m like, “I don’t always delight in prayer,” which then means I’m not being more like Christ, which that means I’m not actually loving God more. I think that’s all of our churches. We all aren’t really always delighting in prayer, and that’s because we’re not always being more like Christ and loving God. To answer your question, yeah, I think part of it was – without actually saying, “We need to write songs that –
Pastor Keith: Right, it just came out
Joel Arcieri: – confront this.” It came out of it because, like you were saying, we have a heart for the local church.
Pastor Keith: You know, brothers, I was thinking on the way here – and this is not a exaggerated statement. I would say that this album, maybe it’s where I am spiritually now, just in this season God has me, but I would say this album is one of my top five albums of –
Joel Arcieri: I’m waiting to see what he says. Of all – I’m like, if it’s –
Matt Carpenter: Of the last 20 minutes.
Pastor Keith: Of the last two weeks.
[Laughter]
Joel Arcieri: If it’s all time, “Oh!” But if it’s like the last week –
Pastor Keith: Yeah, like yesterday I was listening to a couple albums.
Joel Arcieri: I listen to a lot of music.
Pastor Keith: No, I would say, since I’ve been in ministry, since seminary. I would say this is one of the top ones. And I say that because – for instance, we’ll talk about one song. When I was a kid, even in my teenage years, I’m not sure where it really started to diminish. Actually, when I was serving in a church in Chicago, I heard a message about God’s love from Pastor Ben Willey, about God’s love for us through Jesus Christ. for the longest time in my life, I just felt God’s wrath on me. Even though I was a saved Christian at the age of 14 – not 14, nine, I just had this sense of God was looking over me with a finger down.
I probably listened to “Gracious Father” about 15 times, and that song has ministered so much to me that I have thought, “God loves me. He is gracious to me in His son Jesus Christ.” And those truths just continue to encourage my heart. I think about “Never Far from Me;” I’ve listened to that one a lot as well. That’s a lot of people’s struggles, and that’s an interesting song for the church to think through. I’d love to hear a little bit behind the scenes of how you came to write a lyric like that. Did you write that one by yourself –
Joel Arcieri: Yes, he did.
Pastor Keith: – or with Joel?
Matt Carpenter: That song in particular, as is the nature with even any of the worship songs that we write, there’s a devotional aspect to it. Most of the songs that I’m the most proud of come out of the moment where my heart is full of God’s Word in some way, whether it’s from a sermon or from daily devotional. In this case, in the Psalms, there’s this constant theme of David being in some perilous situation. In faith, which is a crucial point there, in faith he asks questions. “How long, oh Lord? How long will you cast me off? How long will you be far from me?”
In this pervasive culture of the prosperity gospel seeping in and things like, “Declare victory,” “Name it, claim it,” where you don’t have enough faith if you’re in a hardship. You don’t have enough faith if something bad is happening to you. This song for me was, how can we just allow the church to be honest with the Lord and just say, “Lord, lately, my joy slips away like trying to hold water in my hands,” or, “Don’t you see my trouble close behind? I know there’s nothing that you can’t see, but my unbelief says that You’re blind.” These kinds of things where it’s uncomfortable for us to sing on a Sunday morning, when it really shouldn’t be. Because –
Matt Carpenter: Yeah, and we want to come to Sunday morning going, “Hey brother, how are you? I’m doing great.” I might have argued with my family on the way here, but otherwise I’m doing fine.
Pastor Keith: Yeah, as I was thinking about how I’ll use that song at church, there’s a definite distinct vulnerability and honesty with that song. Singing it beside my wife or my son, those are struggles – “Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it. Prone to leave the God I love” – that we struggle with. And I think that song, just by singing it, puts us in and fosters a culture of biblical community, recognizing the need for God’s grace and honesty. It’s so good. So good. Hey, that’s what I was trying to transition to.
Joel Arcieri: So good to me. It’s so good, to me at least.
Pastor Keith: I love that song, “Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good.” I think about that, and I think you do a great job singing it. I think that is something that – we tend not to think about God’s goodness enough. Our hearts are seasonal in their thanks, and the gravity of God’s goodness to us is we could fill thousands of books with how good He’s been to us. So when I hear that song, I just think – it ministers to my soul because I think, “Yeah, God has been good to me, and this is how He has been good to me.” It takes my eyes off myself, of complaining, maybe even with my wife, “Oh, we can’t do pizza tonight because we don’t have any left in the budget.” But I think about God’s goodness to me. I live in America. I live in York County. Wonderful family, wonderful church, wonderful house. Those are just material blessings. But the blessings I have in Jesus Christ are monumentally more than that. There’s just so much to give thanks for. Did you write that one?
