Eight adivces I'd give to gospel musicians - not all per se commanded but certainly better

[NilsForChrist]

1. make sure what you sing matches with Bible doctrine (Matthew 4:4)
2. if you wish to make a record, do NOT sign to a "Christian" label. To not be a hypocrite, better sign to a small independent label. Your objection may be "but how am I gonna sell a lot?" My response - do not look at how much you give away. Your main audience is God. And with that we are come to the next point, namely...
3. do not ask for money. You should work with your own hands according to Paul. He never asked for money for his ministry. Leonard Ravenhill adviced Keith Green to stop asking money for his albums and concerts. You should have a job at the same time. Maybe a tentmaker, maybe build instruments, but music alone, art alone is not an occupation.
4. do not give your songs titles that look 'overly righteous' (Ecclesiastes 7:16). So many 'gospel/worship' artists do give those titles to songs, yet the content is not matching up. This is not to say a title named "Oh Lord You're Beautiful" is per se bad, but it IS dangerous. You are putting yourself on a high standard. With a more neutral title like "The Way", "Questions", "The Hypocrite" etc., the danger is not non existant, but certainly less.
5. make sure you live righteous. Your singing, your playing etc. is not the worship - it can only reflect it! You too can worship without singing. That is not to say that singing is bad if you feel that calling to be a NT David, but then also match that standard. Paul had it, yet he did not sing - at least there is no record that he did.
6. do not go 'touring'. Going on tours will easily make you a slave. You certainly can give concerts, even record them, maybe pick areas that are totally random. But you too can sing to God in a studio and record it instead to have to show it to an audience. Be an artist, not a performer!
7. do not do away with God's word. Music of itself is not to be limited to 'entertainment'. Roger Scruton claimed that once music was part of life and not a distraction from it. Whether that is true is disputable, however, indeed, music is not to be limited to entertainment, but telling a message. Which shows the bad side of #6 also, the recorded thing. It has become a necessity to have something to listen to, and from my humble opinion that is bad.
8. at the same time, do not become a pharisee. Meaning, do not pray in public, see Matthew 6. While praying for others is a good thing, you do not do good doing so in their presence. Also telling others 'I shall for you' is a dangerous thing. They'll see you as a hypocrite and think 'why doesn't he help me'?

 

[seoulsearch]

1. make sure what you sing matches with Bible doctrine (Matthew 4:4)
2. if you wish to make a record, do NOT sign to a "Christian" label. To not be a hypocrite, better sign to a small independent label. Your objection may be "but how am I gonna sell a lot?" My response - do not look at how much you give away. Your main audience is God. And with that we are come to the next point, namely...
3. do not ask for money. You should work with your own hands according to Paul. He never asked for money for his ministry. Leonard Ravenhill adviced Keith Green to stop asking money for his albums and concerts. You should have a job at the same time. Maybe a tentmaker, maybe build instruments, but music alone, art alone is not an occupation.
4. do not give your songs titles that look 'overly righteous' (Ecclesiastes 7:16). So many 'gospel/worship' artists do give those titles to songs, yet the content is not matching up. This is not to say a title named "Oh Lord You're Beautiful" is per se bad, but it IS dangerous. You are putting yourself on a high standard. With a more neutral title like "The Way", "Questions", "The Hypocrite" etc., the danger is not non existant, but certainly less.
5. make sure you live righteous. Your singing, your playing etc. is not the worship - it can only reflect it! You too can worship without singing. That is not to say that singing is bad if you feel that calling to be a NT David, but then also match that standard. Paul had it, yet he did not sing - at least there is no record that he did.
6. do not go 'touring'. Going on tours will easily make you a slave. You certainly can give concerts, even record them, maybe pick areas that are totally random. But you too can sing to God in a studio and record it instead to have to show it to an audience. Be an artist, not a performer!
7. do not do away with God's word. Music of itself is not to be limited to 'entertainment'. Roger Scruton claimed that once music was part of life and not a distraction from it. Whether that is true is disputable, however, indeed, music is not to be limited to entertainment, but telling a message. Which shows the bad side of #6 also, the recorded thing. It has become a necessity to have something to listen to, and from my humble opinion that is bad.
8. at the same time, do not become a pharisee. Meaning, do not pray in public, see Matthew 6. While praying for others is a good thing, you do not do good doing so in their presence. Also telling others 'I shall for you' is a dangerous thing. They'll see you as a hypocrite and think 'why doesn't he help me'?

