S6E1: "Music, Worship, and the Heart of God: A Conversation with Leslie Blum"

In the "Finishing Well" podcast, host Hal Habecker interviews LESLIE BLUM about the role of music in life and aging. Leslie shares her upbringing in a musical Christian home, where her father, a soloist, and her mother, a pianist, fostered her love for music. She discusses the emotional impact of music, citing major and minor chords as examples, and how music connects with the soul. 

Leslie emphasizes the importance of music in worship, advocating for a blend of traditional and contemporary styles to serve diverse congregations. She also reflects on the comfort music provides during life's challenges, such as grief.

Transcript

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Nick today on the finishing well podcast, I think we are rational beings, but along with that, that thinking side, we are also emotional beings. I think we are wired and fine tuned by God to resonate with music. Welcome to the finishing well podcast where we encourage believers of every age to find meaningful ways to impact their world for the kingdom of God. Our mission is to prepare and encourage every person to live well and to finish well. We pray this podcast will be a source of strength and encouragement as we seek to glorify Christ as we engage him in our aging years. Now here's your host for finishing well. Hal habecker, welcome to the finishing well podcast. We cover a number of issues, and today we're going to be very creative in doing something that's really at my heart and at the heart of every person who's listening. I want to talk about music in life and in aging, music is something that captivates us all. And this is an interview with a good friend of mine, Leslie bloom, who I've known for several decades. I knew her parents, and she's going to tell us a little bit about that, but welcome Leslie to our podcast this morning. Thank you so much. I'm so glad to be here. It's a joy to have you. You have sung in my church where I was a pastor for many, many years, and I've known you and followed you and your family, and it's just a joy to have you with us talking about this topic. So welcome again. Thank you so much. Okay, Leslie, I want to start your parents were very musical. Tell us about the home you grew up in and how music became part of your life, and what was the impact on you personally, with parents who were very musically inclined themselves. Well, I was raised, of course, in a Christian home. My mom and dad met at SMU, and my dad was searching desperately during that time in college, as many people do, and she and he had started lots of conversations about spiritual things, and at one point she said to him, Jimmy, the answer to everything that you're looking for is Jesus. And she, and a good friend of his, faithfully answered all of his questions over a period of time. And he kind of bent his knee one night in the middle of the night and just said, Lord, I don't I don't have the answers to all the questions, but I believe that you died to save me from my sin, and I want to make you the Lord of my life. And he experienced a dramatic change in his life, and within a year from that time, he had entered Dallas Theological Seminary, he'd read the whole Bible through, which is more than I can say. For most of my Christian friends, we're like, we know a scripture, but maybe we haven't read the whole thing all the way through, but it just really changed him and gave him God gave him just a such a desperate appetite for the Word and learning it. And my mom had been raised in a strong Christian home, so she was there to have all conversations all along the way. So I was raised in that home, and I would say I grew up watching my parents do ministry through whether dad was substituting in a pulpit for somebody that was out, or doing his ministry, which he started in 73 along with John Buell, a ministry called probe. And so I watched him do that, music became part of our family. It just, it just, was an integral part. My dad tells me that I started matching pitch around age two, wow. And he would record me singing. He'd sing a note, and I'd find it, and he was just delighted. And so somehow I got the message that this was a good thing, and I just grew up in a family that really fostered my performance and learning music. I started at age five. I started learned the piano, started learning it, and I studied all through up until college and performance, I would say, has been a huge part of my makeup, just the opportunity to get on stage and perform a song, whether it's singing or playing, but primarily singing for many, many years, and just to be. Able to use that in whatever environment I'm in, to be able to speak to people and to connect with people. Your dad was a musician and a soloist. Yes, and your mother sang, did she play? Mother's saying, but she really became his pianist. My dad used to say he didn't date girls, he auditioned them, and that my mom, Carol, won the audition, and so she would sing at home, but she did not perform as a singer, and I still can hear her voice just sing, sitting at the piano and just having a personal moment with a song. And I felt so privileged just to get to hear that, because Daddy was really the Irish tenor performer. He had just an uncanny and I can say this because I'm a voice teacher and I'm pretty critical. I get paid to be critical the voices, but he had just an uncanny, amazing voice with clarity and very old school, he sounded a lot like Mario lanza and the Irish tenors that you've heard, just a beautiful, beautiful voice. Well, I didn't know him really well personally, but we'd been together many times. I moved to