The Proverbs 31 Ministries Podcast

Meredith Brock:
Hello everyone and welcome to the Proverbs 31 Ministries Podcast, where we share biblical truth for any girl in any season. I'm your host, Meredith Brock, and I am here with my co-host and friend, Kaley Olson.

Kaley Olson:
Well, hey there Meredith and our podcast friends. I'm so excited to be here. So I know our podcast is biblical truth for any girl in any season, but I think we can always learn a little from our guy friends, right?

Meredith Brock:
I don't know.

Kaley Olson:
I think they might have something to say. So with that sdaid, we have two very special guests here with us today. Joel Muddamalle and Mack Brock. Will you guys say hello to our listeners and introduce yourselves, tell a little about you, maybe your favorite color if you want to.

Mack Brock:
Hey guys, my name is Mack Brock. I am a worship leader. I've been a worship leader for a long time now. I'm actually Meredith Brock's husband. Some would call me the better half. But yeah, I'm so grateful to be here. I think my favorite color is very boring black.

Meredith Brock:
That's true. Everything he owns is black or gray.

Joel Muddamalle:
That's consistent.

Kaley Olson:
Joel, tell us about yourself.

Joel Muddamalle:
Hey guys, my name's Joel Muddamalle. Kaley did such a great job with my last name. Nailed it. So I get to serve as Director of Theology for Proverbs 31 Ministries. My wife and I, we've got three little boys all under the age of eight.

So life is a little bit insane for us. I'm also a PhD student; I study theology. My favorite color probably has to be green. Yeah. It's actually, I'm glad Mack is here, it is actually green because at a very, very early young age, my favorite worship leader was David Crowder. Crowder has a squirrel shirt that was green and yellow.

Mack Brock:
He also had a whole album that was like lime.

Joel Muddamalle:
That's right. Yes, exactly.

Meredith Brock:
All right. So it grabbed hold of your heart. Green grabbed hold of your heart.

Joel Muddamalle:
Can you believe it?

Meredith Brock:
And now it's your favorite color forever?

Joel Muddamalle:
No joke.

Mack Brock:
Crowder has influenced us all in many ways.

Meredith Brock:
Well now, some of you might be wondering why we've got two guys in here on this podcast for a women's ministry. But let me just tell you, this is going to be a very special episode because at the time this episode releases, which is in September 2018, two little worlds are colliding. We are currently studying the book of Psalms in our First 5 mobile app, which is all about worship. We've titled this particular study, When Words Fail. And Mack just so happens to be releasing his very first solo album called Greater Things. It's available now, but man, we are here to talk all about worship. Right, Kaley?

Kaley Olson:
So excited about it. And we'll tell you more about how you can get both of those things, When Words Fail Experience Guide and Mack's new album, in the show notes for this episode. Now as we transition into our actual teaching or conversation, if you will, I'm excited about what we're going to discuss. So we have a worship leader, a theologian and two gals here in very different seasons of life. And what we want you guys to be able to take away or a couple of things. We want you to leave with a better understanding of worship, what it is, why we do it and what the Bible says about it and then be able to practically apply it to your life.

Meredith Brock:
But Mack, let's start with you. You're my husband. I can pick on you a little bit, right?

Mack Brock:
Yes, always.

Meredith Brock:
Mack and I have been married for 12 years and I have been able to see him lead worship. He has been a worship leader for over 15 years, which seems crazy, so our entire marriage. I have learned so much about what worship is, one, by watching you live, but also I've seen you teach before and talk with people about what is worship and why are we called to do it. Why do we even do it?

Like where does this whole idea of worship even come from? So as a worship leader of 15 years, tell our listeners a little bit about what you've learned about worship.

Mack Brock:
I think the biggest thing that I've learned about worship over the years is that it really is just a response and worship is us responding to who God is, it's responding to His love. When I started out leading worship, I had a very small view that worship was singing and worship was just a response through song.
I've just learned through life and through experience that worship is so much bigger than that. For me as a worship leader, I'm usually doing it through song, but I've also learned that worship can be through the way that we live. It can be through just everyday activities that we do, being aware of God through those activities, being aware that our actions, what we're a part of can all be kind of funneled through God's Word, can be funneled through what God is teaching us and it's just our response to even like the way that we live.

