Has Church Worship Been Co-Opted by For-Profit Business?

(pic credit: ©2017 by crisbaj. Used with permission)

Scene 1:

I was recently at a major national-chain music store outlet (name with-held) drooling over some new guitar gear just released (they know just how to make me want to eat Ramen all week to afford that new thang…), and I ended up chatting with the ‘regional corporate manager’ for a number of Southwest US states with hundreds of stores.

He was very interested in ‘understanding more’ regarding what he thought I sort-of represented; the worship-band guy who is associated with a church or churches and buying modern rock-band gear to play IN churches.

 “Many dudes and gals are playing in multiple church-bands these days”, said he. “There’s a crazy App that helps church musicians find gigs in their region for the coming Sunday… It’ll even link to the Play-List for that gig… it’s HUGE in L.A…”

We talked for a very long time.

“Churches are now all about rock-club-band sound. Rock clubs without a bar! Yeah, there’s some choirs around, but now they’re backed by a kickin’ band with a lot of sound reinforcement,” he tells me, “…but more and more, the church-band gear is very high-end rock-club band-focused.”

“Look at you”, he pointed out, “you’d love to take one of those new effect pedals home, no? (Guilty as charged.) There are thousands of church guitar-guys like you who have 10 grand tied up in their guitars, amps and effects.”

Then the kicker… “our national sales stats say that one-third to one-half (!!??) of our gross sales are to church musicians and churches. Instruments, gear, amps, P.A., lights, lasers… even smoke machines! Smoke machines in church… go figure! We now have an entire corporate department to market just to churches and church musicians.”

What??!!

“We’re looking at getting into the digital-video software and hardware for churches; unlike clubs, your churches like putting the lyrics up on screen.”

“Yeah, a lot of churches now have better sound and lights than the rock clubs of the ‘90s.”

I checked that corporation’s 2016 end-of-year $ profit… 8-digit $$ numbers… xx,000,000 – type numbers…

Scene 2:

(“Find a need, and you’ve found a market to fill that need” says the Sage)

The Ansmann Company says that churches and church musicians use up 20 MILLION batteries a year… wireless mics, plug-free electronics, guitar pedals (ahhh! Constant battle…), in-ear monitor receivers…

20 million batteries… I have NO idea how they got their data…

So, their web site HorizonBattery.net can hook you up to a large-scale, re-chargable battery system that will pay for itself in about 1 year, for the ‘average-ue’ church of 500 people…

Scene 3:

I was awaiting an appointment with a pastor in a church office waiting room, and there were copies of the most recent ‘Christian’ magazines and local ‘Christian’ news-papers… My count of adverts targeting church worship bands, ministries, and leaders for gear, consultation, training, and big-big conferences were almost 44… and that was just 10 minutes of flipping pages of 3 mags and one news-print paper…

Consider the following:

…Since ‘mod worship bands’, church musicians and church leaders… worship arts ministries and pastoral leadership… are a direct targets of For-Profit business interests in the music industry…

…Since major corporations are plying their expert marketing strategies to bend and alter the thinking and practices of church leaders and musicians, working hard to gain and create consumers and customers for their products…

…Since Mod Worship Music Industry ‘product’… songs and music… are being aggressively marketed and distributed for exposure and sale on radio, television/cable/satellite, digital music services for subscription and purchase, websites, live touring and performing/playing…

…Since ‘Church as Client’ is now clearly in the cross-hairs of the (secular business) For-Profit Music Industry…

…HOW do worship musicians, bands, church leaders and congregations AVOID becoming un-witting consumers and customers for things they don’t NEED, or mountains of tekk that WORK AGAINST God’s Corporate People really coming into His Presence??

…has the For-Profit music industry duped us to think we NEED all that STUFF to successfully have a ‘time of worship’…??? Do we really…REALLY… need all those toys and tekk to ‘Come and Worship’ the Lord???

…HOW do we honour the Lord in our music-business dealings, and not un-wittingly shape our gathering places of corporate Worship and Adoration into the Temple Court of Jesus’ time, filled with money-changing and dove-selling? (see Matt 21:12, Mark 11:15 and John 2:15)

TAKE-AWAY:

The frequently–quoted ‘be ye IN the world, but not OF it’ is not found directly in the Scriptures…

…what IS abounding in the Scriptures is reflected in Jesus’ prayer for us… worship bands and musicians included… “I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one.” (John 17:15… see the whole context in verses 14-19).

Also of note to this topic:

   1 John 2:15-17

   Romans 12:22

   1 Corinthians 9:19-23

 

written by crisbaj

© 2017 by crisbaj/AdoreTheLord.blog  All rights reserved.

All Scripture references from New International Version unless otherwise indicated.

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Pray for the people of Zambia.

Selah

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