Ep. 250: Inside Worship with Andrew Marcus

Daniel Markin:

Hey, welcome to in doubt. My name is Daniel Marlin, and I’m joined today by Andrew Marcus. Andrew, why don’t you introduce yourself? Tell our audience, tell the people a little bit about who you are, where you came from, what you’re doing, what’s your deal?

Andrew Marcus:

Sounds good, man. I’ll tell you what my deal is. Yeah. Name’s Andrew. Born and raised here in Canada in Surrey, British Columbia. I’m a music pastor at Coquitlam Alliance Church going on seven years this year. My wife and I have just been loving church, loving ministry. We have one two and a half year old. His name is Benjamin. We call him our little Benjamin, and he’s the best. Yeah. I just write songs for our church. Everything kind of is filtered through our church. How can we teach our church the truths about Jesus, who he is, what he’s done? That’s kind of been just the way I write. This new record I’m working on is a little bit different, and we can talk about that, but just kind of a new season maybe with COVID, I’ve just been kind of exploring and writing maybe a little different. But yeah, I just love songwriting. Working on a new record. Yeah, it’s just been … I mean, it’s been an interesting season with church and COVID and stuff, which I’m sure we’ll talk about too, but we’ve just been living it day by day as far as church life and family life, and the only thing that’s been consistent really is change. It’s just kind of rolling with the punches every day, but that’s kind of my life in a nutshell.

Daniel Markin:

Sweet. Did you always want to be a music pastor?

Andrew Marcus:

No, not at all. I hated church growing up.

Daniel Markin:

Really?

Andrew Marcus:

Never liked going to church. Parents would drag me to church. I didn’t like it. I actually ironically waited outside for the music to be finished, then I’d walk in. For some reason, the music is what I liked the least.

Daniel Markin:

Interesting.

Andrew Marcus:

Not that it was weird music or a weird church. It was a great church, but I just thought I was too cool for that. High school punk. Everything kind of changed when I decided to go to church on my own instead of being dragged to church, and I drove actually to a different church. I drove to CLA and never been to that church in my life. I don’t even know how I really got there. I just drove on a Sunday morning, found myself in the parking lot, walked inside. Pastor Brent at the time said, “Think of all your talents and offer it to God,” and I put my hand up. I said, “Lord, use me in music.” I put my hand down right away because I was like, “I don’t like this music. I don’t play an instrument. I don’t care about this stuff. Why would I even say that?” I knew it must be God, because it was just so weird to me. A couple of days later, I got an email from a guy who wanted to teach me guitar. At the bottom of his email, he said, “I don’t teach people for money. I teach people who want to use their talents to glorify God,” so literally answered the prayer from two days before.

Daniel Markin:

No way.

Andrew Marcus:

I met this guy. He’s a teacher at Pacific Academy. I went to his school, sat with him, and God just really helped me learn very quickly. Not to take credit that I’m a phenomenal musician, but it’s almost like he just had this job and he’s going to take the twit, the back who knows absolutely nothing and just train him and use him. It’s just not what I would’ve expected at all. That was going into first year university, so I didn’t really play anything until university. It’s just been a wild ride ever since, but just blown away at God’s faithfulness and just what happens when we kind of follow without even getting it.

Daniel Markin:

Totally. What was, I guess the plan before that? Like you were in university. What were you kind of aiming towards? Then it sounds like … because it’s funny. Oftentimes I’ll talk to a lot of people who ministry was never their first choice, and then all of a sudden they’re like they find themselves in it. The Lord just brings a call upon their life that they can’t shake. What was that for you?

Andrew Marcus:

I was in the business program at Trinity Western, and I started a company right after high school. Not a lot of people know this. It was called GR Performance, and it was a-

Daniel Markin:

Sweet.

Andrew Marcus:

It was like a car shop. I’m obsessed with cars. That’s when like Fast and Furious came out, so we were like selling body kits and blah, blah, blah, rims, carbon fiber hoods, whatever. That was just my passion, so I went to business school to kind of learn how to run my business.

Daniel Markin:

Sweet, and then it shifted. Did you finish a business degree or do you do like some biblical studies and then with that aim towards-

Andrew Marcus:

Yeah. Yeah. I transferred out right away and kind of dropped everything and did it. I got a bachelor of theology and just wanted to make sure as I’m leading, as I’m writing that I’m theologically sound. I kind of just dropped everything, closed the business, just went a 100%.

