Interview with Anthony McCormick
On Monday, October 21, I had the pleasure of interviewing Pastor Anthony McCormick of The Journey Church, a Contemporary Christian Church based in New York City. He is the Pastor of the Worship Arts and has been leading worship for about 16 years, including his recent years at The Journey. The Worship Arts team that he leads has many different teams, for example, the writing team, production team, and design team. He studied the arts in college and explores various types of art forms, including music, theater, and visual. Pastor Anthony plays both the piano and the guitar, and places emphasis on infusing the arts with worship because religion and art are connected in various different ways.
What is your role at The Journey Church?
My official title is the Worship Arts Pastor, so what that means is that I give leadership to all the artists; all the technical people that help make our services, the technical creative aspects of our services, happen. Uhm, and I also give pastoral leadership to that too, so if they have needs that are outside of the realm of creativity then I give them, you know, Pastoral care counseling and those sorts of things.
What drew you towards Worship Arts?
Well I’ve been at The Journey going four years, uh and my dad was a Pastor growing up, so he was like a Senior Pastor, so I was always exposed to the, uh, Christian aspect of ministry. Uhm, but I was really, I was drawn to the arts just because I just felt like, you know, I love singing, I loved the creative side of things, even as a kid. So, I also loved ministry, I loved helping people and love working with people, and so it was a perfect combination at the same time.
Was art always your passion?
Not always. I always liked to sing, uhm music, that sort of thing, not that I was always any good at it. But I liked sports too, you know, just like any other kid. I was really into sports, really into baseball. Baseball was a passion of mine too as a kid.
Is there a certain aspect of the Worship Arts that you find most appealing, or do you just like everything?
Well, I can’t play favorites. I mean, just because I’m a creative person and I lead creative people that doesn’t mean that I’m good at all the creative, you know, elements or anything that’s creative. But I can definitely appreciate any kind of creativity. You know, I’m not a painter, but I can appreciate a great painting. I’m not an actor by no means, but I can really appreciate somebody who is. Uh, it can be somebody who sings or a writer. I’m not a great writer, but I can really appreciate somebody that’s written a great piece. So, I like just anything that’s creative that allows people to express the way that they feel. Maybe it’s a political point of view or maybe it’s a spiritual point of view, but any way that people express creatively, the way that they feel passionately about something I can really appreciate.
Why did you choose to become a Pastor?
Well, I think to be a Pastor and to do it long term, I mean there’s down sides to being a Pastor, there’s up sides to being a Pastor, so I think that you definitely have to have a sense of calling. I think that in just about any field I think people that stick with it for the long term are people that feel like that it was they were born to do. And for me, I feel that way. I feel like this is what I was born to do; I feel like this is what God called me to do with my life. Then I feel that the Litmus test for that is, if you can see yourself doing anything else, then you should go try it and do something else. But, you know, I can’t envision myself doing anything else other than ministry, being a Pastor. Uh, and then being able to be involved with creative people is just like extra, you know, it’s a bonus that I’m able to do that because it’s something I’m passionate about. But, definitely what has kept be and what made me decide to be a Pastor is that deep sense of calling.
How do you instill art into your Church teachings?
I mean, we are all creative at some level. Some people, they inaccurately label creativity as the arts. You can be creative and not have any of those outward expressions of art. So I think that a lot of the things that we do, whether that’s the sermon or it be somebody running a computer to help put something on a screen, that’s art. I think everything that we do we really infuse our message with creativity. We infuse our message with the arts so that people who are and aren’t artistic can really appreciate that. And I think that I enhances the message that you have, it makes it more understandable, I mean our culture, we are an entertainment culture, so we understand things when we see it on the screen, we understand things when we hear it in a song, when we see it put creatively even though we are not creative ourselves. We can understand the message more clearly when it’s put that way. And so, everything that we do has some element of creativity, some element of the arts inside of it. So anything you see our Church do it usually starts with the idea and we come up with a creative way to portray that idea.
