Baltimore (CNN) - The capacity crowd at the 1st Mariner Arena in Baltimore is bouncing in unison to the most widely sung music on the planet today. The catwalk above the arena is shaking.

Chris Tomlin grabs the microphone and asks the crowd if they’re ready.

"I feel alive, on God's great dance floor!" He leads the packed venue in singing and jumping.

Tomlin is out touring the country with his latest studio album, “Burning Lights.” In January, it topped the Billboard 200 charts. But unlike those who've enjoyed performances by Beyonce, Johnny Cash and a host of others who've played this Baltimore hall, after these fans stream out the doors they will have ample opportunity to sing Tomlin's songs again, as one.

That is the secret to Tomlin’s success – the stage, the lights, the band - aren’t about him. As lively as his shows are, the point is not to get you inside the doors. The point is to get you singing in church.

“I strive for trying to write something that people can sing, that people want to sing, and that people need to sing,” Tomlin explained before the show.

Tomlin is the undisputed king of worship music, a genre of Christian music sung on Sunday mornings all across the world and increasingly played on Christian radio stations. The music is simple, devotional and easy on the ears.

“We would say that Chris is the most prolific songwriter in the United States now, in this past decade,” said Howard Rachinski, CEO of Christian Copyright Licensing International, the company that tracks what music is used in churches around the world.

In 2012, CCLI paid out $40 million to artists and musicians, and Tomlin got a healthy slice of that pie. Churches around the world used 128 songs he wrote or co-wrote last year, Rachinski said.

CCLI estimates that every Sunday in the United States, between 60,000 and 120,000 churches are singing Tomlin’s songs. By extrapolating that data, Rachinski says, “our best guess would be in the United States on any given Sunday, 20 to 30 million people would be singing Chris Tomlin's songs.”

In their last two reporting periods, Tomlin had the No. 1 most-sung song and five of the top 25.

Search YouTube for "How Great is Our God" or "Amazing Grace (My Chains Are Gone)." Black, white, Asian, big churches, small ones are all belting out Tomlin songs. A lot.

For perspective, consider Tomlin’s musical success against one secular counterpart. In 2012, Katy Perry's record sales dwarfed Tomlin’s, but Billboard reported her songs were played 1.4 million times on the radio. Using CCLI’s low-end calculation, Tomlin’s songs were played 3.12 million times in churches.

Chris Tomlin was reared in Grand Saline, Texas, heavily influenced by country music. His dad taught him to play the guitar.

“I learned all country music - Willie Nelson, and Johnny Cash, all those kind of guys. Those are what my dad played and I played. And I played at my church as well,” Tomlin said.

Tomlin went to college to study sports medicine. “I just didn't know the music would take me here. I loved it and I was getting opportunities to go play, and when I say go play I was starting to write songs of worship even (as) a young kid. I didn't know really what worship music was, what a worship leader was, any of that. I didn't know any of those terms,” he said.

Today, at 40 years old, he is the artist most associated with worship music.

While in college he began singing and writing in earnest. As a senior, he said, he was getting invitations to lead the music for Christian conferences with 10,000 students.

He knew his music was resonating with crowds when he got a call from EMI Publishing after his song “We Fall Down,” which was released in 1998, starting being  played in churches.

“I was just writing songs for the church and from there they just started taking off.”

The compositions are considerably different from pop music. They are simpler, and he takes pains to write them that way.

“I'm thinking as that comes out of my heart as a song of response, I'm trying to think, how can I form this so that everybody, people who are tone deaf, who can't clap on two and four, how can I form this song so they can sing it, so that it is singable?”

Part of that process comes from his love of country music, the simplicity of that music and the stories those songs tell. His goal is to write songs that communicate what people would like to say to God.

“Now, that doesn't happen all the time. I mean, I write so many songs that you never hear because they are not any good.”

Tomlin is the worship pastor at Passion City Church in Atlanta. He leads worship there twice a month and beta tests all his new songs on the congregation. Tomlin is also a major draw as the worship leader of the Passion Conferences, a series of Christian conferences around the world. In January, the conference packed out the Georgia Dome in Atlanta with 60,000 college-age students. Billboard magazine noted the conference helped push up pre-sales of Tomlin’s latest CD.

His songs are so sought-after that, even before they're released on CD, they start showing up in CCLI’s online database.

“His songs have probably had the most immediate impact on churches that we have seen in history,” Rachinski said. “Even before you get to street release [of a CD], churches are already networked and engaged with his songs.”

