Joe Miller: 0:00

When did you formally let go of your career as a chemical engineer Process engineer.

Justin Chan: 0:06

That was when I was challenged to do full-time ministry in my church and of course I dove into the deep end with that move because I had no idea why I was like working in church the question that comes up often, because when you take your foot out of the old comfortable place that you were, there's a letting go, releasing.

Joe Miller: 0:25

that occurs as you then move forward into your new direction. And how did you deal with that? I mean, was there some trepidation? Was there some concern or fear? I hear you, lord, but is this a crazy move?

Justin Chan: 0:38

I can assure you it was 100% trepidation and it's worse.

Joe Miller: 0:42

Really happy to have Justin Chan with me here on Titans of Transition. Hey, justin, justin is a worship guitarist. I'm kind of on a roll here with doing interviews for musicians and talking about their transition stories and their lessons learned. I came across Justin because I play a guitar in my church as well and follow a number of different people on YouTube, and I just really appreciated his work and his spirit. So he'll be joining us from Singapore. Justin, why don't you tell us just a little bit about what you currently do? Tell us a little bit about Singapore and life in Singapore.

Justin Chan: 1:21

Sure, joe. Hi Joe and hi everyone this podcast. I'm Justin. I'm from Singapore. Singapore is a tiny island that is at the very bottom of Malaysia. So if you know where Malaysia is, that V shape kind of like a peninsula, it's right at the bottom. You can't even see it on a regular scale map. You got to scale down and see, oh there's a tiny island right there and Singapore is a city state, it's very much a metropolis. There's no such thing as countryside living here. So all of us live in dense, high density, high rise apartments and because of that we're all maybe a bit high strung, a bit more stressed out.

Justin Chan: 2:00

And, as you can possibly tell, I don't speak Chinese, even though I look like I'm Chinese. My Chinese is terrible and that's probably characteristic of some of us here. There's a minority of us here who quite quote, unquote, westernized in our music choices, in our life choices. So my favorite books are you know I can name Western, western authors and Western music as my favorite media bit very little Chinese stuff, negligible. And I am currently at the Methodist School of Music. It is a that's my day job. So YouTube is not my full time thing, even though I wish it were.

Justin Chan: 2:34

My YouTube channel is Electric Guitarist doing worship ministry and that is an outflow from my day job in the Methodist School of Music and that is I curate, design, implement training programs for church musician teams. So if anyone needs to do band dynamics, I'm the guy they call. If anyone wants to plan a course on how to integrate the electric guitar into a worship team, I'm the guy that they will call and the worship? The Methodist School of Music is comprised of basically two arms. That's the general music arm, which they teach piano, violin, abrsm, which is like the, you know, the standard qualification body for music. Then you've got the worship music side, which is me and my, my department and my, my colleagues, and we all are involved in some way or form of training the church in Singapore and even though it's there's Methodist in the name we are. We cater to anyone, any church in Singapore, who wants to level up their worship ministry.

Joe Miller: 3:32

Oh, that's great. I'm sure we have people joining us who may not be that familiar with church music and church ministry. In my last interview with John Corte we touched on it a little bit and I was surprised you know, happily, but surprised that he had spent some time playing in church as well. So we may want to take some time and, and you know, later on in this podcast and talk about the differences and the similarities in playing in a group in the church versus playing in sort of a normal secular kind of a band or something like that and you've played in bands too, it's not like you haven't done that, so as well. So, but the main focus of this podcast is really talking about life and career transitions. So why don't we start off, if it's okay, and kind of get a sense on how you landed in this current role at this music school and you know doing what you're doing?

Justin Chan: 4:26

It's a long and windy road and, thanks to Joe, sounds like a.

Joe Miller: 4:30

Paul McCartney song Long and windy road.

Justin Chan: 4:34

Sucking. You said that. Second, I said that I thought that song too. So, yes, it is a long and windy road, but the Cliff Notes version and possibly and hopefully the five minute version of the story is that I arrived here as a result of a few key events in my life that that pushed me towards number one full time ministry and number two music in ministry. Specifically, all along as I was growing up, my dream was to become the next rock star, rock musician, and I always dreamt and even now it's still a dream of playing on stage in a band and making music and so just to interrupt you just a second, what like Joe Satriani and others like that?

