I need to elaborate a bit on my earlier post called “Rejection By Silent Majority” – especially the part about Chris Tomlin, whose albums contain an unusually high percentage of songs that are both well-written and singable for a congregation.
First, you need to understand the context of my discovery. At the time I was disillusioned not only with “Christian music” (a term I should address in a future post), 
but also with church in general and the majority of Christian “culture” in particular.
(I’m no fan of most of what’s sold in Christian bookstores – including most of the books, most of the music, and certainly ALL of the Precious Moments and other assorted “Jesus Junk” that litters the space between the front door and the few good books that might be on a shelf in the back somewhere.)
About three years ago, I was totally unplugged from the worship music scene and just didn’t care for the small bits that I occasionally heard. But every once in a while I would hear a song that would wake me up to the possibility that there was good stuff out there.
I kept a list and eventually asked someone more knowledgeable about my list, expecting to jot down a few artists/writers that I could check into later. But the person I asked immediately picked out the common thread in my list: all the song titles I had written down were Chris Tomlin songs.
That’s a great way to discover an artist. And you should know that I’m not easily impressed – and also that this is an area of pride for me. My tastes run along the lines of great songwriters like Ron Sexsmith, Elvis Costello, Bob Dylan, Conor Oberst, Mark Heard, Patty Griffin, Ryan Adams etc., etc. In other words: 
I tend to be a bit of a music snob. So you can imagine how excited yet embarrassed I was to find myself liking such “low” art.
But these songs, the Chris Tomlin songs that discovered me when I had never heard of Chris Tomlin, and without any advertising or marketing to make me like them involved, broke through my disillusionment and planted themselves in my soul.
This being the case, it would easy for me to get overly defensive in an attempt to protect my precious experience. In our culture, experience is truth; in every culture, protecting truth is always high on the list of priorities. When your experience becomes your absolute truth, defense of that truth also becomes absolute.
This is an error to be avoided.
And yet, in your church and in mine, there are probably people who swear by everything a certain author, musician or televangelist says. They probably were impacted at some point – it may even have led to genuine transformation – but now they’ve become evangelists for a representative of Christ rather Christ himself.
But there’s only one person worthy of that highest pedestal. It’s not Chris Tomlin or (insert favorite writer/preacher/signer here) – and it’s certainly not me.
