{"id":1661,"date":"2011-10-07T23:59:16","date_gmt":"2011-10-08T04:59:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.covchurch.org\/wc\/?p=1661"},"modified":"2011-10-19T11:45:44","modified_gmt":"2011-10-19T16:45:44","slug":"franklin-and-tomlin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blogs.covchurch.org\/wc\/2011\/10\/franklin-and-tomlin\/","title":{"rendered":"Franklin and Tomlin"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>Today\u2019s post is written by Matt Nightingale, Director of Worship Ministries at <a href=\"http:\/\/www.rcctulsa.org\">Redeemer Covenant Church<\/a> in Tulsa, OK.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-1670\" src=\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/40\/2011\/10\/Screen-shot-2011-10-07-at-10.47.10-PM.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"515\" height=\"360\" srcset=\"http:\/\/blogs.covchurch.org\/wc\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/40\/2011\/10\/Screen-shot-2011-10-07-at-10.47.10-PM.png 920w, http:\/\/blogs.covchurch.org\/wc\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/40\/2011\/10\/Screen-shot-2011-10-07-at-10.47.10-PM-300x209.png 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 515px) 100vw, 515px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>A few weeks ago, Jelani Greenidge and Jo Anne Taylor started and important conversation about culture in worship. <a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.covchurch.org\/wc\/?p=1633\">You can read it here.<\/a> This week in our &#8220;Better Together&#8221; forum (see sidebar), Jelani kept the conversation alive with the following post:<!--more--><\/p>\n<p><em> <\/em>&#8220;<em>Who&#8217;s the most famous White Christian musician in the U.S. right now? <\/em><em>Chris Tomlin.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em> How many of his songs are on the CCLI top 25 right now? <\/em><em>A bunch.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em> Who&#8217;s the most famous Black Christian musician in the U.S. right now?<\/em> <em>Kirk Franklin.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em> How many of his songs are on the CCLI top 25 right now?<\/em><em> None.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em> Why do you think this is?&#8221;<\/em><\/p>\n<p>And seventy replies later, we may not be much closer to getting this problem &#8220;fixed,&#8221; but we&#8217;re talking about it in a healthy and productive way. Here is just a taste of some of the more salient comments&#8230;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>From a white worship leader: <em>&#8220;Without demographic stats re:  &#8220;black\/white&#8221; churches, I can&#8217;t give you math. But it&#8217;s easier for  say&#8230; *you* to inject some r&amp;b sensibilities into a Chris Tomlin  tune than it is for say *me* to get a Kirk Franklin tune into a place  that&#8217;s accessible for my team and my congregation&#8230; Chris Tomlin tunes are singable and simple. They follow the pop song laws of chord harmony  &#8211; I, IV, V, vi, ii are pretty much it. Any kid with a guitar can sing a Chris Tomlin song.&#8221;<\/em><\/li>\n<li><em>&#8220;What I have noticed is the  lack of realistic diversity on CCLI&#8217;s home screen feature scroll (where  they show pics of a variety of artists\/songwriters).   Take a look  especially at the Paul Baloche picture (if it&#8217;s still on the site).  All  the worshipers look alike &#8211; nicely dressed with trendy clothes, women in  scarves, hands lifted, etc.  Not that these things are bad, but does  that image really reflect who worships with Paul Baloche (and others)? I  know our group of worshipers is much more widely diverse than that.   Maybe its just me, but part of the problem is image portrayed by the  industry itself.&#8221;<\/em><\/li>\n<li><em>&#8220;I wouldn&#8217;t care that much&#8230; except that I see the influence that these lists have on the rest  of the body. It becomes an echo chamber, where something good gets  noticed, gets promoted, and then if it&#8217;s really good, EVERYBODY jumps on  it&#8230; And the thing is, there is  real money at stake here, because the &#8220;plays&#8221; in churches help to fund  the artists who create. It&#8217;s not a perfect system, but it is a blessing  to musicians. My question is, how can we tweak the system to get some different color into the pipeline? THAT is why I care. It&#8217;s not  because I&#8217;m worried that Kirk Franklin doesn&#8217;t feel affirmed by the  greater evangelical community. It&#8217;s because there are young men and  women who are talented and gifted and God is using them, but because of  the inherent cultural biases baked into the system, they are not getting  the same amount of exposure, play, and therefore CASH as some of our  Caucasian brothers and sisters.