You just can’t pin down Carlos Whittaker--musically, geographically, vocationally, you name it. As a self-described “experience architect,” Whittaker believes that it’s not only his joy to participate in many different arenas of the Church, but it’s his God-given duty as an artist.

The world knows Whittaker through his conversation-starting, multi-faceted blog, “Ragamuffin Soul,” as well as his appearances on L.A. Ink and YouTube--where he famously and hilariously told his son that he couldn’t sing Beyonce’s “Single Ladies” because he wasn’t a single lady.

The Church knows him via the blog and his worship pastoring at Sandals Church in Riverside, Calif., Buckhead Church in Atlanta and most recently Cross Point Church in Nashville. He also has been part of the Catalyst Conference tribe, which provides inspiration and equipping to thousands of church leaders across the U.S. and beyond.

With his second widespread release, Fight (read our review), Whittaker takes his incredible and authentic songwriting talents and meshes them with some of the most cutting edge sounds in worship music today. The synths, beats and guitars all provide the backdrop to a record that's full of encouragement and perspective regarding the daily fights we all face.

I caught up with Carlos Whittaker during one of his special live video chats, "The Fight Club Sessions," which he gave while at the Catalyst Conference. Normally, Carlos is the man asking the questions, but he graciously gave me the run of his show to catch up with him and to learn more about the Fight record and this season of his life.

I began by asking him about one of NRT’s April Fool’s Day “stories” that featured him arranging an MMA fight to promote his album.

We had a bit of fun on April Fool’s Day, didn’t we, Carlos?

I almost called my manager and was like, “Hey, um, am I like gonna fight somebody?” But what’s funny is that there’s been a couple people on Twitter that never got that it was a joke. Two days ago, there was a guy on Twitter that said, “Hey man, if you’re still looking for somebody to fight, I’m available.” So I thought that was really funny.

Stranger things certanly have happened.

That was awesome.

Well, we're getting very excited about Fight. It's been a long time coming! So, the last time we talked, we were at Creation Festival, and you were living in Atlanta. Tell us, for people who are just catching up with you again, what's changed for you since then? 

I moved from Atlanta to Nashville, Tennessee, to be a part of a community called Cross Point Community Church. I'm not on staff--they have a fantastic staff--but I just love the church and what they’ve got going on there, and I wanted to be a part of that. It’s just a great movement that’s happening in Nashville. And so I moved to Nashville, and I lead worship there. I’m part of the local church there. I also travel, I lead worship full time, and I speak, and I’ve got a book coming out next year. So a lot of things have really changed for me as far as going from church staff guy to being a sort of full-time global church staff guy.

That's a big switch. Are you still sort of keeping into the whole renaissance man thing, the "experience architect" thing?

Whenever you don't know what it is you do, just say you're an "experience architect." That's what I do! And so for me, yeah, I get to architect experiences. Even here at Catalyst, I'm part of architecting the experience of what happens here. Sundays at my church with my buddy, Stephen Brewster, I get to help architect the experience there. On my blog I get to help architect the experience people have there, as well as with my music and with the book that’s coming out next year.

I love the fact that I don’t just do one thing. I feel like God has really crafted a lot of people--even more people than are doing it--to kind of be a jack of all trades, and to do more than just one thing. A lot of times a church will paint us into a corner, like yeah, you’re a music guy, so this is your corner. I love to tell churches and church leaders, “Hey listen, don’t paint your creatives into a corner, because they’ve got a lot more they can offer.”

Yeah. Now, you mentioned a book. I hadn't heard that a book is coming. Tell me about that.

That's new! What I can tell you--I can’t tell you everything--is I’ve signed to a major Christian publisher. What’s funny is that my blog has kind of always been the thing that’s led people to me. More people than listen to my music, more people than who’ll hear me speak, more people than who will watch me create experiences read me. They’re reading what I write. And so for most people, I’ve sort of always been an author to them--even if it’s an author of three paragraphs. So it’s been a long time coming. I’ve had opportunities to write books forever, but I finally feel I’ve gotten to the place where I know the book that I want to write. I won’t tell you the title of it yet, and a couple things are still in the works, but it’s really about why I think people are attracted to my blog. And it’s about, instead of letting life happen to you, you happening to life, and just being very intentional about that. So I’m pretty excited about it.

