How To Remember | Andrew Osenga

Well, how do we recover the lost art of remembering? The control. To the world, the Lord is come. Let her receive her king. When we are going through times of loss and loneliness, we can know that we are not the first people to go through this.

God is there, even when we don't feel it in the moment. Finding these, whether they're songs or writings, can be really helpful. Welcome to Building Relationships with Dr. Gary Chabman, author of the New York Times bestseller, "The 5 Love Languages" . Today of Christmas celebration, you'll hear music and thoughts from author, singer, and songwriter Andrew Osinga.

And our featured resource is his book, How to Remember Forgotten Pathways to an Authentic Faith. Oh, this topic's gonna hit a nerve with you today and just in time for Christmas, which is full of rich, warm memories and probably some hard ones as well. Go to buildingrelationships.us and you'll see Andrew's book there, How to Remember. Gary, take me back as far as you can go and tell me a Christmas memory that you have. What comes to mind?

Oh, Chris, you're taking me way back. I was five years old. This is my earliest memory. We were living in Syracuse, New York. Uh my dad had moved us up there at the beginning of the summer.

And by Christmastime, the snow was higher than I was. I just remember that Christmas, you know, and I remember my dad read the Christmas story out of the Bible. We sang a couple of some Christmas songs and then we opened our gifts and all of that. But then what happened, of course, my my dad went up there to work. It was just during the Second World War.

He went up there to work in a defense plant and not have to go in the military. But after 18 months, He decided he'd rather go in the military than to live in Syracuse, New York.

Now I'm not I don't want my friends in Syracuse to get upset. I'm just telling you how a Southerner felt living up there with all that snow. But I remember that when I was five years old. Taller than you were. Yeah, that's it.

That is a really good memory, and that tells us a little bit about yourself. I wonder what our guest is going to talk about today as far as remembering. Let's meet Andrew Osinga. He's a songwriter, musician, record producer, leader of Anchor Hymns, which is a multi-generational community of artists creating new sacred songs for the church. He's worked extensively with Grammy and Dove Award-winning artists like Andrew Peterson, Stephen Curtis Chapman, and Jarz of Clay and Santa McCracken and Caden's Call.

He and his wife and daughters live in Nashville. And our featured resource is the new book, How to Remember: Forgotten Pathways to an Authentic Faith. You can find out more at buildingrelationships.us.

Well, Andrew, welcome to Building Relationships.

Well, thank you so much for having me. What a treat to be here. Let me ask you the same question that Chris asked me. Take us back to your earliest Christmas memory. What comes to mind?

Yeah, man, as you were saying that, I don't know if it was Christmas or not, but I was just remembering this. I think I was probably six, five or six years old, and it was a snowy day. And I remember we did not have a lot of money this year. My dad had just kind of lost a job. It was that season.

in the mid eighties when when there were not a lot of jobs around. And times have been tight. My dad just kind of We were eating dinner. He was like, you know what? We're gonna stop, we're gonna go outside.

And it snowed a lot, and we all put on our snow clothes. He just started hopping around. As far as he could in the snow, and made these giant footprints. And then, me and my kid brother, who's a little younger than me. We just tried to jump.

From one foothole to the next, and you know, couldn't make it, and just tried to. It was just what, and we just laughed and laughed. And it was just the sweetest memory after this kind of really hard season. And I think about that often, and what a sweet. Sweet memory that was.

Oh, yeah. Yep. That's interesting. Christmas and snow often, those two things get tied together. Yeah, don't they?

Now your music has a haunting quality to it, especially the Christmas songs that we're playing today. What is the power in singing these Christmas hymns together? Oh man.

Well there's something. about just singing together that is so powerful. Particularly when we sing these songs about The story of Christ's coming. Coming to us. Especially w when we get to hear the voices of people standing next to us.

That that's the gift of being in the church, and especially around the time of Christmas when we don't often stand and sing. in our regular lives, unless we're in church. except for maybe around Christmas time. But to hear somebody else sing the truth. Is such a unique thing.