Meredith Brock:
I love that. Being aware of God. I know for me in the day today, it's so easy to just zip around, drop one kid off at school, then hurry quick, get home, pack the other's lunch, then now quick, throw the kid in the car and drop them off and then time to get to work and it's so, to have an awareness of God in the midst of everyday life is hard.

Mack Brock:
Totally. That's what I think, God's presence is always here. He never leaves us. And so it's just us being able to acknowledge that He is always here and is us always kind of turning our attention I guess on and off of Him. And so kind of always reminding ourselves like no, like He's here, He's present. Let's kind of always be turned on to that reality. It affects us in so many ways.

Meredith Brock:
I know song does help me at least. I know worship isn't just singing. But I think there is something that happens in our hearts and in our souls that songs can express that just everyday conversation can't. I don't know what it is. I can't put my finger on what happens when we sing but I think it expresses something deep within from within our spirits and our souls that is able to come out when we sing words.

Mack Brock:
Well, music is such an emotional experience already, whether you're listening to Tom Petty or whether you're listening to Hillsong. We all carry like just like an emotional connection to music. And so it's really, honestly, it's just amazing that God has given us that gift to be able to worship Him through that channel. Like it's such a special powerful thing because music translates in a way that like words can't always. It translates in a way that, I don't know, just even actions can't always. It stirs something in our hearts that it's just a special connection that we have with God.

Joel Muddamalle:
I think too what y'all are bringing up as well is that worship is complex. There's like this, there's not just simplicity, there's this complexity to worship and simultaneously there's a mystery to it. And so, it's like when our intellect, which is fighting to know something, meets our emotion, which is fighting to feel something deeply, when that meets together in the context of worship, ultimately it produces. It produces this like, oh my goodness, God is so much different than who you and I are. And Mack, it goes to your point, all of a sudden when we have this high view of God, it requires response. Our response is often in worship or in songs. And so, those are the things that I'm thinking through as y'all are talking that, man, it's complex and it's mysterious and it's worship. So good.

Meredith Brock:
I love that Joel. I know you've been spending the last few months like eyeballdeep in the Psalms and learning all about the Psalms are worship and the expression of our emotions to God. Tell us what you're learning in the Psalms about worship?

Joel Muddamalle:
Yeah. Yeah. That's so good. I think one, to start with is even how we came up with that title of When Words Fail, I think there's this reality that there are often experiences that we face that in the midst of that experience, we just don't have words to particularly like articulate exactly how we can respond in that moment. And it's like sometimes you're just like, gosh, what am I going to do? And I think God has been so gracious to us to give us the gift of psalms because the book of Psalms, it incorporates all of these songs, these ancient songs that all tie into a historical background.

Joel Muddamalle:
So for instance, it's the story of the Israelites. We think about the Song of Moses or the Song of the Sea, which is the story of the deliverance of the Israelites through the parting of the Red Sea. These songs would have been kind of retold and then put into corporate worship. And so it's tying them to this ancient story of God's deliverance. As I have been studying through the Psalms, even just understanding that the Psalms are words but then there are 57 of the psalms that are actually attached to musical instruments and they're attached because these were songs; it's called the songs of ascent. These were songs that were to be sung by the people of God as they would literally move toward the temple for worship.

Joel Muddamalle:
So one of the big takeaways that I've received from studying the Psalms is that as we sing these songs, as we read Scripture, as we pray, what worship is actually doing is it's forming us. It's forming us toward something and it's not just toward something that's ambiguous, it's toward Someone and that Someone is the person of Jesus. Like, worship is conforming us into the likeness and into the image of God. And so, those are just a few of the highlights of kind of unpacking these ancient songs and thinking, my goodness, this is not something new creative, it's actually something very old and ancient that can be expressed in really new and creative ways.