Joel Arcieri: I did, yeah. Funnily enough, that song started out as a joke.
Pastor Keith: Oh, that’s nice.
Joel Arcieri: It came in the wave of –
Pastor Keith: God can use anything.
Joel Arcieri: A little clue into how most worship culture goes is, someone writes a song, it blows up, and then everyone has to write something that has some similar language or style. So when “Reckless Love” came out, everyone wanted to write something about how God’s good to you. Right? It was the same thing with Chris Tomlin’s “Good, Good Father.” When he started doing “Good, Good Father,” everyone started being like, “Oh, fatherhood,” and, “God’s good.” So as a joke, I said, “I’m going to write a song that talks about God’s goodness, like a bethel song or whatever” – not Bethel Baptist here – “in five minutes.” Then I showed it to Matt, and he goes, “Okay, this actually is a really good melody. Let’s do something with this. Let’s flesh it out.” Because it really comes down to the dichotomy of our faith, in that God is so completely separate from who we are. Right? He is Holy. He is set apart. He is not us. We are not God.
I was reading a book recently that says like, “What’s the difference between you and God? You need rest. God doesn’t. You need food. God doesn’t. You need sleep. God doesn’t. You need friends. God doesn’t.” God is not you. Right? All the verses in that song talk about the separateness of the Lord, and yet He is still mindful. Right? “The hands that carved – [crosstalk] the hands that carved Everest’s peak were pierced with nails and bled for me.” Right? Or, “You formed this world with just a word, and yet – and still, my prayers, all are heard.” You know?
So why does the chorus say, “Holy” – and we were kind of bouncing around, “What should the chorus language be?” The reason why we settled on holy is holy means set apart. He is holy, and He is still yet so good to us. Right? He is Holy, and He is still mindful of our frame. Right? He is truly never far from us. We ended the album with that because it just sums up. It’s the summation of the entire album, of God does not have to be mindful of you, and yet He is. Not because you earned it, but through Christ’s shed blood on the cross. That’s where that song really came into its own. After we decided to actually make it for real, it was, “Yeah, God does not owe us anything, and yet He’s so good to us.”
Pastor Keith: That’s one of my most favorite things about you, man, is your sensitivity to the Spirit and love for God’s Word and care and thoughtfulness. I really appreciate that. That was really helpful sharing that. I’m going to switch gears a little bit just for a few minutes. Can you tell me a little bit about the sonic vibe of what you’re going for audio-wise?
Matt Carpenter: Sonic vibe.
Pastor Keith: Yeah, sounds cool, huh. Like instrumentation, what did you want to convey musically? We think about Psalm 150, “Let everything that has breath, praise the Lord.” What instrumentation do you have on the album? Matt?
Matt Carpenter: In this, Joel and I both agree that we want, at its core, any church to be able to hear a song and in some way be able to go, “Yeah, I can do that.” A lot of the trends, in recent past, has been very synth heavy, very elaborate.
Pastor Keith: Ethereal.
Matt Carpenter: Yeah, ethereal and –
Joel Arcieri: Dated reverb on the drums, the ’80s-style sounding songs.
Matt Carpenter: Right. And 75 percent of the churches, or around there, in the SBC are less than like a hundred people. So you have this small sect of the churches that can reproduce that, and then you get the majority of small churches going, “Well, I’ve got Miss Sandy, who’s been playing piano for 28 years here, right? And me on the acoustic guitar. How can I do that?” At its core, we want that to still feel homemade, in that we can do the big sound if we want to, but we can also write these songs on just guitar.
Joel Arcieri: That can translate well to acoustic. And I think it also comes down to our background too. Matt, at his local church, they don’t have a full band kind of feel like we might have at Coastal. They have a cajón as their percussion. They have piano, acoustic, bass, and a couple singers. Whereas I’m rocking two electric guitars, sometimes two electric guitars, a cello or a violin instead. Then drums and piano and a pad sound in the background. Then also our musical background and stylings, whereas Matt comes from – because he was more piano driven, you come from a little bit more of that kind of subdued. It’s not going to be huge, big kind of style. It’s a little bit more of that, you’re doing piano and maybe acoustic, small accompaniment.
