Another musical treat...

This may surprise some of you who have read me regularly over the last couple of years, but I don't really like CCM (Contemporary Christian Music). The underlying philosophy of the movement as a whole is flawed; much of what the industry produces is theological tripe; and many of the performers themselves seem to want to relegate Christianity to a big emotional gush-fest. No, I honestly dislike CCM as a whole. Now having said that, there are certain singers / groups / "artists" linked with CCM who I absolutely love. These are people who tend to focus heavily on the theology of their music and not so much on the cotton candy crap that tends to define most of CCM. Some of these I've spoken of on here before, while others I haven't. In this blog entry, I just want to highlight one that I've recently discovered.

Sovereign Grace Music is a ministry of Sovereign Grace Ministries, which is led by former pastor C.J. Mahaney. Now if that name sounds familiar, he is also one of the founders of the Together For the Gospel (T4G) Annual Conference. Now, Sovereign Grace features a plethora of contributors - most of whom I've never heard prior to looking through their website. The one contributor I had heard of was one of the founding members of GLAD - another old favorite of mine. I'm not so sure that SG Music would readily identify themselves with CCM, so much as they would use terms like "worship". They have a variety of sounds and styles, but they are consistent in their pursuit of pleasing God through their music. One of the statements they make regarding this is:

"For more than twenty years, Sovereign Grace Ministries has been producing songs for congregational worship. Our goal is to provide local churches with new songs characterized by biblical truth and consuming passion that honors God. While our lyrics cover a broad variety of Scriptural topics, we continually return to God’s glory revealed in Christ’s atoning sacrifice on the cross—the gospel. Our hearts and lives have been transformed by the Savior, and we can’t help singing about what is “of first importance” (1 Corinthians 15:3–4). Like Charles Wesley, we wish we had “a thousand tongues to sing our great Redeemer’s praise.” We pray the songs we write will produce the same desire in you and your church, for the glory of God."

I would encourage you to check them out some time. I've purchased and dowloaded several of their songs from both I-Tunes and Walmart online....obviously you can purchase them directly from their website as well. Enjoy!