Interview with worship leader and artist Kyle Dillard

Kyle Dillard is the worship and arts pastor at Lake Forest Church in Huntersville, NC. Lake Forest is a 10-year-old church plant with about 1500 in attendance. Kyle[P1]  has been at Lake Forest for 7 years, but has been using his worship leading gift for18 years. Before going to Lake Forest, he was a community group worship leader for Passion 99.   I first met Kyle over 10 years ago when he was the worship leader for the student ministry, Elevate, at Willow Creek Community Church.  We were fortunate when he would come and lead worship for the adult midweek gathering. 

I am most impressed with Kyle’s heart for God, His church and the artists he leads and shepherds.  These reasons and so many more are why we invited him to contribute to Wonder.  Kyle is teaching two breakouts, Building an Arts Team from the Ground Up and Following Well Leads to Leading Well. 

How would you describe your artistry? 

When talking about “artistry” in Rory Noland’s book “The Heart of the Artist”, he quotes Irving Stone (Lust for Life) saying “But then, no artist is normal; if he were, he wouldn’t be an artist.  Normal men don’t create works of art.  They eat, sleep, hold down routine jobs and die.  You are hypersensitive to life and nature; that’s why you are able to interpret for the rest of us.  But if you aren’t careful, that very hypersensitiveness will lead you to your destruction.  The strain of it breaks every artist in time”.   In one word, I would describe art and creativity (as it pertains to me) as “perpetual”.  It never leaves me alone.  It makes me stay up later than I want, and sometime won’t let me sleep at all.  It’s the first thing on my mind when I wake in the morning and the last thought in my mind when I go to sleep. I can be walking down the street just minding my own business and then it’ll just jump me out of nowhere.  It would get on my parents nerves when I was a kid because I was thinking about it all the time, and so I would forget to take out the trash or feed my dog. I’m drawn to it day and night.  Not until I grew older did I truly see it as a gift from God, a calling, and a passion to use it to build His Kingdom.  We are all designed this way with unique talents and abilities given to us by God.  We just have to realize it.  I like Irving Stone’s word of “hypersensitive”.  That’s all of us abnormal artsy types; hypersensitive in life and nature, in order to find better ways to brag on God, appropriately responding to His greatness and Glory.

How did you develop a love for your art?

Over the years I have developed an even more love for God’s calling and gift in my life by watching other gifted artist, and working really hard at positioning myself around them.  A youth pastor friend told me when I was in college that gifted leaders attract other gifted leaders.  I’ve always thought that was true of musicians and artists as well.  I remember being on staff at Willow Creek with Randy Pearce. (Steven Curtis Chapman’s guitar player at the time) I noticed that his band was always filled with the best players in the church.  Everyone wanted to play in his band.  He was such a tremendously talented player that everyone else wanted to play with him.  Each time I was asked to lead worship when Randy was playing electric, I was always nervous.  I would think to myself “Randy was with Steven last night, and tonight he’s got to be bored listening to me play and lead”.  Of course that wasn’t true.  Randy never thought that and has been one of my biggest encouragers and teachers in my guitar playing.  But watching and being around guys like him has been what has inspired me to be better.  I want to be an artist who inspires and attracts other gifted artist, who in turn inspires me.  Attracting other great leaders and servants is what all of us do that are serving the bride of Christ around the world.  Leveraging them and their gifts is what gives me life

Tell us about your role and team.

In addition to worship leading, songwriting, and band leading, I am also the arts director at my church.  We have one of the most gifted teams I’ve ever had the privilege to work alongside.  My favorite thing about all of the teams I lead is the level of trust we all have with one another.  We value team more than we value anything else.  I believe relationships to be the key to our success.   Doing life together, knowing each other’s strengths and weakness, and encouraging one another are the foundation for our creative processes.  I start my Monday morning creative team each week by letting everyone share his or her weekend experiences.  I am surprised more often than not, at how many weekends are spent by the individuals on the team serving other people.  Max Helton, a friend and the founder of Motor Racing Outreach (a ministry to NASCAR drivers and their families) died this past year.  He was a ministry partner at our church and his wife was moving this past weekend.  At our Monday meeting, it was cool to hear how other people on that team had been over to Jean’s house helping her move at some point of the weekend without the rest of us knowing.  It wasn’t a planned event, just people serving other people in our community of believers.  Doing life together.  When you have a team of people that trust one another’s hearts and motives because you know they are real…anything can be done. 

Describe your ‘creative process’.

We work really hard at finding new ways to reach those that have given up on church but haven’t given up on God.  It starts with a two hour Monday creative meeting. This team consists of 4-5 people.  Our lead pastor, creative arts director, technical director and I are on this team.  We use this time to work out our big ideas and plan the appropriate times.  In addition to this meeting, I have a quarterly all day meeting where I invite other staff people and volunteers from our various Sunday teams.  I’ve found that if I give enough forward thought, people can usually get out of work or shift their schedule to make this work during the week.  I also have these meetings at an off-site creative place.  Two of our favorite places are conference rooms at either Joe Gibbs racing or Michael Waltrip’s race world.  The team gets excited to spend time planning around all the cool racecars.  I use this meeting for big ideas only.  We lay out our sermon ideas for the next several months and create ideas around sermon titles, music elements, drama, stage design, and anything else that leverages the series.  These ideas then go back to the Monday creative team for organization.

What is a common mistake you notice during the creative process?

One of my mistakes early on was not changing this team up more frequently. I need to always be inviting new people and new thoughts into the process.  Taking big risks can be another failure.  Not that you shouldn’t, but that you should.  Trust the team and go with their big ideas.  Take it even a step further.  When someone seems really energized by their idea, say things to them like; “tell me more” or “I like that but I need more details, how can we make that work”.  Stay away from statements like “we can’t do that” or “we can’t afford it”.  Write everything everyone says down on paper.  The fastest way to let someone know you don’t like what they are saying is to write everyone else’s idea on the board and not theirs.

What are you learning these days?

The biggest thing we are trying to learn these days is how to make our growing church continue to feel small, authentic, real and personal.  How do you continue to value quality, move ahead in production, become more professional, and still have authenticity and not just “slickness”?  Remembering that we are representing to our congregation what God is really like.  He’s personal!  We’re trying some new ideas on this.  I’ll tell you more when I learn it myself.  Ask me about it next time we meet and I’m sure I’ll have plenty of “here’s what’s working” and “here’s some places we really messed up”.  But I move forward knowing that my team trusts me and I trust them.  In the end, God does all the good stuff and we’re just hanging out in His big giant mash pit of worship.  One thing we’ve found that is working to achieve this is the power of story.  We tell as many God stories as we can.

How would you encourage artists, like yourself, who serve the church?

My encouragement to anyone working in a church and reading this is to trust God and His calling on your life.  Listen to His word, His leading, and be “hypersensitive” to the Holy Spirit speaking to you.  Then trust your team in the same way because God has called them too.  Listen to what God is doing in their lives and what He may say to you through them, and tell as many God stories as you can.  Talk about His greatness and glory at team meetings, practice, staff meetings and Sunday morning worship.  Any time you have a chance.

What are you looking forward to at this year’s arts conference, Wonder?

I’m looking forward to meeting as many of you as I can at the conference this year and hearing your stories.  It reminds me of how small I am and how big He is.  I pray it’s filled with tons of God stories from around the globe as we are all reminded just how blessed we are to serve a loving God who does great things in spite of us.