Soapbox Derby: Gospel Music

A little something to chew on for the weekend. I wrote this maybe a year ago as my "about me" on youtube, and I figured it'd be interesting for you to look at.

"...I selected "Gospel" because it's my driving force. Gospel is how I seriously learned music, and it's one of the reasons I am where I am today. It's where I get a lot of my riffs and chords and what not. I don't, however, like the direction that the Gospel music industry is headed in, and I hate the notion that all "gospel" music is inherently good, because it's all made and grouped by flawed humans. Who are we to even say what kind of music God likes? Know what I mean?

The entire nomenclature of Gospel Music is tricky. The Gospel literally is good news, and is traditionally associated with the overall good news of Christianity: that Jesus is our Savior, died on a cross, was resurrected, and is coming back soon to take His people with him. By that definition, though, a lot of preachers don't preach the gospel very much anymore. Granted, they preach the Bible, and the overarching theme of the Bible is this Gospel story that I described. Yet, preaching verse by verse is not necessarily good news based, especially if someone takes a wrath verse from the Bible and describes God's *bad* news. Know what I mean? And not every gospel song mentions Jesus, but that doesn't mean it loses its ability to minister His name to people.

I just don't think that the genre of Gospel is as untouchable as many people want to make it. Plus, I believe that people can be ministered to through all sorts of other man-made genres of music, because God is not a respecter of person, so He'll work through what He chooses.

In terms of my original tracks (that you probably haven't heard if you haven't been to my myspace page; /revkris) my main goal is to not put the same stuff out that's been out forever, and my influences are any artists who try to be different for a purpose. It's not enough just to be different, because being different just for the sake of being different is about as mindless as falling into the fads, except for the fact that you're now stupid and lonely. :)

But anyway, I'm not just Gospel. And I have no problem saying that. I'm a musician. That's all. But in every note I play, every chord I form, and every song I bang out, God gets the glory. That's what's most important to me."