Daniel Markin:

Sweet. Do you still get to tinker with cars here and there?

Andrew Marcus:

All the time.

Daniel Markin:

Sweet. That’s awesome. I love that, dude. You’re here in BC. On a freeway, we’d probably be about 20, 30 minutes away from each other currently.

Andrew Marcus:

Totally.

Daniel Markin:

But here in Vancouver, a lot of people, there’s quite a coffee scene. I don’t know. Are you a big coffee guy?

Andrew Marcus:

You know, people think I should be, because I have a child and I’m flipping tired, but I just don’t drink coffee.

Daniel Markin:

Did you ever drink coffee?

Andrew Marcus:

No.

Daniel Markin:

No. what-

Andrew Marcus:

Like I’ve had it, but I just like, I’m not like … I don’t know.

Daniel Markin:

Yeah. Dude, that’s all right.

Andrew Marcus:

I just rely on the Spirit, man, to keep me awake.

Daniel Markin:

That’s right. One of my pastors, he just never cared for the taste of coffee, but for his caffeine he would drink Coke Zero. He just loved that.

Andrew Marcus:

That’s so funny.

Daniel Markin:

For him it was perfect. But listen, why don’t we get into a little bit of discussion here about all things worship. I mean, we’re just going to see where this goes, but so much time or so much of the time when I think about musicians, when I think about what it takes to write music, play music, all the time I’ll think, “Okay. It takes a lot of time, and it’s going to take a lot of practice, and practice takes time.” You’re a man now with a family. Where do you find the time to do this? To be able to … I mean, maybe one half of it is you’re a worship pastor, but there’s also like a creativity side that you need. How do you find the time to be able to pursue this?

Andrew Marcus:

I mean, obviously it’s quite challenging with kids, but I just put Benji down for a nap so we can do this. Was he tired? Not fully, but off to bed you go, buddy. But you find time. It’s definitely more sparse than it used to be for sure. You just have to really schedule it, be committed to it. Like I find, even for me, like I do a lot of songwriting and I did a lot of songwriting in Nashville when I could go back. I’d try to go back every three, four months before COVID obviously. I just noticed whenever you schedule in your calendar, “Okay, I’m going to do a three hour writing session,” God always does something. If we put the time, he honors that and it’s either something sparks, or a friendship is made, or a chorus, or a full song, or a melody or whatever, there’s always something that comes out of it when we make time. It’s just a matter of being committed to putting in the schedule from 8:00 to 10:00 PM, I’m going to just get away. Or as soon as Benjamin goes down to bed at night, I’m just going to get away and just spend time with the Lord and have a Bible, a guitar, and a pen and a paper and kind of see what happens. But it’s making the effort. Even if it’s a 30 minute, 40 minute, just as long as you actually carve out, make space for it. I find when I don’t do that, I’m not seeking inspiration. I’m kind of going about my day and just not really focusing. You get distracted with a million things. But when you carve the time, he speaks when we’re silent and we wait on him. Yeah.

Daniel Markin:

I love that. What’s your song writing method? I mean, you kind of just like alluded to it there, but how much of it’s collaboration? Is it like will you schedule a retreat? Because every three to four months seems like that would be not enough time to really go kind of into some deep work, because that’s only every three to four months.

Andrew Marcus:

Yeah, no. For sure. I think it’s really important for me. I’ve noticed when people collaborate, which I love collaborating, I love, love, love collaborating, but I felt like for me, the weakness could be, “I have this really great song idea. Let’s just call some guy who’s phenomenal and he’ll help me finish it.” Then I’m not actually exercising the gift of writing and the skill of writing. I’m just kind of coming up with an idea, passing it off, not exercising, the muscle of writing. I have a show that used to be on a platform called Pure Lix. Our contract just ended with them, but it’s just like driving around with different songwriters and worship leaders and just kind of talking about music and ministry, songwriting, production, whatever. I did one for season two, which is not out yet, with JD from Hill song United, and he just says like you’ve got to write 1,000 bad songs. Well, that means putting time, and some of that might be collaboration, but I encourage people to actually just sit and work really hard, sweat over it. Don’t just give up and pass it off to someone to kind of finish. That’s just something that I’ve been convicted of lately. I’ve been able to practice that, not traveling anywhere, writing with different people. I’ve just been, “All right, I’m doing a new record, and I’m going to just like … This one sentence is bugging me, and I’m going to just work my butt off until I’m happy with how I finished this sentence.” It’s just really important to just chip away instead of trying to pass it off.

