Write for Your Own Church First. A Conversation with Channing Gillespie.

Channing Gillespie told God he was never going to do ministry. Then he sat in a men's conference, watched grown men sprint to an altar, and heard one thing. Stop running.

The yes did not come with a plan

What I keep thinking about from my conversation with Channing is how small the ask was. He did not hear a five year plan. He did not get a map. He heard stop running, and the only answer that made sense was yes.

I think a lot of us wait for the whole picture before we say it. Channing's story says the yes comes first and the picture comes later, if it comes at all. He told me it felt like he finally got turned in the right direction. He still did not know where he was going, but at least he knew he was facing the right way.

That is what I shared with him. Yes is three little letters, and it also means surrender. Surrender the calling, surrender the heart, surrender all of it, and then God gets to work.

Why a pastor's kid ran from ministry

Channing grew up in a worship pastor's house, and his dad still is one. He watched the opinions, the arrows, and the strange facade that can come with being the pastor's family. He said there were seasons when the Gillespies Monday through Saturday looked different than the Gillespies on Sunday morning. To him, ministry looked like no money, no fun, and a lot of people to disappoint.

The shift was not that ministry got easier. He told me he did not see Jesus as worth it in those years, and then the light bulb came on. If this is what Jesus wanted to do through him, he was willing to take every arrow.

If you are running from something right now, sit with that for a minute. Sometimes we are not running from the calling. We are running from what we think it will cost.

Stop the hustle

Nashville is a hustle city. The idea is that if you hustle hard enough for long enough, you will make it. Channing chased that for a season, and the same exhaustion set in.

One day his wife Jessica walked in while he was deep in a lament season and told him to stop the hustle. That way, if God ever opens a door, he will know it was not because he hustled.

He was quick to say that does not mean stop working hard. It means the weight is not on you. I loved that. When you are not carrying the outcome, you get to enjoy the work again.

If my girls can sing it, my church can sing it

That became the filter for his writing. If his girls can hum it at home, his church can sing it on Sunday. Simple does not mean weak. It just means an easy way in, whether it is someone's first Sunday or someone who has been studying for a long time.

It also changed who he writes for. For a few years he was not on full time staff anywhere, and the songs he wrote did not stick. Once he was in a church he loved, writing became a way to serve his people. He wants what they sing on Sunday to still be in their hearts by Wednesday.

Praise Upon Praise started that way. He and Josh Duncan wanted a new opener for his church, so they wrote from Psalm 145 to 150. Bryan Fowler, Dave Aubrey, and Shane Barnard came on board, and the song grew from there.

I told Channing that a co-write is just a small group. You are talking about the Bible the whole time, and your souvenir is a shiny new psalm. The cut is a bonus. It is not the goal.

The ash carrier

Near the end, Channing shared what he has been reading in Leviticus. The priest had a job nobody clapped for. With all that fire and sacrifice there were ashes everywhere, and someone had to scoop them up and carry them out of the city. It was a dirty, boring job, and it kept the altar ready for the next sacrifice.

His point stuck with me. Faithful service is still valuable even when nobody sees it. Obedience is inconvenient, but it is exactly what you are called to do. He said he spent a lot of time trying to be the guy in the front, and he wishes he had been ready to carry ashes sooner.

I think a lot of us would rather hold the microphone than the broom. Jesus came to serve, not to be served, and sometimes that means picking up a dirty broom. When you do the small thing with clean hands, God handles the rest. It takes a lot of pressure off.

One question to take with you

Channing's advice is plain. Get plugged into your church, and not only on the worship team. Find the real community and the accountability that comes with it. And do not use the platform of the church to build your own.

So here is the question I am sitting with this week. Who is the church family you are writing for? If you love them like family, Channing says, then the goal of your writing is family too. If it goes any further than that, it is just extra.

Watch the full conversation with Channing on YouTube.