Dallas in 73 when they started probe, and that's how I remember him, and I've been to events where they have sung and led and leadership all kinds of ways. And you grew up in that, and it's fantastic to see your dad mom, who are no longer here. We may talk about that a little bit later, but you're carrying on their legacy in many ways, yes, and they invested that in me and to develop me as their kiddo, along with both. I have two older brothers, one is more musical, the other one is not as musical, but they they invested in us, and that's out of Minister salaries and things like that that they they prioritized that in my life, and I've been able to make a living as a professional musician all of these years. You're awesome, and I really appreciate you, and thanks for taking time to do this. You bet. What is it about music? I mean, music connects with the soul, from your earliest years to your final years, and all over the spectrum, there's something powerful about music and notes and musicians and instruments and voice. Reflect on that a little bit. I mean, you've experienced it from both sides of the platform, and working with people, teaching talk to all of us about music and what is it that God made that connects with the soul, the heart and the mind? You know, I think that we are I'll try to put it into words, because I think it's big, but I think we are rational beings, but along with that, that thinking side, we are also emotional beings. In my lessons, I will play a chord for a kid who really doesn't know much about music, and I'll play a major chord, and I'll say, what does that sound like to you? Does that sound happy, or does that sound sad? And they listen, and it's bright, a major chord is bright, and it just evokes the heartstrings. And they say, it sounds happy. And then I say, Okay, I want you to listen to this minor chord, or I'll say, what? I'll play a minor chord and say, What? What emotion is that happy, or is that sad? And they immediately hear it, and a minor chord brings out sadness. And so we have all of these things in music happening all the time that I think we are wired and fine tuned by God to resonate with music. I think it really is a God given thing that we can resonate with it and that it moves us emotionally. I can remember growing up, I was a pretty happy kid, very sunshiny, and so still are. And I can just remember learning either to sing a song, and I'm the youngest, so entertaining comes naturally as the as the third born in my family. But I can just remember making people smile. And being able to do that and get that reaction of happiness from people really touched me, and it fueled my flame of my love of music, I can also remember just kind of on the less happy side, if I. Angry and in high school when I had when I was working through something, maybe a friend wasn't nice, or I don't know what it was, but I could get down on the piano and play a Chopin Prelude and just angsty Prelude, and I would be working out my feelings and so worship and music had become, really, for me, just a primary source of connecting to God. And I can do it with my mind. When I hear a pastor or a podcast or something that I've heard resonate with me. I can make a logical and connection, but music speaks to my heart in a way that I think the spoken word doesn't always do. Sometimes it does, but music is the thing that it's been the primary context for me, for my relationship with the Lord, and I can relate to him outside of music, but music brings me there. It takes walls down, and I'm able to enter his presence in a way that it involves my whole body, not just my mind. It's amazing. It makes me think, I don't know if I've ever connected this. You talked about how God created us, if he created us for music. That means music has its origin in who He is and sounds. And makes me think of all the Psalms, where the psalmist would cry, the hills, cry out, the sun, the natural world, it all speaks of the glory of God. It sings of the glory of God. Makes me think of the play, The Sound of Music. The hills are alive with the sound of music. God created all of that. So he must be a a being in and of himself, of music and adoration and in who he is. And it makes all the sense in the world that he would create us with a capacity for music, because that's who our God is. I do believe that we each are created to have a voice, to be able to worship God, and worship is happening even as we speak around his throne. Why there's there's value in that, and it's, it's the highest form of praise that's happening all the time around his throne. And so we have a piece of it, I think it, it calls us back, maybe to the heart of the Creator as we engage in music. And I have, I have, even if I'm not doing worship music and I'm doing something like a musical theater piece where I'm singing a truth, because every song tells a story. I think there's an ability to connect to the heart of every person, because we all understand a song about pain or joy or it has all of those themes in it, and we as people humanity, connect with the emotion of of that song and the music that goes along with it. Well, let me extend that principle a little bit thinking about aging and hardships in life, not that. I mean, you may be happy and sad at any point in your life, but as we age, there are a lot of things, a lot of challenges that happen. But music resonates at the highest point and or at the lowest point of our emotions. There are songs about being happy and rejoicing. There are songs about being sad and going through incredible hardships. And of course, the Psalms, which were all musically written in some meter or form, we don't know what it was, because