Daniel Markin:

Yeah. For your music that you write, are you writing … How do you describe them? Worship songs or these Christian songs like aimed at the Lord? Is every song a worship song, and where do you find that distinction?

Andrew Marcus:

Such a good question.

Daniel Markin:

Because I would say there’s a difference between congregational worship songs and then even people offering up a song to the Lord.

Andrew Marcus:

Yes.

Daniel Markin:

How would you separate those? What do you find yourself doing these days?

Andrew Marcus:

That’s such a good question. I feel like … The last record I did, which I did in Nashville, was very congregational, and that was the intention. Again, thinking of two filters, the Word of God and our church family. How do we teach the word of God to church family? That record was very specific congregational, every song. I find myself in this new season writing. We’ve done 15 songs, which is a lot. I don’t think-

Daniel Markin:

That’s a big album, yeah.

Andrew Marcus:

I don’t think we’ll release all of it at once. I’m trying to kind of navigate what’s the best way to kind of engage with people, but maybe four or five of them are very strategically congregational. Some of them are just listen. The one that I’m going to play for us later today here is a song called Abide in Me, and I can share this story later, but it was just God singing over me in a moment where I was just very stressed, overwhelmed, Easter production, blah, blah, blah, whatever. Zephaniah 3:17 says, “The Lord your God is in your midst, the strong, mighty one who saves. He takes delight in you. He quiets you see with love, rejoices over you with singing.” It in that moment, he just sang over me and I kind of heard it and just kind of saying it back. That one would not be a congregational song. It’s almost like, “Hey, sit, close your eyes, and just listen to Jesus sing these words over you.” This new record is very much kind of all over the map. I think it really like illustrates me, because I feel like my life is all over the map. Some of it is congregational for Sunday morning. Some of it is just close your eyes, be ministered to. Some of it is storytelling of a testimony of what God’s done in my life or in my family’s life. Is all of it worship? Yes. But I mean, like you mentioned, there is a distinction between a Sunday morning congregational let’s point our church family to the Lord and kind of just sit with it and be ministered to.

Daniel Markin:

Totally. Well, and even adding in, like you see David writing psalms of lament.

Andrew Marcus:

Totally.

Daniel Markin:

Like songs of pain, and frustration, and anger, and confusion. I think it’s a unique way to express emotion in that way, because often we don’t … like we can just hold it in. When you said you find your life’s over the map, I think people can interpret that two ways. One could be like you’re in a lot, you have a foot in a lot of different camps, so you’re just constantly jumping around between stuff. But another way could be like this idea that our lives, we just feel scattered spiritually and scattered emotionally, especially during COVID. I mean, how have you found this time? Let me ask you this. What has your church been doing to engage in song together? Because only some churches now are opening back up. Some have made the decision not to, which I think is difficult for people who just we need to be able to sing. How have you guys been going about that, and how has that been for you?

Andrew Marcus:

Yeah. We opened up about four or five weeks ago, maybe four weeks ago. 50 people downstairs, 50 people in the balcony, as long as there’s separate entrance, exit, et cetera. We have two services. Actually we’re launching a third one next week. It’s been good. I think what I’ve learned is we’ve been watching church online for five months, and God has really been speaking to me and I feel like my eyes have been opened to we’ve kind of been watching church for 200 years. We’ve been very consumer, come in, see what we’re doing, look what’s happening on stage, look at the band, look at the lights, look at the smoke, look at the great communicator. We’ve just been watching. I think God graciously has been showing me that this time of COVID really stopped all of us in our tracks. At least it stopped me in my tracks and helped me reevaluate, what is church? What is it supposed to look like? I don’t know if what we were doing before is exactly what we’re supposed to be doing. It’s kind of like I’m just getting fresh perspective of what church should be. When we came back, I felt like I told the church, “You’ve been watching church for five months. The last thing we want you to do is come live and just watch again.” The church is us. We are the church. We’re the people. We sing hymns, psalms, spiritual songs towards one another. We share testimony towards each other. We encourage each other. My heart was I wanted to make sure every aspect of our service was interactive. There’s no part of the service where you’re watching. We usually read a passage of scripture during worship at some point in the music. When I say worship, I mean the musical worship of the service. I said, “Okay, how about from now on instead of me just reading the scripture, I’ll just say in the room of 100 people, ‘Would anyone likes to read Psalm 100 this morning?'”

