Apostolic Music... Why Such a Big Deal?

Speaking of all the Idol music news, have you checked out the dialogue on Ninetyandnine this week and last: The State of Apostolic Music—How Bad Is It? I’m willing to go against the grain a little because music is not my thing.

(Chasing a Rabbit)
In fact, I’ve always been puzzled why we A/Ps take music so seriously. When somebody wants to become active in church, the first thing we do is shove them toward the music department. Which A/P guy out there has not at some time or another tried to play the drums so you could be used at church? Ladies, keyboard? And maybe that’s okay. I’ve just come to realize that there are more areas of service to the kingdom than just music. So music is not that important to me.

But…
It’s the way we (typically) enter into worship in our church services, so I know it matters. Maybe it's just because it’s not my area that I don’t care as much as everybody else. Then again, maybe because there is so much talent at my church, I take good quality for granted. From the sound of the survey, though, only 10% of the music collection for most of us is by A/P artists. The thread I picked up on was that we didn’t know where to get our music and we didn’t think the quality was up to par.

My thing is that I’m content to have A/P music in the sanctuary and enjoy non-A/P Christian music elsewhere. Should I care more that A/P musicians aren’t better respected? Shame on me I suppose for thinking as long as we have quality, anointed music on our platforms, it doesn’t matter if they are mass produced and a vital presence in the industry. Is that bad?

Breakdown
Chantell and I are on the same page about our delineation between types of music, and I think Kent Curry said what we were feeling:

“That, to me, is the current unclimbable mountain of our Apostolic recording artists—to sell, they must be seen at conferences and camps singing songs appropriate for church services, but, except for prayer rooms and personal devotion times, twentysomethings and teens especially expect something livelier, more contemporary and electric from their CD purchases.”

Exactly. I love A/P music at church. In fact, I demand it and would honestly be offended if a non-A/P artist performed during worship service. Actually, it’s more than that since that I realize that many non-A/P artists have very anointed vertical worship projects. To clarify, I am offended when anyone, even A/Ps, perform non-worship songs during service. If I wanted to be entertained, I would stay home and listen to my non-A/P CDs that are more entertainment-based. I expect A/P music at church to be completely vertical/spiritual/anointed. But unless I’m having devotion time, when I’m outside of church, I’m fine with something less vertical and less intense. And since I think of A/P music as “spiritual/anointed church music”, I don’t think of A/P artists when it comes to buying CDs since I’m usually looking more for entertainment in a CD.

A Numbers Game
Here’s a thought, though. What if the 10% stat is not such a big deal? Hear me out. It sounds so disheartening that A/P music is only 10% of our collection, but what percentage do A/Ps make up of Christians? Statistically there are probably more non-A/P Christians than A/Ps. So where quality is concerned, the percentage of quality is already tipped in the favor of non-A/Ps. And since we're buying CDs (me, at least) primarily for entertainment, what are the odds that there will be as many quality more-entertainment-oriented projects from A/Ps as non-A/Ps?

Fix It
As you can see, my whimsical stance is to be the bad guy and say that as long as we continue to have quality and, more importantly, anointing on our platforms, frankly I’m not too concerned that we’re not buying truckloads of A/P CDs. But the more I read the article, the letters, the other blog posts, I realize that it would be really cool if we could carve out a more distinguished niche in the music world. So what’s the answer? Tell us.