Deep Dive
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First Person is produced in cooperation with the Far East Broadcasting Company, who rejoice in the stories of changed lives through the power of Jesus Christ. Learn more at febc.org. I think that's one of the exciting things, is to see a new generation of confessional believers who believe this stuff, who want to live for this stuff, who want to die for this stuff, also deeply caring about creativity of the cultural movement that they're living in.
Stay tuned now for a conversation with modern-day hymn writer Keith Getty on this edition of First Person. Welcome, I'm Wayne Shepherd. We'll begin the conversation with Keith in just a moment after I remind you to visit FirstPersonInterview.com to follow up on today's program. You'll find a link there that will tell you more about An Irish Christmas, which is the latest tour underway now from Keith and Kristen Getty and company. Go to FirstPersonInterview.com.
Keith, along with his wife Kristen, have forged a new appreciation for the traditional hymns, while at the same time teaching sound Christian doctrine through classical, folk, and contemporary compositions. No doubt you have sung some of their music in your church. Their annual Christmas show is on tour right now, and plans are already underway for another of the Sing! conferences in the fall of 2024. We touch on that and more in this conversation with Keith.
Our online conversation with Keith started when I asked him if he remembered our first interview in Chicago a number of years ago when Keith and Kristen were first married. Oh, yeah. And it was our first. You and Greg Wheatley that day. That was our first ever time being interviewed on American Radio.
Can you believe that? It seems like yesterday in many ways, but now here you are. God has blessed your ministry, and you've got this beautiful family of not only Kristen, but now four lovely young ladies who are part of your... Four little Kristens. Four little Kristens. Or mini-Kristens. Mini-Kristens. All right. Well, it's been so much fun to follow the two of you through the years and to see how God has blessed. And I'm just grateful for the time today. Now, I should say Merry Christmas to you, first of all.
Well, it's the most wonderful time of the year. Maybe you should say Merry Irish Christmas. I don't know. Merry Irish Christmas to Keith Getty. As we're having this conversation, you're about to embark on an Irish Christmas, which is your concert tour. But as listeners hear it, we're in the middle of that tour right now. And actually today, you are at Carnegie Hall.
Yeah. Nowhere else was available in New York. We just had to share. Yeah. This is our 10th. This is our, this is our, this is our 10th year. I think of doing the Carnegie hall and this one's special tonight. Cause yeah,
It was over, obviously, earlier in the year for our dear friend, Tim Keller's memorial service. So this year's one has got a real New York twist to it. A number of guests from New York and Malcolm Guides premiering a new poem about New York at Christmas. And then next year, actually, interestingly, it's on the 16th of December next year on my 50th birthday. Oh, is that right? You're turning 50? Wow, there's a milestone. I know. I don't look 30 yet, but you know.
Hey, Keith, no sympathy here, all right? No age sympathy here.
But the good news is, even though half the tour is over at this point, there's still half to come this coming week. For instance, you'll be in Washington at the Museum of the Bible for two performances of Irish Christmas. Three. We're doing three. And one of those you can actually watch on livestream as well. Oh, excellent. So check into that. That's an extraordinary experience for the livestream show. Excellent. All right. Well, we'll put information about that in our program notes.
So people who go to our website can follow that. That's exciting to hear. You're going to be back in Wisconsin. You're going to be in Pittsburgh. You're going to be in Chicago at Wheaton College.
You're going to be, let's see, Cedar Falls, Iowa, and wrapping up in Minneapolis, Minnesota with the Irish Christmas Tour. This is such a special event. How many years have you done this now? We started in 2010. It was, we obviously, I mean, our life's work since the year 2000, since Christ alone, was trying to write hymns that help people understand the Christian faith. And in 2010, we decided to actually take hymns.
Advent, Incarnation, Christmas, all those seasons in the church this year and just write a bunch of new carols. And of course, I was having a conversation with a guy called Tom Bled. So you probably knew Tom. He was from the Billy Graham organization. Very, very well known.