Daniel Markin:

Cool.

Andrew Marcus:

Now, all of a sudden it’s like not everything’s coming from the front. Someone just kind of yells from the balcony and reads the scripture over us. Now it’s like the barrier between stage and people is gone. We’re kind of one community encouraging each other and, “Wow, we just read this passage on goodness, and I’m thinking of you, brother. I know what you’ve been through during COVID. Do you mind just sharing your story of God’s goodness in your life?” Then he just turns around and just looks at the people and kind of shares his testimony of God moving in his life. Then we pray for him. I just feel like that’s what I want church to be. We can’t go back to the old model of everything up here, come and watch again. We’ve been watching for a long time, and I think now we’ve been watching online, and when we come back together, let’s not watch anymore. Let’s actually be the church together and interact together and be community.

Daniel Markin:

I love that. I mean, this idea of activating the body, totally like shaking, awakening. Like we’ve felt this at West side and I’ve just been feeling this in my own soul that there’s like the whispers of renewal are coming.

Andrew Marcus:

Totally.

Daniel Markin:

The idea that like in all believers, I think we’re just starting to feel it like this feeling of renewal happening within the church. I think a large part of that is, yeah, getting activated again into the life of the body and actually like no longer just consuming, but how can we now with our hearts, minds, soul, and body engage.

Andrew Marcus:

Yes., yeah.

Daniel Markin:

I always appreciate that like when we sing, that’s a physical act of worship we’re doing, right? When we raise our arms, that’s a physical thing we’re doing. When we take communion, that’s a spiritual but also a very physical thing we’re doing. Like all of these things are deeply spiritual and deeply physical. We see that displayed fully in Christ because-

Andrew Marcus:

Totally.

Daniel Markin:

Like this is part of the human experience is things we do are spiritual, yes, but they’re also very physical. I think that, like pedals on a bicycle, we have to channel both and understand that both are important.

Andrew Marcus:

Yeah, that’s good.

Daniel Markin:

That the physical side of this is huge.

Andrew Marcus:

Totally, man. Totally. I get so fired up when I hear that this is happening in the Church, like capital C. Like we need it so bad, and I feel just so gracious to God. I’m so grateful to God that he allowed us to press pause, because we’ve just kind of been running, and running, and running, and running, doing this thing, and we all kind of feel this holy discontent, but no one’s saying anything about it. No one really understands or can put their finger on it. Then all of a sudden, the whole world goes on pause and we stop running and we realize, “Whoa, like what were we running towards? What are we doing?” God is just so good to us to allow us to have this time to kind of what’s priority, what’s important? What are we doing? What needs to die and stay dead? What needs to come back? It’s just very interesting. I’m just so grateful for this time, as hard as it’s been. I see a lot of the fruit, and it’s just very exciting that churches across our city are just kind of getting this fresh wind, fresh fire.

Daniel Markin:

Totally, man.

Andrew Marcus:

Yeah.

Daniel Markin:

I know. It’s unique to think that maybe even some of the songs that you’re writing can actually be part of that expression. People will be able to sing them and connect with the Lord in adoration to the Lord. You’re sitting there being like, “The Lord gave me this song.” I don’t necessarily know how all of this stuff came about, but he’s now using this thing. Like we start to realize that we’re part of something bigger.

Andrew Marcus:

Yeah. We had someone say in our staff meeting, “Oh, we know how to do church.” It’s like, “Well, do we?” Like we’ve got a really well-oiled machine, but do we actually know what church is? Is it about? People, there’s some churches that are really heavy on formation, on teaching theology, theology, theology. That’s super important. There’s some that are very focused on like the experience and the presence. There’s some that are focused on mission. All those are so good, and they need to all be together. We just heard a podcast with Jason Ballard and a guy named Glenn, and they kind of talk through this. It needs to be all of it. With all of it, there’s imperfection. There’s no seamless transitions. It’s not perfect. We’ve been trying to get this perfect, seamless service, and is that the goal, or do we make space? When we make space, it gets awkward. There’s a moment of silence, big deal. It’s just trying to find this balance of what is Sunday morning supposed to look like when we gather?

