There are MANY things which disturb me about CCM

5 years?


2 years tops if they are lucky!

 

The audience. People stopped buying Michael English records when he got caught in adultery. This is cause for celebration in rock music.

Can anyone?

This brings up a more pertinent question in my mind.....Can a christian ever be a lawyer?

Because CCM artists are in the limelight they do have the responsibility of maintaining the highest integrity but can we expect them to be super humans? I don't know the answer to that one btw..

I see all work as ministry.

Not sure what you mean by "funded by non-christians". The recent buyout by secular conglomerates does mean that the financing of the Big 3 is done by non-christians...but the "funding" is by christians who buy the records.

Again, it's the audience. There is quite a discriminating bunch of folks running the bookstores who don't HAVE to take what the distributors are pushing this month, too.

And I admit you are right. Even when the band is sincere about their faith and purpose, the competition to sell records seems to force an artificial hype....a sort of idolotry is the result of that kind of marketing. It is made worse when youngsters who aren't mature start believing the hype. Ah...who am I kidding? It can happen to anyone regardless of age.

What entity? Sorry...you lost me there. Are you talking about the entertainment industry? If so, I agree that it's walking a fine line but it can be done.

Yes we all fight darkness in high places.

Honestly though....many people see the modern western church the exact same way. Does that make all churches worldly or evil?

Here it gets a little touchy because there is no way a person can be a good steward if they aren't making money somehow.

Martin Luther isn't a good example because he lived off the tithes of his congregation as the priest.

I answered this on another thread but I'll sum it up here. There is no money in it until you have been successful for a long time. This might even make it a WORSE problem!

For some it means broken marriages because they are obligated by contract to do 200+ shows a year and they aren't paying the bills.

I have the unusual luxury of not having that pressure from my label. The owner has told me that if my family suffers for my career, I'm gone. I welcome that approach.

And again...not every aspect of the industry is monolithic. Every situation is different, every contract is different, every strategy for success is different.

I sincerely appreciate that sentiment. As I mentioned before, I used to think of it the same way.

But that isn't the goal of CCM. It's a business selling a product because there are people who want it.

I am bored by most of what Gnashvile puts out. On the other hand, my wife would rather hear songs that promote the right values than political talk radio so she has the CCM stations on.

We have about 8 stations in Dallas and I listen to CCM music for about 5 minutes in a month. I do like many of the teachers on a couple of those stations and will listen to that for quite a few hours in a month. Strangely enough...most of them are baptists.

Thanks for the opportunity to talk with you about this stuff. I'm anxiously awaiting your "exhaustive" analysis.

 

Here is a pretty good article by Steve Taylor, a youth pastor turned musician turned record label owner (Squint) turned youth pastor again..


Are you a minister or an entertainer?

 

I like you a lot, brother Enda. The church could use more men like you.

Only one verse fits this scenario;

"Humble yourself in the sight of the Lord and He will lift you up"

My advice would be to find ways to serve others. I would recommend going outside of a church music team if they have any real talent. Convalescent homes, prisons, children's hospitals, street corners...there are soooo many places that could use a little light. Be faithful in the small things and the Lord WILL give you greater things to do. We have to accept that what He calls "greater" might not be what we think of as great.

I still have a day job! As I mentioned earlier, my particular label considers the sin of Nashville to be broken families. They insist that I not take off from home for long. So, I kept my little locksmithing business and I fly out on the weekends. I'll be in St Louis this weekend, Kansas City next, Atlanta after that, Virginia...so forth and so on.

But I come home to my wife & kids during the week and always leave one weekend a month unbooked to go to church with my family and stay connected to the local body. I got that advice from one of the top Marketing Directors in the CCM industry, Vince Wilcox. He directs the careers of people like Third Day, Jars of Clay, etc...

That's a long funny story.

I have laid down music COMPLETELY three times since being born again in 1990. I seriously thought I would never play outside of my living room all three times.

This last time it was because I was seeing no fruit at all in a christian rock band.

I booked us into an outdoor new-age gay festival on the streets of Houston and my bass player almost fainted the day we were supposed to go. He had been raised in the church and was petrified at the thought of leaving the comfort zone. That's understandable but I owe a much larger debt than he does evidently.

When we had to cancel it crushed me because I had been praying and fasting for 2 months over this gig. I simply said to the Lord, "I quit. If you want me to play then you will have to make it clear" and figured that was it.

So now I'm trying to figure out what I REALLY want to do with my life now that the music career is over.

I thought of the most impossible thing to ask so I would know that it was Him doing it....and I asked Him to use me to tell the jews of Israel how much He loved them. Then I laughed as I thought about Moses saying, "Lord I don't even speak the language. Why would they listen to me?"


I started writing songs for an album called "Letter to the Hebrews" which was what I would say if I could stand on Mount Zion and preach to the nation.

