Video
Audio
Show Notes
Plant Your Word:
The Grace Collective:
- https://www.facebook.com/thegracecollective757/
- https://www.youtube.com/@thegracecollective3390
- https://open.spotify.com/artist/7vgSsLASUGlIAkyvFrMAkJ
- https://www.instagram.com/thegracecollective757/
- https://twitter.com/thegraceco757
- https://www.generosityrocks.com/thegracecollective
Transcript
Lightly edited for clarity.
Daniel J. Mount:
Welcome to the Expository Songs podcast. We discuss songs where the main idea of a passage of scripture is the main idea of a song. My name is Daniel Mount, and today we’re discussing the song, “Plant Your Word” as introduced by The Grace Collective, written by Matthew Carpenter, who I have the honor to be joined with today. Welcome.
Matthew Carpenter:
Hey, thanks for having me.
Daniel J. Mount:
Thanks. And to the listener, if you’ve never heard the song “Plant Your Word,” I’d encourage you to pause this podcast and listen to it. It’s also linked in the show notes and then come back for the conversation.
So Matthew, we have a mutual friend, my pastor and your college friend, Chad Berry.
Matthew Carpenter:
Mm-hmm.
Daniel J. Mount:
He tells me that you were a very talented musician in your college days and that you were great friends, but other than that, I don’t know that much about your background. So can you tell me about your background as a Christian and a musician and a songwriter?
Matthew Carpenter:
Yeah, Chad—sorry, I’m not going to get on Chad yet. He’s great. I’ll get to him.
But as a Christian, I was blessed to grow up in a family where both my mother and my father are solid, Bible-believing, Jesus-loving people. And through the Awana program at my church, actually, I heard the gospel many times but that was the first time when I was in, if you know what Cubbies is, in Awanas, it’s like where you’re real wee, real little. Heard the gospel in its most basic form and the Lord tugged on my heart. And that night I went to my parents and asked, and I used the old language that we used, asking Jesus into your heart, right, and I think as we all grew up we learned that may not exactly be the right way to think about it, but I knew the basic idea was I needed Jesus to save me.
And from there, most of my life as a Christian up until late teenager was doing all the right things and thinking I was pretty good, but not really taking the time to take ownership of my faith and go, wow, if Jesus really is who He says He is, that matters, and I have to make a choice about that. And it was through some church controversy over Calvinism or not that the Lord used that to really get me to think about what does the Bible really say about these things.
And from there, as I grew up, even to add about the musician, I grew up with piano lessons, both my older sisters. took piano lessons. Our family group chat to this day is called the Carpenter von Trapp family group chat. Just because we all do something musical, we sing or we play. My mom plays the bass on the worship team at church and we call her the funk queen because she is. And so I’ve been playing and singing most of my life. I joined the team, the worship team when I was like 12. All kinds of stuff.
Started writing my own songs, mostly just piano, like melody. And then as a teenager, I started to take a crack at just like worship songwriting. And I never sat down and thought, “Yeah, this is just what I wanna do. You know, I wanna sing and I wanna write songs for Jesus and for the church.” But it’s just kind of where the Lord left me. And it’s one of the most natural things the Lord has I think gifted me to do. Not that I’m really great at it, I’m not saying that. But it comes naturally. And yeah how do I hit the highlights?
Everything culminated in college. I mean, you’re just getting a fire hydrant of theology, Bible, and all kinds of stuff, as a musician, training, and still growing in piano and learning how to sing with a coach. And then as a songwriter, not only growing my songwriting there, but having opportunities through the church that I was a part of, where they produce songs and they have a yearly songwriter’s retreat that I was fortunate enough to be able to be invited to. And then ever since I’ve been going and that’s been an avenue in addition to The Grace Collective that I’ve been able to pursue songwriting.
