Should A Christian Musician Be a Music Ministery, Worship Leader, Music Teacher or CCM Superstar?

Linking to an article on Collide Magazine's website. The discussion is whether the Contemporary Christian Music industry will be viable in the future. It is a good discussion. I always wonder why our best musicians are not focusing on being worship leaders instead of performers. Well, maybe they are. There are a lot of different model of how to have a career in music. A minister of music is different than a worship leader in my book. The worship leader focuses on leading a band that leads the congregation in worship. The music minister coordinates music groups that perform at the church during worship. How do you do church music right? Is a successful music program at a church mean that everyone listens to the most popular music on Christian radio and then imitate those performers in various degrees of proficiency?

I'm quoting enough of Collide's article to get you started and a link to finish it out.

PREDICTIONS
Before we go much further, let’s establish what Charlie said. His complete essay, titled “The Future of Christian Music,” is currently available at www.ccmmagazine.com, but the five most important ideas Peacock put forward are:

* The major labels aren’t in danger of going under anytime soon, but they’ll be forced to depend on dwindling revenue from their song catalogs.
* The term CCM, or Christian Contemporary Music, will go away.
* Christian music that matters won’t have any affiliation with the Christian music industry but instead will be written, recorded, and released in the mainstream.
* Worship music serves a purpose within the Church, which guarantees its survival.
* The big names from CCM’s glory days (Michael W. Smith, Amy Grant, Steven Curtis Chapman, etc.) will survive, but many artists from the last decade will be left looking for a reason, roaming through the night to find their place in this world.

Those predictions fall short of blasphemy, but they were certainly controversial for those inside Christian music.


Read the rest by clicking through...

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

In The Hours

Image
In The Hours Words by Helen L. Parmelee Music by Kevin Twit http://www.igracemusic.com/hymnbook/lead/inthehours.pdf This song by Indelible Grace is one that really moves me. I think it moves me because it reminds me of my own story. The words remind me of God's work in my life through the blessing of suffering. A lot of my best days walking with my Lord has actually been days of suffering. Verse one reminds me of growing up when I felt rejected by others but God was my song. 1. In the hours of pain and sorrow, When the world brings no relief When the eye is dim and heavy, And the heart oppressed with grief While blessings flee, Savior Lord we trust in Thee! While blessings flee, Savior Lord we trust in Thee! Verse two talks about my drifting from the Lord when I was caught up in pride and the sin of self-sufficiency. 2. When the snares of death surround us, Pride, ambition, love of ease Mammon with her false allurements, Words that flatter, smiles that please Then ere we yield, S...
Read more

Was the New Testament Letters Only Written to Male Brothers?

  Question:   Was the Bible written to men only and not to women?   Some teach that the New Testament letters address brothers exclusively.      Executive Summary Answer:   Women and men share in the blessings of the gospel, Scripture was written for both women and men. So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. (Gen. 1:27 ESV) Answer:   The Bible recognizes differences between genders but also recognizes the commonality between male and female genders.   The book of Proverbs is written to sons to gain wisdom.   “Hear, my son, your father's instruction, and forsake not your mother's teaching, for they are a graceful garland for your head and pendants for your neck.”   (Prov. 1:8-9 ESV) The book of Proverbs was written in order to teach young men wisdom.   Even so, often it is the female gender that teaches wisdom.   Early in the book, the male gender,...
Read more

Bridging the Chasm

My good friend the Jollyblogger has been writing on Bridging the Chasm , meaning the church communicating with the secular world. In the early 80's YWAM put out a pamphlet on missions prayer. One of the things they encouraged Christians to pray for was different areas of influence: * Government * Business * Media/Journalism * The Arts * Education * Entertainment (I'm not sure that is the complete list.) As I prayed for these areas of influence, I found that Christians really wrote about a couple of these in the early 80's; Government and Business. For government you had movements like the Moral Majority and Focus on the Family writing actually about a very narrow aspect of government; moral issues. Yes, I'm grouping all Focus on the Family's issues in the area of moral issues. The government is so much more than moral issues. The business issues were mostly addressed by Bill Gothard, Larry Burkett and later Ron Blue. I'm not sure how ade...
Read more