Meredith Brock:
One of the things I love that you just said, forming us to be more like Jesus, and that we're in the process of the psalm. You're almost going through a transition. I'm not going to remember the psalm right off the top of my head, but I know that many of the psalms take this format and that is, you can see at the
beginning of the psalm, the person, the author of the psalm is in a very different, they may be struggling with or they're just verbalizing their struggle where they're at. They're stating, you know, “woe is me” almost in a lot of the beginning of a lot of psalms. But then usually you can see a transition in the middle where they start to take their eyes off of them, and they start to put their eyes on God and the greatness of God and the goodness of God and the bigness and the capability of God.

Meredith Brock:
I know for me personally, sometimes I've got to go through that full, I can't just jump right in and say, God is so good and God is so great. Sometimes I need to have that minute at the beginning of the song where I say, God, this is hard and are you even here? I feel really alone. I think songs can bring us through that process in a different way than just verbally sitting down with your girlfriend or your husband or your friend or whatever and saying, man, it's easy I feel like to stay in that “woe is me” place if you don't have a little bit of leadership.

Meredith Brock:
So, let's talk a little bit about that. Another interesting facet in all of this is the idea of leading someone or yourself into worship. This can take on a lot of different shapes. I mean, we can lead our children into worship by teaching them to share as an act of love to God rather than just doing it out of obedience to be because if they don't, they're going to get in trouble. Or you can lead yourself into worship by giving financially to your local church; that's a form of worship, to be able to come and worship God by saying, “I trust You and all that I have is Yours, so I'm going to give this back to You.” Like we were just saying, you can lead yourself into worship by going through the process of pouring out your heart toward God and allowing that process to point you back to Him and His bigness and His greatness.

Meredith Brock:
Mack, you lead people into worship through music and songs every weekend. It feels really weighty to me as your wife because I think about you on a platform in front of hundreds of people and those people are trusting you to lead them into worship of our very big and great God. Tell us what leading large groups of people into worship has been like for you and that process of it. Because I know I've seen you from the time when we first got married, you didn't even really want to be a worship leader. And where you are now, where I know that that is like your heart and your heartbeat and you know it's your calling and where God has brought you. Tell our listeners about that.

Mack Brock:
Definitely, it is a weighty thing, and that's something that I don't take lightly and it's something that, with the teams that I'm leading and when we go out to lead together, like the musicians I'm playing with, something I talk a lot about is that, it's not something that we should take lightly. Like God has called us to be leaders and that's something we need to take very seriously. But He's also given us the authority and given us the calling to do that. And so, even though I carry the weight, I also know that I carry the authority and that God has placed me there to be a leader in those moments.

Mack Brock:
So, one of the things that's really important to me, like when I'm leading, like being a worship leader and leading people in worship is just to be aware that these are people and it's not a crowd, it's not an audience, but everybody in that room, everybody, whether it's 10 people in like a small Bible study or thousands of people in like a church service, we're all like people going through stuff. We're all walking through different seasons of life and different things that might be going on. This is a chance for us to come together to say no matter what season I'm in, I'm going to give glory to God. Sometimes it's a song that's going to be just completely vertical and full of adoration, it's just very much just exalting God for who He is.

Mack Brock:
But sometimes we're going to go through songs that, like you said, kind of express the struggle that we're in, express the pain that we're in, but then turning it into trust and turning it into faith. So much can happen. I'm such a believer that so many breakthroughs can happen when we choose to worship God. And that there's a lot of freedom just in the decision, no matter what, I'm going to worship God. I'm going to take my pain and I'm going to turn it into praise and just trust. It might not mean that your situation is going to be different, but your heart's going to be different. It's through that worship that God can just change our hearts. He can give us, you know, we hear a lot that just because we're believers doesn't mean we're not going to face hardships. But, because we're believers, God can give us the grace and the peace and the rest to endure those hardships.

Mack Brock:
And so that's a lot of like what I think happens during worship is it's just, I don't know, us pouring out and allowing God to kind of fill us back up.

Meredith Brock:
It's so good. That's so good. I loved what you said. I think this is such a key thing, whether you're a worship leader or you're a mom or you're a dad or you’re a wife or you're a single woman just trying to make your career start. Mack, you said something, you said God has given us the authority. He's given you the authority as a worship leader to lead that group of people into worship that each one of us, He has placed us in a role among people, whether those might be our children or our co-workers, He has given us the authority in that position to point people to Him no matter what.