&#8221;<\/em><\/li>\n<li><em>&#8220;Good and sane comments so far  in my view. For African Americans to crank Tomlin or whites to rock  Franklin (or Spanish-speaking\/cultural folks to do either on any wider  scale) is rare, though not entirely beyond at least some of our ability  or desire. We raised our kids and grandkids on wide (very wide)  varieties of food. They all dig it all. For such to happen must at some  point be intentional. Musicians, much like sports teams -can- and often  do (and will) knock these color\/cultural walls down&#8230; IF they (we) are  willing to pay the price.&#8221;<\/em><\/li>\n<li><em>&#8220;How would you define the price? Because I agree&#8230; People who are willing to pay are rare.&#8221;<\/em><\/li>\n<li><em>&#8220;For me, on the local level,  the key is musical collaboration.  A few years back I invited the youth  choir from one of our predominately black churches in town to lead our  worship.  They graciously accepted and  WOW!  It was incredible (worship  and music), but I think our predominantly white congregation wasn&#8217;t  quite sure what to do (with their hands, their voices, nothing).   Especially, with all the dancing in the aisles!  If we could join in  collaboration (both\/all three\/all four cultures on the platform) we all  might learn from each other what &#8220;to do.&#8221;  Both from a musical and  expressive perspective.   Our congregations could see what a white  person &#8220;does&#8221; in the context of gospel music and vise verse,   Maybe a  Tomlin\/Franklin album might help lead the way?  Now where did I put  Tomlin&#8217;s phone number?&#8221;<\/em><\/li>\n<li><em>&#8220;This is one of the healthiest  conversations I&#8217;ve witnessed in a long time. Seems to me, with some  intentional leadership, we can take the Christian Arts aesthetic to a  much healthier place&#8230; and take it out from the unthinking influences  of commercial forces and media. It&#8217;s time for the trend towards Lowest Common Denominator art to be over&#8230;&#8221;<\/em><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>I sincerely hope you&#8217;ll join in the discussion. One of our denomination&#8217;s great strengths is its commitment to racial righteousness (Read our 2008 Resolution on Racial Righteousness <a href=\"http:\/\/www.covchurch.org\/who-we-are\/beliefs\/resolutions\/resolutions-from-2000-2009\/2008-racial-righteousness\/\">here<\/a>), but we still have so far to go. May God give us clear guidance to move forward, and may we obey as we worship Him with heart, soul, mind and strength.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-report-this\"><a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.covchurch.org\/wc?moderation_action=report_form&#038;object_type=post&#038;object_id=1661&#038;width=250&#038;height=300\" class=\"thickbox\" title=\"Report This Post\">Report This Post<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Today\u2019s post is written by Matt Nightingale, Director of Worship Ministries at Redeemer Covenant Church in Tulsa, OK. A few weeks ago, Jelani Greenidge and Jo Anne Taylor started and important conversation about culture in worship. You can read it here. This week in our &#8220;Better Together&#8221; forum (see sidebar), Jelani kept the conversation alive [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":55,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[91,16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1661","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-multicultural","category-music"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Franklin and Tomlin - Worship Connect<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"http:\/\/blogs.covchurch.org\/wc\/2011\/10\/franklin-and-tomlin\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Franklin and Tomlin - Worship Connect\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Today\u2019s post is written by Matt Nightingale, Director of Worship Ministries at Redeemer Covenant Church in Tulsa, OK. 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