And he said, we'd like you to do an event with Dr. Billy Graham. So I did an event with Dr. Billy Graham, 20 minutes. They wanted 20 minutes of Christmas carols wrapped in an Irish bow and 20 minutes of our music that sounds good at Christmas wrapped in an Irish bow. And he was going to speak in between the two. And that's what he did. He spoke in between the two. So that was Would You Believe It? That's how it launched. And so...
And so it's just, it's been, I never expected to do a Christmas tour, to be honest. I wasn't thinking of it. I'd never done it before this when I was growing up in Ireland. But over the years, obviously, PBS grabbed it after the second year. PBS made an offer to bring it on to national television and give us, I've got to say, they gave us tremendous freedom to talk about our faith, about Christianity, about redemption.
about sin and forgiveness because the show was fun and entertaining and exhilarating and then after that I think it was around about the same time we had the chance to first go to Carnegie Hall and now we're back here tonight and I've been there every year most of the years I've been to Southwark as well but back here this year again and
And just some real special memories have come around us. We're so very grateful. Excellent. Keith, for those who don't know where this all began for you, let's go back in time. Let's...
where did this start for you musically? Well, music, I grew up in a home that, that, that music and, and, and the Lord's prayers were very central to everything. And so I grew up loving church music. I was a classical musician. I studied classical church music as, as a Presbyterian, we sung traditional hymns to the organ on a Sunday morning. I sang in the choir Sunday evening. We had a little church service. So, so did many in those days, they'd kind of almost more gospel songs. Oh,
And then the youth group did like praise and worship songs. And so I grew up with a whole range of church music and candidly loving all of it for it's because there's just something about singing to the Lord. I say this as well in Nashville. Now, you know, getting music offices are downtown, just off music row and you drive to a music row and you see all these fancy billboards with congratulations to this person for that. And who's achieved that. You know what? It's one of those things. I would never want to do that. I'd always rather,
write, you know, write, write, write songs of the Lord and sing songs. It's doing what the creator has created us to do, you know, and I grew up with that, but I met him probably the most influential person who I met in my life was actually a man called John Lennox when I was 18. And he, um,
He really challenged me on being a musician, but being a great musician and actually being an evangelist everywhere you go. So he inspired me to get involved in debates and apologetics, to push the vote out a lot further than I was, to think more internationally, to not be scared to interact with everybody from atheists to Islamic students, all that kind of stuff. And yeah,
He was a hero. We were never very close, but I would call him maybe once or twice a year, and he always had something witty to say, and I listened to his talks a lot. And then when I was 24, he called me up and says, I need a favor from you. This is a story I wanted you to tell. Go ahead.
So he said, so he said, I got this little niece and she's just 18 and she's a singer and she's very attractive. And all these, all these young men are around her, but they're not, I don't think they're really helping her music. I think they've altered her motives, but I know you're much older and much more holy and wise. So I got to trust you. Little did he know. He introduced me to his niece, Kristen. And, uh, and, uh, yeah. And then I went from there and, uh,
Yeah, and so that was – but the day I met her, I always say, you know, if the history of the world breaks into B.C. and A.D., the history of my life breaks into everything up to the day I met Chris and afterwards. You know what I mean? In terms of just, you know, collaboration. Beautiful. And quality of career. It's a great story, and it started with a brilliant mind of John Lennox. That's –
He's had so many great thoughts through the years. Putting the two of you together was another great one. How we love John Lennox. I'm not sure he was thinking about it, to be totally honest. Yeah, all right. And now you've got these four girls who have musical talent as well. I mean, you have to be encouraging that. Yeah, I mean, we encourage them. Honestly, first of all, encourage them.
to sing a hymn of the month to sing a hymn every day so they'd know the lord better that's the first thing and then when we went back to ireland during covid we got more serious but encouraged them to practice their music but only only to teach them disciplines and to teach them to get off their screens and because you know all the other kids who lived near us were on farms and their kids were milking the cows and helping lamb the sheep and that kind of stuff and i
And so we thought, let's get our kids into music. So we've enjoyed it. Obviously, you know, it's so important if you're listening to this show to...
to know what the music is in your home, you know, that you're raising your kids to sing and to love beautiful hymns about the Lord, that you're not delegating the discipleship of your children to Taylor Swift and to Walt Disney, because I can assure you they really don't care.
