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Podcast: How to Lead God-Glorifying Worship (Bob Kauflin)

December 21, 2020 by: Crossway

This article is part of the The Crossway Podcast series.

Worshiping the Infinitely Glorious Christ

In this episode, Bob Kauflin discusses his work as a songwriter and worship leader. He reflects on how God led him into a career in music, what his process looks like when it comes to writing songs for the church, and what it's like to lead a crowd of thousands in worship at a conference like Together for the Gospel.

Worship Matters

Worship Matters

Bob Kauflin

Combining biblical foundations with real-world application, Kauflin guides worship leaders and pastors to root their corporate worship in unchanging scriptural principles rather than divisive trends.

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Topics Addressed in This Interview:

01:33 - A Life-Long Career as a Musician

Matt Tully
Bob, thank you so much for joining me today on The Crossway Podcast.

Bob Kauflin
My joy.

Matt Tully
You're a well-known musician, a worship leader, and a songwriter. My question for you to start us off is, When did you first know that you were going to devote your career—if not your life, to some extent—to music?

Bob Kauflin
In 8th grade, when I was 13 years old, they asked us to write a little project called “So you want to be . . . ” and I wrote: a composer. I wasn't a Christian, but the Lord must have been planting seeds at that time that made me want to write songs and give myself to the world of music.

Matt Tully
Do you have a sense for where that came from as a little 13-year-old?

Bob Kauflin
My mom had all of us take piano, and it was in seventh grade I learned that you could play songs by ear from the radio. That opened up a whole new world for me. I started exploring chords and lyrical ideas and it was pretty exciting. I still remember it.

Matt Tully
So at first you were just playing them by ear? You didn't actually know the music theory behind it?

Bob Kauflin
I started piano lessons when I was eight years old, so I knew some music theory; but it was just the fact that I didn't have to play my notes. I could play just by ear. That does open up this whole world. It’s really ideal, if you're a musician, to be able to do both. It’s the best of both worlds.

Matt Tully
Did your parents play any instruments?

Bob Kauflin
My mom played piano, and she played a lot of records. My dad tried to play organ, but he wasn't very good. We had this little two-tier organ in our house that he would play sometimes, but it was mostly my mom’s input.

Matt Tully
Were your parents believers?

Bob Kauflin
No, I was raised a Catholic. I became a Christian when I was a freshman in college and learned for the first time that when Jesus died on the cross, he bought my forgiveness. If I trust in him, he paid for all my sins for forever. That was a new thought for me and it changed my life forty-eight years ago.

Matt Tully
I saw a picture on your personal website that I think was maybe taken in 2013, and I think I counted sixteen grandchildren. How many do you have now and are any of them musical?

Bob Kauflin
Nineteen grandchildren.

Matt Tully
Nineteen! That’s amazing!

Bob Kauflin
They're not all musical. Some of them are getting into it. I have a granddaughter, Julia—who’s fourteen now—she sings in choirs and so I'm always encouraging her, Send me a video of your choir! The oldest is going to be nineteen in August. There’s still time, but they all love music and it’s just to differing degrees that they actually get involved in it. I teach two of my grandsons piano by Zoom, so I should say that.

Matt Tully
Has that been a new thing in light of quarantine?

Bob Kauflin
It has been.

Matt Tully
How’s that going?

Bob Kauflin
One of them is just getting started and I have already been teaching the other for about three months. Let me just say that it’s going much better than it did with my children.

Matt Tully
Having a little bit of that distance maybe helps.

Bob Kauflin
Yeah, I'm not quite as hard on them and I hopefully have learned since then. Plus, the one grandson is a great student. He practices every week, so it's great.

Matt Tully
When you were learning piano as a kid, was it something that you were just naturally very motivated to learn and to really put in the time practicing, or was it something that, at least for a period, you had to be forced to do?

Bob Kauflin
I have this memory of when I was six-years-old where I was making up a song—I could even sing it for you now, but I'll spare you—so I loved music and I was surrounded by music. I was kind of forced, I think, during elementary school, and it wasn't until I got into seventh and eighth grade when I learned to play by ear that I just couldn't get enough of it. I would just play all the time.