we can't go back and relive it, but, they all resonate with some of the deepest issues in life. Comment on that the ability of music to connect with the various challenges as we age and move towards the end of our life or in challenging situations. Well, I can think about my phone, and I know that I have playlists. Sometimes I need some happy songs because I'm trying to maybe clean my house. I'm trying to get my mood set by the music that I'm listening to. To amp me up a little bit, I think about another playlist I have. And right after, both of my parents passed away, within about a year of each other, and during that time after my mom, who she passed away, dad passed away, first from Alzheimer's, and then mom passed away. After that, I felt such a deep sense of grief. I. I needed to create a musical playlist for myself, because life is on the go, but I needed a place to listen to some things that would get me in touch with my emotion beyond just the tasks of everyday life, because you can shove it away. But really you're needing at that time to be grieving, or maybe you are just grieving, and you need comfort so you have God's promises, so many promises set to music, so much scripture in music that helps for me, ground me and bring me back to God with me. Emmanuel, you know, in the middle of the struggle, music really helps me sense His presence. I know it's he's with me all the time, but it helps me in my feeling part of me to get in touch with his presence. It's amazing. And, you know, it's one of the reasons I think the psalms are in the middle of your Bible. I mean, it's just that they speak of all the issues in life, and as they were written by David and various other authors, you know, they and to a musical structure. I mean, they address all the issues of our life, when we're angry, when we're happy, when we're sad, when we're conflicted. I mean, when we're you know, wonder what God's up to. You know, why does this happen? The Psalmist cries out. I mean, I can hear some musical aspect of that in my mind when I read it. What I love about the Psalms is that it is not cleaned up Christianity. It is just as you are authentically before the Lord. The questions of life, sometimes it feels like we shouldn't question, but I haven't found that to be true. I think we have to bring our questions when we don't understand that God is bigger than our questions. And so music really helps me to get to my authentic heart before the Lord. And there's not a thing I can do or say or think that he does not understand, or that even that he is not aware of, he's aware. So I can bring all of who I am to him, not just when I'm praying, not just in my day to day life, but again, when I'm listening to music, specifically for me, it helps open the door to all of who he is and his presence with me that I might experience that I think music is extremely experiential, and that's where we live life in the flesh is what we experience that's powerful. And again, the Psalms address all these issues. So why shouldn't music connect us to all those aspects of anger, doubt, questioning, where's God? What is he doing in my life? And to put all that to music so it connects with our souls is really amazing. So it leads me to one more question. Then I think we'll take a break and come back and do a second podcast on some other things I want to talk about. You're a worship leader. So how do you put all of these? I mean, what do you do in your own mind? Worship services? I think we tend to think they all have to be upbeat, you know, praiseworthy, you know, enter you know, a worship leader will say, get into it. You know, sing the words from your heart, that kind of thing. But there's something about a worship leader that, I mean, you're trying to connect with people all over the map in some way. And as we gather to worship, and that's just a singing part of a worship service, I mean, worship goes on 24/7 the rest of your life, really. But as you think about putting together a worship set, how do you as a worship leader, think about, what do you choose? How do people hear it, and what's How do you choose the songs you choose? That's a great question, and it's a bit of a complex issue. I think a guiding verse for me, just as a worship leader, is Paul's writing in First Corinthians nine, he said to the weak, I became weak, that I might win the week. I have become all things to all people, that by all means, I might save some and so I'm gonna that the caveat for that, for I think today's church. I think it's incumbent upon every church to figure out their God given vision for that church, because not all the churches around are the same, right? There are some I've got a student right now, two students that are. Or they go to an Asian Baptist Church and their target is specific, and so they've got different kinds of languages happening in their services than just the regular everyday English that we might hear in another church. I think the church has to decide who their target is, and there may be target specific churches. I as a worship leader, I have been mostly in Bible Church, evangelical settings, and so for me, that verse about becoming all things, I think we are there to serve the church, and if we are doing that, then the music that we select should serve as wide a net as we possibly can do. That's what I think you have people that really hate contemporary music. They really want traditional hymns, or at least contemporized hymns that they've grown up with, that they have a richness in their lyrical content, and then you have younger perhaps not always, I'm speaking in generalities, but really for them, a concert experience is what is going to be moving. And