Meredith Brock:
That's like kind of mind-blowing to me sometimes because I think about for my kids, sometimes I feel really incapable and under-resourced and I don't know how to parent these tiny little human beings. Sometimes I have to remind myself, wait a minute, like God gave me these two little souls. And He knew I, me, Meredith Brock, was going to be their mom, and He knew that they needed what I have. And so, I have the authority to shape these tiny little humans the way God called me to shape them. I think about for you, Kaley, you're newly married and for you this looks different. He's given you the authority and the role you have here at Proverbs 31. Tell us what that means for you in your season of life.

Kaley Olson:
Yeah, well I've been thinking a lot about how a lot of times we see like Mack on a platform or maybe like Joel doing a message like on a main stage somewhere and we think like, oh, that's awesome. They have the forte and they're called to do that. But I have to think in my role, like the same calling that God has given you, like the same idea that He's placed on you in your life to lead hundreds and thousands of people in your roles, He's given me the opportunity and He wants to do the same thing through me that He is doing through you. The outcome is different, but He wants to transform my heart and like let me be my most authentic, best self in the leadership place that I'm in here, just like He wants you to do like what you do on stage in front of all those people all the time.

Kaley Olson:
It's the same calling and the same breakdown. But instead of me being like, oh, Mack's on the stage, Mack's got a bigger job than I do. No. You have a different job than I do. This is my job and like that's your job. So like, yeah. I think that's one of the biggest lessons that I'm learning right now.

Mack Brock:
And there's something so powerful like when someone believes in you, we've all felt like encouraged, if someone believes in you and they speak kind of encouragement to you, you have a confidence to do whatever they might be referring to, your confidence gets built up. And so, just to know that wherever season we're in, God has ordained us for that and God is kind of encouraging us and believing us in that situation, that needs to give us a confidence so that we don't walk in timidity but we walk in authority.

Kaley Olson:
And whenever we can do that confidently, like you're up there singing or Joel, you're giving a message or doing whatever you're doing, writing experience guides for Proverbs, God hears it and He says, that's beautiful. But at the same time, I can be writing a promotional calendar for next year or you can be running a business meeting and God can be looking down and saying, that's beautiful.

Meredith Brock:
Yeah, that's so good. That's worship. That is worship. Walking in His calling on your life is worship.

Joel Muddamalle:
I think too, like this is screaming to me Isaiah chapter 6, right? It's the prophet Isaiah, it's probably the most epic worship scene of all time. Isaiah goes in and these angels are singing, holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty. And then Isaiah is, God calls Isaiah and Isaiah's response is, woe am I, I'm a man of unclean lips. We're talking about authority, we're talking about leadership and here's Isaiah feeling the weight of that moment, like I am not qualified in order to do this. And then all the sudden, an angel brings a coal, and God takes that coal, places it on his lips and this is like [inaudible 00:20:37] sanctification, like God has literally given him now the authority, God Himself has given him the authority to go into the world and to be a representative of God Himself. That looks so different for all of us, but the same God who gives it authority gives it to all of us.

Joel Muddamalle:
I was thinking about this just from, like from a passage kind of standpoint. I think of Romans chapter 12:1-2. The Apostle Paul says, "I appeal to you therefore brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship." And then he goes on, he says, "Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect." And so it's literally what Paul is doing is he's tying in this idea that all of life is worship. What is your spiritual act of worship? Well, it's picking up your kids in the long line that my wife has to do and she struggles through. She's like the fumes are going to mess her up. Please turn off your car on the line.

Joel Muddamalle:
It's writing songs, it's touring. It is being responsible in the vocation that God has called us to. Because God has called us to it, that vocation is divine because God Himself is divine. And so, I just love how Scripture kind of points us to just that reality as well.

Meredith Brock:
I love it. I love it.

Kaley Olson:
Now, let's think about our listeners here. They might be in their mid-twenties like me, or Meredith, they might be a hard working mom like you, or they might be in a really tough season. So, let's make this really practical and talk about what worship looks like for us on a daily basis.

