Brent Hodge (inWorship)

Biographical Information

Spouse's name: Tammy (inProgress)
Years married: 16
Children's names: Kassidi (13), Dakota (11)
Years leading worship: Off and on since 1983 (Jr High, High School and College). Full Time since 1997
Church name and location: Table Rock Fellowship, Medford, Oregon
Church website: tablerockfellowship.org
Denomination: Non
Years at current church: Helped start the church, 9 Years ago
Instruments you play: Piano and a little guitar
Blog: brenttrf.wordpress.com

Is your role full time, bi-vocational, or volunteer?

Full Time

What are you listening to right now?

According to iTunes:
30 Second To Mars – A Beautiful Lie
David Crowder – Remedy
Robbie Seay band – Give Yourself Away
Three Days Grace – One X
Steve Fee – Burn For You

What are you reading right now?

Unchristian – David Kinnaman, Gabe Lyons
Make It Stick – Chip and Dan Heath
Scripture Alone – R.C Sproul

What's your musical heritage?

Grew up Baptist, so had a heavy dose of traditional music and hymns. I was introduced to lots of choral stuff and a little bit of opera. My Dad was a Carpenter’s fan so I was introduced to pop music early. I lived my teen years through the 80’s so I thoroughly enjoyed Hard Rock…Ozzy, Quiet Riot, Iron Maiden, Krokus, Scorpions. I loved it. This flowed over to the 90’s with Alternative. In the process of all that, I was a major keyboard fan, so I was constantly listening to everything from Michael McDonald to Brian McKnight to Journey. When I started to write, I got more into producing and engineering and listened to anything that sounded good. Needless to say I have a huge variety of tastes. I can easily sit down and enjoy an acoustic album, then turn on some Metallica. then focus on something like Kelly Clarkson. I doesn’t matter. If it sound good and is written well, I love it all!

Describe your journey to becoming a worship leader.

I took piano lessons from first grade through sixth grade. When I entered junior high, a few buddies and I started a band. The youth Pastor wanted us to play at church, so the youth worship team was born. I helped with worship (mostly just music) through jr. high and high school and then into college at the same church. When we moved to Oregon, I had the opportunity to lead in a church up here where my Dad was pastor. I did it off and on, but it bred a “music creation” process in me. I fell in love with writing and producing. I then headed into the studio to create an album and fell in love with engineering. I started to promote the album, in the hopes of being part of youth retreats and camps. That is exactly what happened. For about 2 years that all I did. I traveled the west coast leading worship and playing for groups of high school and college aged kids. It was a blast. It was on one of those retreats that I hooked up with a youth pastor from southern Oregon. As we got to know each other, it led to us (my wife and me) moving to southern Oregon and my taking on the role of youth worship leader for a Baptist church.

Unfortunately there was some turmoil in the leadership and finances in the church and I was one of the casualties. During this whole time in Oregon I had grown to love studio engineering and live sound so I made that my career. From '91-'97 I was full time as a studio manager/engineer. During this time I slacked off. We attended church infrequently and I was not involved in any type of ministry. God then led me into a friendship with a pastor and through that friendship I got back into serving in ministry. I worked part time with him (while doing my full time job as an engineer) at a small Christian Church. I led worship there and began to build a small music ministry. This church too was in turmoil and it led to the pastor and I resigning. In agreement, the two of us (also with a youth guy that was on staff at that time of resignation) started to meet in a park. The rest is history for Table Rock. I have now been with Table Rock full time since '98. I have been leading worship, overseeing the music teams and also overseeing the tech and media ministries.

What's the "DNA" of your church:

We are all over with age, which is encouraging. Ethnically we are pretty much caucasian, but so is our valley. There is not much culture here. I wish there was more

Describe for us your church's worship "style":

Musically – I am not sure what name to use anymore. We are upbeat, contemporary in our musical style. Tomlin, Redman, Crowder, with consistent hymns that have been arranged to fit us.

Non-Musically – I don’t know what to call us. Traditional, contemporary w/ a touch of post-modern… All our services consist of offerings and communion. We have always felt that communion is a huge part of what we do and who we are. We have always been simple in how we approach services. We spend time in music/worship and then we spend time in the teaching. We dress it up, cause we have a love to be creative and we enjoy having fun, but it is pretty straight forward. We are beginning to bring some more liturgical elements into what we do on our Wednesday Worship & Communion gatherings (which are the first Wednesday each month).

How has worship leading changed you?

Being in the ministry has changed everything about me. My relationship with God demands my transformation whether in the ministry or not. But the responsibility, Biblically, is even greater while I am in this position. As well, my responsibilities and roles at church require my need to learn and adapt.

Describe the make-up of your worship leading team:

We have 18 Music team members consisting of drums, percussion, bass, electric, acoustic, synth, piano and vocal. We have rotations happening with drums, acoustics and vocals.

We have 8 tech team members consisting of 3 FOH techs and 5 media techs

What's the greatest "worship risk" you've ever taken?