Justin Chan: 5:22

Oh man, I was convinced I was going to be the next John Prichucci and an Asian theater. Yeah, I was. Yeah, I was in a. I was actually in a dream theater cover band at one point in time and I was, yeah, and I, and that was pre-YouTube and pre-recording days. So like there's like almost zero evidence of me having done that could be a good thing. I have to take all the songs and slow it down by, like you know, to 15%. Yeah, so I had childhood dreams of being a rock star and musician and as I was growing up and being in an Asian household, the general advice that my parents were comfortable with and the trajectory that they were comfortable with was if I could get a normal day job and work on music as a side. And that was the life plan to get a degree, to get an undergraduate and something and then work at music on the side. But something happened getting the full-time day job, and that was in Singapore.

Justin Chan: 6:13

Before we go to higher education, all Singaporean males have to serve two years in national service, and between junior college and university, that is, or at least between the two phases of education, there's like a six-month gap between when you end school and when you start national service. And for me, I was due to enter national service but I still had a six-month kind of like lag time, of like just downtime. I was totally free During that time. My church friends they were part of an organization called Singapore Youth for Christ, and Singapore Youth for Christ is a paratroop organization. They are not affiliated with any church but they are comprised of staff and volunteers whose main goal is to do outreach to youth and youth programs. And then and Youth for Christ, there are basically two ways that they run programs. If there's the school-based ministries, which they do direct outreach in the schools, and then they've got interest-based outreach, which is they've got different groups that cater to different like ministry points. So, for example, the sports ministry, so they get sporty people to come in.

Justin Chan: 7:30

I was invited to attend a program at the Performing Arts Ministry, performing arts ministry, so it's a. They call it ProjectServe. It's a three to six month program where you take on it's like an internship you go in and you are treated and you perform as the same duties as a full-time staff would at the at Sigour Yufa Christ, and so for three to six months I ended up staying there for the whole six months duration. I did the stint there in ProjectServe and basically we the main goal of that program, the main highlight, I should say, is that you can they plan and organize an evangelistic concert using radio songs and they craft a gospel message based on the radio songs.

Justin Chan: 8:13

And so that was my first exposure to seeing that music can be used for purposes other than self-expression and creative expression. And I was number one blown away by that connection between music. And I think at the point in time seeds were being sown in my heart to start desiring more of this kind of meaningful connections and this kind of meaningful work, because I started to see that music was more than just self-expression, more than just cutting your own albums and making it big.

Joe Miller: 8:44

So, justin, so going into this, this gap period leading up to your internship with Yufa Christ, did you have some career direction in mind at that time?

Justin Chan: 8:55

Yes, yes, because actually by that time I already had a degree. I did my path was slightly inverted that most people go to junior college than army, and so before going to army, and actually before going to Yufa Christ, I already had a degree in chemical engineering and process technology. So actually, when you mentioned pharmaceuticals and chemical chemists, I can totally relate, because I was in pharmaceutical manufacturing for two years, you know, as part of the day job, as it was.

Joe Miller: 9:23

So there, you go Okay, let's get back on track. You had done this internship and you felt like it really resonated with you at that point in time. Is that that? I read that?

Justin Chan: 9:33

Yes yes, In a nutshell, that happened. That was the. That was the aha moment where I could see that music could be meaningfully used and it gave me a sense of deeper purpose, that I was engaging in in not just creative expression, but creative expression with a purpose, if you know what I mean. That was a Yufa Christ. And that was part one.

Justin Chan: 9:54

Actually, part two of the story is doing my national service, I actually got injured. Both my wrists have genetically weak ligaments, so these ligaments, central ligament inside these wrists they will tear and they were torn during my time in national service. It was so injured, they were so badly injured that my technique was basically erased. All those years that I spent, you know, playing up dream theater chops, it was gone. I couldn't play guitar. It was one percent of the ability that I had.

Justin Chan: 10:26

That was the, that process of being broken down and it forced me to examine my outlook in life and basically I felt that the question was asked to me who am I without music? Or who am I without a guitar? If, if God would take away the guitar from me, how would I survive, you know, would I survive? And and the honest answer at that point in time, when the first happened was that I felt lost and I felt that it was all doing gloom. For quite a while actually and by God's grace he healed my wrists. I can't play as fast as that anymore, but doing that process of being broken down and and relearning my technique, that was the opportunity for me to look at what else God has given me and God gave has given me to do and to explore those options and doing that phase. And actually these these events occurred almost back to back, because I did my internship at youth for Christ, then I went into army and then got injured, so that was a whole period of okay, if everything's going to be stripped down, what else can I do? I was challenged to go to church and.

