Why Most Churches Shouldn't Release Music

All the right motives with all the wrong metrics

It is easier than it's ever been for anyone to put their music on streaming platforms. The opportunity for your music to be discovered by millions has never been more attainable.

This is a HUGE gospel opportunity.

I personally have released both secular music as well as worship music and I can see where my music is being listened to down to the city. There are songs that I have written that speak of the love of Jesus that are being heard in places that my feet may never trek.

Though I have only been out of the country twice, in the last 28 days my music has reached people in 97 different countries. It would be physically impossible for me to travel to those 97 countries in 28 days, but because of the internet, my music is taking the gospel to people faster than any plane could fly.

So how can releasing music accomplish the mission of the church?

Wayne Grudem says the purpose of the church is to:

• Glorify God

• Equip the saints for the work of ministry

• Reach the world

Your church, writing and releasing music, has the potential to accomplish all three in one swing!

But let's for a moment just think about the local opportunities for this.

In my home town is a place called “made in America” it's a whole store dedicated to selling goods that came from here! Theres such an appeal to that concept of using things that were produced locally.

The bread me and my wife buy from Kroger is good but it doesn't compare to the sourdough from the farm stand down the street!

The point is:
Bread tastes better when it’s made in our neighbors kitchen.

The same sentiment applies to the songs we sing.

Heres why I think that is:

Matthew 16:15: "He said to them, 'But who do you say that I am?’”

Every Sunday, churches all around the world are singing about who Phil Wickham, Passion, Elevation, and Bethel say Jesus is, but do we ever answer that question for ourselves?

What if the reason your church doesn't sing along on Sunday is because they're singing someone else's song?

What if you were able to write the very words that are in your peoples heart that they didn't even know how to articulate, and as you sing that song, something deep down in the heart of your church comes alive and your church worships God like never before because for the first time, they begin to sing their own song.

The four living creatures in revelation are covered with eyes beholding the King of Kings and they never stop singing holy holy holy is the Lord God Almighty.

Just like the eyes on those creatures, your church however young or old it is, has seen God’s faithfulness, and has a testimony of the highs and lows God has carried you through.

What if there are facets of God’s inexhaustible character only your church can uniquely express?

so why is this titled “why most churches shouldn't release music?”

let me preface what I am about to say with a bit of my background:

• I have released my own worship music

• My church has released worship music

• I have produced worship music for other churches full time for almost 4 year

As validating or invalidating as that is I guess what i’m saying is I am no expert but I have been a part of lots of different worship projects and there’s a conflict I’ve observed.

I cowrote over half the songs that my church released on an album a few years ago. I couldn't be more proud of them and thankful for the opportunity to get to be a part of that project. But if i’m honest, when I am planning sets I almost never consider those songs.

Why?

They flat out just aren’t as good as the songs these mega worship machines crank out.

I’m not Cody Carnes, and neither are you. And unless you live in Nashville, LA, or struck gold, chances are no one in your church is as good of a song writer as Cody Carnes either.

So why dump tens of thousands of dollars into recording your own music if your church will never play it on sunday???

I have felt like a hypocrite because I believe that theres so much power in singing our own songs but I never play our own songs, so do I actually believe it??

As I have been praying about this predicament I feel like something much deeper at play.

The reason most churches shouldn't release music is because their paradigms are all wrong.

Whether we realize it or not, entertainment culture has infiltrated our worship philosophy at a deep level. We don’t play the songs we wrote because we are using the wrong metrics, and those metrics weren't given to us by God but by the World.

Worldly paradigms

• Success is a polished performance

• Only celebrates the best at a certian skill

• Leads people to be spectators of the Kingdom

Biblical paradigms

• Success is a purely postured heart

• Empowers the unique gifts of the whole body of christ

• Leads people to be participants in the Kingdom

But we view preaching differently…

Imagine your pastor this Sunday gets up to preach and says: “well I was gonna write a sermon to encourage you this week but Timothy Keller was a better preacher than me so I’m just going to read one if his sermons”

that'd be CRAZY

Everyone knows your pastor isn’t the best preacher in the world but we believe that God has gifted him and placed him in leadership over your church the be used by God! God isn’t dependent on a certain level of skill to change lives. He’s been using a few loaves and fish to feed thousands for a long time, and He does the same when we use our gifts for His glory.

So why don’t we apply the same concept to songs the songs we sing?

Ephesians 4:11-12 So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, 12 to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up

1 Corinthians 12:7-11 To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. 8 For to one is given through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom, and to another the utterance of knowledge according to the same Spirit, 9 to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit, 10 to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another the ability to distinguish between spirits, to another various kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues. 11 All these are empowered by one and the same Spirit, who apportions to each one individually as he wills.

When Jesus ascended he said wait until I send you the helper.
The helper came, the church began.
The helper gave the church gifts.

This is how the church is built up - by each member of the body of christ operating in their unique gifts.

I truly believe that a large reason the church is exploding in some parts of the world yet shrinking here is because we are largely unaware of the gifts God has given us and their use for the edification of the church.All across the west churches meet with hundreds and sometimes thousands of people yet only a few of them operate in their gifts while everyone else sits and watches.

I believe Gods design for the church was not that only the most skilled would use their gifts but that the whole church would use their gifts.

I heard someone recently say - God doesn't call the qualified he qualifies the called.

There are a million amazing things Jesus could do yet He said “I only do what I see my father doing”

Has God called your church to release music?

If so, walk in obedience and don’t let the paradigms of the world get in the way of what God wants to do in your church.

There might just be something that God wants to do in your church that a song passion wrote, can’t accomplished but that can only be accomplished when those God has given the gift of songwriting take up that mantel and begin to participate in what God is doing in the community.

Maybe God want to do a special work in people hearts through music, and maybe He wants to work the same way in did when the church began - through ordinary people in ordinary moments walking in the gifts the Holy Spirit gave them!

-William Crockett