Even before I met Janet and Jay, I was always blessed by their worship and ministry. I finally had the opportunity to meet them just over a year ago at a youth retreat. They were invited to lead worship and I was invited to preach. So finally we got the chance to formerly meet as well as minister together. Immediately, we were in sync. Ever since then, a friendship and Kingdom partnership were born. I’m privileged to have work with multiple times, but what blesses me the most is that I get to call them my friends. Check out this recent interview with this anointed couple!
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Share with us who you are and what you do.
Janet and I have been married two and a half years. We currently serve as worship leaders for our church and are vocalists/songwriters for our band, “Currency Red.” Four months ago, we came to Seoul, Korea to lead worship, serve a church plant and a music label that focuses on reaching the 1040 Window. We didn’t plan on a permanent move just yet. We desired a better understanding of the needs of this ministry as well as verify our ability and conviction to effectively minister to this church. After carefully surveying and through much prayer, we were convicted to stay and do God’s work here. We often long for home and our church in NJ that has become our family but as with any mission given by the Lord, we are ready to serve whole-heartedly and lay down our life for this ministry until God gives us a sure conviction that our mission is complete.
What are some challenges that you’ve faced in pursuing your calling?
Probably the biggest challenge is learning how to wait on God’s timing, how to place His agendas above ours, and discerning what areas to put in our time and resources. Every opportunity is not always a good opportunity. Often times, especially as a band that writes songs, we find ourselves wanting to pursue what is often normal for bands: albums, artistic music, leverage, signing under a label, doing concerts. However, as we served and grew in our church, God deeply convicted us that more than pursuing leverage, it was more important to pursue faithfulness, personal purity, and a greater capacity to love others. We often want to rush into our future or take every opportunity that came our way and many times that led to mistakes or detours in our path. However, we are learning that God truly is in full control and it’s always better to take time to pray and reflect on His timing, regardless of how circumstances may look in our eyes.
So often worship in church is just singing songs. How do you define “worship”?
To answer this question, we like to reference Romans 12:1: “Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God – this is your true and proper worship.” We understand worship to be a lifestyle and how we choose to conduct ourselves in private or public, is all worship. The way we treat our bodies, relationships, how we spend our finances, time, the things we talk about, it all matters and as worship leaders, we must strive to lead in all areas of life. Often when we share about worship leading, we don’t like to put too much emphasis on music or what we do for our church on Sundays since most people tend to overemphasize those areas. We like to focus on the lifestyle. On the other hand, if we were to talk about the musical sphere, we believe in strict practice, musical excellence, and putting out the best possible product every time remembering that our days are limited and unknown. Yet, in reflection to Romans 12:1, this can’t be exclusive to music; it must be a lifestyle of trying to do everything with the best of our ability as working for the Lord, not for people.
How do you navigate between being both a musician and a worshiper? Is it one in the same? Is there a difference?
If both the musician and worshiper are believers, we believe it is the same thing. As Christians, we are worshipers and that is our identity. Whether we lead on Sunday, sing in a bar, or a cafe, if we are believers we must seek God’s anointing over the work we are doing. Our work, whether in the secular or Christian world, should be covered in prayer so that it can be used to lead people into God’s presence, whether it is by subtle or obvious means. Often we see worship leaders that lead on Sundays prepare very differently than they would when singing in a non church setting such as a coffee house. No matter the arena, the audience is always looking for the artist to make that emotional transfer of their inspiration onto the audience. If not, we would say the performance was uninspiring. Therefore, if we are successful in performing an inspiring piece, it will have an emotional impact on the audience, and as both musician and worshippers, we believe there is a responsibility in using what we do to always try to point to Christ. Although people may not always realize the source of your inspiration, God knowing our hearts and how we prepare for our performance is enough reason to always prepare like a worshiper.
What is the best advice you can give to young leaders today? To worship leaders?
Focus on your lifestyle. A worshiper with a great heart but poor music can be distracting. Vice versa, a worshiper with great music but a poor heart can be uninspiring and distracting. There needs to be a marriage between intimacy with God and doing your works to the best of your ability for God’s glory. If there are inconsistencies in this area on a regular basis in your everyday living, it will reveal itself later while leading worship on Sundays.
How would you define “revival”?
We see revival as taken place when people are ultimately filled with a desire to fulfill the great commission. At least for us personally, whenever we felt we were in the midst of revival, we felt that our hearts were becoming more aligned with God’s heart and His agendas, which almost always led to us desiring to fulfill the great commission with more intensity than before.
How can we pray and partner with you?
If you would like to pray for us, financially support, receive updates, prayer requests or news about the band, please feel free to email us at currencyredband@gmail.com