And so I think that's the challenge to all of us pastors, youth leaders, parents. But I think it's actually mostly primarily parents. The order I'd put it in is parents, then pastors, then youth leaders before we get to pardon our youth leaders. But we've got to make sure that we're singing deep songs of the Lord. We don't have to be singing all hymns, but let's make sure. The youth leader in our church said to me last year,
He's going to a local normal church. We don't go to a big mega church, but he said, you know, I have a goal that I want every kid to know 50 hymns. There's a certain 50 hymns he wants every kid to know before they leave for college. And it's just, it's no magic formula, but it sure does help build deep believers and foster a taste and love and an affection.
Yeah. George Barner recently released some research. We talked about it with him about how by the age of 13, I think he said, a biblical worldview is present, should be present in every child.
Yes, that's exactly right. And I mean, it's amazing when you think about the Christian history. I mean, Luther, Calvin, Knox and Edwards all were deeply concerned that the role of a hymn book was not to sit in the back of a pew in some kind of weirdly shaped seat, but it was actually that you took it home with you, that it sat by your bedside or on your piano stool. And it was part of every person's life. And I think redefining that is even an important point.
you know, an important thing. And it's, it's even more tragic when you look at American Christian history. I mean, the American Sunday school movement began as singing schools where you learned the songs that you would sing in church. I didn't know that. Yeah.
then somebody would explain what they meant from the Bible. Do you know what I mean? But this was the way of where we memorized, our principal way to memorize our songs. So, so it's a, you know, there's, there's so much to think about, isn't there? As we, you know, as we, you know, I think we're, we always talk about our 2050 vision for hymns and wanting to have hymns on right across the Christian faith.
that every family in the English-speaking world will sing, and then through our foundation to help develop that in the rest of the world. But I think one of the things we can be sure about 2050 is any remnants that are left of nominal Christianity will be gone. So you're either going to be deep believers or unbelievers. And so if we're constantly thinking, are we raising deep believer children or unbelievers?
you know, are the songs we're singing preparing our kids for death primarily and then secondarily, you know, preparing them for fullness of life while we're here, then I think that's a healthy thing. If we're trying to say, oh, let's go for the lowest common denominator all the time, it's probably not going to be very effective. We'll continue talking with Keith Getty on this edition of First Person. We'll ask about the Sing Conference coming up in a moment.
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My guest is Keith Getty, and we're talking about his ministry in music, which has really been such a gift to the church. One thing you do, Keith, that is so powerful is the Sing Conference every year. So let's talk about that. I can't begin to explain how influential this has been because I hear people talking about it all the time. So tell me, from your perspective, what is the purpose of the Sing Conference and what is accomplished?
Well, let me first of all say, again, this is the kindness of the Lord. Wayne, I hate conferences. I don't go to them. I just hate them. And I didn't do this for years. And in the early days, you know, I mean, you know, Alistair, Alistair was really concerned that we wouldn't write books too young. We wouldn't do conferences too young. So we were held way back. Hmm.
I mean, I was getting opportunities to create these things when I was 29, 30, 31. Alistair Begg was sort of your mentor in America when you first came, yeah. Yeah, and he was kind of a protector. And he said, do not do this until you're 40. Wait, wait, wait. Just set that to yourself just so that you can grow up, start to raise kids, start to work things out. So we started it as a 500th anniversary of the Reformation of Luther because obviously Luther is my hero.