Justin Chan: 11:25

I obeyed whatever prompting was given to me, and that was exploring. That was the period exploring Okay, if I'm not going to be a musician, maybe I could be a pastor. And and as long story short, it became quite clear that I was better suited to work in other areas of ministry other than being a pastor in the Methodist Church in Singapore, and because of that I was freed up to enter seminary. So I did three years of seminary. I got a theological degree, a master's of divinity, and during that time I interned at the Methodist School of Music, because they I have a few education and requirement to fulfill as part of my degree, and that was the time that my current boss now gave me the opportunity to teach causes there. She gave me free reign to design and teach.

Justin Chan: 12:15

I believe it was like three to four Saturdays of electric guitar workshop and, and of course that was something that that we've compiled and packaged it now at the Methodist School of Music, but back then it was the first time they ever did that in that current format anyway, and I felt, wow, this is something I felt at home. I thought this is like something that really marries my interest and passion in music, my alignment with wanting to do this for purpose and for for a greater purpose, and I don't have to play as fast as Job Jiu-Jitsu to serve in this capacity. And so, in a nutshell, this is where I felt like the job fit right like a glove.

Justin Chan: 12:57

My boss really wanted me there. There were no obstructions to getting in, no one was telling me that this was a bad idea, and everyone who saw that move said that, yeah, this is totally what Justin would do, and and and so you had some some uncle external validation. Yes, yes, yes. So this was a good place for you, yeah.

Justin Chan: 13:18

Well, my well, my classmates were all. They were graduating, they were going back to the churches to work as full-time staff or to go on to become ordained pastors. They look at me and and we're with mine path into Methodist school music and they said, yeah, that's, that's totally what you should be doing, like you know, don't let let us be the pastors. We need more people like you to go into to this, because there's only one of you that's like so many of us.

Joe Miller: 13:43

Right, Right. So when did you formally let go of your career as a chemical engineer? Process engineer.

Justin Chan: 13:51

That was when I was challenged to do full-time ministry in my church. I felt, I felt that prompting to serve in my church, even though I I wasn't. I didn't know exactly what that would entail and of course I I dove into the deep end with that move because I had no idea why I was like working in church and and that really opened my eyes and and and good and bad ways, I suppose.

Joe Miller: 14:10

Yeah, I it's, it's. It's a question that comes up often because people they sort of keep one foot in both worlds, which isn't a bad thing, as you sort of test the waters, but when you take your foot out of the old comfortable place that you were, when maybe you were making good salary, you know what it takes to be successful and you there's a letting go.

Joe Miller: 14:33

It was a releasing. That occurs as you then move forward into your new direction, so sometimes that can be a big challenge. How did you deal with that? I mean, was there some trepidation? Was there some concern or fear? I hear you, lord, but is this a crazy move?

Justin Chan: 14:49

I can assure you it was 100% trepidation and it's worse as an Asian kid in an Asian household but prompted me to take up to obey.

Justin Chan: 14:58

The call to take up challenge was number one I felt the burden do a lot more in church and with a lot more of my time than I could afford as part-time, as an engineer. And number two there were people who provided support and gave me the assurance that they would support me going to church and the key person was my then-girlfriend now my wife. Back then, even before we started the courtship season, the day that I told her that I wanted to get serious with her, I told her that I was eventually going to full-time ministry. And are you okay with that? And it was okay. If you're not okay with it, you have the opportunity to walk away. She didn't walk away and she said that she would support me and she even incorporated that she would support me in full-time ministry even in our wedding vows. And to this day, that is still the number one call memory for me and it still gives me that drive each and every day that I'm doing this on this crazy journey of full-time ministry.

Joe Miller: 16:01

Together and I will drop in the show notes a link to your video that prompted me actually to reach out to you to request an interview with you, justin, where you honored your wife and thanked her for her support. That was very touching. That kind of partnership is wonderful and I can speak for myself kind of in the retirement years and how many years I put my wife through all kinds of crazy situations, changing jobs and moving across our country of the US and so having that partnership is really valuable, that consideration as well. So there was kind of a aha moment that you exposed it. There was an epiphany where you said, wow, this is really good, I really like this, this is it, and then moving forward from that pretty much full steam ahead, I guess right.

Justin Chan: 16:57

Yes, that's right.