06:14 - The Songwriting Process

Matt Tully
Walk us through that a little bit. I think for those of us who are less musically inclined—and I would include myself in that category. I love music, but the thought of starting with a blank page and then somehow ending with this beautiful song that has a beautiful melody and wonderful, rich words, that just feels like a mystery to me. Where do you start when you sit down to write a new song?

Bob Kauflin
It’s both a gifting and a craft. You have some books like Outliers and Talent Is Overrated that make the case that it’s all circumstance and practice and there’s a lot of truth in that, but I just don't believe it fully. I talked to my college piano teacher about ten years ago (he’s since passed away) and I asked him about his impressions of that and he said, No way. If you have two people and one practices eight hours a day and the other practices three hours a day, if the one who practices three has more musical gifting they will every time surpass the one who practices eight hours a day (if they don't have the musical gifting). I imagine it’s like me trying to be an artist. I am not an artist and I cannot draw. I see people do that and I say, How in the world do you look at that and then transfer that to paper? That is unbelievable! It’s a flat piece of paper and you make it look three dimensional! I know the principles, but to do it, I just couldn't. So, it’s very much connected to the way you feel and process things. When I hear beautiful music, I might ask, How does that affect me? Why does that affect me? Then I will try and produce that. What connects those is the skills that you have. If I have more skills that are developed, I have a greater palette. I have more opportunities to say things a certain way. It’s mysterious.

Matt Tully
But the inborn thing is maybe the ability to see that something is happening and understand how the music is making an impact on somebody?

Bob Kauflin
Yes. And because I studied music, there’s an element of knowing what chords sound like, but it’s a combination of that theory knowledge and just a feeling. You don't have to be a musician to know that you like a certain kind of music.

Matt Tully
Do you find yourself constantly analyzing or trying to unpack the songs that you're listening to—Why is it having this effect on me? Oh, I can see what he’s doing there—is that a constant for you?

Bob Kauflin
Yes. I listen primarily, especially in congregational worship, I listen to lyrics. That’s a very distinct thought process for me. There are songs that I think are absolutely beautiful that I would never lead in my congregation because God tells us in Colossians 3:16: “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God.” It’s not, Let musical experiences dwell in you richly. It’s not, Let an artist’s voice dwell in you richly. It’s not, Let the guitar rift dwell in you richly. It’s “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly.” So, in congregational worship I'm asking, Does this make me know and treasure and appreciate Christ and his work more? So, it’s two different things.

Matt Tully
When it comes to the writing process, what comes first for you typically—is it the melody or the words?

Bob Kauflin
It varies. I like to write music from words that are written. But when I'm writing by myself, a lot of times I'll get words and melody, initially, exactly at the same time. I'll just think of a line and there’s a melody there.

10:29 - How Songs Affect our Emotions and Affections

Matt Tully
You mentioned just how important the words and the theological significance are. As we look around, one of the most common things that we might hear from the conservative, Reformed crowd is that sometimes they can be critical of popular, contemporary music for being a little bit theologically vacuous or overly emotional in terms of what’s propelling the song forward, what’s giving the song it’s life. What is the balance between overemphasizing and underemphasizing the importance of emotions in our worship?

Bob Kauflin
I think the most helpful way of thinking about this is to distinguish between emotions and affections. Jonathan Edwards wrote on this. Emotions are the fact that we respond to things—we feel things. Anybody can move your emotions. Affections are why we feel those things—why we feel the emotions we do. If my affection is the glory of Christ—if I have a love for the glory of Christ deep down—it’s going to affect my emotions. I'm not going to respond, perhaps, to something that’s beautiful but immoral; or something that’s beautiful but vague. My affections are telling me, Wait, that’s not magnifying Christ. It’s not saying that he left his throne, became incarnate, and lived a perfect life—not that it has to say all of those things, but it’s not drawing attention to him. So, that’s because of my affection. As I mentioned earlier, sometimes I'll listen to a song and know my emotions are being moved, but because my affections are driven towards wanting to honor the word of Christ and Jesus himself, those emotions will be tempered and I won't let them rule the day. I want my affections to rule the day. For everybody, our affections do rule the day. What we desire the most is what rules us—that’s the way we're going to go.