And we get to hear from our Friends and our neighbors, and people in our family saying something that maybe we're struggling to believe, or maybe they need to hear what we believe. It is such a gift to just hear the truth. from people that we love and who love us. Yeah. You know, I've often said to couples, because I lead a lot of marriage conferences, and I'll say, you know, sing together in church out loud, just standing there beside your spouse and hearing them sing.

I mean, it's good, it's unique because typically most couples aren't singing together at home.

Well, tell us why you wrote this book, How to Remember. What led you to write a book on this topic? Yes, well, I work with a lot of songwriters who particularly write songs for the church.

So, a lot of the songs that we sing Sunday mornings. are songs that I've been working on over the last 20 years. It's been a real honor to get to work with these people, but I've had a lot of hard conversations with some of these songwriters. Many of them actually struggle with where they belong in the church. with some of the scandals that they see with pastors, you know, on the news, or particularly with the commercialization of the church.

And sometimes they can feel like, you know what, they might be singing my song. But I don't feel like I can walk in there anymore. I don't feel like I belong. I don't know where I fit here anymore. And I've had that conversation so many times.

And that had been my own journey, too. I'd kind of walk through it and come out the other side. And for me, the pathway was finding practices and and songs that were older. Then our modern System of commerce. It was finding liturgies and hymns and realizing that.

People have been worshiping God a lot longer than we've had a Christian music business or we've had modern worship music, a lot longer than we've had megachurches or lights. And finding those older traditions was a a pathway back into the church for me. And so I wanted to write this book to help other people who might be having those same questions. I think the book's going to touch the hearts of a lot of people today.

So I'm excited about it. Thank you. What are some of the songs or prayers or practices that have meant the most to you? Man, well As far as practices, one of them that's been really powerful has just been learning to be quiet. We're in a world where everything is noisy and yelling at us all the time.

And Just finding a place to Stop and listen to the Lord. Or just be still, which the Bible talks to us about all the time. is really difficult in our culture. And I've started a practice the last couple years after I dropped my daughter off at school. I drive to a little lake that's between the school and my house, and I try to walk around the lake every morning before I get to work and get to the studio and do what I'm going to do.

And that has been a huge life-changing practice for me. Um Yeah, that's one thing. There's a lot more. There's a whole book about it. Yeah, well, we've got to look at some of those today as we move along here.

He comes too late. His blessings flow Far as the curse is found For as the curse is found Far ahead. Forever. But curse is Found He rules the world with truth and grace and makes the nations prove the glories of His righteousness and wonders of His love and wonders of His love and wonders wonders of His love and wonders wonders of His love and wonders of His love Joy to the world, joy to the world. Joyful, joyful, we adore thee, God of glory, Lord of love.

Hearts unfold like flowers before thee. Opening to the sun above. Melt the clouds of sin and sadness, drive the dark of doubt away. Giver up immortal. Oh gladness, fill us with the light of day.

Well, Andrew, Christmas has become a consuming season. We made a lot of the celebration about the presence. But you say in your book that the church has also become consumer driven. What do you mean and what's the most damaging effect of that? Hmm.

Well I think that's pretty easy to see. We see in the Bible that Jesus walks into the temple and you know turns over tables when he sees people buying and selling in the tabernacle, right? That is something that he is not really happy with. But In our church culture, there's a lot of buying and selling. In fact, a lot of the church songs that we sing, we learn from the radio.

And there's nothing wrong with that, but it is actually how we find the songs. They come to us through a commercial system. Most of the things that we kind of know Uh that you know the studies that we learn, we get from a a bookstore. You know, it's just that the system that we transfer information is a system of commerce. And It's not wrong, but it's just the system that we're in.

And so we have to realize that. And know that that means that there's sort of an air of marketing that comes with all the things that we are learning. The catch with that is that it means that some of the things that are maybe harder to teach. or harder to learn. don't get taught as easily.

So, a song that we might need to sing about suffering, or a song we might need to sing about, doubt. Those are harder sells. And we don't sing those. And We see in the scripture that we often are, you know, the psalms are full of songs about suffering. and doubt.

And pain. And it's not that Christians are morose. It's that Christians go through those things and that those are where God meets his people all the time. We need to know that that's where God meets his people.