So Fight is the record. You've talked about how people are fighting, all the people out there who are fighting for their jobs and marriages and stuff like that. What's the fight that you're currently experiencing as a worship leader, father and husband? Where are you on that?

You know, I’ve got a thousand fights and I never want to shy away from admitting the fights I’m in. You know, a great one right now is my voice. I lost my voice on Thursday. It is now Tuesday; this is longer than my voice has ever been gone. There’s a battle going on in my head right now that my voice is never gonna come back. There’s a battle going on in my head right now.

What I have to do every single day is say, “OK, God, what if you do take my voice away? It looks like you’re in control. So if you’re truly in control, God, then I am out of control, and this is all yours." And I have to kind of keep telling myself that on a daily basis during this last week.

So, really the battle hasn’t been about my voice this week; the battle has been about my mind. And I’d say the second battle that I’m in is this battle to be a great father. I'm watching my kids and watching the generation that’s coming up, and seeing just how accessible things are to them. One second they could be on the Disney Channel, and another second there could be something horrendous that they’re seeing on the Internet. So there's this fight in parenting. How much should I protect them, and how much do I sort of just let them grow into some things? Parenting is a big struggle; it’s a big fight. I love every second of it, but I definitely think that that’s the other big battle that I’m in right now.

Your new song "In the Arms"... I love it, because it's the first synth-pop kind of worship song that I've heard that's actually congregational. Is there a place for that in worship? Is there a place for that sort of sound coming into the church?

You know, that's a great question. I thought to myself when I was making this record that I can’t make the same-sounding worship record that’s coming out of every single church. In stretching towards a lot of this synth stuff, it’s going to make a lot of people uncomfortable, and make a lot of people think, "How can we do this?" But I look back 30 years ago and that's the exact same conversation they were having when the electric guitars came in. Everybody that was leading worship was doing it from a keyboard or an organ, and then the guitars came in and the rock band came in.

Well now all of the sudden you're starting to hear this synths sound like on the last Hillsong record that just came out. Luckily I got to work with a lot of guys who were involved with that project. You’ll actually hear a lot of similarities in what happened on their project and what happened on mine. And, again, a lot of the questions they’re getting: How are you guys going to do this live? What’s it going to look like? You just have to stretch yourself and continue to show that the Church isn’t going to just stop in their creativity, but God has made us the most creative people on the planet.

I think there’s room for it; I had to learn how to play the keyboard in order to come out with this record. So, myself, in my late 30s, pushing myself musically. I was just always on the acoustic guitar, and yet I know that the transition’s going to happen.

Now speaking of where things are moving, what are you seeing out there in the Church and in worship? What's happening?

I’m seeing the very produced, almost entertainment-style, very attractional model of church go away, slowly but surely. I’m seeing less moving lights. I’m seeing less haze. Whereas that’s fine, what I think churches are realizing is that we can’t impress them anymore. I think in the late '90s, we could really impress people, because the technology and that the Church was at a new place. I think what we’re realizing now is that production doesn’t impress as much as it used to, because people have such access to live shows to videos and things like that.

We’re transitioning out of that, and it’s a very healthy pendulum swing towards simplicity and trying for more authenticity. People just want something simpler. And I’m seeing a big back door getting wider, in a lot of the attractional model churches where people are escaping from that place. They’re going to Catholic churches, they’re going to Methodist churches, they’re going to places where it is so simple yet very reverent. I'm seeing a lot of that happening.

We just did an interview with Martin Smith and you're echoing a lot of what he was saying.

That’s awesome.

What are you most excited about at this time in your life?

I’ve hit a stage where I feel like I’m very good at my craft of leading worship. I feel like I’m very good at stepping onto a stage and ushering people into the presence of God. And so, since the Lord has kind of got me to this place, what I’m super excited about is pouring that back out onto younger worship leaders, pouring that out onto the next generation.