Christian Music
Although our sister site CreekDontRise.com has many articles about music and music careers in general, we recognize that fans of Christian music need information that does not appeal or apply to the wider audience.
Some of the questions relating to faith in general are addressed in our “Things to Think About” section. Some questions related to music in general are addressed in our “Thinking about Music” section. But where faith and music collide, especially for Christian music lovers, we’ll put those articles in this section.
The articles we’ve had a chance to post so far are:
- A Brief History of Contemporary Christian Music - People prefer to hear the Gospel, come to Christ, serve Christ, and read their Bibles in their own language. Strange as it may seem to some folks, music itself is a language. In fact, to Baby Boomers and subsequent generations, music became "The language," the lingua franca through which they communicated all of the concepts, attitudes, dreams, and visions that they held most dear. Though this seems clear to many growing evangelical churches today, it wasn't always so. Read more.
- CCM Artist links - A supplement to our article on the history of Contemporary Christian Music, including links to representative songs, artist websites, and historical references. Read more.
- Was the Jesus Movement Hijacked? - This book review and social analysis examines a history of the Jesus movement that claims that conservative forces in America used their ostensible support of the Jesus movement to steer counter-culture Christians into conservative churches, lifestyles and worldviews. I don’t agree with the premise, but seeing the history of the Jesus movement from “outside” is an interesting perspective. Read more.
- Did God Really Give Rock and Roll to You? - Are you still plagued by people who are convinced that any music with a backbeat is intrinsically evil? The relationship between Gospel music and most forms of pop music, including Rock and Roll is a lot more complex than most people realize. Read more.
- Saxophones in Church? - Most folks no longer consider the saxophones “the Devil’s instrument” as they once did, but there are still obstacles to sax players wanting to join the praise team. How you overcome those obstacles depends in part on what resources your worship leader uses.
- Can you Worship the Lord on the Flutophone? - Worried about drums or guitars in church? Learn how all “the major classes of musical instruments we use today . . . all descended from the instruments mentioned in Psalm 150: brass, woodwinds, strings, and percussion.” Read more.
We have also started a section just for unsigned Christian musicians (which is most of us). It will link to a lot of resources that help indie musicians in general, but will also have content specifically targed to people performing their music in a spiritual context and or people trying to keep a spiritual life going while they’re doing all of that marketing and road trip stuff that can suck the life out of you.
- The Independent Christian Musician - New for 2016, a section that we plan to use to provide guidance and resources for unsigned Christian musicians. It will be organized by topic, provide a few tips and a lot of links to resources that we think are helpful, including the following articles:
- Developing Your Musicianship: Learning as much as you can early on - it gets harder to retain new stuff the older you get, so don’t assume this stuff will always come as easily as it does now. Resources we are developing underneath this header include:
- Improving Your Performance: Using your concerts to build connections that last takes work but is so worth it.
- Expanding Your Reach: Working towards getting more and better opportunities to put your music in front of people. One resource we’ve linked to under that one is:
- When Should You Play for Free? Both sides of a choice that faces many independent artists, especially as they’re starting out. Every opportunity is different, but you can choose wisely.
- What the Bible DOESN’T Say About Gifts and Talents - Just realized that certain spiritual leaders are still misusing the same scriptures they misused when they gave me “counsel” about my Christian music pursuits back in the 1970s. To paraphrase Inigo Montoya: “You keep using that verse. I’m not sure it means what you think it means.” Read more.
Discussion Forum: We are also starting a discussion group on our forum page for topics related to these articles. At the moment it’s a little thin, but you can still click here to check it out.
Other Resources:
We are trying to track down certain other articles that have something to say - a few of which provide contrasting views to ours, which might make you think even a little more - and that’s a good thing.
In the meantime, we’re starting with two articles by Keith Green on the subject of “Christian Music.” Keith was one of the early Contemporary Christian musicians, and he took his role as a messenger of Christ quite seriously. Quite a bit of what he said thirty years ago still holds today.
At any given time, we usually have several more articles in the works, so stay tuned. :-)
All material, illustrations, and content of this web site are copyrighted (c) 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016 by Paul D. Race. All rights reserved.
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