So that when we go through those things, we are not feeling abandoned and we know that that's where God is. And if we don't know that we have access to that, It's actually a real shame. And we see people leaving the church because they think, oh, God's not there for me. Because we don't know that. And it's just that we've not We we are working in a system that actually doesn't allow for that part of the gospel to get to people.

Yeah. Well, you know, you're exactly right. I've been reading through the Psalms again in my personal time. And there's so much about the suffering and the feeling that God's not there with me and all these kind of things, along with the positive, that God is there with us and all of that. You're right.

I don't think, though, Gary, that I've connected the consumer mindset with that. You know, the health and wealth, you know, and I want God to bless me and do all this stuff, you know, the positive things in life. I don't know that I'd connected it, Andrew, with the what sells. as much as with just people people want the positive, people want the good, you know, and and not don't want the bad and want to avoid the the strain, want to get through the problems. But if you're right, then that that's it's kind of interconnected, isn't it?

Yeah. I mean, and it makes sense, right? We get in the car after a hard day of work and like, we want to be cheered up. We want to be encouraged. That makes total sense.

We want to give a gift. We want to give somebody something that's going to be encouraging. And it makes total sense. But what this means is that, you know, nobody's selling a t-shirt that says, like, God is with you when you're doubting, right? Like, I get that.

But the Bible is full of God is with you when you're doubting. And how do we communicate that as the church, which is not a store? We we just need to remember that those two are not the same. Yeah. Yeah.

Well, there's no question about it that uh there are listeners today who are experiencing anxiety, loneliness right here in the midst of the holiday season. There's family divisions. I work with this all the time, am I counseling and am I speaking? And all these issues.

So how do these practices that you talk about in the book speak to to the to the folks who are going through those kind of emotions and and attitudes. Yes.

Well, there's such a rich legacy in these older songs and that speak to us of. walking through grief, walking through loneliness. and finding God in that. I actually did this big study of hymnals. I've got this huge collection of hymnals that I've just been amassing over the years as I've been traveling as a musician.

And I started looking at All these songs that we sing in the most conservative churches and the most liberal churches and songs that we sing ten years ago and a hundred years ago and There are certain songs that Sort of live in every one of those circumstances.

So, amazing grace, how great thou art, great is thy faithfulness. Like, what is it about those songs that work in every one of those situations when maybe those people believe pretty wildly different theologies?

Some of the things that are the same is that they have an honest talk about suffering and doubt. An honest look at time and place. That God is with me. Right here, right now. in my suffering and my doubt, and that God is majestic and mysterious.

and that he is present. And so I think that's the reason that we sing those songs at funerals. And we sing those songs at baptisms. And we don't sing pop songs at funerals. You know, we want these songs that have a rich history, that talk about these deeper things.

And so I think when we are going through times of loss and loneliness, we can know that we are not the first people to go through this. Yeah. And that God is there and God has always been there. even when we don't feel it in in the moment.

Sometimes finding these, whether they're songs or writings of people who've been through that before, can be really helpful. Yeah, yeah. You know, I found this in my marriage conferences and all when I When I share our own struggles that my wife and I had in the early days of our marriage and so forth, people's hearts are opened because they realize I'm not up there just spouting off platitudes because they've gone through similar things themselves.

So I hear what you're saying.

Well, you know, some might see ancient liturgy and prayers. uh as rigid or lifeless. Uh how would you respond to that? You know, I get that. And I think it's because sometimes it's the language.

It's like it's the old words, it's the these and thou's. What I've found is when you can kind of go in and change some of that language to you and I and me, all of a sudden you go, oh, that was just a 28-year-old dude. That's a regular guy. And so there are all sorts of people who are doing work that's updating that kind of stuff, putting it in modern language. I lead a group of songwriters called Anchor Hymns.

