Q&A with The Belonging Co.
Lee Clarion recently sat down to interview The Belonging Co. before their U-Church performance on Lee Day.
John David Clark
Before U-Church on Friday, Lee Clarion sat down with the worship leaders of The Belonging Co.—Natalie Grant, Henry Seely, Sarah Reeves and Andrew Holt—to discuss the impact of worship and where Christian music stands in relation to the secular world.
Q: In your opinion, what is the most important part of being a worship leader?
Grant: I would say knowing how to hear the voice of the Holy Spirit—being in tune so that it never becomes a performance. You want it to be excellent…but the desire for excellence never overtakes the desire for the move of the Holy Spirit.
Seely: I think, for me at least, the more I can just get out of the way. When you’re leading worship, the goal is to engage with people and to take them on the journey and point them to Jesus as quickly as possible.
Sometimes in singing and leading, we get to break things and declare things, but really the purpose is “all eyes on Jesus.” The songs are not the goal; the songs are a vehicle for us to bring our own worship and lead people in their own worship.
Holt: I think also knowing Jesus for yourself and having that personal relationship with him—knowing that you’re a son or a daughter.
I can’t lead you to my dad unless I know where He is and who He is. The more that I spend time with Him on my own outside of the stage, outside of the team, outside of everything on my own, spending time with Him and knowing His voice, the better I can be as a worship leader.
Reeves: Also, just not letting the crowd in the room dictate the way you worship because we lead in a lot of different environments as well as our church—and sometimes everybody is all in and engaged, and at other times, they’re not, and it can be kind of discouraging. I think just keeping your eyes focused on Jesus and knowing that everyone responds differently.
Q: What sets you apart from other Christian artists?
Seely: When we come together in this unit, we’re not really a band trying to be a band; we really are just a bunch of people that love to worship God together. The Belonging really is just an overflow of what God is doing in our church—not that there’s anything wrong with people being artists or in bands…but I think it’s a beautiful thing when you get to come together as a team…and really just focus on Jesus.
It’s not that I think we’re different to any other band at all; I would just hope we are reiterating the message of Jesus and that everything we do together is a reflection of that.
Grant: Because the church has an unusual amount of people who do their own artistry—that actually is something uniquely beautiful about the church—you have all of these artists from lots of different genres, but everyone kind of checks their artist card at the door. We all bring what we’re anointed to do, but it’s never about that. …
As an artist, you sometimes get into a room, and someone’s trying to write a song that will work as a hit, and every song you hear from The Belonging is something God has birthed in our house…and that authenticity can never be faked.
Reeves: We’re all growing together, and we’re all under the same leadership, hearing the same sermons, talking to one another, and I think that just inspires the songs that we write and the songs that we lead.
I think that’s the difference. It is not about comparison; it’s just what we’re learning and where we’re growing. Those are the songs being birthed out of our church.
Q: In your opinion, what differentiates Christian music from secular music?
Seely: I think worship music is kind of its own thing because…the point is pointing people to Jesus.
I'm not a big fan of the separation between secular and sacred in the sense that I believe someone carries an anointing whether they are using the word “Jesus” or not. But I think it's actually how you live your life and every other aspect of your life that comes through music.
Music is, in part, a spiritual thing, and…I think you can hear one person sing a lyric or a melody and hear another person singing the same thing, and yet something about that one person moves you—whether it's their singing or something about them [that] actually connects with you. …
That's honestly what I love about what we get to do in our church. [We get to] actually not just release people in the Christian music world but…way out in the mainstream world…and they get to carry that sense of who God has created them to be and the anointing from the Holy Spirit into every environment that they're in.
So, if someone's writing a song that ends up on a commercial on TV, I'm like, “Why can't people get completely rocked as they hear and experience that song, even if it's on a commercial?”
Reeves: I think God is blurring the lines a little bit, and He's actually raising up Christians to go into that space. I have a lot of friends that are in the mainstream world, and I write a lot of mainstream music. And to be honest, I've seen some pretty powerful things in that world.
I've seen some friends of mine play in clubs, and their songs may not necessarily be about God or Jesus, but then I’ll watch them go up and talk to people after the shows, and they're just so open. They just start talking, and all of a sudden I look over and they're praying over them. And it's just this powerful experience, whereas these people that are coming into these clubs—they may never walk up to the church.
So we actually need more people to go into this space…to not blend in, but to stand out and be a light in that world.
For the full interview, visit Lee Clarion’s Instagram and Facebook.
