13TH ANNUAL WE LOVE CHRISTIAN MUSIC AWARDS: Live Ceremony Tuesday, April 6, 2025 - Franklin, TN - Get Tix Here
AN NRT BOOKS EXCERPT
Christian Music Was In My Future
An excerpt from the upcoming NRT Books release, 'Mixtape Theology,' coming October 2, 2023
 


AN NRT BOOKS EXCERPT, Christian Music Was In My Future
Posted: September 20, 2023 | By: KevinMcNeese_NRT
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The following is an excerpt from Mixtape Theology, a Bible study and retrospective inspired by ‘90s Contemporary Christian music and culture, available October 2 from NRT Books and authors Rachel Cash and William "Ashley" Mofield. Mixtape Theology will take ‘90s CCM fans to “Another Time, and Another Place” to “Dive” into the biblical passages behind their favorite 90s contemporary Christian music (CCM). Full of nostalgia, renewed wonder, and a lot of ‘90s cheese, readers are encouraged to fall in love with these songs and the gospel all over again. 
 
Click here to pre-order
 
I knew it immediately after performing a human video to Carman’s “The Champion” on a summer mission trip to Guatemala at age 13. It was not because I killed my performance in the ring with the main character (which I did), but because afterward, during group prayer, one of the lead pastors traveling with us prayed over me and prophesied that I would be involved in “music ministry.”
 
I didn’t play an instrument. I didn’t sing in the choir. I didn’t listen to or care about Christian music. My cassette collection at the time consisted of Michael Jackson, Billy Joel, and Bruce Springsteen’s Born in the U.S.A. (the first album played in my first Walkman). The 1997 track from Carman, who would later become a staple of my teenage years, was picked for us by our youth pastor, who told us to “act it out.”
 

So, this vision spoken over me meant next to nothing. It was simply a nice random, and encouraging message from an older woman I admired and respected. I thought nothing of it as my early teen years marched on.
 
Then, a few years later, I encountered Audio Adrenaline’s Don’t Censor Me (an album I wrote about in my previous retrospective), and everything started to click into place. Like every teenager before me, I was beginning to figure out what a relationship with God looked like in my life. This music spoke into that building curiosity in a way different from everything my parents, and most peers, were listening to.
 
My “Glory Days” were about to get a radical redefining, and my response to discovering Christian music was immediate and purposeful: Who else can I share this with?
 
As I dove deeper into the emerging world of Christian pop and rock, that desire to find anyone who would listen grew stronger. I guess that’s what all music does. It’s a form of entertainment designed to be sharable in community. The more, the merrier.
 
During my junior high and high school days, I looked for every opportunity to incorporate Christian music into my life and, without even realizing it, began to live out the calling God had brought to me at age 13.
 
I quickly amassed a large collection of Christian CDs by visiting local Christian bookstores every week and spending hours listening to demos and thumbing through copies of CCM and 7Ball magazines. I budgeted out months’ worth of wish lists with the mail-order music subscription club Columbia House. With a massive collection in tow, I began hosting listening parties at youth groups and DJing local parties, and skate nights at the roller rink. At the same time, I joined the youth choir, picked up the saxophone, and started playing in my church’s worship band. Music ministry was becoming my life.
 
Before I knew it, my passion for introducing people to Christian music, born from a direct calling I wasn’t fully aware of, reached a new level.
 
The music I listened to and was passionate about getting others to listen to didn’t get played on the radio, which bothered me. The local contemporary station focused on older artists such as Steven Curtis Chapman, Wayne Watson, and Kathy Troccoli. I was discovering, and listening to, dozens of incredible, life-changing albums from newer artists such as Plumb, Big Tent Revival, and Smalltown Poets, all of which were nowhere to be found on the air. I was becoming frustrated running into narrow perceptions of what Christian music offered, and it was time to do something about it.
 
After being turned down by the local contemporary station, a local Christian talk station offered me two hours every Saturday night to run my own music show. Why? No clue other than “God knows.” I had no radio experience. I had no business experience. I was an 18-year-old young adult with a bunch of CDs and a lot of passion. Once I collected $500 a month for the airtime, I had a block of time to play whatever I wanted.
 
And so, I secured a few sponsors from generous business owners in my church happy to support a kid's dream, and I started a two-hour radio show called “The Rock.” To say it was “amateur hour” would be an understatement. After a crash course in studio training, they turned me loose. LIVE. The analog system had me shuffling CDs, and sponsor ads were recorded on cartridges. I would accidentally fire off spots over songs. I would do entire breaks without turning the microphone on. I would play two songs at once, announce the wrong tracks, give out the wrong phone number, and do everything short of burning the studio down. But I was playing music that few people heard. And it was glorious.
 
I immediately discovered that I needed to own more music. Short of borrowing from friends and saving up every buck I could for the local Christian bookstore, it wasn’t enough to keep a two-hour show fresh and current. There was just so much music coming out every month. I quickly struck up a deal with the local Christian bookstore. I would advertise for them for free every month in exchange for CDs.
 
Things were going great—until that night.
 
I had just received the new album, The Hoodlum’s Testimony, from rapper T-Bone (1997) and was debuting his single “Demon Executor” on the show. About halfway through the song, I noticed the lights on the studio phone start to illuminate. I ignored it since no one had trained me to answer the phone.
 
Now, keep in mind that this was a station that played zero music. The programming before and after The Rock radio show consisted of nationally syndicated preaching–talk radio that was geared toward an audience four times my age. Apparently, they were not happy with the gang-banging, demon-hating rapper. They tuned in that night for some friendly Jesus preaching only to hear lyrics that promoted throat-slashing demons, banging together demon’s heads like a tetherball, and using a sniper’s scope to defeat a demon’s hope. In hindsight, I should have used more discretion.
 
I received a call the next morning to meet with the station owner, and he was not happy. He gave me a few more weeks to wrap up my prepaid month, and that was that. The Rock ended its short, eight-month run. While it was sad to see that dream die, God’s plan for me was just getting started, and sharing Christian music with people in unique, wild, and crazy God-sized ways has remained a defining cornerstone in almost everything I’ve done since. This was before God opened an opportunity for me in Grand Rapids, Michigan, working for a dot-com start-up writing about Christian music. This was before I would spend five years being part of a pioneer team selling and marketing Christian music online when physical product was still the only way to consume music. And it was well before I would plant roots to begin a Christian music site that became NewReleaseToday.com, welcoming tens of millions of visitors throughout the past two decades and connecting them to what’s new each week in Christian music.
 
Even though I learned many things along the way, seeing God’s faithfulness in a promise He gave me back in 1991 drives me. We have to share Christian music because it contains the Gospel. It reaches struggling, hurting, disenfranchised, alone, hopeless, and forgotten people and reminds them that God is with them. Always. Nothing else matches music's universal language and power, so I share it wherever and however I can.
 
God knew I’d be passionate about His wonderful story and love for us through music. I will be listening and sharing as long as I have breath.

An excerpt from 'Mixtape Theology,' a Bible study and retrospective inspired by 90s Contemporary Christian music and culture, available October 2 from NRT Books and authors Rachel Cash and William "Ashley" Mofield.

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13TH ANNUAL WE LOVE CHRISTIAN MUSIC AWARDS: Live Ceremony Tuesday, April 6, 2025 - Franklin, TN - Get Tix Here

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