And a lot of what we do is take. those old those old hymns and and and write new hymns based on Those old ideas. And so that's new music and new lyrics, but based around those same concepts and to try to give the church a wider vocabulary of songs. Just because in the church we tend to sing about kind of a few, a really sort of narrow group of ideas, but the hymnals are full of sort of a wide range of subjects. I think you'll find too, as you get into some of these older prayers and practices that what we might find boring and lifeless.

is life-giving because rest and slowing down. Isn't as boring as we think. It's actually something that we crave and that we need. We're just, as a culture, sort of addicted to the dopamine of never slowing down. And as soon as we get to slow down, we realize how desperately we need it.

Yeah, I can see that. Man, today's world, I mean, if nothing, there's nothing else to do, then pull out your phone and get online. Rather than reflecting on life. It's such a struggle. Yeah.

I wrote a book about it, and I do it all the time. I mean, yeah. Isn't part of what you're talking about, Andrew, though, with connecting when we sing together and we connect with each other in the pew, you know, different generations that are there, we are also connecting with those who've gone before us. You know, those who first sang, Amazing Grace was a new song at one point, right? Yeah, that's totally right.

And so singing that coming from the old slave masters, John Newton, who had this radical change in his life and people singing that, that goes down through the ages.

So your grandparents. And their grandparents and others through the ages have sung the same thing.

So it's not just connecting the people next to us, it's connecting us with those saints before, right? Oh, and what a beautiful thing that is, right? To know that. We are not inventing this stuff. that we are part of such a long history.

And yeah, that is what's great about reclaiming those old songs. I remember I got to sit in the hospital the night before my grandfather passed away. And just sang a bunch of old hymns as he was just laying there in the bed and We even had this uh he he he loves the The Gaithers. and Buddy Green in particular. Who's not one of the Gaithers in particular, but he, you know, he would sing with the Gaithers sometimes.

And Buddy Green has become one of my dear friends. And kind of a mentor of mine and we go hiking together and we go to the same church So I pulled up Buddy on Spotify and we sat together and just listened to Buddy Green sing hymns. Hmm.

He's loved Buddy forever. It was just the sweetest thing of hearing him sing these songs over us. to be able to to share these songs in common.

So special. And You're right, that some of these songs have been passed down for hundreds of years. And uh there's something I think that God does. Beyond just teaching us theology and beyond I don't know. It's like.

He's doing something in the spirit. By passing these songs down, it's like he's connecting us. As a church body, Through just the mystery of the spirit in that. It's really incredible. Yeah.

I can certainly see that, you know. And you know, like the New Testament does that, referring back to those who were before them, you know. Yeah. And you see that often just reading the scriptures. Yeah.

I think we as a culture have lost a sense of the importance of our intergenerationality. And realizing how important it is to have friends of different ages. Even to honor the people who've gone before us generations and generations before, but even the generations that are with us. Kids and old people and people my age, I'm 46. Having songs that we can sing together when you're 10 and you're 70.

Is something that actually is really hard to do right now when you're trying to sing a song that came out. This year, constantly. And so that's another reason that having songs that can last for a while is really important. It unites us as people who are alive right now. Yeah.

Mortals join the happy chorus which the morning stars began. Father love is reigning o'er us. Brother love binds man to man ever singing, march we onward, victors in the midst of strife. Joyful music leads us onward in the triumph song of life. You're listening to music from Andrew Osenga today on the Building Relationships with Dr.

Gary Chapman podcast. Andrew is the author of our featured resource at buildingrelationships.us. It's titled, How to Remember Forgotten Pathways to an Authentic Faith. Find out more about it at buildingrelationships.us or go to fivelovelanguages.com. Lift us to the joy.

Andrew, was there a moment or a season in your own life that really sparked your return to these historic practices, the songs, the liturgy, and so forth? Wow, that's a great question. Um, yeah. My house flooded. We uh I've got three daughters.

And our Youngest was a baby. and we were volunteering at a Young Life camp. And we were out in the mountains helping out with high school kids for about a month. And we came back, and a pipe had burst in our house, and it had ran for about a month. And it had flooded our entire house.

And I mean, like, the ceiling had collapsed. I mean, we lost everything. It was just, it's hard to explain. But it was terrible. We had to move out for Half a year, and we had you know, a three-month-old baby and I mean, I was supposed to go on tour and I had to cancel the tour.

