I wanna take a quick minute to announce a new series I’m starting called Across The Aisle.
In case you’re not familiar with the expression, you typically hear of someone reaching “across the aisle” in a political sense, kinda BRIDGING THE GAP between two separate sides (often, democrat and republican) for the sake of some greater, collective good of the WHOLE.
So, the Across The Aisle series is gonna do just that. GospelPundit.com is a website focused on the Gospel music community, but we often exclude what is termed “Contemporary Christian Music” or “CCM” because it’s not… “our” kind of music. And we play ourselves.
The truth is:
(1) God didn’t call us to define our “genres” in that way. It’s practical and it sometimes makes sense to be able to distinguish what Steven Curtis Chapman does from what Twinkie Clark does. But we often abuse the classifications, creating unnecessary rifts and divides (racial and otherwise) within the Body of Christ;
(2) If you listen, you’ll love it. I enjoy a B3 organ as much as the next guy, but there’s also nothing quite like a simple acoustic guitar sometimes, and maaaaany popular gospel songs are simply re-made from CCM songs in the first place (i.e., “Above All” and “Great Is Your Mercy”). You love it already and you prolly didn’t even know it!
So, that’s what’s fixin’ to go down.
Lemme know if you have a favorite CCM artist you want featured. Aight?!
You know i'm smiling dude...
ej thaNKS so much I love CCM its amazing!!!!! pure worship I love chris tomlin and natalie grant and MICHAEL W. SMITH the father of praise and worship lol and mercy me and barlow girls and casting crowns ugh I LOVE IT
I love this concept! Really appreciate you for always keeping it real.
Amen! Even if the music may not be my style sometimes, the words are powerful and moving... I love many CCM artists... My favorite is Casting Crowns!
I would just like to say.... YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY!!! Now I might actually be able to make some contributions to the discussions on this here website ;-)
Fantastic EJ! I'm so glad you're adding this. Natalie Grant is definitely one of my favorites. I also enjoy Nicole C. Mullen.
@all: glad you're liking the idea! gimme more names!! @A. Will: i know you're smiling. maybe this will get you off my back. :-) @mdixon: chris tomlin and natalie grant are at the very TOP of my list of "to-be-featured" artists, prolly in that order. you stalkin' me?! @Odi: welcome! thanks for commenting-- i'm DEFINITELY doing casting crowns!
Is tobyMac considered CCM??? It's a couple years old by now, but I'm still digging 'Made To Love' on his 'Portable Sounds' project.
YAY!!! I am SO excited! You know I love Natalie Grant, Michael W. Smith, Chris Tomlin, MercyMe, and Kari Jobe! Do it, do it, do it!
how bout nichole nordeman, jeremy camp, jimmy needham, steven curtis chapman...
Thx for the welcome EJ... It has been a blessing to discover this site. Thx for being available to be used through this avenue. I'm looking forward to the feature on Casting Crowns...
"Across the aisle", great idea!
We did this thing at my church with my worship team (our congregation is very mixed) I had everyone bring in cd's or dvd's that they own to share with others for up to two weeks. So you had some of our white team mates taking home Da' Truth and Judy McAllister. I took home Phillips, Craig, and Dean, who are pretty good by the way, one of our older team members got Kirk Franklin, and there was Vineyard music flying all over the place. I shared this with an online worship leader community that I am part of and some people also adopted the idea (www.worshipthe rock.com) Selah is also OFF THE CHAIN! G
OOH! Jimmy Needham was here in Grand Rapids about a month ago. Seriously, he is the gospel Robin Thicke!
I absolutely love CCM. You talking about some W-O-R-S-H-I-P! I get taken in on the first phrase of these songs. The guitar, the pure voices, I don't get enough!
I soooo agree wit you! I love all genre's of music glorying the name of the Lord! so A to da Men!
its all about avalon, newsboys, dc talk, third day, natalie grant and newsong. they stay on repeat
3 absolute musts are Crystal Lewis (the Christian Teena Marie); Jon Gibson (blue eyed Stevie Wonder) and Tim Miner (the blue eyed Brian McKnight who was out BEFORE Brian McKnight). Also, when talking about Nicole C Mullen, you have to mention that had a career in Christian music years before her so called debut. Back then she was called just, "Nicole" and her music was very Paula Abdul/Jody Watley/Janet Jackson with Christian rappers guesting on various cuts. Back then she was produced by Tim Miner.
Love the blog. I am a praise and worship leader, and I absolutely love CCM music. My roots are in Gospel and I love that too, however, being overseas in Japan, working with so many different people, it is important to bridge the gap. I have been trying to communicate this same thing to the praise teams I've worked with for sometime now. It has been a long time coming and I believe God meant for us all to come together.