Leading A Worship Team with Juan DeVevo of Casting Crowns

Jono Long: Thanks everybody for listening and watching the stream on YouTube and Facebook and wherever you are.

I'm Jono with Faithworks Marketing, and we handle web design and search engine optimization and Google ads and Facebook, social media for Churches and faith based nonprofits. My guest today is the one and only Juan DeVevo, the guitar player from the band Casting Crowns. Thanks for being here, man. I love you guys music. Mercy me, oh man, I was going to make an I Can Only Imagine joke.

Juan DeVevo: We do that. We're pretty much interchangeable.

The only thing is we have a couple of ladies, that's the only difference they don't have any, and also I do none of that social media optimization search engine.

Jono Long: We'll talk to you about that stuff.

Well, you know what we're all about just helping and I say that, this sounds like I'm being sarcastic. I'm really not. I think it's partly because Juan's one of the funniest guys I know that's why I was saying it's going to be hard to make it through this.

Juan DeVevo: Oh, the whole thing to actually say anything of importance.

Jono Long: Even when you're not trying to be funny, I just laugh at what you say. I mean that as a compliment.

Juan DeVevo: Remind me not to speak at your funeral.

Jono Long: In the nicest way possible. So, we don't want every time we put stuff out there on the internet, just to be about the stuff that we do, because there's a lot of Churches that we hang with and talk to and relationships we got that could use some advice outside of the stuff that we specialize in.

So here you are. Actually having our pal Neal Dose on here next week, talking about Church leadership and preparing, get everybody back to Church from the summer.

Juan DeVevo: That's cool. Hopefully I don't steal any of his thunder, any of his beat.

Jono Long: Yeah, I don't think so. He'll just make it up on the spot. So before we talk about, you know, I've got some questions I was going to ask you and we'll talk about it, but what's going on with Casting Crowns? What are y'all up to?

Juan DeVevo: Man. Well, right now, if you look at the calendar, there's nothing, you know, it was like, there's something this weekend.

We got like a few dates this weekend, but like July and August have been pretty light, but that's because we did a spring tour. We did two spring tours back to back, and then we went to Europe. So it was like the second spring tour was like two and a half weeks, four days at home, two and a half weeks out, and then three days at home and then we left for Europe. That's the thing though. I actually like being out on the road right now. Cause we live way out in the woods.

We bought a bunch of property and every time we come home, Melody goes, let's build a greenhouse, let's get chickens, let's put a Pergo outside. And there's only one person right now qualified to do any of that work. Even like, right before I came here, I was digging, was putting a post down like concrete.

And I don't know how many of your people live in Georgia, but there's only two modes of Georgia dirt. It's hard as steel. Like you can't dig in it at all. You need a pick axe and dynamite or like if it rains, it's like pudding. So it's like there's zero in between. But then, I know you wanted to talk about like how things have changed, but for us you would go into the studio and make an album, 10 songs, and then it's done. But we did this last, so we had an album come out in February and we're going to have one come out in September and they're like EPs, like seven songs, a piece.

So September we're going to go out on a tour. I think. So the first one was called Healer. And I don't know if we have a second title or if we're just going to call it Healer Two or Healer The Comeback or Healer This Time It's Personal.

Jono Long: So I was kind of wondering is that like a streaming thing now that cause most people aren't buying CDs?

Juan DeVevo: Yeah. Most of the music is consumed online or streaming or on demand. So that puts a lot more pressure.

Jono Long: You guys should release a song a month.

Juan DeVevo: Yeah. Well that's what we're doing now. We'll have a seven song thing, but then one song comes out. Then another song comes out and it's kind of like it is about that. To me there's a lot more pressure on each song. Like you would have, like, there was the B side, used to be a thing.

Jono Long: Nobody cared about that.

Juan DeVevo: Like, yeah, we'll just do this, do a little thing we like, but then like now every song's important and but it's what's funny. You said run outta stuff. What's funny is like, in the earlier, when we'd make CDs, it'd be like 10 songs now. And Mark would be, he would have nine, really good thought out songs.

We would record those and maybe do a worship cover, or we'd have 10 songs. And he is like, that's it, that's all I'm going to do. But like this time he had 14 and like in the middle of us recording, maybe the third or fourth one, I think John Michael, his son's playing bass with us now. He's like, why don't we just do like two EPs and stuff?

And that's the way it's gone. It gave us a little bit more time to spend on the songs and it spreads it out. So that way you don't forget about us. We have one for the spring and one for the fall. You're like what happened to Casting Crowns? Bam, another CD. Say album, but yeah.

Jono Long: So you guys moved from Daytona beach that would've been like, gosh, that was '01?

Juan DeVevo: Yeah, it was '01. We met Mark in '99. So he came on to be the youth pastor and I was trying to lead worship back then just going, just playing guitar and singing songs and yeah, that was '99.

We moved to Georgia in '01 and we hit the road as Casting Crowns in 2003. So yeah, all that's been a while.

Jono Long: So yeah, I remember those days because I had interned with Mark in 1998 here in Loganville, Georgia. Then he left me and came to Daytona and I stayed at that Church for a while.

And then I went and served from '99 to '03 at Mark's dad's Church. Where Mark's dad was a Associate Pastor. Then I went to a little Church in Palmetto, Georgia. I remember coming down to Daytona to visit Mark and Melanie and meeting you. And that would've been man, that's like 20 years ago or more.

Juan DeVevo: Geez. I can't believe it. I remember we're getting down there going, at least at the time.