Hello!

I was just curious as to what albums, songs, and music you have released.

Do you have any links where we can listen to your works?

 

[Lynx]

1. make sure what you sing matches with Bible doctrine (Matthew 4:4)
2. if you wish to make a record, do NOT sign to a "Christian" label. To not be a hypocrite, better sign to a small independent label. Your objection may be "but how am I gonna sell a lot?" My response - do not look at how much you give away. Your main audience is God. And with that we are come to the next point, namely...
3. do not ask for money. You should work with your own hands according to Paul. He never asked for money for his ministry. Leonard Ravenhill adviced Keith Green to stop asking money for his albums and concerts. You should have a job at the same time. Maybe a tentmaker, maybe build instruments, but music alone, art alone is not an occupation.
4. do not give your songs titles that look 'overly righteous' (Ecclesiastes 7:16). So many 'gospel/worship' artists do give those titles to songs, yet the content is not matching up. This is not to say a title named "Oh Lord You're Beautiful" is per se bad, but it IS dangerous. You are putting yourself on a high standard. With a more neutral title like "The Way", "Questions", "The Hypocrite" etc., the danger is not non existant, but certainly less.
5. make sure you live righteous. Your singing, your playing etc. is not the worship - it can only reflect it! You too can worship without singing. That is not to say that singing is bad if you feel that calling to be a NT David, but then also match that standard. Paul had it, yet he did not sing - at least there is no record that he did.
6. do not go 'touring'. Going on tours will easily make you a slave. You certainly can give concerts, even record them, maybe pick areas that are totally random. But you too can sing to God in a studio and record it instead to have to show it to an audience. Be an artist, not a performer!
7. do not do away with God's word. Music of itself is not to be limited to 'entertainment'. Roger Scruton claimed that once music was part of life and not a distraction from it. Whether that is true is disputable, however, indeed, music is not to be limited to entertainment, but telling a message. Which shows the bad side of #6 also, the recorded thing. It has become a necessity to have something to listen to, and from my humble opinion that is bad.
8. at the same time, do not become a pharisee. Meaning, do not pray in public, see Matthew 6. While praying for others is a good thing, you do not do good doing so in their presence. Also telling others 'I shall for you' is a dangerous thing. They'll see you as a hypocrite and think 'why doesn't he help me'?

Most of this is no longer relevant because the age of Christian rock stars is over.

1. Music is just so easy to produce now. You can get your computer to do most of the heavy lifting. Shoot, you can just hum a tune and get the computer to make a full soundtrack for you.

2. The internet has connected everything so thoroughly that distribution is no longer a problem. You can post your song to SoundCloud and anybody can listen to it on their phone.

3. Because of these factors, the music environment has become so saturated that, paradoxically, it's harder than ever for any one person to make any impression at all. Everybody has their songs out. So you made a song, big whoop, good luck getting anybody to actually notice, much less care.

Think about it. What is the latest Keith Green you can remember? The most recent one I can think of was Chris Rice, and that was only because his songs legit had something to say. The days of Steve Camp, David Meece, Sandy Patti, all that is over. Nobody's going to become a rockstar by singing Christian music anymore.

That's not a bad thing though. That's actually a good thing! You don't have to worry about how big you will become anymore. You don't have to try to be the next Hinsons or Stryper.