Matt Tully
Maybe this relates to it—in your book you say, “The successful marketing of worship music inside and outside the walls of the church has changed what the church sings and how we understand worship.” Can you unpack that change? How has that actually happened?

Bob Kauflin
We have more songs available to us instantly than any other time in history. There are few gatekeepers nowadays like there used to be. It used to be denominations who would put out hymnals: These are the approved songs. Now, anybody can pick their songs. There are gatekeepers, but not many. The gatekeeper is the Internet, and that’s a horrible gatekeeper because basically, people can do whatever they feel like doing. The problem with that is that what’s popular isn't always what’s good. What’s good isn't always what’s best. Some people may not know there’s an organization—CCLI—that measures and keeps track of how often songs are sung in churches all over the world.

Matt Tully
Because churches have to buy a subscription to that, right? And that’s how they control the copyright of them and all of that.

Bob Kauflin
I like to say it’s a way of compensating those who serve the church with their songs. I'm both a publisher and a writer. With Sovereign Grace Music I'm a publisher. I'm a writer. I've seen both sides. I'm a pastor. I like to think of it as, We want to encourage people who are writing songs that serve the church, so this is a way to do it. So, you're going to have your top 100 CCLI songs. Those might not be the best for my church. Just because they're popular doesn't mean they're fit for my congregation. So that’s what I mean that the industry has really brought about a revolution in terms of the songs that the church chooses to sing.

15:11 - The Goal of Leading Worship

Matt Tully
Another thing that you talk a lot about in the book that I think all Christians wrestle with to some extent—certainly all pastors and leaders have probably had to wrestle with this a little bit—is just trying to find a balance between doing that with excellence and making beautiful, engaging music that people want to listen to and want to be a part of with, on the other hand, going so far as to making it seem like a concert or a show that people are merely spectators of just like any other kind of show they might go to. How do you think about that balance, even practically speaking, as a worship leader when you go to lead a group of people in worship?

Bob Kauflin
That’s a great question, Matt. As a trained musician, I have to recognize that my skills, practice, and technique are to be used for a purpose. My goal is not to show my skill. My goal is to point to Christ. That’s what I'm there for. I love what John Piper has called “undistracting excellence”—it’s an excellence that moves people in a certain way. It’s different from a concert in that a concert is really dependent on the individual listeners and their maturity to determine whether or not it’s worship. I can go to an orchestra concert and worship the Lord, but they're not doing anything to help me do that. They're just playing the music.

Matt Tully
So it’s about your intentions as the leader as well.

Bob Kauflin
Yes. As a leader, I want to make it as easy as possible for people to see why we're there, why we're doing what we do. The more I allow production and performance to dominate the service, the harder it’s going to be for people to see what we're there for. That’s a balance and every congregation has to work that out. I would say it’s not a problem just with traditional music; it’s a problem of contemporary music as well. We can do anything with such excellence that people are drawn to that rather than the One we're there to sing to and be changed by.

Matt Tully
What would you say to the person listening to that and they say, Are you saying that I need to intentionally not play as well as I know I can play?

Bob Kauflin
I would say first, you probably don't play as well as you think you do. But secondly, I would say no, you use your skills for a greater purpose than just showing your skills. I could sit in front of a congregation and do all kinds of arpeggios and scales and all kinds of things that show people, Hey! I got skills! But I don't want to do that. I want to use them sparingly so that people at the right moment are moved by them as a complement to the truths we're singing. I've had the privilege of leading at different conferences—large conferences—mostly pastors. In that context, it’s just me at the piano. There will be times when I'm just playing a couple of notes and letting the sound of the congregation rise. I could be doing more, but it just doesn't seem to be the right choice at that moment. Sometimes I don't play at all because what I'm there for is to motivate faith-filled, Christ-exalting, emotionally-engaged singing. That’s what I'm there to do. If they're spending most of their time listening to me play, or being distracted by the things I'm playing, I'm not serving the purpose for which God has me there.