I'm not talking about like going to a concert, but that is what appeals to them, versus traditional hymns. So you've got all kinds of tastes, right? I do think that as a worship leader, I try to serve the needs of all of the ages, and I also try to consider all of the tastes, because in any given Sunday, you have all of it in one room. So it's a it's a hard it's a hard target, I think, as a worship leader, because on any given Sunday, you're going to be choosing things that are going to resonate with some but not others. And so how do you juggle that? I think blended services are helpful in that, because you can pull in things from all different kinds of backgrounds and you're touching different segments of the population, but all of it is worship. I remember my mom and dad in the 70s. They were actually the worship leaders at a church here in Dallas or in Richardson. And that evil, I'm saying with a smile on my face, that evil praise music came in with the hippies in the 70s. And I'm joking, because I've made a living in praise music, but I remember having a conversation, because I could tell times were changing, and there was a huge movement, Jesus movement, in the 70s, and there was a music that came along with that. And I remember saying, Dad, you know, how are you going to deal with that? Like and they had brought in a friend who played the guitar and sort of helped lead with them to be able to touch on that praise shift. And my dad and mom finally, kind of stepped back and they they gave way to what was happening in the culture. And I remember dad pointing me to the verse I read. He's like Leslie. Who am I to say? It has to be this way if God's doing something new, and what if this new is able to reach far beyond what we can even think. And so they kind of hands off at some point and left it to change. And I mean, it has definitely contemporary music has changed a lot since the 70s because it was extremely repetitive, and now there is some repetition, but it's not like it was, and I think there's a lot of richness and in contemporary music as well the whole idea of worship wars, yes, you know, as we age, we all resonate with things that we really connected with in the past. So this is a generalization, but older people generally resonate with hymns from past decades and or even centuries as amazing grace and some of those great hymns, and we lament the fact that younger people aren't learning them. On the other hand, as your dad mom realized we need to lean into those songs, the new ones, and create a blend even our own families. As i i Tell aging people, we ought to think about our memorial service and what songs you're going to sing and what will be there. And then I realized, well, my grandkids won't even know some of these songs, so how am I connecting with them? Him musically, just the whole issue of and we're in Vick and I are in a part of an aging congregation where there's more older people than younger. And how to connect all of that, I think is a real god given challenge. And I think the Holy Spirit would move in a lot of ways in that scenario, and we ought to move with them. Any general thoughts, absolutely, and I again, I think that idea of serving all of the segments of the body is incredibly we are here to serve. We're not here to be up on a stage. We are here to serve the body. And so how are we best serving the body when you have people from all different kinds of backgrounds, whether they were churched, whether they were raised in a liturgical kind of setting, whether they have a preference for choir robes and choral singing, whether they have a preference for drum and electronic guitars. You know, electric guitars, there's just a lot in any given church body. And I think if you can keep the focus, how do we serve? Then you get away from wars, and it may be some instructing on here is how we approach worship from the pulpit, from the worship leader, just with a word or two, just to say, This is what our hearts are focusing on this morning, and to continue to Bring in just that, I guess purity of focus behind the music, not focusing just on the style of the music. I think it's really powerful. You know, I'm not sure I've thought about the angle of your inclination to like certain worship music falls under the rubric of serving others. So it's not just about me and what I like and what I connect with, but you're thinking about your kids, your grandkids and other nationalities around us all the time, and being willing to give up what you like best to serve others as a part of worship, not only as a worship leader, but as a part of the congregation. Do we groan over why did they choose that song? And I know people who leave churches over you know, I don't like that stuff, you know, but it's part of who we are. God created us to serve Him and serve others. So worship and music should be at the heart of that. Absolutely, absolutely. That's a great summary of the conversation, really, but thanks, Leslie. I want to go a couple other angles, but we'll do that in the next podcast. So we'll consider this as kind of a foundation, and stay tuned and listen to our next podcast in this as well. Thanks so much for having me. You've been listening to the finishing well podcast. Let's keep pursuing Jesus together and encourage each other to follow him in our aging years. Subscribe to the show wherever you get your podcasts, or you can find us at finishing well ministries.org/podcast, our vision is to change the way we think about our aging Season of Life, equipping you to actively pursue God's calling in your life. May the Lord bless and encourage you and we'll see you next time on the finishing well podcast. You.