Chad was just a huge blessing along the way where he was a friend. He kind of acted like the dad of the incoming class that I was with. I mean, who could not love Chad Berry, Pastor Chad for you? He is, he’s sincere, wise. I could go on. I could go on. But that’s my attempt at a summarized version of your question and answer.
Daniel J. Mount:
So you went to college in Louisville, and you mentioned going to a church that has songwriters retreats in Louisville, and I happen to know there’s a fairly well-known respected church that puts out congregational music in Louisville. Was that Sovereign Grace?
Matthew Carpenter:
Mm-hmm, it was.
Daniel J. Mount:
Oh, cool.
Matthew Carpenter:
Mm-hmm.
Daniel J. Mount:
So you’ve had a hand at some Sovereign Grace songs then.
Matthew Carpenter:
Yeah, that’s been a lot of fun. It’s really challenging because they’re very good, but they’re gracious enough to invite me back. I’ve had a couple of opportunities where it’s nice when you finally get something that gets on a record.
Daniel J. Mount:
Yes.
Matthew Carpenter:
I guess if it’s on record, you go, maybe I am supposed to do this. I don’t know. So I’ve had a few of them. But you miss 100% of the shots you don’t take. That’s what we say.
Daniel J. Mount:
Yeah. One other question about your years in college. You mentioned growing as a songwriter.
Matthew Carpenter:
Mm-hmm.
Daniel J. Mount:
I have noticed that Matt Boswell is active now at least at Southern Seminary and I think Boyce mentoring songwriters. Was he doing that at that time or were you learning from other faculty members?
Matthew Carpenter:
Other faculty members.
Daniel J. Mount:
Okay.
Matthew Carpenter:
Yeah, Matt Boswell came in just after I graduated.
Daniel J. Mount:
Okay. So you, a lot of what you put out now comes out through the Grace Collective with Joel Arcieri. How did the Grace Collective form?
Matthew Carpenter:
Through a worship pastor’s lunch that I was invited to from a different worship pastor friend. And Joel was a worship pastor in the area at the time. And we just hit it off really quickly. Both had a similar love for writing songs for the local church and kind of said to each other, almost similar to the way that you started your podcast. There’s a gap, not that people aren’t filling this, but why don’t we start writing songs? Why don’t we start putting them out? What’s stopping us? Obviously, if the Lord chooses not to, but Lord willing, what’s stopping us from doing this? So that’s kinda how it started.
Daniel J. Mount:
Okay, now, we were talking before recording this that you’re right in the middle of preparing for a project now.
Matthew Carpenter:
Mm-hmm.
Daniel J. Mount:
Why don’t we talk about that before we talk about the song that’s the main focus today. What are you working on these days?
Matthew Carpenter:
We are working on a Christmas album. That has been a really unique thing in the sense that before we’ve done really book-of-the-Bible-based things. And this is shifting more in the topical, obviously, because it’s Christmas.
Daniel J. Mount:
Mm-hmm.
Matthew Carpenter:
So that’s a project that we’re working on. We’re raising money for it right now. And we’re hoping to find more support. And the biggest thing is that we’re and most rewarding thing about writing about Christmas is it’s something that should never get old and the more that you dive into it you find again that the gospel and the beauty of Christ’s incarnation strikes you again as really amazing, something that is worth writing about. We’ll never get tired of singing about Jesus, to Jesus, for Jesus in eternity, so why stop now? And so, yeah, that’s what we’re working on right now and I can mention later if you want something about where people can go to support this project. That’s what we’re working on right now.
Daniel J. Mount:
Feel free to mention it here too, and if you have a Kickstarter or something, I’d be happy, shoot me the link afterward and I’ll be happy to drop it in the show notes.
Matthew Carpenter:
Yeah, there’s a group called Generosity Rocks.
Daniel J. Mount:
Okay.
Matthew Carpenter:
And so we heard about them through a mutual friend, Jules, and they’re a Christian nonprofit group that literally is just there for generosity. It’s something you can put in your taxes as a write-off, where if you support any one of these local artists or abroad. You can do a monthly, you can do a one time, you can do a weekly, you can, there’s all kinds of things. And it’s a really unique and creative way for people to get their support directly.
