For most of my life I’ve been a huge advocate of contemporary worship. I nearly got thrown out of the church I grew up in because in my early 20s I formed an ensemble that sang the dangerous, worldly and mind-blowingly contemporary song called “Carry the Torch” for the Sunday night “special music.” The pastor then had to preach a message about me the following week to assure the congregation I wasn’t of the devil.
Needless to say I’m thrilled that the nonsense of the traditional worship wars have died off. Isn’t it wonderful to have the freedom to do just about any music you want these days? (Yes, even dance-pop!)
So for most of the mid-’90s to the mid 2000s things were great—you still had spiritually minded worship directors who were doing the job because of a calling (certainly not for the salary, because there wasn’t much of one). According to my poll, less than 20 percent of church music directors are full time, even in this day and age.
But then something happened that has absolutely ruined contemporary worship: the CCM industry collapsed.
What Ruined Contemporary Worship?
In CCM’s heyday, a young, hopeful artist would make her way to Nashville, get plugged into a church (probably Christ Community in Franklin,) make connections, stumble upon a record deal, make a CD and start touring with a more established CCM artist. For the most part those days are over.
As the CCM industry started to die in the mid 2000s, young, hopeful artists would still move to Nashville looking for a deal. They’d even attend Belmont, make an independent CD since they couldn’t get a deal, then fail and end up in a worship leader job.
Now a young, hopeful CCM artist who really has no interest in being a worship leader goes straight into a worship leading job so he can make a living in music—there are simply no record deals to be had. Incidentally, I just heard about a famous worship leader who has “made it” to the point that they no longer have to be tied to their church. So they’ve left their worship leading job, hoping to live the life of a ’90s CCM artist. We’ll see how long that lasts.
This explains the craziness of today’s megachurch contemporary worship. Seriously, it’s insane. I can’t tell you the megachurches I’ve visited where I have never heard five of the six songs in their praise sets. Let me elaborate: I consider myself somewhat of an expert in worship music, make my living arranging worship music, and have never heard most of the worship songs in megachurch praise sets. To be thoroughly contemporary necessitates a slavish allegiance to the new, the current, the hip, the cool and the commercial.
