Worship Musician Magazine, Featuring Jesus and 147 Pages of Gear Reviews
I used to be a backup musician for a couple of worship bands at a megachurch here in Austin. I really enjoyed it, but I could never quite find my place no matter what I did. I met a lot of nice people. It was mostly fun, and also a little weird.
The best service we ever had was when the PA shut down and they had to use a Bose stick PA and play acoustic. Honestly, I’d never seen the congregation happier or more drawn into what was going on. Instead of getting a subpar U2/ Coldplay concert, they got a very real acoustic performance. Everybody seemed happy and glad to be part of it.
I don’t know why worship music is the way it is. Half the songs you’re asked to play are written by already disgraced pastors or groups like Hillsong. A few of the songs are great. Most are just kind of middling.
What really got me, though, was the commitment to gear and all the money these churches spend on mixers, PAs, wireless systems, and everything else. I got to see the back end of some of these places, and it was astounding.
Through all of that, I started peep-ing Worship Musician magazine because someone automatically signed me up. You’d think it would be about God or religion, but it’s mostly about gear and gear reviews. Gear reviews of products made by the same companies advertising in the magazine.
It reminded me of guitar magazines growing up. They were reviewing guitars and equipment made by the people buying the ads.
In opposition to what many of these churches would call Christian values, these worship musicians are often completely obsessed with equipment. Multiple thousands of dollars invested in pedalboards to achieve a tone you could get from any garden-variety modeler. Just get an HX Stomp and you’ve basically got what you need.
Given all the EQ, compression, and processing happening through these probably million-dollar PA systems, what does a pedal or 2 really do?
I still get that magazine every month, and I still flip through it. It’s still about the gear. It’s still marginally about how to reach people. Mostly it’s about rationalizing purchases.
But at the end of the day, literally every person I talked to about it wished the music wasn’t as bombastic as it was. They loved the message and tolerated the music.
I keep waiting for the scene to change.
I don’t go to these churches anymore, but I think most of them are doing something well-meaning. The bombast and the volume, though? They give out earplugs. It’s crazy.
None of it seems to bring people closer to what they came there for. I think it often pushes them away.
The other thing people don’t realize is the amount of licensing involved on the back end. What you have to pay, report, and track to perform these songs. The apps involved. The reporting. A person who hasn’t been around it would be shocked.
The whole thing is basically a huge financial transaction when all most people want is a little acoustic guitar and some singing.
If that.
Some people just want the old lady organist.
And honestly, if you’ve ever been in a church with real pipe organs, that’s a wicked sound—in the best possible sense of the word.
Modern worship is scene full of egos and materialists.
So I guess it’s just a normal music scene.