Daniel J. Mount:
Okay, well, send me the link afterward and I will put that in the show notes, which should show up anywhere the podcast does so that anybody who hears this should be able to click and learn more.
Matthew Carpenter:
Yeah, thanks, I appreciate it.
Daniel J. Mount:
Sure. So it seems that what you do with Grace Collective in large part is writing and singing through entire books of the Bible. And you have albums singing through Romans and Colossians, I believe. And I find this fascinating because outside of this podcast a large part of what I do musically is—the Expository Songs Project has the podcast but there’s also a database where I have a database of currently 48,000 song entries of all areas of Christian music, references to use of scripture in song so that it can be searched. And so I’ve listened to hundreds of thousands of songs and/or read their lyrics for the older ones. And I have found, obviously, a lot of songs that are either directly from a Scripture passage or have Scripture references. But there are very, very few people out there who are doing complete records, almost like a concept record in a sense, through a book of the Bible.
Matthew Carpenter:
Mm-hmm.
Daniel J. Mount:
There are a few. I mean Michael Card did Unveiled Hope. There’s Psallos is doing some almost Broadway-style presentations of books of the Bible that are very creative and impressive but also aren’t exactly congregational.
Matthew Carpenter:
Yeah.
Daniel J. Mount:
And most of Michael Card’s stuff wasn’t exactly congregational either. There’s definitely some that could be used in that context for both. But you’re taking this idea of focusing on a book of the Bible but writing it in a way that a congregation can sing most or all of these songs. So this concept fascinates me, and I’d be curious how you landed on this approach. Was this the initial idea behind the Grace Collective or was it something that after working on it for a bit you really landed on?
Matthew Carpenter:
It was something we kind of landed into. I’m a worship pastor at a local church here where I’m at and we preach expositionally. And at the time, especially for the second album, Kingdom of Your Son, our church had been a couple months now in the Book of Colossians. And so part of some of the songs that I began writing at the time just came from meditating on the Scriptures that we had been preaching in.
So songs like “Over All” came from Colossians 1, where it says here, you see the image of the invisible God, firstborn of creation, and that chorus was almost exactly that verse. And then there was a couple of others, even the title song, “Kingdom of Your Son.” Colossians 1. So very early on in our preaching, I was just writing songs off of this. And then I started talking to Joel and I said, “What if? What if we just took Colossians and just made an album out of it? I’m already writing songs on it.” So we jumped on that train. And then we liked it so much we did it again with Romans.
Daniel J. Mount:
So to move on to the song that I had in mind to feature specifically today, the song, “Plant Your Word,” is on that album,
Matthew Carpenter:
Mm-hmm.
Daniel J. Mount:
The Kingdom of Your Son, Songs from Colossians. And I noticed that album came out in July of 2020. So I’m curious, was this something that was already underway come March or was this a pandemic project for you?
Matthew Carpenter:
A little bit of both.
Daniel J. Mount:
Okay.
Matthew Carpenter:
I started writing some of these songs before the world ended in COVID 2020.
Daniel J. Mount:
Mm-hmm.
Matthew Carpenter:
But the studio time where we were actually in there was COVID, was pandemic, and the guy that we recorded with was really relaxed compared to most of everybody else. He just said, “Hey, as long as we don’t have like, you know, a dozen people in here. We’re fine.” And we were totally okay with that because it helped us make a record in the midst of a lockdown.
Daniel J. Mount:
Yeah. Some years back I worked for a recording company that had a recording studio and it helps in a lot of recording studios that even if there aren’t full dividers between everybody there’s often some, often for a drummer or whatever, there’s some distance and space between the instruments anyhow so that the microphones pick up what they’re supposed to pick up. So a recording studio is better set up for that in a crazy time than some other things are.