Matt Tully
As you think back over your career as a worship leader, are there certain things that you stopped doing that you once did—or maybe started doing that you didn't do before—as a way to intentionally cultivate the right atmosphere and mindset among your listeners?

Bob Kauflin
Actually, that song from Hamilton comes to mind: “Talk less, smile more . . . ” Playing less—and to be clear, I'm not trying to create an atmosphere. I'm trying to engage people’s hearts with music—their emotions—and then make the words very clear, the connections very clear. It’s so that we're not singing just a bunch of random songs. That’s what I'm trying to do for them. I've always wanted to see Jesus exalted when I lead, but I think my intentions are probably a lot clearer in my own heart now than they used to be. I actually used to struggle being before people I respected when I was leading. It might have been my senior pastor, or whoever, somebody I really respected, and that’s all I would be thinking about!

Matt Tully
Like, This person’s watching me?

Bob Kauflin
Yes! What do they think of this? Did they like that? Oh, that was so stupid! Now that I've led in front of all these guys—John Piper and Jon MacArthur, etc.—I can say that, praise God by his grace, I don't think about them because we're there to fix our eyes on God’s glory in Christ. “For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ” (2 Cor. 4:6). That’s what we're there to do. Jesus is more impressive than all of us, so I'm just in front of people to say, Look to him. The best we can be is a signpost. We're not the main event.

21:24 - Leading Worship Before Thousands

Matt Tully
You mentioned leading worship before thousands of people and maybe one of the conferences you're most associated with are the T4G (Together for the Gospel) conferences, and you've led the worship there for a number of years now. What’s it like to be at that piano leading thousands of people in corporate singing together?

Bob Kauflin
I'm getting older. My chops are not what they'd used to be, so I'd say the first day or two I'm a little distracted. And we're recording it. If we weren't recording it none of this would be an issue.

Matt Tully
Is it added pressure because it’s being recorded?

Bob Kauflin
Yeah. Because you can't overdub the piano—it’s very, very difficult. So the first couple of days I'm a little distracted I think; but mostly, I just love it. This is why I exist. This is why you exist, you just don't play piano—or maybe you do, I don't know.

Matt Tully
No, I definitely don't.

Bob Kauflin
We exist to bring glory to Jesus Christ. He’s glorious; he’s infinitely glorious. I'm sitting in front of people singing these words that are so rich and biblically rooted and Christ exalting and these melodies that are emotionally engaging and I'm thinking, This is so fun! This is so good! I get to be a facilitator, if you will, for all these men and women and I don't know where they're at. I don't know whether they've just had a stillborn child, I don't know if they're struggling in their church, I don't know if they're rejoicing in the blessings of God. But what I do know is this: What they need most is to look at Jesus, that by the Holy Spirit’s power working through them they get to see how glorious he is. I get to do that! I just love it.

Matt Tully
That’s one of the cool things about music in general, but specifically music that is rooted in Scripture that has these solid truths that we can hang our lives on is that they can meet us in so many of those situations. We might each be coming from different expressions of brokenness and sin and pain in our lives and yet, God’s Word through these songs can meet us in powerful ways.

Bob Kauflin
Yes. Sovereign Grace did an album, The Glorious Christ, and it was at the same time as a conference I did last year and the theme was “The Glorious Christ: Music is Great. Jesus is Greater.” That’s kind of been a theme. In fact, I've started signing off my emails with “Keep making much of Jesus.” Wherever you find yourself, if you make much of him, you'll be better off because in the end all creation is going to be making much of him. So why not get ready for that now? Why not prepare your heart?

Matt Tully
Start practicing.

Bob Kauflin
That’s exactly right!

Matt Tully
What is a worship song that you love and that has a special place in your heart that you wish you could have been the one to write?

Bob Kauflin
“Before the Throne of God Above.”

Matt Tully
Why do you love that song so much?