I was like, I wish I could have been with those guys in Loganville Center Hill. Like I wish I could have been with those guys. They sound cool. We were, you know, teenagers.

Jono Long: So the name Mark gave that band was New Life Rookies. I still have that CD.

Juan DeVevo: Oh, that was clever. Yeah.

Even back then, like, so he came to like do a guest speaking at our Church. And then while I was leaving, he gave me a CD. And then like a week later I was like, hey can I do some of these? I was like getting permission to do his songs in our youth group. So I knew something was going on there.

Jono Long: Yeah. The guy he's got a set of pipes on him.

Juan DeVevo: Did you just come visit though? I'm trying to remember. Didn't you do a summer intern thing?

Jono Long: No, I came down one time just to visit. I remember. I went to summer camp a few times too.

So what's something besides the fact that you're apparently handy and build fences, what's something interesting about you we don't know.

Juan DeVevo: Oh, well handy. I just do the thing. What we all do. Dads of this generation, we get on YouTube. We're out there. I'm out there in the field going, okay, you dig it deep, deep. And I got that going, oh, I have got to dump in the cement now. Where is that crap? So that's basically, you go, oh, I forgot.

I needed that thing.

Jono Long: I don't even attempt stuff. Cause those videos are like math problems. Like the teacher, like in algebra, they would always show you a couple examples for the homework. Then you got home and got halfway through the homework, it started changing. It wasn't exactly like what she showed you.

Juan DeVevo: These letters are Greek. You didn't show me any Greek letters in class.

Jono Long: Yeah. Why do we have letters in math problems? Who put letters in here?

Juan DeVevo: Man. That's how that was. I'm trying to, like people will ask me that on podcast.

They'll go. What's something interesting about you? So before I've said, in case some of your listeners haven't heard it. My degree's actually in aviation, so I was supposed to be a pilot, supposed to be an airline pilot. But also recently within the last couple years I started, I just had an opportunity to start doing standup comedy and also improv, which is super fun, which I didn't know.

I was kind of doing as a youth leader. You're doing it anyway. Whenever you do any skit at all, you're doing improv pretty much. So every year in the last six years at youth camp, Neal will be like, hey, let's be two characters. I'm like, oh, okay. And the weird thing is in the last four years, I've actually written, like four songs. Mark's like, hey man, you can record an album of these. They're just funny, stupid songs. And the kids sing them all week and they annoy their parents. It's like, if you give somebody's kid a drum set for Christmas, that's basically what I've done. When they come home from camp, they're singing the stupid song and their parents are like, what did you do? So is that enough interesting things?

Jono Long: Man, I've wanted like the past few times that you've shown on social media, you were doing and I've tried to make it and just.

Juan DeVevo: So busy. I can't come see you.

Jono Long: Ended up watching Criminal Minds instead.

So, but next time. But now improv kind of seems like that would stress me out.

Juan DeVevo: That's, to me, it's the other, so like stand up, you're all by yourself. And there's nobody responsible, but like, if this thing stinks, it's all on you. On improv, you could blame everybody else. No, it's more about like teamwork and like you can't pause.

When you pause, somebody else is doing something. So you can kind of like, and it's just reacting. So you don't even have to study up, you just walk in and they'll go, hey, let's do this. And you just be in the moment. So standup's not like that at all. Standup's totally pre-planned. Yeah. And it stinks.

And you're the guy got the stunk.

Jono Long: One of the funniest things I've ever been to. Me and Heather went to an improv show one time, but we were in Orlando. I think we were at Disney World or something with her family 20 years ago probably.

Juan DeVevo: Did you go to SAKs downtown?

Jono Long: That sounds familiar, but this would've been like when we first got married, like in '02 or '03. It was some improv club like you had to go to and we're like, well, let's go. And it was hilarious, man. Yeah. I don't know that could be fun so.

Juan DeVevo: You could do improv and that's the cool, I think anybody could do it.

Jono Long: Well, and you know, we still haven't, unfortunately, we've been talking for over a year about being a fake influencer on social media.

Juan DeVevo: I have the clothes. Yeah. We forgot about that.

Jono Long: Yeah, man, it's rough having children in lives.

Juan DeVevo: Apparently to be an influencer, you must only influence.

Jono Long: I guess so man, because we have some great ideas to make fun of influencers that I really think the world needs to hear and experience, but we haven't got around to it.

Juan DeVevo: Yeah. We're starving the world right now of our influencing.

Jono Long: So I think one of the cool things about Casting Crowns and something that's always been cool is you guys everybody in the band's always been nobody became a rockstar, just, you know, checked out of the Church.

You guys have stayed connected with the local Church and so I know when I was on staff at Eagles Landing, when we were at Church together, you were leading the worship band there and playing on Sunday morning and leading worship there. So I think that's a cool thing.

Juan DeVevo: Oh, thanks. No, that's like a vital thing for us. So except that Hector did turn into a rock star. He actually, our first guitar player, Hector, he's on staff, leading worship at another Church.

Jono Long: Also one of the funniest guys I know.

Juan DeVevo: No. He's great. He's awesome. We still text.

We never, so like I don't know if this is just a guy thing, but like we'll never say happy birthday or like, hey man, I saw that your kids are celebrating this. We'll just like text stupid star wars memes to each other and comment on that. We're never checking in with each other. We're just like, hey, this is Mace Windu and he is swinging a hot dog.

Hilarious. So everybody can Google Mace Windu now that doesn't understand the prequels. That's always a vital thing. And then I don't know. I guess maybe you could just chalk it up and I don't want to be over simplistic, but I guess chalk it up to just the holy spirit and that holy discontentment.

