The problem is a frame of reference. We don't know how much crap was invented that didn't effect the world during the same time periods that these great inventions were made.

I've made this point before, but look at your church's hymnal sometime. Look at how old most of the hymns are. There's no way that every hymn ever written was shoved into that book. Some where there was a vetting process. Only the best made it. You can see that better with some of the more modern hymns that have been included. You know there have been more CCM hits than just the Michael W Smith hymns that have been selected.

It may not actually be a slide at all. It may be the nature of things that a lot of CRAP has to be made for one good thing to be produced. What you may today perceive to be a slide, may in fact be perfectly normal.


My argument exactly. Sometimes it clicks. Sometimes it doesn't. Sometime labels cheap out and release crap or churches do some event that goes off like crap b/c it was the best they could do at the time, sometimes it's golden from the start.


What type of impact do you want to have though? That's an important question to ask you know.


Same here I think....

Nope... didn't miss it. There's a TON of mediocre music out there. Britney Spears for example (she keeps coming up in my life as an example for some reason). You aren't going to sit there and tell me that she's really light-years ahead of ZoeGirl when it comes to quality and originality. Both the secular and Christian scenes have their share of crap.



Exactly. How many non-Christian producers would you buy music from and absolutely love it? It's probably no more than 20-50. How many did you turn down to find those 20-50?

There are fewer Christians, but I would venture to guess that the percentage is either roughly the same or slightly higher that you find something of quality. The fact that the pool is a LOT smaller and we're calling attention to it gives the "Christians produce crap" theology.



That happens all the time in the secular scene too. You think Microsoft releases primo software that's totally stable and bug free? If they did, it would never make it out. Again, smaller pool of people. I agree that we let quality slide, but is it REALLY at a higher percentage?

Side Note: Given that just about EVERY major CCM label is owned by a secular radio company... aren't they working against themselves to release crap? It's something I've been debating internally for years. I think it's more of the secular's opinion of what Christians want.


Agreed. We Christians seem to sit back and pray about it and expect God to do all the work. Part of the problem too is that Christians don't get involved in the secular scene as much as they should, so they haven't really been exposed to a proshow and lack the contacts because of that to put one together. Research has to be done, and they don't know how to do it. Still I think it comes down to percentages. I don't think you have gotten that feeling from Cstone this year for example. Granted, we did a LOT of understated lights, but still.



Agreed. I still want to see that percentage though. If you have 10% of ppl doing it right in both the secular and Christian world, you'd have something like this:

200,000 secular artists x 0.1 = 20,000 secular artists getting it right

500 Christian artists x 0.1 = 50 Christian artists getting it right.

That means 180,000 secular artists get it wrong, but this goes unnotices b/c of how big the 20,000 who are doing it right rise to. For Christians, you have 450 getting it WRONG and that stands out more than the 50 getting it right b/c the 50 who get it right have yet to break free of the other 450 b/c that's their entire fan base OR... b/c they more closely associate with the 20,000 secular artists getting it right and leave the 450 by themselves. In which case, the 450 are dominate and really stand out to those of us who are even aware that these Christian artists exist.

Joseph, Spiritual Blessings and a few others on Next Dimension Music.

Yes, the secular has a crap filter. Christians don't. The filter doesn't exist b/c the talent pool is so small.

Brit to Zoe works b/c they both make crap music and in their individual scenes, they're popular. Period. Crap makes it through the secular filter.

Oh... 99% of ppl in the secular scene really haven't heard of Andy Hunter. When they here his name, they think of the guy on GU who is anything BUT Christian. Not true with Shiloh.

Sure, it should be applied. Who says it is though? People have treated Christian music as it's own genre for decades now. It's supposed to sound like this. Ultimately, you have to place the blame on Sony, RCA, Time Warner, BMG, EMI and all the other major players who own the vast majority of Christian labels. They honestly believe that this is the music that Christians consider as quality. It HAS made it through the same corporate filters that Britney Spears has.

And honestly, like I said early... the lack of a wide talent pool reinforces this b/c all the big labels here is what they release. If the ppl sending in demos only send in crap, that's what they're going to release. They can't filter out as much or they wouldn't have a product. And because Christian music makes up roughly 12% of the market, they're not going to pass on that. It's easy money for them b/c ppl will simply "buy it for Jesus."

If I can call Brintey crap, you can call whoever you want crap. It's the music industry. It's supposed to release crap. The only thing I'm arguing is that percentage of crap released by Christians is roughly the same as what is released for the secular. The only difference is that numerically, there are fewer Christian releases than secular so the bad stands out more when it comes to Christian music.

That's kinda what I'm poorly alluding to... in part.

If ppl write music for singer A, they're going to write what sells rather than what's important to the artist and that does cheapen everything and greatly lowers the level of creativity.

loaded question.     i don't think we need to classify relationships into quantifiable data, do you?    i mean, i try to live according to how Jesus lived in my relationships with other people, isn't that what we should be doing regardless of whether there are results in other people's lives or not?


The Christian Dance Community seems to be focused on Christians, there's the impact.

Carey's right.

Back to the original question: Yeah... I don't know how broad of an impact we have in the secular scene as far as evangelism goes. I seriously think we're lacking in that part though, esp. if people here are posting about how they don't feel like they need to share their faith.

I know there's a bunch of ppl here who are Christians, but are fed up with all of their local churches. They're searching for like-minded Christians and they're drawn here. The problem with that is this site isn't a church. Those people still should be involved in a local church, even if they don't agree with it 100% or don't have anyone who really gets dance music. We are to be examples to those churches if nothing else and help them to learn to reach out of their shells. 

One of the good things about TF is that we all do pray for each other and when able to, we support one another physically and financially. When there is a job to be done, we know there is a core group of ppl on this site who will do it without fail. These people truly believe in what we are doing... whatever THAT is

So, I guess it comes down to what do you really want to see happening: Christians loving Christians or Christians evangelizing to the lost? We're good at one but bad the other.