At the Christian Church I was a part of, I went into an environment of very traditionally opinionated people. The church before I came was doing 70’s style choruses with the occasional hymn. They were doing it VERY poorly. they had piano, bass and 4 vocals. The worship leader was (by her admission) tone deaf, and the piano player had no timing. It was horrendous. When I first visited, I actually laughed. I felt horrible about my attitude, but it was awful. The pastor has asked me to come over and “freshen” up what was going on. I immediately stripped the team down to just the piano and me. This offended some involved with the team, but it also allowed me to start bringing in some newer simple choruses as well as to focus on hymns without distractions. It was an opportunity to start teaching worship and not just music. We eventually started adding drums and bass to our Mid-week studies. It was at this time that a small portion of the church got very angry and threatened to fire us. God was doing some incredible things at this church. We had gone from 75 people to 350 in a year and a half. Lives were changing. People were being saved. There were about 25 people that wanted their “old” church back. We agreed not to fight for a building, but to continue what God was asking us to do and we resigned and started a new church.

Any risks you wish you had taken but did not?

Honestly, one of the hardest things to do in church leadership is to let go of a volunteer. It almost doesn’t make sense. And yet, there are times when people and philosophies and talents don’t mesh and things need to change. I have been slow to move people on and I think in doing this it has slowed the growth and maturity of our team. I am still learning how to do this. Starting with how to implement people into the ministries I am responsible for. I am learning to “hire” people better, which leads to less confusion and hurt down the road.

How did you fare during the "worship wars?"

I resigned.

Describe your process for planning a worship service:

I have my likes and dislikes, so you get my flavor when it comes to music style. But, part of my responsibility is to arrange the flow of our weekend services. We meet with a creative team that consists of 4-5 of us to come up with ideas. The Creative Director and I are working everyday on implementing media, graphics and other elements. Song choice comes down to topic and flow. When it comes to the final layout, I am usually on my own for this. The other elements which my hands are in, but not a large part of are everything to do with how people feel when they walk on a campus…to what they do with what they’ve just heard when they leave. This is all as much a part of the actual service itself in my opinion. We want people to see Jesus when they attend Table Rock. So, what can we do to illuminate Him everywhere and in everything we do, greeters, nursery, parking, music, the Word! It all matters and it all is important.

Sample worship set:

Opening Video announcements
Countdown Video
Welcome/Announcements/Pre-message “Where we are going today”
Song Service:
Generally 5-6 songs intermixed with prayer, communion and the offering.
Here is the songlist from last week (October 28)…
Forever –Tomlin
Everlasting God – Brown
All – Hillsong United
You Are My King – Foote
Unashamed Love – Hiebert
Glorious One – Fee
Video opener for Message
Message
Closing Song or Application time
Dismissed/Prayer Time with pastors in front of auditorium

Do you write music for your congregation?

Not consistently, but I have. My wife and I actually write together. It has been something on my heart to do more of. God has me in a season and many responsibilities and as He allows me to be freed up, I will make this a priority.

You mentioned some episodes of turmoil at churches of which you've been a part. In hindsight, what do you think could have been done to prevent things falling apart?

I’ll answer to the one situation that I had control or influence over. At the church I was part time at in the early 90’s. I could have done 2 things.

#1 Was to back off a bit. I was young and eager to succeed. I was anxious to see people get from one place to another. I failed at keeping things simple and I took charge quickly instead of being patient. I failed to focus on the responsibility of leading people in worship. I was too focused on changing what they did to something I thought was “better”. Now mind you, I kept it blended in style, but I believe I could have gotten to know the people better before I expected them to “follow” me.

#2 I should have had a clear definition of where we as a church were going. What was it I was really supposed to do? Was it just to change the style? Was it to rearrange the team and place new structure? Was it just to teach the people about worship? I think it was a little of all all three, but I ran the race without thinking it through and preparing for it. The pastor and I were in agreement, but I was given a lot of freedom and it would have been good to clearly think through and define what we saw the church becoming in style and personality. We could have then thought through the process from start to finish.

I am thankful for that ministry though. It taught me some invaluable lessons about caring for people and being more interested in God and His plan than my own.

When you look back decades from now, what do you hope to see you've accomplished as a worship leader?

Trained leaders. I have a heart for this. I want to leave everything I do and not be missed. I truly desire for our church to know what worship is, but I have always felt that I am to teach the worship leaders and in doing so they will teach the masses.

What are your predictions for the future of worship?

If I knew that, I would also be rich. Seriously though, it is in the midst (in my opinion) of massive evaluation and possible change. I don’t see anything we do right now disappearing, I just see the emphasis on intent and effectiveness growing. We have done many things in churches to make ourselves better, but in doing so have often left Jesus outside the doors. Not always intentionally, but we definitely have. Worship is about lifestyle, church is about loving your neighbor, Jesus is about His kingdom. lights, sound, video, candles, prayer stations, they all matter and are all valid. But they don’t lead us to God, Jesus does. I see us as worship and creative ministries needing to evaluate, not what we do, but why we do what we do. There is a lot of creativity out there, use it. There are amazing songs to be written, write them. There are worship leaders being trained and led, lead them. But never at the expense of leading someone to Jesus. Let people always see Jesus. If you’re going to use lights…just make Jesus really bright.

What is one thing you wished every worship leader knew?

That worship is not about music. It is about relationship and lifestyle. It is about getting out of the building and caring for people. It is passionately devoting everything we are and do to God and his Kingdom. Let music do that, let lights and video and graphics do that. Let buildings do that. But let it always be to His glory.

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