I found this on someone elses page and I wanted to put it on my site so here you go.

Article Published: Friday, February 20, 2004
music
Bands reaping miracle

Christian music market thriving

By Ricardo Baca
Denver Post Popular Music Writer

No music is more reliant on its message than Christian music. And in a time when Christian music is selling better than its secular brothers and sisters, that message - whether it serves God or mammon - is clear.

Solid Christian acts such as the Newsboys and Rebecca St. James, who are touring together and playing Denver and Colorado Springs this weekend, are masters of marketing - and the church community lends itself to it.

Many Christian artists use their music, their charismatic sway and their worldwide exposure to influence others and spread their word. Just as religious artists making films and writing books have learned (think "Omega Code"), the church is a powerful promotional tool that operates on the cost-effective vehicle known as word-of-mouth. And sales are thriving, posting numbers that, in an otherwise moribund industry, are downright miraculous.

But it's getting a bit weird.

Open up the latest Newsboys disc, "Adoration: The Worship Album," and out pops an ad pitching "The Official Bible of the Newsboys." The book is the "NIV Student Bible," and the leaflet includes a bold quote from Newsboys frontman Peter Furler: "The NIV Student Bible has been and continues to be my daily read."

You might think the ad random, unless you also come across Rebecca St. James' 2003 greatest-hits CD. Inside her "Wait for Me: The Best From Rebecca St. James" is an insert hyping Eugene H. Peterson's "The Message." The pitch: "There is so much that is fake about our society," St. James writes. "My generation is craving something that is real, honest and true. 'The Message' is straight up! It's modern, relevant and direct."

I've heard of the Denver Broncos having an Official Airline or even an Alan Jackson tour having an Official Pick-Up Truck, but an Official Bible? It seems odd. But the Newsboys' Furler said it's nothing big, just his way of spreading the good word.

"We find a lot of Christians who don't read the Bible, and it's the greatest mistake they make," Furler said. "And then we find a lot of people who are skeptical of it. I want to read it and know it, and because of (Colorado-based author Philip) Yancey's little commentaries, it has changed my life and it's become something I read every day. I wanted to spread to the word; I wanted my family in the church to know what I'd found."

In terms of making it The Official Bible of the Newsboys, Furler said he ultimately doesn't care which Bible people read as long as they are reading one. Both Furler and St. James said they actually sought out the publishers for the collaborations.

"It was one of those very natural, authentic things," St. James said. "I received a copy of 'The Message' as a gift. They sent me a leather-bound 'Message' Bible, and the way Eugene Petersen used modern language to tell the story, it touched my heart in a special way. I started reading it in my shows."

That led to agreement to use a picture of St. James to promote the "Message" Bible.

"It's pretty normal for artists to have some other organization they're partnering with or supporting," St. James noted, talking about her affiliation with Compassion International, a Christian child-development organization working in foreign countries.

And she's right. But whether they're pitching one Bible over another or asking for foreign aid contributions, this market's power is something that goes unrecognized on a daily basis.

While the recording industry overall took a 5.2 percent dive from 1998-2002, the Christian/Gospel market, traditionally the fifth- or sixth-largest-selling genre in the industry, enjoyed an 11.2 percent boost, according to statistics from the Recording Industry Association of America and Nielsen SoundScan.

Contemporary Christian Music's sales are rock-solid, and artists are taking advantage of the scene by banding together. St. James has an interesting history with The Newsboys - her dad helped produce their first album in the late '80s in their native Australia. "I remember their names being around the house," said St. James, speaking of her childhood Down Under. But this is their first tour together. And, as both artists pointed out in interviews last week, there's strength in numbers.

"It's a hard thing to understand, the CCM market," Furler said, noting that his band's short major-label tenure was accentuated by the fact that Virgin Records didn't really know how to handle a CCM band. "It's definitely spun some heads. It's a little bit more of a community that's tethered together, which it should be.

"It's not us being exclusive at all, but we're trying to live as Christians and love one another, and it's something that you don't get out of every format," he said.

"(The music industry is) a dog-eat-dog world, and hopefully there's a lot less of that in the world we're in," Furler said. "The main difference between a Christian band and a mainstream band is the link to the church. One works with the church and is encouraged and lifted up that way, and the other is more of a lone wolf."

While the Newsboys will celebrate their second decade together next year, Rebecca St. James, 26, has recorded and toured for a decade. She said that while her music has a different motive than most of the mainstream fare on the radio, the dissimilarities between the Christian and secular worlds are shrinking.

"The heart and motive behind our music is different, because we want people to experience God," she said. "But there are also similarities to a normal rock show - big production, big lighting, big sound and on this tour we have multimedia.

"But there's still a lingering stereotype that (Christian music) is irrelevant and lacking in quality and uncool, but even in the 10 years I've been involved, the music has grown up and the budgets have increased and the popularity has grown," St. James said. "I always encourage people to give it a chance, because a lot of it really rocks."

Somehow you get the feeling that the CCMers, Furler and St. James included, can manage a bad rep, a lack of interest and anything else the secular market can throw at them and work it into a potent force amid a crippled industry.


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