Joe Miller: 16:58

So what can we pivot now and talk about what's life like for you? So what's your typical day? What does it look like? Obviously, if you're working in the church, there is a schedule every week. I know I'm on the worship team of my church, so you know I work on the music leading up to rehearsal times and, of course, there's the actual worship service or services on Sunday morning. So, as someone who's part of that or leading that, you have additional requirements to get ahead of things, and I know from my background but others may not know what your day is like. And then, if you can bring in this part, this YouTube part, because you're putting out a lot of material to serve other worship musicians and worship guitarists, electric guitarists as well so tell us a little bit about your job and what that's like and then bring in the whole YouTube thing and what you bring.

Justin Chan: 18:00

Okay, work in metastical music is seasonal. It depends on quite a few things. Number one the seasons, with the church, with calendar. Normally we have concerts that we plan and execute at various churches. So we have an advent concert, we have a Christmas concert, we have a Lent concert and we have like a Good Friday, easter sort of like concerts. So those and those concerts can appear in various forms. The one that is most prominent is we have a volunteer choir to perform with those concerts, and I say concert but it's really like a theme to service.

Justin Chan: 18:35

And even though I said that my job discussion is to design, curate and implement band training, I'm very much involved in the other side. My music performance side is can be in these concerts because I play guitar for these concerts. I'll arrange some music for these concerts. So those are for the key events and but the day to day job, when inquiry from church comes in let's say a church wants to do band training I would have to plan out when is the best time for me to go in and sit in with their rehearsals. Number one sit in with their band meetings, if they do have band meetings outside of rehearsals and that can take up several Saturdays at a go, and so there was a period like for some reason, a lot of churches are very free and like toward the end of year, like October, so there was one October, november.

Justin Chan: 19:24

Every single Saturday I was in, I was in either one or two churches working hand in hand with them. So I like to work with specialty training so I don't I try to do like generic training so I just cater specifically to that church and so that's a lot of hand holding as a lot of direct involvement with the church. So I would sit in with their rehearsal, I would then teach and implement some band training techniques with that particular worship team or the worship ministry, depending on how whether they want a whole ministry wide thing or they just want band tuition for one band as a word and then I would watch their worship service. Right now, because of the pandemic, every church has the ability to record their services and so I would review their footage and I'll watch or take notes and I'll have a post Sunday meeting with the band to tell them what they did right or they did wrong, what can they improve, and that whole process from pre band meeting to post Sunday meeting can be four or five Saturdays for one church, and so there are times I've had two or three churches are working concurrently and that, yeah, that takes up a lot of weekends.

Justin Chan: 20:33

Aside from that, we also have some causes that we run independent of like this kind of training. So we have like a cause we would run every last Saturday of the month for six months and we call that the certificate of Christian, certificate in Christian worship, and I would take the, the musician track of training the bands there. So every last Saturday of the month I've got one class that I would teach and, of course, if any church wants to do a seminar, they want to do a weekend of training, I would avail myself to teach at that church.

Joe Miller: 21:07

So it's very much like a consultancy. Yes, you can say that so yeah, and it's not just the face to face time but like any other consultancy, you have to do your research to understand where they are. Oh, yeah, yeah, what their as is is what their to be is pretty much, pretty much pretty much Indigo right Indeed, and how YouTube fits into all of this is during the pandemic.

Justin Chan: 21:33

a lot of the audio and video production skills were learned right then, because when we suddenly couldn't meet up face to face, I had to pivot and work entirely to produce digital content like video seminars, zoom, conferences, and so a lot of these skills of what does good video look like, how does good audio sound like, how do you mix it live. The early days of the pandemic, when we had to do like total lockdown in Singapore, I was mixing. I was producing worship music videos for church, at least two to three a week. So I had to, I had to, I had to collate everyone's home recordings. I had to mix the audio and get a good mix out of that. So mixing, mastering, the whole engineering process and then after that produce the video where they would film themselves at home and stitching it together. And then you know right then. And then I learned video editing.

Joe Miller: 22:31

So some of these were all stitched together. They weren't like just the worship team in the room with masks or something recorded. You had to piece these together.