You don't even have to worry about selling CDs after church anymore. They won't sell. Nobody uses CDs anymore. They look it up on YouTube or add your collection to their Pandora list.

So yeah, no, don't worry too much about most of that. It's not exactly a problem anymore.

 

[NilsForChrist]

Most of this is no longer relevant because the age of Christian rock stars is over.

I wish you were right but I am afraid not. Look at Hillsong, Bethel, Skillet etc.

1. Music is just so easy to produce now. You can get your computer to do most of the heavy lifting. Shoot, you can just hum a tune and get the computer to make a full soundtrack for you.

Indeed, but I am not sure if God is pleased by that. Would David have used a computer program, had they existed at the time?

2. The internet has connected everything so thoroughly that distribution is no longer a problem. You can post your song to SoundCloud and anybody can listen to it on their phone.

100 %ly.

You don't even have to worry about selling CDs after church anymore. They won't sell. Nobody uses CDs anymore.

But Vinyl's found a revival instead.

Hello!

I was just curious as to what albums, songs, and music you have released.

Do you have any links where we can listen to your works?

Not yet.

 

[Lynx]

Hillsong, bethel and Skillet are big groups, not solo musicians who might read this thread. And even they aren't really as popular as they used to be. Nobody really cares about them anymore. Everybody's listening to Spotify these days.

And yes, vinyl is a (very niche) market again. But I don't personally know anybody who listens to old records. How many of your coworkers even have a turntable?

 

[oldman]

" Be an artist, not a performer!"

spot on advice!

 

[ResidentAlien]

1. make sure what you sing matches with Bible doctrine (Matthew 4:4)
2. if you wish to make a record, do NOT sign to a "Christian" label. To not be a hypocrite, better sign to a small independent label. Your objection may be "but how am I gonna sell a lot?" My response - do not look at how much you give away. Your main audience is God. And with that we are come to the next point, namely...
3. do not ask for money. You should work with your own hands according to Paul. He never asked for money for his ministry. Leonard Ravenhill adviced Keith Green to stop asking money for his albums and concerts. You should have a job at the same time. Maybe a tentmaker, maybe build instruments, but music alone, art alone is not an occupation.
4. do not give your songs titles that look 'overly righteous' (Ecclesiastes 7:16). So many 'gospel/worship' artists do give those titles to songs, yet the content is not matching up. This is not to say a title named "Oh Lord You're Beautiful" is per se bad, but it IS dangerous. You are putting yourself on a high standard. With a more neutral title like "The Way", "Questions", "The Hypocrite" etc., the danger is not non existant, but certainly less.
5. make sure you live righteous. Your singing, your playing etc. is not the worship - it can only reflect it! You too can worship without singing. That is not to say that singing is bad if you feel that calling to be a NT David, but then also match that standard. Paul had it, yet he did not sing - at least there is no record that he did.
6. do not go 'touring'. Going on tours will easily make you a slave. You certainly can give concerts, even record them, maybe pick areas that are totally random. But you too can sing to God in a studio and record it instead to have to show it to an audience. Be an artist, not a performer!
7. do not do away with God's word. Music of itself is not to be limited to 'entertainment'. Roger Scruton claimed that once music was part of life and not a distraction from it. Whether that is true is disputable, however, indeed, music is not to be limited to entertainment, but telling a message. Which shows the bad side of #6 also, the recorded thing. It has become a necessity to have something to listen to, and from my humble opinion that is bad.
8. at the same time, do not become a pharisee. Meaning, do not pray in public, see Matthew 6. While praying for others is a good thing, you do not do good doing so in their presence. Also telling others 'I shall for you' is a dangerous thing. They'll see you as a hypocrite and think 'why doesn't he help me'?

Unfortunately, many of the big name contemporary Christian music artists have made a deal with the devil to make it big. They get into the business with wrong motives (fame and money) and sign with labels that also produce a lot of the filth that is put out by worldly musicians. Most of your advice is good in my opinion.