And the amazing thing about Luther, which also can be said about Charles Wesley, and interestingly can also be said about Joe Newton and that kind of triumvirate he had with
William Wilberforce and John Thornton, the industrialist who was the wealthiest man in Britain at the time, is that all three of those guys within one generation are writing their hymns and teaching their hymns. Charles Wesley's vision was to catechize all of England on horseback. You know, the vision of those, and Luther interested me before he died, there was more, there was more attempts to outlaw his hymns than there were against his life by the end. There was,
All of those movements within one generation saw extraordinary church planting, extraordinary conversions, but also saw the social conditions of cultures, justice, the treatment of children, the purity and ethics of governance. All of these things changed within one generation. Why? Because that's what the gospel does.
That's just what it does. And if we sing it, we're singing it to our whole beings. And so the Sing Conference was really just an extension of the hymns. We basically said any confessional church who sing hymns, you're welcome. This is a conference for pastors, worship leaders, and creatives, which some people interpret as being anybody, because anybody can come, but it really is best
It is best suited to pastors, Bible teachers, theologians, missionaries there, then people involved in church music from organists to worship leaders to background singers to church music production guys.
Then what we call creatives, where we're really wanting composers and writers and directors all to come and think, and painters, just to be in the mix, to be totally creative environment. And we get a lot of innovators and entrepreneurs now coming as well. Mm-hmm.
It's so interesting because they're increasingly aware that we're not at the party when it comes to the creative arts. We're not at the party when it comes to making sure the music in our church plants is correct. And so that's been another sort of interesting development in the last couple of years. Well, it's grown exponentially, and it's coming up again in September of 2024 in Nashville. Yeah, we've decided to restrict it. Basically, the first 7,000 people who apply can get, and then we're closing the numbers off.
And then you have to basically register online. You can get an online registration after that. And then there's certain things available in Freeview. And then the rest of what we do is we take a little bit of the money and we put that into translating it into 13 languages. So it'll go throughout the fall. So it's become a worldwide event really, hasn't it? Right.
It has. I mean, last year we toured it. Last year we did the Sing Europe, Sing Asia, and Sing Australia as well. This year, we can't afford the time or the money to do that, but there will be highlights of it. There will be certain strategic parts of it all translated into all those languages. Yeah. Well, once again, we'll put information in our program notes at firstpersoninterview.com. Tell me some stories of how God has used the Sing conference. I know you get all kinds of feedback, I'm sure, of people who are encouraged and
creatively encouraged, I should say. Again, speaking as a non-conference goer, you know, it's amazing, you know, how the Lord uses it. We always say to everyone who comes, if this does not change your personal family or church life, please don't take up a seat next year. Do you know what I mean? Some of the music is fantastic. I mean, you get to hear everyone from David Kim,
play Vaughan Williams' Lark Ascending in the Four Seasons with orchestra. To getting, you know, Kirk Willem and John Patitucci play jazz. To, you know, the, what do you call it, the choir room doing a kind of a hymn sing, doing a hymn sing of
for 6,000 people or Chris Tomlin and Andrew Peterson doing Is He Worthy with the whole arena being the background. I will never forget that moment. I'm just watching it online. I'll never forget the moment. I can't imagine what it was like to be there for that. So, you know, it's a great event. We're actually doing a 25th anniversary of Andrew's demarcation
To illustrate the Old Testament and how it relates to the New Testament, at the end of that first night, we're doing a 25th anniversary of Andrew's Behold the Lamb of God performance. Excellent. And we're having a conversation with Andrew about creativity in the Old Testament that day. It was going to be kind of an interesting thing. We're really looking forward to that. Excellent. So that's good. But you get feedback from pastors as well?
Yeah, that's it. Yeah. I mean, I think the biggest thing we've tried to say is pastors, it's time to pull your socks up. Do you know what I mean? You need to take a lead. You know, the difference between the reform movement of the last 50 years and the reform movement of 500 years ago that started was that Luther, Calvin, Knox, Edwards, all deeply cared about the congregation. In their mind, they loved the congregation enough to care about what they sang and
They asked why they had hymnals. That's why they had very specific views on what you sing. And that's why they all had very specific views on how you sing. They all made congregations learn singing. People think Calvin and Knox and Edwards were anti-music. They were anti-instruments, and I disagree with them on that. But
but they actually deeply cared that everybody sang well and sang passionately and took it seriously. And so the second reform movement of the last 50 years that people talk about it, you know, which has done many great things, and I'm a product of it and very grateful for it, the pastors did not care enough about what was being sung in their churches. They were not involved enough.