We didn't have any money. I mean, it was just, it was, it was the worst year of my life. I was already struggling with like, what do I believe? What am I doing with my life? You know, all this stuff.

I was 32, 33 years old. I found myself going to this Bible study at this little Anglican church on Wednesday afternoons. I don't know why. Uh didn't go to this church. It was like because I would typically travel on weekends.

This was kind of the only thing I could go to. I think that's why I went. And it was about Maybe ten Old women in their seventies and eighties These Anglican ladies and this priest. And then me, who was like a 30-year-old dude, and um, and I would sit there and And they would do these sort of Anglican prayer services and Bible studies. I'd never experienced anything really like it.

And It was a s it was a different pace. There was no show. There's no artifice to it. Nobody was trying to be cool. Nobody could remember what they talked about last week.

I mean, it was so sweet. And they were so. welcoming to me in just a different way than I'd ever had been welcomed before. I don't know. It was just what I needed.

And the Lord met me there in a way that I had not been met before. Yeah. So I was like, hey guys, I think we're going to go to this church and I don't really know why. And we just sort of it just changed the trajectory of our family. And um and turned out our whole life.

Well, I I can understand in the midst of all the trauma that you were going through, and God used something different from the norm, you know, to speak to you. Yeah. All these ancient practices, whether it's liturgy or whether it's songs or All of that. How does this fit into the contemporary situation where church services are all just contemporary songs. Yeah, how do we make that?

How's that fit? Yeah. Well, and I should say I Love so much of what is happening right now. I'm a big part of it. You know, I still work in that.

World nine to five. And like I said, you know, a lot of the songs that we sing Sunday mornings around the world, I've been a part of in ways that most people will never see. I'm really honored to get to be a part of that. I think there are really simple things that churches can do that can. Really change the dynamic of a Sunday morning in ways that can welcome people.

in new ways. Taking just a moment of silence. Even if you've got six thousand people in a room, you could take a moment of silence. It might be reading scripture together. I've seen huge churches do that, reading scripture together aloud.

It can be, you know, singing one old hymn together. It might be reading a creed together. But there's all sorts of different things you can do that you don't have, and not every church needs to be. An Anglican service or anything like that by any means. I think that would be terrible if it was.

I think. All these different expressions, even just barely hint at the way that we could start to worship God. We need all these different expressions because there's so many different ways that there are to experience God. But I do think when church is, you know, five pop songs and a TED talk and a light show. We are missing something.

And so giving people a chance to. have a moment of reverence. Have a moment to slow down. uh to not be entertained those moments where we are hearing the voices of the people next to us. Where we are getting to Listen.

for God and not just to the programming. That is really, really, really important, and that's what people are desperate for. And so, um it's and they're really easy things to do. Yeah. What about on the personal level?

What a simple practice someone can just individually. uh begin to try or do something different that would kind of awaken the awareness of God. Yeah. Well, you know, like I said earlier, you can, you know, take a few minutes a day to just simply be quiet. There are some simple prayer exercises that people have been doing for hundreds of years.

There's one that I've started doing over the past couple of years called the Jesus Prayer. It's something that's sort of like a Greek. uh from the Greek church that people have been doing since about the year 500. That's uh Lord Jesus Christ.

Son of God, Have mercy on me, a sinner. And you say that as often as you remember it. And the idea is, you know, th that the scripture says pray without ceasing. As much as you think of that prayer, you say it and you say it and you say it. And the idea is that.

over the course of your life. You say that until you are praying without ceasing. Mm-hmm. Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner. And you just say it over and over.

There are a bunch of great apps out there. Like a book of common prayer apps that'll help you look through sort of all different styles of prayer. That are essentially just like Bible reading plans that have some sort of guided prayers that are really beautiful. And that's a thing. Gary, that I didn't know you could do, which was learn a prayer that someone else had written?

I grew up in the tradition that you had to, that you just said a prayer. that you felt. I didn't know you I thought reading prayer was weird and scary. Yeah. I took piano lessons and I read the music of Mozart.

And I wrote songs.