So like, I can't just sit in Church. I feel like I have got to do something and God's given me the gift of music and I actually love playing it. I love being on this. I'd say I love being on stage on Sunday morning, but when I'm out in the crowd, I'm like I should be up there doing it. Cause I feel like that's where my place is.

Playing music and adding to the atmosphere worship and then with Sunday nights or Wednesday nights we do student or youth group get together. And I have like a bunch of teenagers that want to learn how to play in a band. And I really love teaching. That's probably one of my big deals is, and so teaching them and then once they, like, I like to take a band that's completely not together at all.

And then eventually when you feel them, you can like, feel them lock in. And when a song finally clicks, it's just so good. I'll actually, a couple times I've stopped and go, wait, did you feel what just happened? And they're like, what? They thought I was calling down like, no, everybody were playing together.

It was awesome. So that's one of my favorite things.

Jono Long: I think it's something good to point out that I learned from Mark. And I think we all did, you were saying this before we went live that like we were both under Mark's tutelage.

As far as ministry goes and kind of the way we do things. And so we've got a lot of kind on the same page in a lot of ways, but I think one thing that I always struggled with that I think you've done well. And I think Mark probably instilled that in both of us.

Like when I would have a student band as a youth pastor, we would have a student band or even the Sunday morning band, it was always that tension of wanting it to be amazing. And especially as social media's come out, you see everybody else's worship man, and how awesome they are.

You know, some of these guys they've got paid, you know, hired guns and, you know, whatever you think about that, maybe we can talk about that in a minute, but I know it was always instilled in us. And what I've seen you guys do is, and I remember Mark was telling me one time, like, man, if you're going to get kids involved in ministry, you're going to have to be okay with some of them being terrible at it, for a little while. And that kind of goes for the worship team. Like you have got to let go of having like perfect music, and instrument, perfect musicians. If you're ever going to get any of these teenagers to like step up and serve.

Juan DeVevo: Yeah. On the youth group level, it's a balance, because you don't want it to be distracting either. Because like, you don't want to be in the position to embarrass yourself either. And the other way I've heard it put is that you want them to win when they get up there, you want to be like, okay, you can actually say, okay, that was good.

You guys did good. So it's like all I've ever told them with students, at least I've been like, man, all I want is for you to promise that you'll learn and practice to get better and then to be teachable, to be coachable. And then after a while it'll just be good because you're getting better.

And then when you listen to us and you're able to get a little bit better then everything else will just get better. You just have got to be able to practice. So that's the only thing I've ever told them. And then the way I teach, actually I think I teach the way I learn. If something's really complex, like basically playing your instrument, but with like 10 other people.

It's really complex. So I try to learn in layers. So I was like, at least get this. And then once you got that, then you can get this and then you can get this. And after a while, so if you're leading a student band that takes a ton of patience. Cause the first thing is just leading the practice. Everybody's, they're musicians, so they want to play. The thing is the drummer hits the snare at the wrong point. Right. All I want you guys to do is push like whatever the word was that you're trying to get out. Yeah. Whatever the important word was. He'll hit the snare on that, but so I'll just go, okay.

Hold on everybody. All right. And then the other thing is I do this thing where I'm like, okay, when everybody's ready to play, you'll be quiet. Like a little second grade teacher sort of thing. Okay. When you're ready, let's be quiet.

Jono Long: Jimmy is being quiet over there. I like the way that Sally is listening to me.

Juan DeVevo: Because I've been not the band leader and I'm over there and I'm like, something's going nuts.

And so I'm trying to make noise to fix it. And so I know when I am leading the band, I'm like, okay, let them mess around. But when we're ready to start the song, they may be trying to learn the lick or something or trying to get it right. So I'll just like give them a second.

Because like when you're the band leader, you're like, okay, let's do it. Let's do the song. Come on. But there's guys, all you know is there's noise. That's all, you know. But when you start yelling at them, then it's really tense. And so I kind of, if somebody is, it sounds like they're just goofing around I go, hey, you okay?

You ready to start? That's all I need to do. And they'll go, oh yeah. Because sometimes guitar players they'll, you know, if you're talking to the vocalists, they'll be over there doing.

Jono Long: They just start strumming, kind of getting their own world and forget that anyone else is there.

Juan DeVevo: I did not answer your question you're talking about, well, we strive for excellence, so yeah, I just try that with the students, to me, I think that's the most beginner you can get. We do have like a thing with the little kids, the elementary kids, but there's somebody playing with them.

That's the other thing is I'm playing with the students. So I'm playing acoustic usually. Yeah. If you're a keyboard player, that's another good instrument to play, to kind of help everybody go along. at the same time. But like following a click, those are basic things. Following the click, hitting the right chords.

Those are things you take care of in rehearsal. And then by the time you're on stage, if you know when to begin the song and end the song, and then you kind of go and you do the right phases and those kind of things, it usually it'll be good enough. I can tell you that. Just to, as an encouragement.

Jono Long: So now how do you, and this was always a struggle and we even went through a phase years ago where we were doing auditions for the youth band, because we had some really good musician kids, you know, teenagers. And so the struggle was there was always a few teenagers who thought they could sing and wanted to be on stage.

I mean, flat out honest, just could not, and probably could have learned but the worship band, wasn't the, none of us had the capability of getting them, you know, we could take good people and make them great, but taking them from like nothing to good was a lot more difficult.