Justin Chan: 22:42

Yeah, we couldn't even go into church so we oh my gosh, that's what a challenge. Yeah. So we we got a chance to see what everyone's houses look like, what everyone's bedroom look like, for a period and, yeah, that season really boosted my video and audio production skills and I thought, well, this might be a time to really take my channel seriously and with. I've always wanted to be an educational channel, I wanted to teach, and one of the outlets where I can do anything I want and for anything I wanted to talk about, deep dive into subjects that would be considered too nerdy to do live. I can do it on YouTube and I guess I'm thankful that there is an audience that people are watching and can geek out with me with my gear and my tech stuff. And I have tried to do technique stuff as well, like guitar technique stuff, but I just haven't had the time to to really write out tabs and to like, like, like, go through the exercise I really want to do that I don't have.

Joe Miller: 23:41

Yeah, well, in your situation, since you are working at the school I mean I'm producing course and curriculum and delivering and doing consulting it's a different mix than some some guitarists on YouTube, where it's really more about monetization and that sort of their full time job so they can justify writing tabs and other things you might want to, but it's a lot of work.

Justin Chan: 24:04

It is, it is.

Joe Miller: 24:05

Yeah, it's interesting, and when I asked the question at the very beginning of this segment, I completely misspoke and said you know going into the church, but of course you're at the school and so the work you're doing at your own church is voluntary, I imagine. Yes, yes, my worship leading, so you have that too.

Justin Chan: 24:24

Yes, I've got that too. And the fun thing about YouTube, I guess, is that because I'm deep diving to all this gear, I'm able to take some of this deep diving and implement it in church. So I didn't get, you know, I wouldn't have a chance to use Ableton live on stage if not for the the, you know, if not for me having to sit down and figure out okay, how am I going to use my Helix as an Ableton live controller? And then research, figure out, then come out with a script and then film it. You know, film it, teach it and then get it recorded. It's teaching myself first, I think, with YouTube. So YouTube it's a. I guess it's the cathartic in that I get to teach what I want to teach, but it's also I get to train myself in the things that I talk about.

Joe Miller: 25:08

Yes, absolutely, because you have mine, you want to bring this out, and so, in order to bring it out, you have to do your preparation for those episodes and or you know it can be I'm going to learn this and I'm going to bring my YouTube audience along along my journey what I discover and what works in that context.

Joe Miller: 25:26

So, in terms of the transitions then and I think we got a little bit about your YouTube channel and I will put in the notes obviously links to that, because I think, it's a great resource for those who are listening, who are on worship teams, who are leading worship there's a lot of great insights and for just general musicians and guitarists who are interested in certain types of gear. I know you spend a lot of time with Helix platform, which is very popular, so people probably find you just doing searches on those devices and it's great content. But in terms of the transitions you've gone through, what kind of lessons have come out? If you were going to this is my advice to your younger self question If you were to turn the clock back, Justin, based upon the paths that you've gone on and the transitions you've made, what advice would you have to others?

Justin Chan: 26:19

I think the number one advice I would give to at least people considering full-time ministry and full-time music ministry is that be prepared that music is only one part of the equation. And I say that because it's a bit of a root shock to you take on a job or you take on a position and suddenly realize that you've got to not just, I guess, perform your role as a musician or consultant, but also you have to balance budgets, need to write reports and you need to defend your decisions regarding why you bought equipment A versus equipment B. All this, as you would call it, red tape. Sooner we embrace that notion that ministry is more than just music.

Justin Chan: 27:03

Ministry is also administration. It's also having to be faithful in these things. It depends on the situation you're in and depends on the context you're in. The sooner you realize that there is a level of administration to embrace, not just plow through on or not just. Like you know, I have to just survive this. If you embrace it and if you try to internalize and get it past part of your internal system, that will go down a lot faster and a lot easier. You won't have those days where you bang your head on the wall saying, why do I have? Why do?

Justin Chan: 27:34

I balance budgets, or like why don't you provide three quotations? Or like you know that and do that kind of head begging when I'm called to be a musician or I'm called to be someone to to bless the congregation with you are blessing people, brace, that you're part of the overall team of this organization and not just in this one area.

Joe Miller: 27:56

Other things that come to mind. You know we talked a little bit about knowing that you were making the right move. And how did you? How did you know?

Justin Chan: 28:04

I think there are two factors to also so some advice also is to open your eyes to both external and internal confirmations. The internal confirmation, of course, is after your prayer, after your devotion to the Lord, your quiet time. Where do you sense him leading you towards? Sometimes his voice isn't easy to discern with all the background climber going around. The external validation is also quite important.

