Cory Broersma's Blog

I grew up playing the guitar in many types of churches with many types of styles and MANY opinions of what worship music is all about. Now at times I enjoyed playing but mostly I would have preferred playing in my basement , alone without all the opinions of what kind of worship I am playing and how much “anointing” was on the “music” . I am not judging peoples opinions except that I believe that many people in church leadership take it too serious. I have always thought of worship as singing or playing your thanks to God. Nothing more and nothing less. My real “pet peeve” was the fixation on the “New Song”, (which I believe is great and something we should ask God for) but for some reason in one of the churches I grew up they seemed to think it had to be this spontaneous (real bad sounding) composition. Anyone who knows me would say I am probably to pragmatic, but I could not help thinking about any visitors we may have had, and what they thought of all the off tune strange singing. This may be the wrong attitude, but I just hate the idea of a church more concerned on being OUTWORDLY “Spiritual” without taking in to consideration how the non-Christians will react. Hence, that particular church did not grow but stayed the same for years, full of people (including myself) who thought they were very spiritual…..Anyhow, all ranting aside, my topic is free worship. The reason I mentioned the previous observance is because there are so many opinions of worship in general, but when you bring in the labels with their business minds and their lawyers then the freedom of your sound in confined to many worldly boxes. First of all, the most popular doctrines will have to be the ideology of the lyrics in order to appeal to the most lucrative demographic, and second of all, the most radio friendly production styles will have to be implemented in order to make the sound appealing that same market. Honestly, I love the U2 / Cold Play sound as much as the rest of the world, so in one way it doesn’t bother me, but I also think that for the music of the church to really create that “new sound” we should be able to play without any outside factors weighing in on our creativity. I just can’t see real creativity come with money attached to it. I have always found that in the secular music world independent bands comes up with something creative and then as the sound goes mainstream it gets over duplicated and milked for as many dollars as the label can get. In the worship music “world” it is even more extreme simply because it is a smaller group of musicians and a smaller audience. So for me, I pray for a worship revolution, free from labels and CCLI and all these other goofy businesses, so that worship musicians can create the most creative music possible, I dare to hope that they will create musical trends that the secular world will emulate! So as worship musicians who are independent by choice, we have to think and ask God to give us creative ways to finance our worship projects. Anyhow, for me Worship should be free. Of course anyone should feel free to disagree and I would certainly not judge them for it.

Cheers,

Cory Broersma
www.freeworshipsongs.org

If you have been following this blog, you will know that I am looking for creative ways to finance my worship albums (along with many other indie worship musicians) so that I can give the quality music away for free. The other day I found a cool site called www.live365.com .It’s a huge internet radio website with every kind of style of music one can imagine. I found a great Jamaican station, and while I was enjoying the music I got an idea. What if an independent musician put together a few of his or hers best songs and started to send D.J.s music and even better, become friends with stations programmers who have the same vision. I looked into the royalty system and realized if one is a member of ASCAP or for me who is Canadian - SOCAN, that every time the music is played the songwriter receives royalties. If you read the previous days blog, you will no I have trouble with the idea of receiving royalties from CCLI (which is a common way for indie worship musicians to get a bit of money), I don’t blame anyone for using this system, just I am still not sure what I think of it because they are basically charging a non-profit organization (the church) for pretty mundane services. Radio is generally for profit though, and can really be a win win situation. You can still give away your music for free, but royalties on radio play can help pay for the costs of producing your free music. So its an idea, if anyone has any comments or thoughts on this, feel free to add them.