Juan DeVevo: You can't hold a tune.

Yeah.

Jono Long: And so, you know, we wanted to do auditions so that, because the cool thing about auditions.

Juan DeVevo: The thing is I feel all of your frustration right now.

Jono Long: The perk of auditions in what we learned was, there was this kid that had been coming for years and we had no idea that he played any instrument.

We did auditions and you had to sign up what instrument and what song you were going to play. You came to auditions, ready to do a song and he said drums and eye of the tiger. We would always give everyone the spiel, no one laughs at anyone during this audition, if someone bombs or something and you laugh, that's automatically, you know, you're struck.

So we had kind of set it up that way and it was kind of for this kid, because we're like, there's no way. And dude, he gets up there and killed it and was amazing. And it's like, oh, you're the new drummer now. So there was always these teenagers who, they're not going to come to you and be like, hey, by the way, I'm awesome at drums.

They had some humility about them and they just weren't going to do it unless you asked them. So we discovered all kinds of talent that we didn't know about which was the upside of auditions. The downside was, there were the ones that did come to you and say, hey, I'm awesome. And then it's like oh .That's when you know.

Juan DeVevo: That's a flag, my friend.

Jono Long: And so you had to cut people or even if you're not doing auditions, you're going to end up with people who, the Lord's leading me to being in the band. Have you had to handle that? Have you had to deal with some of that? How did you?

Juan DeVevo: I'm a non-confrontationalist. So I've only a couple times had to kick people out of the band, but that was for like behavioral problems and stuff like that. But that was only because what makes things easier for me is like, if I set it up ahead of time. I'm coming from the thing of students. I think adults are a lot different too.

But two words for one thing. Youth choir, I don't know if you've ever done that. Somebody wants to sing, you can stand and just sing, you know, we'll have a little choir back there. So I've done that. I've never found any like hard and fast rules for any of this too.

Because auditions give you the people who are willing to do what it takes, right. To get better. Cause especially with teenagers, they're like 14, 15. You don't know, just mom bought me a drum set, so I'm going to, I can bang on it. So maybe this is what I'm supposed to do.

So that's your whole 14, 15 year olds like, maybe this is what I'm supposed to do. So. Unfortunately band comes into that. But so I've done youth choir, I've done things that happen a little more organically where if I have a lot of people, I'll put them on rotation.

So if somebody's a weak singer, I'll pair them up with stronger singers and those kind of things. And then eventually with students, at least they'll kind of weed themselves out sometimes. So I don't have to do that, but putting expectations in there like, this is what we expect to do.

And I have been like, hey, was somebody who like a kid came up and didn't know the chord. He's like, what's this chord? And it's like E minor. And I went, well, this is kind of how you have got to be able to do this. And it's really hard for me to do the whole band and then come over here and show you how to do chords.

So why don't you go learn these chords and get some practice.

Jono Long: Yeah, we want to teach you stuff, but these also aren't necessarily instrument lessons either.

Juan DeVevo: Another thing I've heard too, that I haven't, we've done in the past, but you know, I don't know if it's going to be very effective, but you could have like a worship jam day.

And so you don't put out a call and go, hey, we need people on the stage. You just go, hey, we're going to get together Sunday afternoon, have some pizza. Just bring your instrument. We'll we'll sing worship songs. And from that, you'll go, okay that guy is really good.

Yeah. And then after a while you go and talk to them one on one, that way you're not going, but hey, you want to come?

Jono Long: That's a good idea, man. Because that takes the pressure because it always, the audition thing kind of always felt elitist too.

Juan DeVevo: Yeah, that's the thing is there's the list and there's people who are in and people who are not in.

The other thing too, that might help if you're a youth leader I'm giving like free youth leader advice too, but I think having other ministries too will help. Like if all they see is these people on the stage, that's what ministry is or if you're doing drama or the band, but if there's like you know, you had like a thing where you were packing lunches, right?

For people that were refugees, that kind of stuff. There's people who have hearts for that kind of thing. But let's say you got a girl that can't really sing, but she just wants to do ministry, that's in her head. And she goes, I just want to sing. So if you have other things in place too, that kind of helps to go, you know what they need help over here.

Jono Long: That's a good point. That was another thing that was ingrained with us, you know, like everybody's not an upfront person and there are the kids who, and this goes for adults too.

I mean, it's like, they create opportunities for ministry. So along those lines, what's the craziest moment, and I guess one of my favorite Instagram accounts, like, is it Worship Leader Probs?

Juan DeVevo: Yeah, because there's a Worship Fails too.

Jono Long: Oh yeah. That one's good too.

Juan DeVevo: You know, the cross falling off onto the drummer. Do you think there are hazards involved with being a drummer?

Jono Long: Well, I play drums on Sundays at our Church, a couple times a month, and for a long time, our drum shield, the plexiglass, you know bulletproof shield was always wobbly and the hinges were kind of coming off.

And then we had like a plywood carpeted top kind of sitting on it. Dude, the heaviest piece of plywood ever. And so I just finally got new hinges, man, but there was a solid year where I just knew there was going to be a video of me with, you know a cracked L3 or something.

Juan DeVevo: Why is Jono wearing a football helmet?

Jono Long: I just imagine myself having to hold it up during worship, play with one hand while waiting on the tech team to come like fix it.

Juan DeVevo: That would actually rock if you could catch it. And here's like, you keep it going with one hand, oh my gosh!

Jono Long: We're going to finish this.

Juan DeVevo: You would go viral for the best reasons.