Other contemporary Christian musicians, as the music industry designates them, have crossed over to mainstream pop with some success. Tomlin said he has no designs on making that leap.

He also doesn’t need the money. Over the course of his career he’s sold 4.2 million albums, had 6 million digital downloads, a number of sold-out tours, and of course, the copyright royalties.

Tomlin said money isn't what motivates him to write and perform.

“I feel like I have a responsibility,  that God has given me a gift to write songs for his church that people listen to and that people are coming to expect now,” he said. “When I make a record I feel that responsibility that worship leaders, churches are going to say, 'Hey, are these some new songs we can sing in our church?' And I don't take that lightly, and I don't go, ‘Oh let's go do something else fun.’”

“I haven't invented any new instruments, I haven't created new chords that no one has ever played. I play the same chord that every band plays, we play the same instruments up there, the melodies are melodies. The difference to me in the music is that I ask that God's presence be on it and that people, when they sing these songs, sense that God does something.”

The spotlight is on Tomlin even more than ever after starting the year a top the Billboard charts. As he tours the country at bigger and bigger venues, he would prefer to step out of the spotlight, away from the microphone, and let everyone else sing.

“People would be mad that they paid for a ticket for that. So I do that just occasionally, but that is what I love.”

He said the night before, at the Theater at Madison Square Garden, he took as much time as he could to step back and let everyone else sing.

“It was just so beautiful, because I feel like it says something. It's not just like, ‘Hey, listen to me sing.’ This is all of us together. I think when you step back from the mic and it is not about you - and yeah, the light may be on you, but this is about all of us singing. This is about a bigger story, it's about a greater story. It's about a greater name than my name. My name is on the ticket, but this is about a greater name.”

CNN's Oliver Janney, Chris Turner, and Dan Merica contributed to this post.  For the original post, go to:  http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2013/03/09/the-most-sung-artist-on-the-planet/

BE HOLY.
BE A MAN

I have a confession to make. I may be in the vast minority, but it is true that I do not listen to much music. Don’t get me wrong…if I were to listen to something on the radio or on an mp3 player, I would have certain preferences, but for the most part, I prefer not to listen to music. It’s not that I dislike the sound, or can’t appreciate the art, because the artistic expression is obvious. People spend a lot of time, energy, and money honing their craft for the purpose of entertaining and expressing their deepest emotions through the vehicle of music. I appreciate that fact. I just don’t find much joy in listening to music for long periods of time.

I want to make it known that I believe God created music for our pleasure and also as a mechanism for worship of Him. It can give us such joy and it also pleases Him if we use it to serve.

In today’s culture, music has become the most popular way people have chosen to interpret what they are feeling. For some, it has also become an unhealthy distraction to a life that needs certain issues addressed. People will describe their anguish or love through lyrics that bring them to tears.

When walking down the street in the middle of a crowded city, it would be difficult not to pass someone wearing a shirt representing a band, listening to their favorite songs, or even playing an instrument for extra cash.

The problem with music is the way it has been misused in our culture. People seem to be genuinely afraid of silence. This could be that the thoughts that they would be alone with are ones they do not want to confront. No matter the reason, silence makes us uncomfortable.

Today, take some time to be silent. Don’t read. Don’t speak. Don’t listen to music. Just be alone and silent. Ask God to whisper to you during this time. You will be amazed what can come from being uncomfortable and deliberate.

This post was written by Rev DeCrastos.  For the original post, go to:  http://other-words.net/2013/01/27/the-key-of-silence/

BE HOLY.
BE A MAN.

A new mainstream country artist is stirring controversy with a radio single and music video that imagines what it would be like to spend time social drinking with the Son of God.

Thomas Rhett, son of singer-songwriter Rhett Atkins and a newcomer to the country music scene, says that he penned the song “Beer With Jesus” three years ago to put into words what he would ask Jesus if he were able to sit down at a bar with Him.

“If I could have a beer with Jesus, Heaven knows I’d sip it nice and slow,” the song begins. “I’d try to pick a place that ain’t too crowded, or gladly go wherever He wants to go. You can bet I’d order up a couple tall ones; tell the waitress put ‘em on my tab.”

“I’d be sure to let him do the talkin’, careful when I got the chance to ask. How’d you turn the other cheek to save a sorry soul like me?” the song continues. “I’d tell everyone, but no one would believe it, if I could have a beer with Jesus.”