Justin Chan: 28:30

If you feel that you're going in a certain direction and everyone says that that's a bad idea, it probably is a bad idea as much as we try to claim the verse. You know I can do all things to Christ who strengthens me. That's not what the verse is trying to tell you. So external confirmation is an important thing. I would have probably listened to my closer friends when they told me that maybe being a pastor wasn't a good fit for you and maybe my process would have been faster if I had heeded that advice, because it wasn't just one person, it was a couple of people already telling that to me, not just my pastor in charge, but, you know, my pastor overseeing me and a few of my colleagues who were in the same church office, and the more that added up, you know I thought it was just, you know, it was just opposition.

Justin Chan: 29:14

You know, I thought, it was just I thought it was just like I gotta prove them wrong, you know, and maybe there is wisdom in listening to that kind of feedback and that kind of like external non-confirmation, as it were.

Joe Miller: 29:26

You know, I think this is really. I appreciate transparency, because I think there oftentimes people get a little stuck here because what's not being said is that you, you couldn't be skilled in certain aspects of a role. You could be very skilled in it, right. People can get very confused by this situation and get the ability overlapping with the concept of a gift, right, they're not the same. I mean, in my experience, having gifting in a certain area will make it maybe easier for you to then develop the skills, but they're not the same and you can be very successful as you lean into your skill set.

Joe Miller: 30:08

When I was heading IT and I did well, you know, but it wasn't really the technology part of the job that lit me up, as I'm sure that you probably have a similar analogy it was other things. It was really dealing with people, it was managing change. Those are really more the gifts, and gifts don't necessarily fall within a particular job description. So it may not be that you have the confirmation to becoming a pastor, but certain aspects of what's important in being a pastor being a shepherd, being an encourager I see those in you. I see them in the content in your YouTube videos and in your heart, so I'm sure they're there. That doesn't mean those giftings can't be used in a completely different setting.

Joe Miller: 30:53

Yes, you're right, and I think we have this paradigm of job and role. This is part of the journey and I think this is what makes it a little bit tough at times for us to discern. And, as you said, you get that internal confirmation through the spirit. We get that internal confirmation in our hearts but it really is looking at skills, looking at gifting, looking at our passions which really is kind of our response. Do we say this is the right place, this I can get excited about. This May I share something about internal confirmation.

Justin Chan: 31:30

Sometimes, I think, we try to hear a distinct voice of God saying you must do this. And I think, the more mature we've become, I think the more God wants us to make responsible choices for ourselves, and that sometimes he doesn't specifically say you are going to do this, but he lets you be aware and makes you cognizant of. You have these skills, these giftings. I want you to make a responsible choice, to do something that honors me, and I think too many of us wait for the audible voice of God when God is trying to tell us like everything that you do for me can be used for my glory. So just do one thing, just pick something and run with it. And so, yeah, another piece of advice I will give my younger self, that is don't wait too long on the Lord. Sometimes he wants you to make a decision for yourself.

Joe Miller: 32:25

Yeah, years ago I was engaged with a Christian coach and I was struggling over a decision and he pointed me to a reference of an author who, basically, was struggling with making a choice and she actually came to the point where she just said and prayed God, just stop me, if this is wrong, because I'm not hearing anything clearly, but I'm being drawn towards it, rather than the other way around, to your point, waiting for the blinding light. We've already been told through Scripture, we've been given general guidance and we can test our direction against what's already been revealed to us. So we have that as a guide too. One of the recurring themes, justin, that's come through many of my conversations is this comfort zone challenge, where we're kind of wired for safety and we may be drawn or heart-made pulling us forward.

Joe Miller: 33:22

We may be seeing, feeling a call, but we may pause, we may overanalyze, we may get into paralysis by analysis because, we're so afraid of making a mistake, or so afraid of what the other voices around us would say, that we don't take that kind of a leap and we don't trust that it'll be okay. You could always readjust if it isn't quite right. We're just afraid of leaving that comfort zone at times. So, anyway, I'll get off my stump.

Justin Chan: 33:51

Well, I mean to quickly draw back Scripture. I mean, moses was 80 years old and God called him to do something different with his life. The biggest career switch 80 years old.

Joe Miller: 34:00

And lately with Moses I've thought about. Another piece of advice I've heard is get off the outcome and focus more on. As you say, step out and do it, but because Moses' ultimate outcome was he wanted to enter the Promised Land. It never happened and think about how revered he was in the Jewish faith and as Christians as well, but he never entered. That was something that he didn't get to do, but in so many other ways he did what he needed it to be doing. So anyway, that's great. I would like to be able to sort of pivot and just wrap up a little bit more about how people can reach you. Do you have any future projects or things you're working on you think might be of interest? So this is your time.