Jono Long: So have you ever had any of those moments? I mean like 20 years or more there has got to be some funny moment. Is there a funny moment?

Juan DeVevo: When you said funny moment, I thought this.

When we were doing a homeschool prom. I don't know if I say that. Yeah. Okay. I didn't know if I was going to trigger you by saying that, but it was a homeschool prom.

Jono Long: Go ahead. So I was playing drums for that. This was the transition before y'all found a real drummer.

And I filled in for the homeschool proms. So anyway.

Juan DeVevo: Sometimes I don't pay attention until we get to the thing. And I was like, well, we were walking in the door and I was like, home prom? And I was like, are they going to be dancing? Yeah, they were dancing. And so we were doing, I remember.

So there's a song. I can't remember who sings that. We are hungry. We are hungry for more of you. And there's slow dancing. Hand in hand, just kind of back and forth. It was just the weirdest. I don't know, like other guitar players. I know they tell you not to look down, but that's all I did that night.

I'm just like, I'm just going to, I'm going to worship here and we're not going to worry about anything that's going on out there, but Mark always tries to connect. He always tries to, you know invest in the crowd. He always wants to be interactive. So he was trying so hard.

Jono Long: They were not listening. They did not even know we were there.

Juan DeVevo: We were just, we were the band from Billy Madison. That was us that night.

Jono Long: It was total background music.

Juan DeVevo: For sure. And so my favorite line of that whole night was Mark was like, we had one more.

I think we were going to do live song or something at the end. I'm trying to remember if we had that yet. No, no, we didn't have that one. It was another cool song, like upbeat song. And Mark was like, hey, appreciate you guys having us out here. Don't don't let our worship get in the way of you guys having fun.

I was like, what? From the stage? We always talk like me and Mark, we've always joked about the worship leaders that turn on the crowd. And like, we're not going to do anything else until you guys sing into this. Like, come on guys. It was like the cheerleader, but Mark finally just like, you know what? We're going to worship God.

You guys do whatever you want to do. That is a little awkward.

Jono Long: The thing I remember about that night too, was one of the last songs we played was I think Crowns ended up redoing it, but at the time it was like, I lift my hand shadow of your wings.

And I totally started it off, like I was playing two, four times. I was, I was double the band, yeah, it was terrible. We literally had to stop but Mark turned around was like, no one's listening its fine. It was like, whatever, man, they're slow dancing.

That brings up another memory. Because when we were in the youth group and Third Day's first album came out there was this birthday party and there was a bunch of youth group kids there and the girlfriend, it was her boyfriend's birthday party and she wanted to dedicate this next song to him.

And it was Just To Be With You by Third Day, which is totally about Jesus, you know, doing whatever it takes to get to you. But she totally. It was all about her and him and she dedicated it. And I think they were slow dancing there. Maybe even making out, it was terrible.

Juan DeVevo: So, oh no. That's oh my gosh.

What did we do? Surely somebody at that homeschool prom was like, this is weird. We shouldn't have done this. Like the teacher and adult somebody in the back going, what? This is not right. Something's wrong about this. I could see having like a worship service, but that really wouldn't been a homeschool promy kind of thing.

Jono Long: I could say this because we've homeschooled all five of our children, but I can totally see how many homeschool parents would have no clue that it was weird at all.

We've been to homeschool conferences. It's not that far of a stretch.

Juan DeVevo: I guess they just replaced, you know JayZ with JC. I didn't even know where I was going with that. No, they're just like, let's have a regular prom and we'll just do worship music.

I guess our problem was we were coming in there thinking that they were going to listen, pay attention.

Well, it wasn't paying attention, but it was like, we should try to engage the crowd and help them to encounter God. That was our, you know, that's one of those weird worship band quirks, you know, when you bring in a worship band. So this is for everybody that wants to bring in a worship band to your, whatever your event is, is our mindset is we're going to engage the people and then try to get them to engage with God.

That's kind of the purpose. That's the whole thing about that. That was our fault though. That's our bad.

Jono Long: I wonder if there's anybody who was at that homeschool prom as a teenager, who became like a Casting Crowns fan is like they were at our prom.

Juan DeVevo: It just, they just wake up in a cold sweat.

Jono Long: So something else I was thinking about, and I didn't share this with you before, but another thing I was going to brag on, and this is just something you could talk about a little bit about.

Over the years. You know, I was a youth pastor for 20 years and there were a lot of every year we'd have Disciple Now weekend or DNOW, or whatever you call it. And we would have different bands in and it kind of got to where some of the bands, well, a lot of the bands we were having you know, they'd come out and do the sessions and then they'd sit, you know, we had a room where they kept all their stuff, that's where they hung out all weekend.

And maybe we kind of fed a little bit of that cause we got them their own food and stuff. And so it was kind of this green room feel. Right. And then Gosh. I don't know. It's been several years now. But oh hey, Brad Holloway just joined us and, he messaged me like a week ago while I was on vacation and I read it and did not respond, Brad, I will message you back now that I saw your name. So anyway I forgot to message him, but anyway, so the band from Eagle's Landing came and led worship for our DNOW. And I remember our students and adults being like, because it was when it was like rec time when we were out playing games, the band came out and like jumped in like, hey, can we play?

And sat in the meals with us and, you know, they were in the audience during the message taking notes, like during the speaker's sermon. It was total fruit of you guys pouring into them and telling them like, hey, you guys, aren't, you know, the rock stars, you're, you're doing ministry here.

Juan DeVevo: I'm just glad you said we weren't freaking anybody out. Like, can we play with you? I'm like these guys.