Whereas me, a lot of my musical influences were big bands with big sounds, but it wasn’t super synthy, big drums, big electric guitars kind of thing. Because I grew up on early Hillsong who, back in the day, they set the bar for that. You always had a guitar riff that was really nice, well-played. You maybe had like a guitar solo, but it wasn’t an Eddie van Halen kind of crazy thing. It was just like a little riff you’d add and you had drums, and it was pretty simple. That really influenced my styling. So when we were working together on the sonic style, that was really heavily – my thrust was kind of definitely very evident there. It was like, “Okay, it’s going to have some spacey feel,” but it’s not going to be so ethereal like the ’80s style that we have in a lot of worship music today.
Pastor Keith: I’d say if I was critiquing it musically, which as I listen – as musicians we do that – I’d say it’s wonderful and that defined would be, I think the piano part is beautiful. It’s engaging to the ear. Every time I hear the piano – I mean I’m a piano player. That is the best instrument on the planet.
Matt Carpenter: It really is.
Joel Arcieri: Okay. All right.
Pastor Keith: Then guitar.
Joel Arcieri: I feel oppressed.
Pastor Keith: It’s really captivating, and the acoustic rhythm and with the electric, I think it’s just the right amount of electric. I love electric guitar, and the more I hear it, the more I love it. The drums are solid. You play, Joel – what all did you play?
Joel Arcieri: I played drums, bass, electric, acoustic for most of the songs. He played on a couple. Then lead vocals, backup vocals. But most of the instrumentation.
Pastor Keith: One of the things, when I first heard the track when you sent it to me, it was the gang vocals behind it. I really like that. It’s not really like a choir vibe, but it’s more in what we’d called maybe a Nashville gang vocals. Can you tell me why you decided to put gang vocals on there?
Matt Carpenter: Well, we want people to sing these songs and we think that that subtly or subconsciously just lets people know Joel and I aren’t the only one singing. You can sing too if you want. Because our heart is for churches to sing these songs. So even if we can give the illusion that we have multiple people when really it was eight people singing the songs four times. That was a fun day.
Joel Arcieri: My voice hurt.
Matt Carpenter: Then we had to sing and lead worship the next day. That’s kind of our goal, is we want people to sing, and we want to let people know they can sing by hearing other people sing.
Pastor Keith: That joyfully comes through. You feel like it’s the gathered church singing, and I love that. Often on Sundays I’ll pull my mic down away just to indirectly model to the church, it’s not about the guy that is pastor over this ministry that the church is giving double honor with financial support. It’s not about him. It’s about Jesus Christ and the gathered bride worshiping Him. So I’ll step back, put the mic down. We do a lot of acapella singing here.
Matt Carpenter: That’s wonderful.
Pastor Keith: A verse or two of a hymn or another Psalm or spiritual song, we’ll just go acapella. I think from the comments I’m hearing in the church is that they really like that. I intentionally do that partly because initially Bob Kauflin encouraged me that that’s a good thing to do.
Joel Arcieri: Basically, this is Bob Matters. It’s not Doxology Matters. It’s Bob Matters. Bob Kauflin Matters.
Matt Carpenter: If he ever listens to this, he’s face palming right now.
Pastor Keith: He is, isn’t he? And he’s maybe giving us a little critique.
Joel Arcieri: I wouldn’t have said that. No one else knows that inside joke other than us. Anyway, sorry, you were saying.
Pastor Keith: He could help us be [crosstalk].
Matt Carpenter: Form Bob-anonymous.
Joel Arcieri: But speaking to what you were saying, everyone here who’s listening to this podcast has heard a live version of a worship song. Right? You automatically engage with it more, because you hear other people engaging with it more. And then if you’re a director and you listen to a live version of a song, you’re hearing it being singable. Right? Because it’s being sung. So if you’re thinking, “Can I sing this song at my church?” you’re more inclined to think yes if you’re hearing other people sing it. And so that was the biggest thing with, we want to do gang vocals, was we want people to more easily be able to say, “Oh yeah, I could totally do this at my church,” because I’m hearing people sing this now.
Matt Carpenter: There’s a couple of people in my church that cringe because they can really hear themselves and then they go, “Oh, that’s me?” I say, “Yep, there you are.”
Pastor Keith: How have you seen God at work in maybe your life specifically as you’re using the gifts that God’s given you?
Matt Carpenter: You want to go?
Joel Arcieri: Specifically with this project or just in general?