Matthew Carpenter:
Social distancing with the thing, it’s fine!
Daniel J. Mount:
Yep, it’s already built in.
Daniel J. Mount:
So how long did it take for this album to come together? How long were the two of you writing the songs for? Was this something that you wrote songs for six months, three months, a year and a half?
Matthew Carpenter:
About like three or four months.
Daniel J. Mount:
Okay.
Matthew Carpenter:
It was in hindsight a pretty quick turnaround from start to finish.
Daniel J. Mount:
Yes. So this song has ties to Colossians 3.16, which says, “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another in Psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord.”
This verse is really of particular interest to me and to this Expository Songs project, to the point that I kicked off the podcast with the introductory episode being discussing this verse and its implications with Pastor Chad. So I’ll refer listeners back to that first podcast for the full conversation, but one key point that we talked about a fair amount there was that the two parts of this verse are connected: That God’s word dwells in us more richly when his word is in our songs.
Matthew Carpenter:
Mm-hmm.
Daniel J. Mount:
And if we’re going to be building each other up with Psalms and hymns and spiritual songs. we’re building each other more effectively when these songs have the word of God in them. So for this song, was your starting point, “Let’s write a song from Colossians 3.16,” was that your initial point of inspiration or if not what was that initial point of inspiration?
Matthew Carpenter:
Yeah, honestly for me, when we said let’s do Colossians, that was one of the top verses. I’m like, you can’t do Colossians without doing Colossians 3.16. Even if we botched it, at least we gave it a try.
Daniel J. Mount:
Yes.
Matthew Carpenter:
It is just so quintessential Colossians for me, especially if you’re reformed, I think.
Daniel J. Mount:
Yes.
Matthew Carpenter:
That is going to be a shining beacon within the book. Write a song for me. So I kind of sat down and said, we’re going to give this the old college try and we’re going to try to, for not lack of a better term, exposit the verse through the song and just let the verse give the structure. That was the idea.
Daniel J. Mount:
Most of the songs on this project you co-wrote with Joel, this was I think only one of two, maybe two or three that you wrote by yourself, as I understand. Did it just come together more quickly before you needed a co-writer? How did that happen? How did the song come together?
Matthew Carpenter:
Much to Joel’s chagrin, I have a tendency of writing songs really, really quickly.
Daniel J. Mount:
Okay.
Matthew Carpenter:
Joel is such a talented songwriter, and he thrives off of collaboration. And I genuinely believe that songs are better. They are just better off of collaboration. So please do not hear me saying at all that somehow writing by yourself is the way. But sometimes… This song just kind of rolled off, so to speak.
My notes app on my phone is full of stuff that sometimes I’ll write in an afternoon. And it may not be, usually it’s not very good, but sometimes this—just, the verse had already been simmering. to speak, I’ve been chewing on it so much that I didn’t need to sit down and go, “Okay, so how am I going to write this?” It was just like, yeah, you write the verse about this, you write a verse about that, and really it started with the melody. The melody was what first struck me as, “This feels like I’m meditating on something. This feels like I’m contemplating.” This fits so well with Colossians. So, that was the idea.
Daniel J. Mount:
Okay, so verse one says:
Lord, plant Your word deep in our hearts
And may it richly dwell
Make us like Jesus
And less like ourselves
Our souls sick with sin
By Your Word are made well
Lord, plant Your word deep in our hearts
And may it richly dwell
So this speaks to the initial work of the Word in our lives, saving us from sin and sanctifying us, making us like Jesus. With verse 3:16 as a starting point, was your idea that this is kind of where you had to start to lay the foundation for the concept before you move on to maybe what we see more of in 3:16 of singing the word to each other?
Matthew Carpenter:
Oh, yeah.
Daniel J. Mount:
Was it kind of like, “This is the starting point?”
Matthew Carpenter:
Yeah, you have to start there. The word is, I think you mentioned this earlier, but the verse flows A to B.