Justin Chan: 34:48

Sure, sure, you can find me at all about worship guitar, that the handle is at all about worship guitar, all spent in one phrase, no special symbols whatsoever. I'm thankful. I'm very thankful that no one else has gotten that handle yet. So I'm quite easy to find. On social media it's all about worship guitar on YouTube, instagram and, I believe, facebook too. I'm quite a negligent about Facebook stuff because it's just too many platforms to consider, but with YouTube I am in this phase of doing other kinds of gear, if you're not just on Helix. So Helix has been one major it's the biggest draw of my channel, I suppose. But I've been drawn to look at other kinds of more budget friendly kind of gear and hopefully I can come up with some content that aligns with people's interest in finding gear options of a certain price point. That's ideas in a pipeline. I also do want to have some some more technique videos, so I am working in a pipeline to. One of the videos that I'm really excited about is how to play acoustic guitar. Well, I don't know about you guys in the US, but in Singapore and Singaporean churches every church guitarist has this notion of like. You must have like. Choose one or four strong starting patterns to insert into the song, and sometimes that doesn't work Most of the time it doesn't work. So I do want to create a series of videos of demonstrating how do you develop the instinct to groove with the song on your acoustic guitar. That's, but yeah, that's pipeline project.

Justin Chan: 36:18

I'm also involved in producing music. Because of the pandemic, I've had the opportunity to really dig deep and and hone my engineering chops. So I I have a couple of EPs up on my Spotify profile, so if you, if you search for, I think I might give you the link to put in the show, the show notes description. Yeah, I'm on Spotify, I'm on Apple Music, I believe, and it's basically music that I've really wanted Like it's 20 years too late, I guess. I always wanted to do my own music and never had a chance to. So with the pandemic and learning how to do it, I'm like you know what I'm just going to put out? Music that I've wanted to put out, and my burden has always been to to present hymns in a more contemporary light, and so I have reharmonized a lot of hymns and hymn texts, basically taking a hymn text that no one's done before, no one's sung, put it into, I put it into that and and that's, that's part of my music projects and I've got a few more.

Joe Miller: 37:14

So you put different melodies under these hymn texts.

Justin Chan: 37:17

Yes, yes, so, yes, so there are. Of course I don't touch the famous ones, the famous ones, everyone, you know, everyone has an opinion. You know, like you cannot touch amazing grace or like, unless you're Chris Tomlin, but I'm not. So I do have reharmonized hymns and it's a fun way to answer the question how do I play a hymn with a full band? And that was one that's a burden in my church, at least in my church context, like whenever people's, whenever a band encounters a hymn, they go like, oh, why don't we just let the pianist play it, let the organist play it, we don't need to play it. No man, everyone can play it in a hymn. So that's my attempt to modernize and to show people hey, you know, you guys can actually play a hymn in a rock band format, and that's that's personal project of mine.

Joe Miller: 38:03

Yeah, that can be a little risky at times. Which I was at in California a worship leader, Nancy back in the day, everyone was playing Lord, I lift your name on high. Every church was playing that right and the same way constantly. And we did one Sunday, without telling the senior pastor, we did that song for verses and each verse was a different style. We did the traditional style first, then we switched to, I think, country, I think we did jazz and then reggae or something like that, and it was so much fun for the musicians I don't know how much the senior pastor appreciated it, but it was a blast.

Joe Miller: 38:41

Is there have people who can do that, and she and some of the musicians. I was just pleased to be on the stage with them and be able to.

Justin Chan: 38:48

Is there a recording of this? I hope there's a recording I can see.

Joe Miller: 38:51

I don't think so. I mean, I don't think I could get to it.

Justin Chan: 38:55

I mean the gears on my. Anyway, that's my homo later on.

Joe Miller: 38:59

This has been so much fun talking to you, justin. Thank you so much for being on the podcast. I really appreciate it and folks please do check those links out and follow up with Justin If you have an interest. Appreciate your heart, brother.

Justin Chan: 39:11

Thank you, Joe.

Joe Miller: 39:12

And let's do stay in touch.

Justin Chan: 39:14

Let's do. God bless you.

Joe Miller: 39:17

Hey, thanks for joining me today on Titans of Transition. I hope you enjoyed the episode. Please check the show notes for additional information.