Thoughts on pursuing a career in contemporary Christian music (inspired by several peers doing such, and several advertisements for CCM schools):

If your purposes in pursuing a music career are:
- encouraging and edifying the church
….that’s actually the only reason I can think of now that im typing this…
Then go ahead and pursue a career in the “Christian market” not allowing your mission to be tainted by greed, pride, the love of money, fame, false witness, etc. if you cannot withstand these temptations, then don’t pursue said career.

If your purposes in pursuing a music career are:
- evangelism
- the love of art
- money
- fame
- career
- etc
Then pursue a career in the general market. Why?
- evangelism: this may seem surprising at first. Christ says several times it’s not the healthy that need a doctor, but the sick. The Christian industry contains very few “sick” people. And if you DO want to reach the healthy people, see the last statemtent about encouraging and edifying the church.
- The love of art: I’m treading the fine line of my strong feelings here…but…let’s just say…well…nevermind, I’m gonna skip that. that could be debatable.
- The rest of the purposes: let’s face it. It’s easier to be successful in the Christian market because, unfortunately, not only is the caliber of music not as high, but many Christians judge art by how many times the word “jesus” is said on the record, rather than artistic merit. But I think it should be obvious that money and fame should not be reasons to use Christian themes in your music. Maybe im wrong, but I think Christ kicking the merchants out of the temple could be a parallel. what im saying is, dont pursue a career in the christian industry just because it's easier to "make it." that's not being true to yourself and it's being misleading to the christians shopping in the christian industry.

While I think CCM as a whole is incredibly lame for several reasons, and it just plain irritates me most of the time, these thoughts are as unbiased as possible. and since these thoughts are unbiased as possible, dont let my bias bias you when you read them. did that make sense?
And pursuing a career in the general market…if you’re a committed Christian, I would think it would be natural to sing about Christ. That definitely doesn’t mean every song has to, and it definitely doesn’t mean the songs that don’t aren’t glorifying to Christ. There’s more to this, but I’ll leave it at that.
Above all, do whatever you do with excellence. Don’t write a top 40 hit. Write something different. Unique. God gave you creativity. Use it.
And im not expressing myself nearly as well as I’d like. But what else is new. But this is the first I’ve actually tried, so I guess it’s a start.