Daniel J. Mount:
Mm-hmm.
Matthew Carpenter:
When the Word dwells in our hearts, these things follow. And so in my mind, that was the structure. You had to start with that with verse one.
But yeah, you’re already queuing into my thought process there was, well yeah, if we’re going to do Colossians 3.16, the Word has to be the foundation.
Daniel J. Mount:
Yes. So we go straight from there into verse two, which is:
Lord, plant Your word deep in our hearts
To overflow with grace
Grant us a new song
That sings of Your fame
Where melodies rise as we lift up Your name
Lord, plant Your Word deep in our hearts
To overflow with grace
So this is, I believe, where we then get to the second half of verse 16. As God’s word is in our hearts, our hearts will overflow with songs of grace.
Jesus said in Matthew 6 or 7 that where our treasure is there our heart will be also. But I would also add that where our heart is, there our tongues will follow.
And so if our hearts are full of baseball, that’s what we’ll talk about. If our hearts are full of politics, that’s what we’ll talk about. I could pick on a lot of other things. I picked on baseball and politics because those are two things I don’t mind talking about a little myself.
Matthew Carpenter:
Yeah.
Daniel J. Mount:
So don’t want to pick on somebody else’s things. But if our hearts are full of the things of God, it will and it should overflow in what we say and what we sing.
So I’d have to say that my favorite word in this verse, and maybe my favorite word in the whole song, is overflow. There’s so much in that word. Any thoughts on that or anything else you’re hoping to bring out in this second verse?
Matthew Carpenter:
Oh man, you ever heard the phrase, “Theology leads to doxology?”
Daniel J. Mount:
Yes.
Matthew Carpenter:
That’s kind of what I wanted to capture in this verse, God’s word being planted, so to speak. Now, I mix analogies a little bit with planting and overflow. You can get water, agriculture, I get it. People can do what they want with that. But the idea is as God’s word is being sown, that there’s got to be something that grows, something that comes out, some sort of cause and effect. And of course it’s praise, of course it’s God’s grace being seen in our lives.
It’s really easy to become academic about God’s Word, and our affections can still be cold. And so in that verse, I really wanted to be clear that God’s Word and our singing are so vitally connected. So that was the main thrust for that verse.
Daniel J. Mount:
Cool, and then I think verse three, we’re really pulling from the next verse, Colossians 3 17, but the verse of the song says:
Lord, plant Your word deep in our hearts
With thankfulness renewed
For all that You are
For grace and for truth
For Your sacrifice and our new life in You
Lord, plant Your word deep in our hearts
With thankfulness renewed
So this is then pulling from Colossians 3 17, which says, “And whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus. giving thanks to God the Father through Him.” Our natural response to the word of God taking root in our lives should be thankfulness.
Matthew Carpenter:
Mm-hmm.
Daniel J. Mount:
And I love how this both makes sense in the flow of the song, but also makes sense as we’re reading through our source text. This is the idea that comes next.
Matthew Carpenter:
Mm-hmm.
Daniel J. Mount:
So was this third verse, was it obvious to you from the start this is where we’ll go? Or did he try a few other directions and then land here like, no, this is where it needs to end up.
Matthew Carpenter:
This is just the place where I knew I needed to go next. The thankfulness renewed was hinting at not just verse 17 but even the part where it’s just singing with thankfulness in your hearts to God.
Daniel J. Mount:
Hmm. Yeah.
Matthew Carpenter:
And so the idea of it being thankfulness renewed is you can be really thankful in one moment, but if you’re not coming back to the Word, if you’re not coming back to meditate upon who God is and what He’s done and how He reveals himself in the Word and all of these things, your thankfulness, similar to our affections I mentioned in verse 2, they’re going to grow cold. And so thankfulness is something we practice, something that’s like gasoline being put back into a tank. It can run for a bit, but it’s going to need fuel. Again, we are a forgetful people, and so we need God’s Word to renew our thankfulness, over and over and over again.