And consequently, they didn't build a culture that when modern worship was happening, that they were at the table fast enough, which is, I guess, part of the reason that we now exist is to try and encourage a new generation of deep Bible believers to sing deeply, but to sing beautifully as well, to take melody hugely seriously, to take poetry, to take eight months per song to get the poetry right, because it's worth it.
Because every note and every word and every rhythm and rhyme, they matter. So I think that's been a huge part of it, too. The musical excellence is so important, but you put a real emphasis on the lyrics and the importance of the lyrics matching God's Word. And you don't choose words carelessly. No, I think it's interesting. We started a thing out of the same conference with a thing called the Hemorrhagers Collective every year, which is kind of a teaching course.
And when we started that, we were expecting the people who will go to our course, as opposed to somebody who goes to like a Bethel or Elevation or Hillsong course or something, will be somebody who's serious about the Bible. They'll be seriously theological and they'll want some of that. So we were expecting people who were already theological, but weren't as good at music, because that's usually what, you know, conservative reform churches are known for. And when we got there, we were surprised at how many quite serious musicians were doing it. They weren't all good, but there was a lot of very serious musicians. And they all wanted to take music seriously because they all realized that
At the end of the day, the best melodies win. Do you know what I mean? In this thing. But what shocked us was that almost nobody cared about poetry. And I think that was a really sad thing because the Bible is, the Bible, God values poetry so much. He values it in the Bible. And how we turn a phrase, I mean, you know, people will say something like, we like Charles Wesley because it's him.
hymn lyrics are sound. That's a pretty stupid way to describe Charles Wesley's lyrics. They're actually, they're alive. They're bursting. They're bursting with passion. You know, he takes a theological concept and says, you know, long my imprison lay fast bound in sin and sitters night. Thine eye diffused a quickening ray. I woke the dungeon clean with light. My chains fell off. My heart was free. I rose, went forth and followed me.
That's not sound. Sound is like kind of some boring guy at the church who makes sure you're not saying anything wrong. That's like living passion. That is like poetic beauty. That makes me want to stand up, except I can't because you tell me my microphone's not working properly. So I can't stand up. But I'm annoyed right now because I want to stand up. And, you know, they always say the great speech is a great speech should be felt in your socks. In other words, the great speeches make the person in the audience want to stand up at their end and clap.
you know? And so the great hymns should do the same thing. And I think that's been, I think that's been one of the exciting things is to see a new generation of confessional believers who believe this stuff, who want to live for this stuff, who want to die for this stuff, also deeply caring about creativity.
who have a stronger sense of artistic excellence, a stronger sense of emotional sensitivity, a stronger sense of the cultural movement that they're living in and realizing that to speak of the Lord Jesus is everything. Our guest has been Keith Getty, certainly one of the premier Christian songwriters and musicians of our day, not only with contemporary songs, but by reintroduction of our musical heritage and hymns.
We mentioned the present tour and Irish Christmas, and we'll put information on our website about remaining dates and when available, even links to recent performances. So go to firstpersoninterview.com for all that and more.
My thanks to the Far East Broadcasting Company for supporting First Person. Please say thank you by visiting febc.org and learning more about how God is using radio and new forms of media to reach the unreached of the world with the gospel. At that website, you can listen to Until All Have Heard, a podcast featuring the president of FEBC, Ed Cannon, with behind-the-scenes accounts of what God is doing through FEBC. Go to febc.org.
Now, with thanks to my friend and producer, Joe Carlson, I'm Wayne Shepherd. Join us next time for First Person.