Jono Long: Everybody loved it, but it did. It was kind jarring there at first. Like why does the band want to play tug of war?

Juan DeVevo: Why are they sitting with us? What do we talk about?

Jono Long: That doesn't just happen. You guys have obviously talked about it, but how, how do you kind of create that culture?

Juan DeVevo: Some of it's on purpose. So we have to be like, okay, it's hot. I know, but we have got .To, go out there. That's another way of connect.

If you're a band and you're at a camp, your job is to connect with the people. Actually, I was thinking about that, because I was like, how much about worship we actually talked about? Because what I teach is you connect with God on stage, you connect with God and you connect with people.

If you're only connecting with God, then you're not really serving the role of worship leader. You're just, you're kind of having your own moment up there and everybody else is kind of just watching. So you connect with God and you connect with people. If you only connect with people, then you're a rock star and you're not really leading them in a worship.

You're creating a fan base. So a cool thing is if you are doing worship at a camp or a DNOW is if you want to connect with people, there's more opportunities to do that. If you're like me, Mark has really good charisma. I think you do too. You guys have and then another Brian Art that used to drum for us.

He's got a home Church and he's born into foster care ministry. So that's why he's a little busy for Crowns, but now he just felt God calling him into that and away from crowns, but he's a guy that just knows somebody everywhere. I don't work that way. It takes a little while for me to warm up because I'm completely introverted.

So I have to warm up to people. I have got to be like, hey, how's going and ask like 10 questions. And by that time I'll warm up to somebody. So that doesn't happen from the stage for me. I have got to be like, I have to have other time. So that's why when I do rehearsal with the students, I have got to have like 10 minutes with them just to talk to them about how things are going and like check in with them because I can't walk into a room and go, hey, everybody circle around

I feel like I have to yell to be the center of attention because my voice isn't that loud either. So part of that it's on accident, because we're just youth people anyway. And we got that gear. We got that missing chromosome or something that makes you want to go out and play water balloon fights.

Usually, you know, at a certain age you give that up. But our youth camp, we had the water balloon sling. Have you ever, have you tried those? I haven't played with one in a long time. Well of course the guys want to stand out there in a line, like, you know, the soccer penalty line.

They're doing the penalty kick. So they're out there standing like that. And whatever way you want to say it and, and me and the adult guys are flinging. You know golf ball, size water balloons. At like supersonic speeds. It was a big deal. We didn't actually end up hitting anybody, but it was that kind of macho, you know, just boys out there doing that. So that's part of that too, is that we still enjoy that stuff. And I did go out there and one came that I heard it go by and I couldn't even, you ever have anything go by you so fast that you flinched after it's like, gone?

Well, I would've not been able to Dodge that at all. Yeah. But that's a purposeful thing. That's another reason that's why we stay in connected to the Church is because. Well, for one thing, community is a biblical principle to be connected to other people and not just be by yourself, in the back room but go on out there.

And the other thing is every time. To me, at least in my head, every time the gospel's preached, if it's to elementary kids, if it's to senior citizens, I need to hear something. There's something in what this person's saying in scripture for crying out loud. I need to hear. It's like, I need to hear something out of this.

So that's why I take notes because every person I think should journal at some point, but then you look back and you go, oh, God was teaching me this. But all that stuff goes into, I think, just being a good Christian or being an attentive, I should say that we shouldn't, I don't know if we should need to focus on being a good Christian, but like being an attentive Christian or being somebody or staying connected.

Stay connected with God. You need to, there is a thing that happens where maybe because you can, as a, if you're like a cool, if you're a recording artist and you go touring, you can find really cool people to hang out with. But I think maybe you need to have, that's why we tell people to stay in your Church because you come back and you go, he's not as cool as the people that I was on stage with the other night. And that's what happens is you go, okay, well, they're different, but you know, they have these, you, hopefully God starts to open up your eyes and you go, oh, this is what they're good at. They're good at this. What we were just talking about people being on stage, having stage talent or having offstage talent.

That's what, that's what you start to see when you're, when you're invested in a Church like personally, cause I'm, I'm teaching a life group here, this Sunday, usually I'll sub in because we it's not every Sunday that we're here and there is times where I'm like, you know, God has to check my humility because I want to, my natural bend is to, to get really let's get really deep.

Let's get deep into the deep of things. God's like. Yeah. Okay. Well what about the thing I told you last week, that's really simple and you're still not doing that. Why do you want to know about the Trinity. When you won't share the gospel to the homeless guy that you gave him like five bucks, but you didn't say anything about Jesus.

So those are like, that's not really deep, but it's still not a thing that I'm obeying. So that's a thing I have got to, I have got to get over. But yeah. That's why, when you're paired with other people that are gifted in different ways, it pushes you in that direction. That's why I like, as a band and even as a worship band, you can, you have got to stay in the con.

Yeah. You're a part of that body of the Church, man.

Jono Long: And there's a noticeable difference. I just think back that DNOW, I mean, we've had tons of different bands in every year, you know? But the worst,

Juan DeVevo: I have got to tell you, because you have got to remember this, the band got to the end and the drummer like decimated his drum set, like kick the kick drum over.

Symbol stands, went everywhere. You're the youth pastor and you come after and everyone's like, yeah. And you go, whoop, I guess there's no Encore. He just like, he completely destroyed his drum set on stage. He was just so like a total rock and roll thing, dude. And you go, whoop, I guess that's it.