Rhett, who grew up Valdosta, Georgia and now resides in Nashville, Tennessee, says that he was brought up in the church, but that his beliefs about the subject of alcohol have changed over time.

“I grew up Church of Christ,” he told Taste of Country. “You’re taught that beer is wrong and alcohol is wrong.”

“When I got to college, some of my beliefs kind of changed, and that’s just a song that I personally believe that’s how Jesus would have been if he were here,” Rhett explained. “That song means so much to me and to my family.”

Rhett, 22, said that he has had some of his deepest conversations with friends while drinking alcohol.

“Those moments stick out in my mind because those were some of the best conversations I had with my buddies … just getting below the surface and talking about deeper life stuff and things that matter,” he states.

“Beer with Jesus,” co-written by Rhett, Lance Miller and Rick Huckaby, was crafted to outline what the songwriters believe most listeners would want to ask the Lord, according to Rhett.

“[W]e tried to make very broad questions about what we would ask Jesus and what we thought the general population would ask Jesus if they had 20 minutes just to sit down and talk to Him,” he outlined.

Questions in the song include “Is Heaven really just beyond the stars?” “What’s on the other side?” and “Are Mom and Daddy alright?”

“He can probably only stay for just a couple rounds, but I hope and pray He’s stayin’ till we shut the whole place down,” Rhett sings.

Reactions to the song, which is now playing on country stations nationwide, and is also featured in a music video on CMT, have been mixed.

“Every time I play that song live, a lot of people will cry,” Rhett told GAC-TV. “I’ve had a preacher come up to me saying, ‘Man, I would love to get you up to Wisconsin and sing that song at our church service.’”

“A woman called into a radio station in Pennsylvania a couple weeks ago and voiced that her son had just been killed in a car accident,” he continued. “And she came to my show in Pennsylvania and told me that her son’s five best friends were at the funeral, and they played my song ‘Beer with Jesus’ and they all got baptized because of the song and what it did to them.”

However, Julia Conner with country radio station US105 admits that not everyone is thrilled about the song.

“Of course there is controversy,” she states. “[S]ome folks don’t feel Jesus would be drinking beer, and we ought not sing about it.”

Some listeners across the country agree.

“Why not just have some water with Jesus? This is a prime example of how far down the toilet country music has gotten,” writes commenter Marshall Chandler. “If you want to sing about Jesus, do it. … Just don’t mix the two!”

For the original post, go to:  http://christiannews.net/2012/12/13/mainstream-country-artists-beer-with-jesus-radio-single-and-music-video-stirring-controversy/

Tomorrow, we will discuss another view of Jesus and bars...

BE HOLY.
BE A MAN.

Rise up, O men of God! 
Have done with lesser things. 
Give heart and mind and soul and strength 
to serve the King of kings. 

Rise up, O men of God! 
The kingdom tarries long. 
Bring in the day of brotherhood 
and end the night of wrong. 

Rise up, O men of God! 
The church for you doth wait, 
her strength unequal to her task; 
rise up, and make her great! 

Lift high the cross of Christ! 
Tread where his feet have trod. 
As brothers of the Son of Man, 
Rise up, O men of God!

Text: William P. Merrill, 1867-1954 
Music: William H. Walter, 1825-1893 


BE HOLY.
BE A MAN.

Even though this is Canadian research, there is much here that applies to the American church.

Why are there so few men in the average Canadian congregation? Early in 2009, the women elders at Strathcona Baptist Church in Edmonton suggested that the congregation adopt as a key objective over the next few months “That 50 percent of our church attendees should be men.”

Bob Goethe, also serving as an elder, took the opportunity to purchase David Murrow’s book, Why Men Hate Going to Church (Thomas Nelson, 2004; related website www.churchformen.com). He gave each elder a copy of this book.

Goethe asked them to read 42 pages in the book and answer three broad questions. On the evening they met for discussion, they went over their general responses to the book, and then looked at a worksheet and evaluated several songs by their lyrics.

They used a scale to rate songs as to whether they appealed primarily to men or women. The theory here is that on any given Sunday, if you add up the numbers of the “F” (feminine) songs and the numbers of the “M” (masculine) songs, they should come out roughly even.

