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Congregational Worship Languages:
Worship Ministry Interview Paper
Garrett T Blackburn
WRSP 421-D01
Dr. Tony Cooper N
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Introduction of Interviews
For this project, I interviewed three pastors whom I have known and grown a relationship
with over the last few years of my life. Pastor Scott Heins is the pastor for which I chose to do
the interview with a church plant staff member. The biker church in which he pastors has a very
small attendance and the church was planted just a few years ago, yet they are absolutely on fire
for the Lord. I chose to interview Pastor David Wellborn for the established church staff member.
Fishing Creek Arbor Baptist Church has been around for many decades and is my home church,
and they normally have a couple hundred in attendance each week. For the mega church staff
interview, I chose to interview Pastor Phillip Biles from Bedrock Community Church. Bedrock is
also a church plant but was established 13 years ago, so it did not fit into the category for this
assignment as the biker church did. All three pastors whom I interviewed for this assignment
gave very unique answers to each other and each provide a well thought out overview of their
church and what their church believes in terms of what worship is and how their congregations
worship.
Backgrounds for the Churches
Each of these three churches have a very similar surrounding and community in which
they are located. Fishing Creek Arbor Baptist Church and Biker Church of the United Methodists
are both located in Wilkes County, North Carolina, which is a very southern area with mostly
traditional people when it comes to their ideas of Christianity, ways of life, and worship in
general. Bedrock Community Church is located in Bedford, Virginia, and while located three
hours from Wilkes County, North Carolina, the atmosphere and culture is almost identical. Each
area has hundreds of different churches scattered over the towns, and not a “huge” amount of
people living in the areas, so having larger congregations, especially in Wilkes County, can
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present itself as a struggle sometimes. Bedrock Community Church, on the other hand, still
retains over 1,000 attendees each week and still has a growing congregation each week. As a
whole, Bedrock Community Church is encompassed within the “Bedrock Network” in which
they plant churches across the world, bringing in many thousands more into their other nine
church plants under the Bedrock name. While the main campus in Bedford brings in a little over
one thousand people each week, if you factor in all of the campuses combined, you can easily
add at least three thousand more onto that initial number which makes it a “mega church” in my
mind.
Interview Experience
The overall experience of each of these three interviews was exceptionally positive. Each
of the pastors whom I interviewed were generously honest and descriptive of their church, how
their church operates, what their position on staff is like, how they personally shepherd their
flock of congregants, and many other topics. Each of these three churches are incredibly unique
in their own sense, while still retaining the foundational core of Jesus Christ yet having different
approaches and viewpoints of worship and what that means to them personally along with what
that means to their church as a whole. I am grateful to have had this opportunity to interview
these pastors because it gave me the chance to dive deeper into my understanding of how they
operate and how they view what the Lord has done for them and their response in servanthood to
that provision.
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Comparative Analysis
Each of these three churches that were interviewed have very unique worship languages
to each other, which made for a very interesting interview process. In my first interview with
Pastor David Wellborn of Fishing Creek Arbor Baptist Church, Pastor Wellborn said that he does
not think the congregation has a set “worship language.” While I can understand where he is
coming from in this, I believe from my personal experience in the church, the congregation as a
whole has a very traditional worship language in which they utilize both hymns and
contemporary worship but prefer hymns and sitting back and listening rather than participating.
An interesting quote from Pastor Wellborn from the question of congregational culture driving
the decisions for the church was, “The culture of the church absolutely drives how decisions are
made on a weekly basis because we are surrounded by stubborn legalists in this area.”1
Within Biker Church of the United Methodists, I would say they have more of a
traditional worship language, while also having a very interesting twist to it. Pastor Scott Heins
was rather vague in his answer to this question, but when asked what their church’s worship
language is, he replied, “we speak truth boldly in our worship.”2
Pastor Phillip Biles from Bedrock Community Church also stated that he does not think
the congregation has a set “worship language” because he believes all people view their worship
differently, so they do not all have to do it the same way. Pastor Biles states, “I think we all
worship differently from person to person, but we are all obedient to God’s commands.”3
As I briefly explained in the introduction of this paper, the demographics of these three
churches are extremely similar, as they are in predominately southern-white areas with small
1 Wellborn, David. Interviewed by Garrett Blackburn. Worship language interview. Wilkesboro, NC, November 2,
2021.
2 Heins, Scott. Interviewed by Garrett Blackburn. Worship language interview. Wilkesboro, NC, November 2, 2021.
3 Biles, Phillip. Interviewed by Garrett Blackburn. Worship language interview. Bedford, Virginia, November 5, 2021.
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populations and many churches surrounding. Pastor Wellborn stated, when asked about the
demographical nuances of FCABC, “Our church is in the woods in the south, so sadly we are a
mostly white congregation with only three people of color.”4 He goes on in his statement to
explain how they are working as a church to expand their diversity and demographics in the
congregation. Pastor Phillip Biles of Bedrock Community Church is very short and vague in his
answer, in saying that Bedrock is “Very diverse, especially culturally.”5 Since I personally lead
worship at Bedrock, I can attest to the fact that they are indeed vastly culturally diverse in their
congregants and allow freedom for cultural expression within the church. Pastor Heins of the
biker church has a similar answer and viewpoint as Pastor Wellborn in saying that they are “Not
very diverse because of limited congregants in our location.”6 With the style of the church and
the location they find themselves in, it is true that it is difficult to widen their horizon in
demographics and diversity. Fishing Creek Arbor Baptist Church, as Pastor Wellborn said in his
interview, has a mixture of contemporary and traditional worship within their church, but they
lean more toward the traditional side of the spectrum. Interestingly enough, the biker church,
which is just a few minutes down the road from FCABC, has a very different taste of style, as
they prefer “Skillet” styled worship, with hard-rock and heavy metal worship music in their
services. Bedrock leans more toward the contemporary side, as the majority of the worship music
is contemporary music, with the occasional hymn in the services.
The theological emphases of the three churches all have the same core foundational belief
of salvation through the belief that Jesus is Lord, and the Holy Trinity of God. Each church has
their own beliefs on secondary doctrines, of course, especially on the topic of worship and how
4 Wellborn, David. Interviewed by Garrett Blackburn. Worship language interview. Wilkesboro, NC, November 2,
2021.
5 Biles, Phillip. Interviewed by Garrett Blackburn. Worship language interview. Bedford, Virginia, November 5, 2021.
6 Heins, Scott. Interviewed by Garrett Blackburn. Worship language interview. Wilkesboro, NC, November 2, 2021.
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we as Christians are supposed to worship but can all come together in agreement on the most
important belief that is stated above. Fishing Creek Arbor Baptist Church holds firm in their
traditionalist views of worship as a whole, while the biker church holds dear their more personal
approach within their culture, and Bedrock strongly encourages the personal interpretation of
worship as long as it remains obedient to what God commands of us in His holy Word.
Bibliography
Biles, Phillip. Interviewed by Garrett Blackburn. Worship language interview. Bedford, Virginia,
November 5, 2021.