Cheers,

Cory Broersma

www.freeworshipsongs.org

As I have mentioned before, I’m on a bit of a quest to find ways to make quality worship for free. I have also mentioned, that to make quality music it takes money. (paying musicians, studio fees, equipment ect.) I have been looking at ways to advertise on free worship sites (much like the whole open source Linux community) and various other ways to produce quality worship for free. One thing that kept coming up was this CCLI (www.ccli.com) many indie worship musicians made sure to “mention” that they are part of this organization. Because I am looking for creative ways to finance free worship, I immediately went to the site and looked around. I must admit I was first quite excited about it, because basically they give you royalties when your music is played in churches. I was so intrigued I even wrote them of my interest to join. As I began my dialog with “CCLI Copyright Department “ I started to get a mixed feeling. I began to think about why they are charging churches and for what are they charging them. I know that it is legal for a church to sing songs without worrying about copyrights ect. So I did some research and realized they were charging churches for (and I quote the website) “1) copying music without permission, and 2) showing videos/movies without authorization.” …….
…… I was like…. What?? You are charging churches so they have the right to photocopy a song for people to play and sing to worship God? Is this not a new low even for North America and Europe? It makes me laugh when I think about it, what about the underground church in China, what if they hand out paper with words of worship songs, as they sing in secret places and the middle of the night hoping to escape persecution for their Christianity, are the lawyers going to find them and start charging the underground church. I have been a Christian my whole life and I have never heard of a musician suing a church because they photocopied their song …..lol. It is funny even to think about that and yet this company seems to be based on “protecting “ the church from these type of lawsuits. Oh, they do have other “services” included with the membership, but from what I see copyrights are the just of the business model. The thing that bothers me the most is that Worship music is probably 50% if not more of phrases and poems and psalms directly from the Bible. So are worship musicians and CCLI using the words of a public domain book and charging the church for the “right” to put it on an overhead or a piece of paper so they can worship together. To me it just seems bizarre. The CCLI website says that over 150 000 churches in North America alone are part of the organization (which seems to be a global phenomenon ) and I noticed that a church with 25-99 people pay $112 dollars annually. That makes their North American operations bringing in $16 800 000. (that’s if the 150 000 churches were small) Now there is many parts of the world where people have no money to eat or in China Christians are being killed and persecuted, but here in North America we choose to take resources from the church body that could be used to feed children or lobby against our brothers and sisters who face persecution so we have the “right” to photocopy songs. I know the comparison my be a bit dramatic but even still with that much money we should ask some questions and make some comparisons. Am I saying that CCLI is an bad organization? I am not sure at this point what it is, I do like the fact that musicians are making some money, I am just curious about how much of it is going to the musicians and how much is going to CCLI. I DO NOT however approve of a musician writing a song with 50% or more of its lyrics coming from the Bible and having the audacity to charge the church to make a photocopy of it.
All of this is just my views of course and I know very little about the company so I would never judge any musician who is a part of it. I just want some answers to questions I have and would love any comments from anyone reading this. In the meantime I’ll ask CCLI a few questions.

Cory Broersma

www.freeworshipsongs.org

As I have mentioned in other posts.... I am always searching for cool "indie" worship sites.... and today I found another one. www.worshipsong.com Check it out, there is some great tunes on this site.

Cheers

Cory
www.freeworshipsongs.org

I have been chatting with my brother lately about whether or not Worship music is becoming more of a business than a true artistic expression of ones love for God. Its such a touchy subject because there are so many factors involved. I have read a few descriptions from some indie worship artists about their music, and the thoughts are really cool, like they are looking for a new sound ect. and I think the music is good but the quality of the recordings and production are sometimes hard "get passed" so you can really hear the spirit of the music. My own music has a bit of an "unpolished" sound at times so I feel for these artists putting thier art on their sleeves for the church with only the humblest equipment. And in this day and age people are accustomed to the "perfect" radio quality, even the most non musical person can quickly spot a low budget production. This is where business has entered into worship, because with money even a "bad" song can be produced into something that sounds good. But what can be done for the people who want a new sound or music that doesn't fit the "mold" that the Christian labels want? How can we as "indie by choice" musicians get that polished yet creative sound? Or what about the artists (like me) that want to give away thier music but want the music they give to be the highest quality possible. Its hard to imagine the high quality without business, and it hard to imagine true creativity with business...... any ideas????

Cheers

Cory
www.freeworshipsongs.org

10 the four and twenty elders shall fall down before him that sitteth on the throne, and shall worship him that liveth for ever and ever, and shall cast their crowns before the throne, saying,
11 Worthy art thou, our Lord and our God, to receive the glory and the honor and the power: for thou didst create all things, and because of thy will they were, and were created. Rev 4:10-11