Daniel Markin:

Yeah. Well, I’m sure it’s going to look a lot different for a lot of churches, and that’s an exciting thing to see how the Lord will meet us in that.

Andrew Marcus:

It really is, man. It really is.

Daniel Markin:

Andrew, one of the things that we have on this program is you’re going to be performing a song.

Andrew Marcus:

Yes.

Daniel Markin:

We have a song here that you have written. I think you said it was the one, it was called Abide in Me.

Andrew Marcus:

Yes.

Daniel Markin:

Do you want to talk us through a little bit of that song, whether or not it’s the chorus and a verse or something like that?

Andrew Marcus:

Yeah, absolutely, man. I mean, it was during our Easter service a couple of years ago, and it was Holy Week, and I was just so tired. We were doing like this really huge service, and I was just overwhelmed and so much to prepare, et cetera. I came home and I was just … Every night, we did a night of prayer and worship in Holy Week. One of my friends was just teaching on John and just talking about, “I am the vine. You’re the branch. Do not forsake me and abide in me,” and you can’t do anything without all this stuff. I just came home and I was like, “Wow, am I actually abiding you? I feel like I’ve just been doing my own thing at my own pace with my own strength, and I’m just fading fast.” I just grabbed my guitar, and I was just praying to God, and worshiping him, and just sitting in silence, reading his Word, reading that passage, John 15 again. It’s almost like the Lord just like saying these words over me. I’m very, very hesitant to say that God gave me a song, because there are people who’ve come up to me and said, “Hey, God gave me this song,” and I listen to it. I’m like, “Oh my gosh, don’t you dare blame the Lord for that.” The Lord is a way better songwriter than that. How dare you?

Daniel Markin:

Yeah, yeah.

Andrew Marcus:

I’m extremely hesitant, but I really do feel like it was something that God just saying over me and just reminded me that he is who he is, and who I am, and for me to just stay close to him. I needed that. My soul needed that in that moment. The song kind of just all kind of came about in that moment that night. It’s just been a … It was a gift to me. We recorded it really stripped back, really simple, away with like kind of the noise of what a lot of music is these days. That moment was intimate and quiet and peaceful, and so we tried to just capture it quietly and peacefully. It was precious when God gave it to me, and it was also precious when we got to track it. I just felt just his presence in a really cool way.

Daniel Markin:

Sweet, man. Would you play it for us?

Andrew Marcus:

Let’s do it.

Daniel Markin:

Andrew, as we hear that song, to you what is one of the most tender and meaningful pieces of that song to you?

Andrew Marcus:

That’s a good question. I think for me it was just the recording of the song really does take me back to the moment the song was sang over me. That moment in itself was just super precious. Her I am working my butt off, trying to do all these things, good things for the Lord, for Easter and all that prep, and he just kind of quiets me with love and just says, “Hey, just stay close.” For him to be so patient with me as I keep, that’s the cycle. I just keep, “Okay. Yeah, okay. I’ll stay close. I’ll stay close,” and then I go about doing my own thing, and then I get tired again. “Okay, no. Okay. I’ll come back. I’ll come back. Stay close.” Just his patience with me, everything, I just feel like … My friend Jay Stewart recorded this with me, and we were just able to capture that and even just experience that together when we were capturing it. It’s just the most tender is just the realization that that’s what he’s singing over me. I just hear it throughout my day. Just reminded to stay close, stay close, stay close. Specifically during COVID when our minds wander and we look to the left, there’s fear, look to the right, there’s anxiety. He just says, “Hey, just look to me. Come close.”

Daniel Markin:

Yeah. Well, Andrew, man, this has been a great conversation. I appreciate it. It was fun. It was laid back,

yeah, I appreciate your time. I appreciate you, and look forward to connecting with you in the future.

Andrew Marcus:

Thanks so much, man. Thanks for having me, buddy.