THE HIDDEN TRAGEDY OF THE CHRISTIAN MUSIC INDUSTRY VLOG

Christian Contemporary Music (or CCM as the genre is called) sings primarily about Jesus: Jesus, who is God’s gracious gift to redeem, restore and reconcile. Our songs point to and claim to represent The One who is THE supreme agent for love, peace, grace, forgiveness and the healing of broken relationships. So wouldn’t we expect the people who are professionally involved in the CCM world to have a better track record in the area of relationships than the rest of the world? We might hope that … but we cannot expect it.

It turns out that those who are in CCM are still broken people in need of God’s saving grace. Sadly, even those who are constantly around Jesus’ message of good relationships can still struggle to maintain them in our professional and personal lives. The hidden tragedy is that there are many – way too many – broken relationships in the CCM world. I have experienced several myself.

I discussed this topic in a recent interview with legendary Nashville artist manager Mike Smith.

“[Within the Christian music industry] there are actually a lot of broken relationships – not just business relationships. We don’t really want to talk about this much, but there are a lot of divorces; there are a lot of kids who don’t know their dads or their mums.”

“Beware of any work for God that causes or allows you to avoid concentrating on Him. A great number of Christian workers worship their work.” Oswald Chambers

It’s very easy for a person to get so involved in their work FOR God – what they might call their “ministry” – that we can easily forget to cultivate the work OF God in our personal and professional relationships. Usually it’s a guy who gets so enamored with his own “ministry” that he forgets to love his wife and kids as he should. The health of the relationships within my family must be more important than my career – even when it is called a “ministry” and feels like such a strong call from God. If my wife and family are feeling less loved by and connected to me because of my (so called) “ministry” – singing and speaking about God – it’s time to quit.

“Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her” Ephesians 5:25

“I’d like for us to realize that that is a huge danger. It’s a terrible indictment on the Christ that we are trying to represent. First and foremost we are to be people of good relationships.”

It’s a short video this week! Watch the 1 min 12 sec vlog here.

This video excerpt was recorded as part of Mike’s online artist management course.

More info from michaelsmithandassociates.com