The Music Exchange

The Christian music scene is in a strange place at the moment. I wrote last year that one of the reasons congregational singing is in decline is that songwriters were writing more for an audience than for a congregation. ‘Song writers have got into the habit of writing for the market or label rather than for the people of God.’

The reason for this is straightforward. As soon as you create a music label, you quickly have to rely on the market which buys in to your label. This means that it becomes more important to write songs which ‘sell’ well than ones which congregations actually enjoy singing together. It also creates a ‘pop chart’ culture, whereby each song has its day in the sun until tastes change. You then have to write another song, which you hope can sustain the momentum of the label. In my experience, songwriters tend to do this using the ‘blunderbuss’ technique, whereby we’re blasted by a load of second-rate songs in the hope that one finds the target.

Label wars?

What has begun to happen (in my perception) is that each label has had to promote its own songs, while ignoring the output of other labels. This is because there is such pressure to keep your own label going that other Christian songwriters are seen as competition. To illustrate, I went to a huge music event last month, where I was concerned to see that there were no copyright details included on the screens showing the words to the songs. It didn’t take me long to realise that the copyright details weren’t needed because the musicians were only playing their own songs. We sang no other song written by any other label for the whole day, even though we sang at least four hours-worth of songs over the day. Moreover, because I hadn’t been moving in the circles which sang these songs, I felt completely out of touch, and definitely an observer rather than a partaker. I headed out of the doors during the last set of songs straight into a mid-life crisis.

Concerts make subsets

Another by-product of the ‘song label’ culture is that there’s been a growth in the number of concerts given by songwriters, who go on tour to promote their labels. The big Christian conventions are another good opportunity for promotion through concerts too. These concerts are great occasions, which give real joy to those who attend (and this in itself is a good reason for putting these concerts on), but, again, it encourages songwriters to produce songs that entertain, rather than songs that congregations are able to sing.

Also, I can’t help thinking that these musicians would serve the Christian community better by staying at home, regularly sitting under the Bible teaching in their own churches and surrounded by essential Christian fellowship. This is surely one of the best ways of safeguarding the content of their songs, because then they themselves are fed more consistently with the doctrine they’re going to expect everyone else to sing.

As it is, what’s happening is that sub-sets of church are being created, which find their identity governed by the songs they sing rather than the gospel they believe. This means that you only feel as if you belong if you’re singing the right type of songs.

Alienated

Another illustration: I help out with a bunch of Christian music students, who meet every month in a group called the HUB. Students come to the HUB from all kinds of churches. One visiting student commented on her frustration that we didn’t sing any modern songs during the meeting. The strange thing is that nearly all the songs we sang were modern, but to her they just weren’t the right type of modern song. In her church they sing lots of modern songs, but from a different stable, so any other sort of song (however contemporary) is classed as out of date. She was alienated by our songs, but at the same time we were alienated by her own idea of what is genuinely contemporary. Not her fault, but it’s another symptom of the way things are.

Better content

On a positive note, the theological content of contemporary songs is very much better these days than it was in the 1980s and 1990s. In this sense, healthy competition among the various labels to be ‘biblical’ has profited the church enormously.

However, I worry that the Christian song scene is being governed too much by the principles of the world, which values success and fame rather than the service of people who simply want to sing praise to Jesus. God has blessed us with many very talented and godly songwriters, for whom I’m personally thankful to God. Please pray with me for them to work together in service of Christ and his Church.

Richard Simpkin

© Evangelicals Now - June 2009
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