Lure of Stardom a Sour Note in Praise Songs

Feelings of ambivalence are on display at the songwriting workshop run by Clifton's Stafford-based company, God-Song. Lecturers at the sessions emphasize to participants that they should not use earthly standards to judge whether they are "making it" in their musical career.

"The fact that you are using your God-given talents to communicate God's message to the churched and unchurched is, in God's eyes, the true sign of 'making it,' " Randy Motz regularly tells participants who hear his "Declaration of Independence" speech. "Be satisfied with always being an independent artist; a major-label deal is a bonus," Motz, a producer who has lectured at the workshops, says in the speech.

But Clifton also advises participants not to get too specific about religious doctrine in their lyrics, even as he worries that the industry might be trying too hard to be nonconfrontational.

"There are many types of churches, and how they interpret the Bible is different. Like, for example, we don't want to put out a song that all Baptists will hate," he said in an interview. "I don't think you'd see someone do a cover about abortion, because 10 percent of Christians believe in choice."

Rebekah McLeod, 32, said she feels the tension between the commercial and spiritual aspects of her art every day. She wrote music for the first time in 2002, when family pressures sent her into deep, intense prayer. "I was spending a lot of time with God, getting to know Him in a new way," said McLeod, who lives in Germantown with her husband and three children.

She started coming up with music and lyrics, and she kept the ideas in a journal under her bed for six months. Finally, she said, "the music began to literally pour out of me. I was writing prolifically, and I thought: 'Maybe this is something God wants me to do?' " She entered and won an annual songwriting contest sponsored by God-Song. That meant a free recording session, which led to a glossy Web site, a CD and regular concerts at churches and coffeehouses in the Washington area.

These days, she prays for a sense of what God wants her to do next: Should she try to join a major label? Should she get a radio promoter? If she becomes commercially successful, would she feel pressure to make deadlines and crank out songs that didn't "necessarily glorify God, but were just trying to meet a goal?"

McLeod said she is turned off by a lot of the new Christian songs she hears, songs she believes reflect an emotion-oriented and self-absorbed U.S. culture.

"I think we're seeing a lot of empty music and empty lyrics," she said. "A lot of what I hear on mainstream Christian radio sounds like garbage; I'm not being ministered by it."

When she finds herself writing about such things as her own woes, she has a routine: "I say, 'This is all about you having a pity party,' and I throw it out."

She said she is also bothered by songs that link God to the goal of having a happy, comfortable and prosperous life. "Paul said we should want to experience the sufferings of Christ. . . . The best songs are the ones that diminish us, that make us smaller and God bigger."

With lyrics that speak directly to God, praise and worship music lends itself to being sung by congregations during worship services, and several industry experts say that helps explain why it is so popular and marketable. Services at large, nondenominational churches have become increasingly multimedia, and performing a song in that setting -- or simply having it played there -- can be as financially lucrative as being booked at a popular nightclub.

"Churches are the new radio," said John Styll, president of the Gospel Music Association, which represents all Christian music styles. "You have a kind of music here that engages tens of millions of people every Sunday."

Joyner, a pastor of congregational worship at Fairfax Community Church, plays for thousands of people a month at churches, conferences, retreats and colleges. Sitting in Fairfax Community's glass-walled, hotel-like lobby, he said he is trying to balance the performer's lifestyle with the biblical imperative to honor God.

"We have a stardom mentality, and people who should be looking at Christ sometimes do that to humans, to rock stars, to Christian rock stars. And I have the same tendencies, so I'm talking to myself, too," said Joyner, who is married and the father of two and works with the church's graphics and drama directors to craft inspiring services in a 21st-century vein.

At the same time, people in the Christian music industry say, the benefits of corporate America's attention are obvious: better writing, higher-quality production and a medium that can reach -- and preach -- far beyond current believers.

Even as he talks about being careful not to create a "Chris Joyner persona," Joyner spells out goals that would have been virtually unheard of a decade ago for a contemporary Christian singer.

"My goal," he said, "is to have an impact on the United States, or maybe broader, that God will use me through songwriting -- that I will have an impact on the people who are the next generation of worship leaders."