Jono Long: I remember that night. Yeah, because y'all had been leading the worship and then that was kind of the finale and that band was that band was a local, like pretty popular, you know? Nineties Christian music or in 2000s. I mean that was a good time for Christian music, I would say.

But that band never hit it super big, but locally they were, you know, they were my youth groups, favorite band and totally did not expect that moment. Like when it was over. Yeah, just started smashing the drums.

Juan DeVevo: Because everybody, all the, the teenagers, like, okay, what's this about?

Jono Long: And we were fully expecting an Encore, you know, like they went, you know, because the students would always one more, one more, you know? Yeah. Okay.

Juan DeVevo: Unless you got an accordion or something, I guess we're done.

Jono Long: Ice cream in the foyer. This is over. This is it. That was it.

Juan DeVevo: Oh, that's fantastic.

Jono Long: Anybody wants to help us vacuum up wood chips, shards of drum from the stage, we could use a couple hands cleaning up.

Juan DeVevo: Let's loop around the duct tape and kind of tap on the ground. Sorry.

Jono Long: No this is good, man. Even if no one else is enjoying this part of it I am. But I will say that like, out of all the bands, you know, that when the guys from Eagles Landing where you are and that you've invested in, when those guys came, that one sticks out because of how they interacted with the students. But it also sticks out because of the student's response and engagement you know, right off the bat. It didn't take until Saturday night for them to like, kind of warm up to the band. Cause Friday night they were scattered around learning names.

And so there was a response and connection, you know, right off the bat that just made a huge difference in the whole weekend.

Juan DeVevo: Oh, that's cool. So I keep saying for students, but Mark says this a lot is like adults are just teenagers with bills or something like that.

That's the thing he says. So I keep saying that like, because I think a lot of times there's, at least with guys when you're the band and you walk in, there's like this kind of thing with guys, at least it's like, oh they're cool at this. But if you're just, you come off the stage, you go, Hey man, and you just like learn their name and what they do at school and what their favorite thing is.

They go, oh. they're interested in me as a person. So I guess it's not just a teenager thing. That's an everybody thing. Yeah. So yeah, if you leave worship at your Church and you don't, I hate to say mingle, but you don't get out in the crowd and know people's names. What are you doing?

But that's because I don't want to get against, so some guys do earn a living, helping Churches, lead worship and stuff. It's one thing that might be a drawback if you are paid to be at a Church and that's not actually what you would call your home Church, that's not where your community is.

And that's a thing and you're kind of, you're just doing a thing you may be worshiping. But to me at my Church, when we're all singing together, and we're unified as brothers and sisters, that is really when Jesus said that two people gather and there I am in the midst of them, you actually are very fully aware of it at that moment because there's not a band and the audience.

There's just, there's the family and everybody's doing their role. Everybody's kind of doing what God calls them doing, moving in the spirit and we're all worshiping God at that moment. That's why I love it so much is because it's just a man, you get just a drop of heaven in that moment and it was, it's just great.

Jono Long: Yeah, that's cool. That's very cool. So we probably need to land the plane here in a minute, but.

Juan DeVevo: I've booked out my whole afternoon. So you got me forever.

Jono Long: So what's kind of, what's the biggest change that you've seen over the last five, ten years with worship teams just worship in general positive, negative, and how you've had to adjust and just what's been tough. And this may lead into kind of just maybe a piece of advice for anybody in Church leadership. That's got a little bit of hand in worship, just cause there's so much tough stuff to deal with. You know, whether it's a lack of musicians and you're trying to have a good band and do it with excellence, but you know, you're a smaller Church.

Juan DeVevo: Let me say something about that real quick, because that's something I learned with teenagers is you always wanted something big and exciting and cool to do. But then like after the pandemic taught us many things I think, and right after that we.

Jono Long: What pandemic?

Juan DeVevo: Oh, you're right. I mean if there's a board game. When we were done with the board game, we learned some stuff from it. We were just gathered gosh, the Church built a foyer, like a new foyer kind of help filter in, or funnel in the, the guests. Kind of a cool entrance to come into more homy kind of thing.

And we kind of took that over the youth group did and it's real echoy. And so we were just in there with just an acoustic guitar. Yeah. And it was it. And total worship happened and it's, so you think you need a thing and you think you need to do it a certain way, but I would say whatever you have do, as you're doing to the Lord. What's weird how he's coming back to scripture.

But like, if you go, man, all I got is just look around at what you have. Cause there's a reason God's given you that I think sometimes you have got to be okay with small so that you understand how big God is and how much he can do with five loaves and fishes. Man. This is my lunch what's he going to do with this kind of thing?

So what was the other thing you were talking about you were talking about?

Jono Long: Well, no, that kind of relief that I think that's a good pressure relief. I know. I just, you know, but as a youth pastor, I just always felt this pressure. Like, man, we've have got to have an amazing band. And I kind of grew out of that over time, but man, for first 10 years of ministry, it was like, man, if the band's terrible, then if we don't have an amazing band we're not even going to have a youth group.

And, you know, the last Church that I served at, you know, some of the biggest growth we ever saw was over the course of a year and a half where we had no one to lead any worship on Wednesday night with a youth group ever. And we never did a song whatsoever. And that was the time we grew the most.

Not because everyone was like, oh good. They're not doing music. But on the other hand, that could have been it because, you know, I mean, where else do you go? Like, you know, you're inviting your friends.

Juan DeVevo: Yeah. And you never want to play the opposite monster either. Because it's like we don't need music to worship God.