Daniel J. Mount:
Yes. So the next section of the song is:
Plant Your Word within, O Lord
Sow the seeds of faith and love
May it grow, bear fruit, and move in us
Plant Your Word in us
Matthew Carpenter:
Yes!
Daniel J. Mount:
Or both, yes.
Matthew Carpenter:
Or both. I need to amend a previous statement. If I remember correctly, I think Joel helped me with this.
Daniel J. Mount:
Okay.
Matthew Carpenter:
So I wanna make sure I give credit where credit is due. I’m pretty sure Joel helped me with this. And he got to the end of the verse and he’s like, there’s no outlet. There’s no response or something. And Joel’s really good at thinking about, not just, “Is this song theologically correct? Is this song theologically true? Is it, you know, accurate?” I’m really good at writing correct songs, but Joel helps me and all of our songs tap into the appropriate emotional and relational response that we often have with God. And so that’s why I think we write really well together.
But this was meant to be just kind of a moment of, “Okay, we’ve had all of this teaching, you know, God’s Word does this and we’re asking God to do this. Now Lord, just do it. Plant Your Word. Sow the seeds. May it grow. Lord, just we need this. We need You ultimately. We need You to make this happen.” That was the thrust of this bridge chorus thing.
Daniel J. Mount:
So once we wrote this bridge chorus thing, was it always gonna be just at the end? Or did you think about, like, maybe this makes sense as a chorus, should we do it after each verse? And then decided to put it at the end.
Matthew Carpenter:
I don’t think we ever did. I think I was pretty, I think I pushed back initially about like, I don’t know if it needs a bridge. And so sometimes I can be a bit like, uhh, umm. And so the fact that we got the bridge in there once was probably enough. Man, now looking back, I need to loosen up a little bit! Yeah, but I think once because even the bridge itself doesn’t add too much new content, right? Because the whole verses are still asking the Lord to plant something. And so the melodically at the end, it gives it a, a crescendo, I think.
Daniel J. Mount:
Yeah. Just out of curiosity, did you specifically write this song or envision it from the start to be a song that would have a specific spot in a church service such as a song right before the preaching of the Word?
Matthew Carpenter:
Oh yeah, oh yeah. I didn’t want it to be so dependent on only being a before the sermon song.
Daniel J. Mount:
Mm-hmm.
Matthew Carpenter:
I like those songs that help, but sometimes it feels like it pigeonholes to where if you’re trying to, and as a worship pastor, I try to have songs kind of logically connect, not just, oh, this is in the same key, you know, great. But… Sometimes it can be difficult to have songs asking the Lord to move through the preaching of the Word in the middle of something after the Word is preached.
Daniel J. Mount:
Yes.
Matthew Carpenter:
And so I wanted it to be something that could be flexible, but still pretty plainly like, yeah, you should probably sing this before you preach.
Daniel J. Mount:
Well, when I was listening to the song, I was just thinking… whether well outside of reformed circles um there might not be much thought given to a song that’s specifically for that spot in the service maybe so much as when I think about it in a flow of worship. But within reform circles there are a few songs that are sung often in churches I’ve been in before a sermon. Like, the Getty’s “Speak, O Lord,” is their classic song for that spot. It’s a great song, great for that spot. Good song, good for the spot.
Matthew Carpenter:
Mm-hmm.
Daniel J. Mount:
And Sovereign Grace’s “Show Us Christ” is another good song for that spot. But there aren’t that many songs that are well-circulated in our circles that really make sense before a sermon. So I think there’s a need for more. And this is a good one. Those of you listening who are church musicians, consider it. This one’s worth some thought for that spot. Because it fits in the same spot in the service, but it doesn’t say the same thing as the other two are saying.
Matthew Carpenter:
Hmm.
Daniel J. Mount:
So there’s room for, I think it’s good for that spot in the service. I think it’s a good song.
Matthew Carpenter:
Thanks.