So I didn't connect that. I could play music. that I wrote and that Mozart wrote and feel both. And honestly, I honestly play the music of both. But now I realize that I can pray.

both. I can pray the words of Augustine. And he can lead me. And thinking Thoughts that I wouldn't realize I ought to think. Oh, that's beautiful.

I wouldn't have thought of that. Yeah. Yeah. So, in a sense, I love that. In a sense, you're in you're interpreting, like you interpreted Mozart or Chopin or whomever, those notes on the page.

Yeah, but they're still coming through you. And you're doing the same thing with these prayers. You can go back to scripture and look the same thing, or the prayers throughout history, and you're praying those through your own life and the prism of your experience. Yes, exactly. Yeah.

And that was a revelation for me. realizing that uh that that's what that's what these guided prayers are. It's just like reading music. But with prayer. Yeah.

Yeah, I've been reading uh the prayers of uh John Bailey. He was a Scotsman. He doesn't go way back to some of the ones you're talking about. But just the fact he puts it in words that I would not. ever think of putting it that way.

But when I read the sentence out loud, you know, and I just say, oh, God, yeah, that's what I'm saying. That's how I feel. You know, it's very alive. Yeah. Huh.

Yeah. Sometimes you're like, I never would have thought of that. And I'm so glad he did because thank you for that. Yeah. Absolutely, yeah.

Well, now there may be some who would say, well, now wait a minute, let's hang on here. There's a danger of romanticizing the past. when looking at these early Christian traditions. What would you say to that? I would say sometimes people will be like, I love the music of the 70s.

And I'm like, no, you don't. You love Led Zeppelin. Like most of the music of the seventies didn't last. But the good stuff lasted. You know.

Yeah. I grew up In the 90s, and most of the music of the 90s I don't still listen to, but there are. 30 records I still listen to.

Some of the best of the things are what typically lasts. When I look through these old hymn books, Often I am cringing. Like some of these songs are. Terrible theology, or like, wow, that is racist. But then you find, oh, there's great is thy faithfulness.

That's unbelievable.

So it's almost like when you wash the beans and you're like, you know, you put it in that, what's that, the colander, you know, and you rinse off the thing. Time and history have sort of rinsed. The best for us. You know, the good things are what sort of get handed down for the most part. Yeah.

Oh come. Come, let us adore in Christ the Lord. Oh, come, let us adore him, Christ, the Lord. The first know well the angels did say. was deserved.

Certain poor shepherds in fields I Andrew, in this Christmas season, we know that there are many Christians who are feeling restless, kind of burned out in their faith. Uh sometimes the only time they go to church is Christmas. And even then, you know, they're not Really excited about it. How how do you how do you speak to those people who are in that season of their journey with Christ. Uh well first I would say welcome.

So glad you're here. It is uh it's a gift to have you. The church is full of people who are Worn out. In fact. When we read about Jesus in the Bible.

we find that he too was a man known for his suffering. His story doesn't end there. But his life was full of suffering and That's actually how we know we can trust him. I know that when I meet somebody and they sort of have gone through the same things that I've gone through, they're somebody that I can kind of get, you know? Mm-hmm.

When I read the stories of Jesus, I see the suffering that he's gone through. I go. I get that. I resonate. If you are somebody that's walking into the church at Christmastime, And you're going I'm feeling lonely.

I'm feeling abandoned. I'm not sure what I think about this. That's actually just the right place to be. That's yeah, this is the place for you. Yeah.

Yeah. This is it. I agree. Yeah. Does your book speak to people who have actually basically left the church entirely.

Yeah. It really does. A lot of my friends have have have gone on that journey and uh some have come back In fact, many of the people who have profoundly shaped the church have gone on that same journey. Many of the people who have written some of the most profound works in church history have, for a time, left the church and come back. It's almost a mark.

sometimes of of a of a true spiritual journey is like people owning this for themselves. Of having that prodigal son moment in some ways. Not everyone by any means, but. But a number of people. I talk about this idea of doubt, even, of having this coin in your hand that is on one side faith and the other side doubt.

And sort of whichever side you're looking at, the other side is sort of burning its way into your palm.