Pastor Keith: Yeah, in this season as you have written for this season. I’ve always found that as I’m using the gifts God’s given me, He teaches me more. He brings about a humility. He reveals sin issues that I had that maybe – for me, I set my gift on the shelf, because I felt like there were other people in my life that could do it way better. Why, God, do you need me to orchestrate and arrange when Bradley Night, Cliff Durine – all these people were writing such great arrangements. Why me? Well, God broke down my pride, and I started to use the gift, and I’m just so blessed. It’s like the Eric Lindell, “I feel God’s pleasure as I write,” and then God dispenses grace to me and then through me to other people. It’s beautiful how it works like that.
Joel Arcieri: I have been, through this project, confronted more and more with my own desire to be “it.” Right? The Lord has really worked on my heart through this whole process that I’m so prone to this perfectionism that assumes the best of myself and the worst of others, in the sense that – we listened to an album recently, incredible album that was 10 years in the making. We listened to it sonically and my immediate thought was, “Oh man, I wish our album was that.” And then I have to take a second go and be humble and ask the Lord to forgive me and have to repented of that saying, “No, they’ve been blessed. The Lord has done this with them.” “Gracious Father,” you are blessing it, Lord. Just because it may sound different or have a different platform or anything like that does not mean it is any less used for the kingdom.
I think that through this project, the Lord has continued to mold me more into His image by saying whatever happens, whatever goes on with this is My hand, not your hand. Right? It’s My hand moving things. And this project, we’ve endeavored to do this for 10 years, so 10 albums, 10 concerts at least in the fall here. And whatever happens in those 10 years is not Joel and Matt’s hand moving. It’s the Lord’s hand. It’s not prep for the next step. I think oftentimes we can think that. That’s often my wrestle, is okay, whatever I’m doing right now is prep for the next thing that God’s going to do. What have God never moves you from that spot. And what if God never moves me from this? What if The Grace Collective literally is the small town worship group? Or it never works? Like, God says, “Okay, you guys can’t do this anymore. Seasons change. Sorry.”
Who cares? If the Lord is using it, He’s using it. Like you were saying, we need to not say, “Let’s put our gift on the shelf.” But we also need to say, “When we take our gifts off the shelf, it’s not my gift. It’s God’s gift.” And I am not the center of attention. I am not the bee’s knees. I am still worthy of death. I’m still worthy of damnation. And yet Christ’s blood is the only thing that keeps me from that, and His intercession today is the only thing that keeps me with Him through the power of the Holy Spirit. It’s been great, because like you said, it’s brought out sin patterns in my life that I thought weren’t as – I felt like there were better. Then this starts to happen, and you’re like, “All right God, I need to work. I need You to work on my heart.”
Pastor Keith: I appreciate you sharing that. I know we plan to have charts for all of these songs, and the guys have hired me to do their charts, chord charts, for those that prefer to use chord charts, and lead sheets and a piano vocal for, like you mentioned –
Joel Arcieri: Small time churches.
Pastor Keith: – hypothetical Sandy that’s playing at her church and doesn’t know how to read a chord chart. Well, we’ll have a basic piano part that has characteristics of the album, but that is like a concise – that captures the vibe of the album, so to speak, that a player can play if they don’t have a drum kit or if they do, to kind of hit in between. At least that’s how I’ve been doing it, picking up your little licks and that kind of thing. So we hope to have all of those out and some orchestrations even for churches that use big choirs and orchestras. So guys, thank you so much for being here.
Matt Carpenter: Thanks for having us.
Pastor Keith: You are as equally, if not more, deep than you are funny, because you’re always so funny and so jovial.
Matt Carpenter: How do we take that?
Pastor Keith: Sometimes I’m like, “Ahh!”
Joel Arcieri: He’s kind. We just frustrate you. That’s all we do. Every time you’re trying to do something serious, we’re joking in the background, and you do the subtle hand where he’s like, “Can you guys just” –
Pastor Keith: Can you just settle down?
Joel Arcieri: “Can you just stop,” and inside he’s just raging.
Pastor Keith: I think the world of you guys. That’s why I want to help serve you in this. And I love this project and I pray for many, many more.
Joel Arcieri: Get ready for the next one, man. We’re already – the next album’s songs from Colossians, and we think it’s exponentially better than, “Gracious Father.” So get excited.
Matt Carpenter: We’re pretty pumped.
Pastor Keith: Wonderful. Thank you again for this episode.
Joel Arcieri: Thank you.
Matt Carpenter: Yeah, Thank you.
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