Daniel J. Mount:
Thanks. Sure. So has there been anything interesting or unexpected in how the song has been received?
Matthew Carpenter:
Yes and no.
Daniel J. Mount:
Okay.
Matthew Carpenter:
When we initially put out the album, it was actually… I thought the song would be fine. Like, not in a bad sense, fine, like always. It’s just in there. I thought it was a really good contribution to the album. But I didn’t expect it to be probably the one that we would get the most streams with and the most listened to and the most chatter about. And we even had a few Christian music blogging websites reach out specifically because that song in particular had affected them. And so I think that was special.
Daniel J. Mount:
Yeah.
Matthew Carpenter:
it was one of my favorite songs simply because it was simple and it was piano. I love piano. I love writing almost lullabies. And the irony, here’s something fun about this. I say lullabies because Joel’s two little girls, I think for months, and I’m not exaggerating, months, listen to that song every single night before bed. Every single night it would help them go to sleep. And then any time that I would FaceTime with him and it would be on the call for some reason, I’d be like, oh, it’s the “Plant your Word guy.” [Laughter]
Daniel J. Mount:
Oh, that’s cool.
Matthew Carpenter:
They recognized my voice from it. And so that was actually a really sweet thing. So that was unique and special about it.
Daniel J. Mount:
I have two young children also and not every song resonates with little kids. There’s something special about a song that… Little kids also often tend to gravitate toward the simplest songs.
“I’m in the Lord’s Army” and “The B.I.B.L.E.” and the typical Sunday school songs that every kid who grew up in church has heard at some point or another. But… when there’s a song that has a little more complexity to, it it’s not a simple chorus that’s repeated five times, it’s a it’s a full complex song but it still resonates with children that’s a good sign.
Matthew Carpenter:
Yeah.
Daniel J. Mount:
So you mentioned something interesting earlier that I’ve just been mulling over since, and that is, it brings to a stylistic point, because your lyrics fall pretty well within a sphere of what we’d see in modern hymns, for instance.
Matthew Carpenter:
Mm-hmm.
Daniel J. Mount:
But musically I was thinking about this before you mentioned anything about Sovereign Grace, like the last week or two, I’ve been thinking stylistically. their music is really more sounds like a Sovereign Grace. So then it sounds like the Irish folk of the Gettys or sounds like Baswell. Is that something that also reflects what you do live and also reflects the style you do in your churches? Is that a conscious thing because you’ve been in that context? Is it that’s… the studio musicians who happened to be available in the studio and the context you were in that was the kind of music they recorded, how did you end up where you are stylistically?
Matthew Carpenter:
Oh, that’s a great question. It’s obviously multiple factors, but some of the biggest ones are: Joel and I, primarily for almost all the music we’ve put out, with some exceptions, we’ve had some friends and others help out with some instruments here and there, but for Gracious Father, for Kingdom of Your Son, and for really all three of our albums, I would say at least 60% of the instrumentation was just Joel and I.
Daniel J. Mount:
Okay.
Matthew Carpenter:
And so it’s a blend of personality. I tend to lean more heavily on modern hymnody, Sovereign Grace side of things. And Joel tends to lean more on—stylistically, he’s just different. He’s more pop, but not in a… negative sense. He genuinely just writes things that are really catchy. He writes things that take more risks than I would normally do. He writes things that are more expressive and more in tune with your feelings.
Again, I feel like if Reformed people are listening to this, I feel like they’re going to go like red flags are shooting up, but we’re both solidly reformed five-point Calvinists. It’s just personality-wise, Joel was the worship leader that would just be, would make a lot of reformed people uncomfortable, but he’d also like, he went to the Worship Matters Intensives with Bob Coughlin. It’s like, oh yeah, all these things.
So anyways, that’s kind of how we meld our style where we can be these other things because one of us might lean in one direction more heavily depending on the song. I like to think we give each other a good balance.