Meredith Brock:
Well, just like Joel just said, we all worship, right? Whether you're a mom in the carpool line, whether you're a songwriter and by vocation, a worship leader, or a theologian helping us write experience guides here at Proverbs, or writing promotional calendars. We even have our friend Eric here in the background. He's running all the equipment. We were all created to worship.

Meredith Brock:
So, here's a big question for you, Joel. I'm putting you on the spot. We didn't have this planned. But, if we were all created to worship and we're not putting that adoration in that worship, if we're not pointing that at Jesus, where does it go?

Joel Muddamalle:
Yeah, that's great. So here's what's really interesting. I've literally been reading a book and one of the book's main thoughts or the main idea is that what we revere, we reflect either to our ruin or our restoration.

Meredith Brock:
Wait, wait, say that again. Our listeners need to hear that again.

Joel Muddamalle:
What we revere we reflect, either to our ruin or our restoration. So it's literally asking the question, where are your eyes fixed? Like, what is the object of your affection? The inverse is, when that object is anything other than God Himself, than Jesus, we will, and this is what this author does, G.K. Beale, he basically says that we begin to reflect that thing, right? And that thing can be to our ruin. And the image is actually the golden calf with Moses. All of the sudden, the Israelites are looking at this golden calf. And then Scripture says that the Israelites often stiff-necked, that they lack hearing, they lack vision. Well, what is that a reflection of? This golden calf.

Joel Muddamalle:
Actually, this is really crazy. Calves really, when they're known to be stubborn, they're actually referred to a stiff-necked animals, right? And so, all of a sudden it's producing ruin for us because we're not pointing our eyes toward the very object of worship that we were designed. Genesis chapter one, it says that we’re created in the likeness and the image of God and so we should be image barriers and reflect Him. So, there is absolutely a danger. But, there's beauty. And the beauty is if we can take our gaze off of these objects that produce ruin and reorient ourselves to Jesus, Jesus promises by the power of the Holy Spirit to renew us and to transform us into His image, which is restoration.

Meredith Brock:
Wow. So, the moral of the story really is we're all worshipping. We're all worshipping. Whether we're doing it intentionally through song or not, we're all worshipping every single day the moment that you wake up. And where are you placing your worship? I want to really challenge every single one of our listeners today to pause. Take a moment and ask yourself, where am I placing my worship? Is it on our Lord Jesus, our Savior, our Creator, our Restorer, like Joel said? Or is it somewhere else that may, today, it may not look like ruin, but maybe in a year, maybe in two years, maybe in three years, it may lead us down a road that we don't want to be. So place your worship on the thing that deserves our worship the most, which is our Lord Jesus. That will bring true freedom and true restoration into our lives.

Meredith Brock:
Wow. What a special podcast this has been. I know guys, those of you listening, you're used to a little bit more of a message, but we thought it would be fun to have a little bit more of a discussion today about worship and what it looks like in our lives.

Kaley Olson:
Yeah, that's awesome. And you know, it really kind of puts it back in the listener's court. They get to take the discussion that we had today and decide what that message is for them to really apply it in their life. We're so thankful you guys could join us today. And I'm really excited for our listeners to digest everything we talked about today just like we said a minute ago.

Kaley Olson:
As a reminder, before we go, don't forget to get Mack's new album, Greater Things, available now on all music platforms.

Meredith Brock:
All right. I just want to remind every single one of our listeners, it's not too late to join us for the First 5 study of When Words Fail. It's still going on right now in the First 5 app. You can download the app for free on iTunes or Google Play. If you want to take your study to the next level which I encourage you to do, you can purchase the experience guide, which has a ton of really great information about the Psalms that'll help you go a little bit deeper in your study and hopefully take your worship of our Lord Jesus Christ a little bit further.

Kaley Olson:
That's right. Again, all of this information is available in the show notes on Proverbs31.org. All the links are clickable so you guys can just go there and order the album and purchase the experience guide.

Kaley Olson:
All right, thanks so much for listening everyone. We really hope that you got some good takeaways from today's episode and that it helps you know the truth of God's Word better so that you can live it out every day. We'll see you next time.