So if you're looking at faith, doubt is sort of. You're feeling doubt on your palm. And if you're looking at doubt, faith is sort of burning its imprint into your poem, you know? Like you just can't shake either one. Yeah.

That's kind of what it feels like for all of us, sort of all the time when we're honest, you know, like you just can't shake it. I think being honest in this journey is the biggest piece of it, you know, and. Yeah, th the the the the honesty is is where we find ourselves and um being able to Just come before God and Be who we are and be accepted. Yeah. Yep.

You know, you find that a lot with David in the Psalms. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah.

You know, yep.

Well, as someone who has helped create worship experiences, what tensions have you felt between art and commerce and discipleship? What have you felt? Oh, Gary, that's a big question. I felt all of them. Um all of the tensions.

Yeah, it's like you want to have something that's popular because you you want to have something that's popular. And you also want to say the thing that's on your heart, which sometimes may not be that popular. Or you make something that does really well, and then you want to do that again. And then you're questioning: am I being genuine, or am I trying to be. you know, popular again or You know, am I trying to be formulaic?

All, you know, all you're you can be plagued with self-doubt. You know, you've written books. They've been popular. I'm sure you've struggled with that. Yeah.

And So for me, as somebody who has you know, been the creative person, but then also who is guiding people through that. I I love getting to be the guide and getting to walk with these songwriters and be able to help call out the truth. and walk with them and just help navigate that. My goal is not just to help them create something that's that's great. It is.

But it's also to help them be The best that they can be in that process. I don't just want great songs, but I want healthy people. Yeah. There's this sometimes myth of like the creative genius that sort of destroys themselves in the process. Like, I just hate that.

And I would hate At the end of my career, to look and be like, well, we had a bunch of hits, and all these terror, you know, all these drug addict songwriters that I've created in the midst of it. Like, that would be a terrible legacy. Like I would love to have yeah, some songs that have done well, but also Oh, look at all these healthy families and these strong churches and these like Just amazing people who've done Wonderful things in their lives, and who are loving their communities, and loving their neighbors, and loving their enemies, and like. You know, we've put together a number of retreats and spiritual direction, and I take a lot of walks in the woods with people. And we do a lot of prayer, and I just try to do whatever we can to continue to pour into people.

and surround these songwriters with older mentors and with scripture. Just s so that the songs that we're singing on a Sunday morning are not Something that's cooked in a lab, but something that is born out of community and of scripture and prayer. Yeah, yeah. Well, Andrew, as we come toward the end of our time together today, This Christmas season. How can what we've been talking about today fit how can we fit this into the Christmas season in terms of our worship and our relationship with God?

Well, Christmas is such a beautiful time for looking backwards because it's a natural time to bring some of these older songs back and tradition. It actually feels natural at Christmas, right? It's we're naturally gathering, we're naturally slowing down, we're taking a break, we're singing old hymns. To be able to take a breath and even look at the words of some of these songs, we're celebrating the gift of Christ coming to us, the heaven-born prince of peace. And what an amazing gift that is.

Yeah. Well, you know, I think all of us, we all have had good experiences at Christmas, and we've had trying times at Christmas, sometimes going through disease and death and all those sorts of things. But I really appreciate you being with us today, and I think this whole perspective in terms of looking back and appreciating what those before us have had to say and the way they express themselves, I think this book's going to help a lot of people in the midst of the contemporary world to reflect upon this whole topic.

So thanks again for putting the book together, and thanks also for being with us today.

Well, thanks, Gary. Your books have helped a lot of people, too.

So I'm really honored you'd say that. Thank you. Well, we hope something you've heard today sparks your memory and has stirred your heart. And if you go to buildingrelationships.us, you'll see that featured resource, Andrew Osenga's book, How to Remember Forgotten Pathways to an Authentic Faith. Find out more at buildingrelationships.us.

And next week, Your questions about relationship struggles and concerns. Don't miss our final broadcast of 2025. A big thank you to our production team, Steve Wick and Janice Backing. Building Relationships with Dr. Gary Chapman is a production of Moody Radio in association with Moody Publishers, a ministry of Moody Bible Institute.

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