But the truth of the matter is you have people walking in your door, you have no idea what they're dealing with, or even worse, you know, what they're dealing with. And then you're going to sing about, you know, happiness and sunshine and good things. When you know, they're in really dark moments.

So it's a really good opportunity. Worship is the opportunity. I feel like music is the quickest way to somebody's heart. Like if there's a storm going on in your head, God can use music to go straight at your heart. That way he can bypass all this junk that's happening here and kind of clear the clouds up really quick.

Yeah. That's why I love music because you're into it at first, but then now you're into it. Then the words hit you and if they're good scriptural, you know, strong theology kind of stuff, then it's good. And I think we're heading back there. You're talking about the changes.

I think maybe we got a little happy, a little too happy and it happened in Christian music too. You're talking about the nineties you know, Christian rock and stuff. It got a little away and then I feel like it was lost until Crowns fixed it.

Jono Long: On behalf of the universal Church. I just want to thank.

Juan DeVevo: Thank you for saving Christianity.

Jono Long: We all owe you from the bottom. We don't say it enough. We don't say it enough.

Juan DeVevo: We're not the only ones that do that, but I will tell you, Mark is at least the reason I talk about us is that that's what I have the most experience with.

I can tell you Mark, every song we have and you can, if you have a CD, you can open up that jacket and we put their scripture. But that's what I'm starting to see it. It's kind of coming back around. People are starting to dig into the Bible and trying to put the Bible into songs that we can sing with each other.

That's what I think worship should be is some sort of variation of scripture interpreted for the audience. You're not a preacher as a worship leader, but you are a distributor of truth of, so you have got to be giving them truth. Right? Otherwise it's just another, it's just another song that you're giving.

That's another thing that I learned from Mark was you can tell people your opinion, but if you give them scripture, they have to deal with that. They have got to go, am I going to accept this? Or am I going to reject it? So I'd like to see that now.

Jono Long: Cool. So, advice for a worship leader or someone that's got a hand in it or on worship team.

Juan DeVevo: Man, you know what happens, especially because if worship leaders are creative and they're artists and they want to see new things, we have a bit of a chronological snobbery, see, as Lewis called it.

Like, if it's new, then it's good automatically. But the thing is so remember when we were making fun of hymns for a while, and then like two years, we did nothing, but sing hymn covers like all of a sudden they came back and now are we doing that anymore? It's gone again. It's always just like a, I guess it was a fad.

I don't know. I really do like hymns. My problem is I have chronological snobbery and the other direction is if it's old, then it's good. That's the thing I have got to deal with personally. But the thing is any, absolutely, God taught me this.

I realized it. I don't know if I've learned it yet, but anything can become an idol. So like I'll give you an experience that I had. We went to Europe and I really love, I do cherish old things and went in this really old cathedral. It was Anglican. And I bought the book of common prayer and started going through it, just reading it.

And I really loved how. They infused scripture into prayer. I started learning about how growing up Baptist, every prayer was extemporaneous. You had to make it up or otherwise it wasn't authentic, right? Especially, that's why we never did the Lord's prayer in Baptist Church is like, you can't pray that. That's written down already.

You have got to make up another one on your own. I'm like, I think Jesus really wanted us to pray this. So I started doing that in my quiet time, just reading a prayer. So there's a thing called valleys of vision. There's a Lutheran prayer book that I have book of common prayer Anglican.

I probably will get fired. I'm not on staff. I'll be fired as a volunteer, but my encouragement is everything could become an idol. So if you really like the really chilled out music, whatever your music style is right now, that could be your idol. And like we were talking about, we feel like this we needed a big band.

That was the idol. Right? Cause we didn't believe God could do anything, with just a kid, an acoustic guitar or no music at all. Yeah. So absolutely everything, no matter how good it seems can sit on the idol, sit on the throne of your heart and you're giving your worship to that. So the way that I've learned that is whatever I'm anxious about, or if I'm frustrated or something makes me angry.

There's something besides God sitting on the throne in my heart and I'm worshiping that, because God's not going to fail me. And then if God is doing something to make me frustrated, that's because I'm leaning on this thing, that's actually like proverb says a broken leg.

I'm lame and God's making me lean on it. And so it's causing me pain and he's saying, no I'm the healer. I'm the one that you put your chest in. So being relevant, doing the hottest songs. Only playing passion, whatever your thing is that you're really sold out to, I'd be willing to, and I can quote Lewis, almost quote too much, but he is like, whatever you have, you hold it with an open hand and just say, God, do with this what you want. If you're writing songs and you're like, I really have to do these in Church.

Maybe that's your idol and this because you know, God's giving you these songs, but you have to have to do this thing. I don't know, but that's what my challenge is. I hope that's an encouragement is that everything's open all things are permissible, right? But not all things are wise. So just find out is this a thing that's sitting on my throne instead of God?

And just the only thing that can save you from that is the guides of the holy spirit. And so praying for wisdom. And making yourself aware when you're angry or like, if you can't do something like your pastor says, you can't do this in Church, or you can't do this in the service and you're angry about it.

Well, why? Why is that, that you're frustrated now? So hope that helps.

Jono Long: No, that's good, man. That's deep. That is deep. That's good stuff. Well, dude, we'll land the plane here and wind things down, but thanks everybody who hung out with us or who's listening and watching.

So Juan thanks again for being with us.

Man, this was fun and we need to do another lunch date soon.

Juan DeVevo: Well, that's why I did the podcast cause we can't hang out all the time.

Jono Long: That works. All right, man. Well thanks everybody. And we'll see you next time.