Miraculous things began to happen. Within a week a man called to say that he and his wife were praying about giving (the same large amount it would take to produce an album) to a ministry because they wanted to bless Israel and got my name. Weird, huh?

I didn't trust my own heart so I asked them if I could pray about it. I got off the phone and said, "Lord, if this is from you then you will also have to provide a trip to release this album in Jerusalem". I asked this as I thought of Jesus telling the disciples that " you will be My witnesses in Jerusalem, then Judea & Samaria, and the uttermost parts of the earth ". Surely that was the end of this nonsense, right?

2 days later an old friend called me from Israel. He had moved there 8 years ago and was now doing tours for christians. He offered me a free trip if I would do the music for a group going on PENTECOST 2001.

Whoa...

More amazing doors kept flying open to make this CD happen in 5 months (half of it in hebrew!) and I found myself in "The Underground" a dance club in Jerusalem on the evening of Pentecost watching athiest kids sing Zechariah 9 and other scriptures while the DJ spun the record. It was the exact vision I had when I made the initial prayer! The DJ kept saying things like, "this is God and it's dance...this has never been done!" A car bomb blew up the next club I was walking to after leaving this place.

I was almost killed by terrorists 3 times in 6 days as I brought this to 77 DJs in every dance club in Israel from Haifa to Elat. You might recall the Dophinarium blowing up in Tel Aviv on June 3rd 2001 killing 27 and wounding almost a hundred more? I was scheduled to be there but was detained and got there late.

When the trip was over, I quit music again.

Almost a year later I got a call from a record label who had heard about me from someone in Israel. We negotiated but it didn't go well. I told him that my calling is to bless Israel..not sell records...so I had to have complete freedom to manage myself as I saw fit and made 9 impossible demands...the first being that he tear this contract up and start over.

To my utter surprise he did everything I asked and we released that SAME album (with some songs produced differently) in Washington DC as the official music of the "Solidarity with Israel Campaign" of the Christian Coalition. It was supposed to be in front of the White House but the sniper caused it to be moved to the Convention Center at the last minute.

This was also the first time that the label ever saw me perform. That is unheard of! He changed the name of the album to "Zealous Over Zion" but it's the same record that was released in Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost.

I stood before the leaders of Israel and Congressional leaders of the United States. I saw the mayor of Jerusalem weeping as I sang Zechariah 9 to him and to all of Israel by way of satelite. I saw Tom DeLay, Alan Keyes and other distinguished men standing at attention. There were about 15,000 people there yet I wasn't intimidated in the least. I KNEW that God had done it.

It has been an exciting ride of faith since the day that I surrendered my will to WHATEVER He wanted to do with me.

I half expected He would want me to clean toilets or something...boy am I glad He had something else in mind!


I'm not nearly through...I wish I could tell you about the events being planned in Jerusalem in the next few years. You'll hear soon enough.

I am living proof that God can still speak through a donkey who does CCM!

 

By the way, my story is not all that unique. I have a lot of friends from Texas who are signed these days....and all of them have a story of being called into a "national" ministry.

We all fail sometimes at keeping Him the focus....but I know that He is the ultimate reason and passion for what they do.

Would you like to hear some more stories?

 

shalom Bro Enda...did you miss me?

I got home to find that my computer wasn't working so I'm reduced to an old laptop with a 28.8 modem. Ugghh!

I will thus limit my posting until my good computer is fixed...hopefully by the time I get back home next week.

I agree with almost every word of your very thoughtful post. I'd like to expand on some of your thoughts here...

I agree that this would be preferable but not absolutely necessary. Daniel worked for a pagan master yet the Word of God was proclaimed...just as in the cases of Joseph, Nehemiah, etc...

The secular masters of the christian industry realize that they need christians working under them because they don't understand the market. However, they are more excellent in the ways of the world and can get christian music into Walmart and other major chains which used to not be the case...

So it's not much different than having a secular entity like the Post Office delivering bibles.

While I agree with the gist of that and agree that you are correct overall, I would like to offer another perspective. There are some christian groups out there who are better than the secular groups but because they are SOOO different, they are not accepted by the church.

POD is a good example. They have a style that no one else has. You may not like the style but as a musician I have enormous respect for Sonny's ability to "flow" and that drummer is incredible.

They have melded influences from rock, hip-hop, and reggae to make a style all their own. They ARE leading.

It used to be that way, yes, but that has a lot to do with the fact that christian consumers weren't accepting anything outside of the artificially decided "norm"

I'll learn to sing backwards in Swahili while doing cartwheels in a kilt to Opera if I'm trying to communicate to someone who will understand that.

"to the jew I became as a jew that I might save some...."

I am not willing to concede anything to that old liar...


May the Lord bless you and keep you, bro...I'll check back in later.

Peace!