Here are some of the results  of the Strathcona Baptist experiment:

One song (author unknown), based on Psalm 125:1-2, got an average rank of M2. The elders chose that because of the imagery of Mt. Zion, of bigness, of power. Some lyrics: “Those who trust, those who trust / Those who trust in the Lord / Those who trust in the Lord are as Mount Zion / which cannot be moved but remains established forever.”

The song “Lord, you are more precious than silver” (by Lynn DeShazo, 1982, a setting of Proverbs 3:14-15) rated an F8, which the elders decided is too feminized to be sung in a worship setting. The women elders were actually harder on this song than the men. Calling Jesus “precious” and “beautiful” made it a feminine song. And the line “nothing I desire compares with you” made it strongly feminine, since such language is so associated with romantic love. Some lyrics: “Lord, you are more precious than silver / Lord, you are more costly than gold / Lord you are more beautiful than diamonds / And nothing I desire compares with you.”

The elders came to agree that feminine worship songs tend towards celebrating a passionate love affair with Jesus, while masculine worship songs are more about strength, power, commitment and loyalty.

Participants decided to implement a balance of songs based on their scale to see if there would be any effects. Goethe reports that they have been very positive, even striking.

Before opening the issue, Goethe counted about 40 percent men in Sunday morning services. Whenever the worship team used to invite worshippers to “take a few moments to speak out our praises to God,” the voices one heard were almost all women’s voices. The men had nothing to say during these times of corporate worship.

They began discussing Murrow’s book and analyzing worship songs in March 2009, and started making immediate, small changes in the mix of worship songs, eliminating songs that were F6 to F10s, and trying to make sure there was a balance of masculine- and feminine-flavoured worship every week.

After they got into this process, one of Goethe’s male friends said to him: “This is great. It helps me to understand perhaps why I have often found it hard to ‘enter into worship’ – something I usually attributed to be just being ‘less spiritual’ than those around me.”

Only six weeks after they began making intentional changes, when a worship leader called on people to speak out their praises to God, half of the voices were male. It seems men are finding it a bit easier to track with the worship times and engage with the Holy Spirit.

After six months, overall attendance had grown, and fully half of those who attended were men. The elders have taken the “50 percent men” goal off the To-Do list and put it on the Done list.

Admittedly this subject and this method are controversial and easily misunderstood. No one should think that leading worship at church is an easy task for anyone, male or female. But let’s not be afraid to open up a conversation that will allow us all to begin to think seriously about the words of the songs that we are trying to get men to sing on Sundays. If that can help deal with one of the issues that keep men out of church, we might be able to attack some of the others.

This research is taken from:  http://www.christianity.ca/NetCommunity/Page.aspx?pid=7243

New favorite song by Tenth Avenue North.  The title is LOSING.  Terrific truth and honesty and the composition is just riveting.

Here are the lyrics:

I can't believe what she said
I can't believe what he did
Oh, don't they know it's wrong?
Don't they know it's wrong?

Well maybe there's something I missed
But how could they treat me like this?
It's wearing out my heart
The way they disregard

This is love. This is hate. 
We all have a choice to make

Oh, Father won't You forgive them?
They don't know what they've been doin' (oh no)
Oh, Father, give me grace to forgive them
Cause I feel like the one losin'

It's only the dead that can live
But still I wrestle with this
To lose the pain that's mine
Seventy times seven times

Lord it doesn't feel right
For me to turn a blind eye
But I guess it's not that much
When I think of what You've done.

This is love. This is hate. 
We've got a choice to make

Oh, Father, won't You forgive them?
They don't know what they've been doin' 
Oh, Father, give me grace to forgive them
Cause I feel like the one losin' (oh no)

Why do we think that hate's gonna change their heart?
We're up in arms over wars that don't need to be fought
But pride won't let us lay our weapons on the ground
We build our bridges up, but just to burn them down
We think pain is owed apologies and them it'll stop
But truth be told it doesn't matter if they're sorry or not
Freedom comes when we surrender to the sound
Of Mercy and Your Grace, Father, send Your angels down (singin')

Oh, Father, won't you forgive them?
They don't know what they've been doing (oh, no)
Oh, Father, give me grace to forgive them
Cause I feel like the one losing
I feel like I've been losing

Oh Father won't you forgive them?
They don't know what they've been doin'
Oh Father, give me grace to forgive them
Cause I feel like the one losin'
I feel like I've been losing

Oh, Father, give me grace to forgive them
Cause I feel like the one losin'

 http://www.lyricsmode.com/lyrics/t/tenth_avenue_north/#share