Daniel J. Mount:
Yeah. And to reformed people listening to this podcast, y’all just listen to this song. Listen to “Plant Your Word.” You’ll get it. You’ll get it. It’ll make sense.
Matthew Carpenter:
Yeah, it will.
Daniel J. Mount:
So is there anything else you’d like to share about the Christmas project you’re working on or anything else you have in the works?
Matthew Carpenter:
Yeah, the Christmas project is, I think for us, going to be on the one hand, one of the most ambitious things we’ve done
Daniel J. Mount:
Okay.
Matthew Carpenter:
because you mentioned styles. I think because it’s Christmas, we feel more liberty to have a range of: This is a category of a song that you would sing in church, congregational. But then because it’s Christmas, we have a category called, but this would just be nice to listen to at Christmas. You know, I feel like we can do that. And then there’s somewhere in between.
And we have let more of our creativity come out. Not that you can’t be super creative, but you have to keep in mind, like is your average congregation member gonna want to or be able to sing this when you’re writing in Colossians or writing in Romans or things like that. And we don’t always do that perfectly.
But this is, I think, man, we’re in the process of making demos for these. And we’re just like, “Man, Lord, if we, and this is not an emotional plea,” this is not me trying to manipulate, we’re literally just, Joel and I going, “man, if we just had the money to actually record all of these songs, this would be a really good Christmas album.” You know, but we obviously just have to be grateful for what the Lord gives us, and what we can do. So it looks like right now we can put out an EP, but we’ve got like nine to a dozen songs that we could put up like this.
Imagine if you wrote a whole book and you could only release a few chapters. You know, that’s kind of where we’re at right now. It’s like we have this great ensemble and now we have to pick our favorite kid!
Daniel J. Mount:
Yeah.
Matthew Carpenter:
So that’s kind of where we’re at. We’re so excited about it. We’re just praying and hoping and then just trying to ask people humbly, “man, if you really believe in what we’re doing and see us as a ministry that can help others and also just wanna have some really good Christmas songs, hit us up. That’d be awesome.”
Daniel J. Mount:
Yeah. And where can listeners follow you and follow the Grace Collective online.
Matthew Carpenter:
All the places, not all the places. We do Facebook, we do Instagram, we have a Twitter. And yeah, and our website is under works because just things came up and it crashed and we were working on getting that back up. But right now the best places to follow us are on Instagram and Facebook.
Daniel J. Mount:
Cool, I will check on the links with you and also put the links to the social media in the show notes. Any other thoughts, anything else, any other thoughts you wanted to share, anything else you wanted to include?
Matthew Carpenter:
No, honestly, Daniel, thank you so much.
Daniel J. Mount:
Sure!
Matthew Carpenter:
This has just been a ton of fun.
Daniel J. Mount:
Thank you. Thank you for taking the time to do this. It’s a lot of fun for me to dive deeply into songs.
And it’s also fun for me because the first two episodes I did of interviews were people who have other interviews online that I found and I had some idea what their answers would be to some of the questions. This interview was a lot of fun for me because this was our first time talking. Hadn’t heard any other interviews with you. I had no idea what you’d say! It was a lot of fun! [LAUGHTER]
Matthew Carpenter:
Hey, thanks for risking it for the biscuit, man. This was great.
Daniel J. Mount:
No problem.
Matthew Carpenter:
You know, this is two-way street. I’m like, we know Chad and Jesus. Those are the only two things that we have in common!
Daniel J. Mount:
Yes!
Matthew Carpenter:
And we love expository songs, so there’s three.
Daniel J. Mount:
Yes!
So I will conclude this by saying to the listeners, to hear future Songwriter Interviews, subscribe to this podcast on YouTube or on your favorite podcast platform. You can also download episode transcriptions and search the free 48,000 Expository Songs searchable database at danielmount.com. Thank you for listening.
Matthew Carpenter:
Subscribe, do it.
Daniel J. Mount:
Thank you.