Bob Kauflin
Actually, this woman, Charitie Lees Smith, wrote it in the nineteenth century, and then Vikki Cook—a good friend of mine—wrote the music back in 1997 or 1998. I've sung it countless times, and it is such a fine melding of lyric and melody. The lyrics are just amazing: Christ our intercessor, Christ our high priest, Christ our substitutionary sacrifice, Christ who we are now in union with, Christ our risen Savior—it just covers all this ground. I love the line “When Satan tempts me to despair and tells me of the guilt within, upward I look and see him there who made an end of all my sin.” And then she tells us how that happened: “Because the sinless Savior died my sinful soul is counted free.” What difference does that make? “God the just is satisfied to look on him and pardon me!” It’s facts that change your life once you understand the meaning of that and the importance of it. And then Vikki wrote this melody that when you sing you can just belt it out! It never gets old. “In Christ Alone” is like that. City of Life has a new song, “Yet Not I, but through Christ in Me”—very similar. Songs that help you understand who Jesus really is and what he really did and they do it with a melody that is singable and emotionally engaging—they're the best. They are just the best.

27:05 - A Prayer for the Church

Matt Tully
As we said already, you've been writing and singing and leading worship for over four decades, if my math is right.

Bob Kauflin
Yes!

Matt Tully
You said maybe you're not as sharp in some ways as you once were, but as you consider where we're at now (as the evangelical church as a whole) compared to when you first started and then you also look to the future and the coming four decades, what’s your prayer for the church?

Bob Kauflin
My prayer is that we would see that the gifts of God can only point to the Giver. We will never make music that is worthy of the One we sing about and to. But, there are gifts that God gives the church to do that: new songs, new hymns, new arrangements, new voices. Their best use is toward that end, to help people see that we were made to glorify God in Jesus Christ. To receive the forgiveness that he alone provides through his perfect life, substitutionary death, and victorious resurrection, and to live in such a way that people see us and they go, Oh! That person is different because they know Christ. I would love for the church to be more and more a place where you bring the theology and the rich doctrine and the biblical faithfulness together with not only a passion for God but a passion for obedience, a passion for a holy life, a passion for purity. There’s a big disconnect between the songs we profess, the truths we sing about, the promises we say we believe and the way we live our lives. For too many people there is this chasm—for too many leaders. One of the burdens for the rest of my life is to contribute to helping those who lead music in the church to understand that their first accountability is to God. That may seem obvious, but their accountability is not to their profession, it’s not to their career, it’s not to their leading. Their accountability is to God. We are stewards of the gospel. I've had conversations with too many people in the last few years where they have a public ministry—they're either leading in their church, they're a songwriter, they're a producer, they're a musician—and their lives are not being lived for the glory of Jesus. I won't try to give reasons, but that should not be because Jesus is more glorious than anything we do for him. It’s that grace that doesn't come through because they don't know it. They haven't seen it.

Matt Tully
Alright, last question, and maybe a little bit more of a fun one: If you could jam with any musician—living or dead—for an hour, who would it be?

Bob Kauflin
Oh man!

Matt Tully
It might be a hard choice.

Bob Kauflin
No—Keith Jarrett. He’s a jazz piano player. He would improvise for twenty minutes. He would do concerts where he would just do nothing but improvise. Spiritually he’s just awall, but musically it’s unbelievable what he does. That’s really inspired me over the years to do more spontaneous stuff. He’s got a number of albums out—he’s still alive--and they'll name the albums according to the city they took place in, and it’s just like two hours of spontaneous music.

Matt Tully
Wow. That’s another one of those things that is just a complete mystery to me how you could produce something that flows and is coherent but without any practice or any thought ahead of time.

Bob Kauflin
Well, it’s not unlike speaking. I'm watching my one-year-old granddaughter learn how to speak and it’s just little bit by bit, piece by piece. You start putting things together and then you have these chunks; and then you put the chunks together. So when you're being spontaneous, you're drawing upon thousands of hours of play and you just know what it’s going to sound like before you play it.

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