Contemporary Worship

“Five praise music songwriters on how they handle criticism, work together, and seek to reach Gen Z through their work.” - C.Today

“It leaves room for different Christians to worship in ways consistent with their traditions and culture, yet also calls us to ensure that, no matter what, our worship is ‘shaped and governed by the Word of God’ ” - Challies

CCLI data study: “In the mid-1990s, a popular song like ‘Refiner’s Fire,’ or ‘In Secret’ had a lifespan of about a dozen years, rising for 4-5 years before hitting a slow decline. Two decades later, that lifespan has dropped down to 3-4 years” - RNS

“Like merchants lobbying for customers, we say ‘Come to our church. We have choices now! One of them is cool, and the other one is for old people and old souls.’” - Jonathan Aigner

“…halfway through that epic bridge you scan over the congregation and all that looks back at you is a sea of blank faces. What went wrong?” - CPost

“The pastor goes, ‘I preach the Word. Everybody else do the rest, and I’ll just concentrate on the sermon.’ Well, that’s, that’s stupidity. That’s not how the Bible was written. That’s not how the Church fathers behaved” - CPost

“It matters whether those who lead us in song see their task as creating a mood or a memory. If primarily a mood, lyrics can take a back seat …. If primarily a memory, the lyrics are critically important. Like the Psalms, they should be able to stand on their own, combined with music or not.” - CToday

“…there’s an even deeper flaw in our thinking. Worship is not an evangelistic tool. We don’t worship together to attract unbelievers.” - C. Leaders

“Seeing ourselves as the Body of Christ is not to demean personal experience, but a help to guard against allowing our focus to shift to ‘our’ personal experience rather than on who Christ is and what He as done.” - C.Leaders

“In short order, we went from 250 songs everyone knows to more than 250,000 songs nobody knows… . The key is familiarity. People enjoy singing songs they know.” - C.Leaders