The Worship Tax - How your church's worship profits secular investors via CCLI

The Problem of Commercializing Prayer and Worship

You're at church, and it comes time to pray together. The person assigned to pray has decided to recite a lovely piece by another author. They display it on the screen for everyone to read. At the end of the prayer, you notice the following.

How great our God is. Words by Tom Christie, 2004, Wondrously Made Prayers, Used by Permission, PPLI License 12345. You're a bit confused by this, so you decide to ask the pastor about it after the service.

He explains that the church has signed up for an annual license to be able to legally recite prayers during services. The church now needs to pay an annual fee and report what prayers are prayed each Sunday to avoid infringing the law.

While they don't plan on praying copyrighted prayers from other authors every Sunday, they need to pay the annual fee anyway. The pastor was at least thankful they could be supporting the work of the prayer writers, who do need to feed their families after all.

While praying published prayers by other authors is usually only common in more liturgical services, the idea of needing to pay to have permission to publicly pray them would be disturbing to most people.

Prayer is direct communication with God, and any kind of commerce has no place in such a sacred act. Yet the business model I've just described is a direct reflection of what currently happens with worship music.

How Copyright Shapes the Modern Worship Music Industry

Modern worship songs are almost always copyrighted. While it is very simple to waive copyright restrictions, few artists have chosen to do.

So.

As a result, churches have been limited to either singing old hymns or paying annual licensing fees to use modern songs in their services. For churches that do not want to be left in the past, that has not been a realistic choice.

Nevertheless, many churches are more than happy to comply with this requirement since they believe it is appropriate to support Christian artists. And it is appropriate to support Christian artists, and we'll return to this later.

But where does the support actually end up going? The reality is that most Christian artists will remain in obscurity while a select few rise to the top and have their songs sung in a large number of churches.

These artists charge up to $50 ,000 for a single performance, in addition to the large amount of royalties they collect from churches. Any subsequent songs they publish are almost certainly guaranteed to make a profit regardless of their quality.

Whether they continue to write songs or not, and whether they stay Christian or not, the money continues to flow. Meanwhile, many other artists cannot earn anything close to a living wage from their music alone and must support themselves by other means.

There is a disparity between the artists who need financial support and those who actually receive the proceeds from licensing fees. Instead, the current system follows the celebrity model of the secular music industry.

Many of the songs that do become popular come from groups with questionable practices or theology. The most prominent examples are the bands associated with Hillsong, Bethel and Elevation. According to licensing statistics, at least half of the top 100 worship songs used in church services are by artists with strong connections to one of those three.

Some of the royalties for those songs are even paid directly to those churches. While some churches have chosen not to sing their songs, statistics show that a great many still do. Therefore, much of the money churches pour into the music industry goes to artists who already have more than they need, or to entities with whom it would be unwise to be financially connected to.

CCLI as the Business Facilitator

The main organisation that facilitates this business model is Christian Copyright Licensing International, or CCLI, which is used by over 250 ,000 churches in at least 70 countries. Other licensing organisations exist, but they are focused on different use cases, so CCLI has a virtual monopoly on the standard licensing necessary for contemporary services.

CCLI originally came about due to a fear that churches could be sued for copyright infringement by Christian artists. They point to a case from 1984 where an author of songs such as They'll Know We Are Christians by Our Love sued a Catholic diocese in Chicago.

Despite this legal precedent, I do not know of any other cases where Christian artists have tried to sue churches. Nevertheless, one of the reasons CCLI gives for why churches should pay for their licences is to ensure that they are legally covered from such lawsuits.

Though it describes itself like a ministry and originates from a church in the United States, CCLI has always been a for-profit private company. In 2016, the business was sold to a secular company that also sells music licences, called SESAC.

This might seem like a natural fit since they both have similar business models, but they do not have similar clientele. CCLI exclusively serves Christian artists and churches, and even identifies as Christian in its name, yet is now under secular ownership and control.

Presumably the owner of CCLI carefully looked into SESAC before selling a Christian business that 250 ,000 or more churches rely on and pay millions of dollars to. At the time of the CCLI sale, SESAC was primarily owned by RISV Traverse Management, a private investment firm which also owned a significant part of Playboy, the pornography business.

SESAC has now been sold, and CCLI along with it, to another investment firm, called Blackstone. Blackstone owns many different companies, some of which have concerning practices, but their main goal, like any investment firm, is to simply maximise profits for their shareholders.

To be clear, the issue here is not that CCLI is engaged in any disreputable business, but rather that it has been entrusted to the owners of disreputable businesses. These owners now also profit off the worship of God.

Even if CCLI hadn't been sold to a secular company, there is no reason why it should have been for profit in the first place. CCLI only offers annual licences, which are not based on how many songs are sung in church.

While this can be administratively convenient, it also means churches continue to pay, even if they sing public domain songs. A church that mostly sings old hymns, for example, and only uses modern copyrighted songs 10 of the time, will still pay as if they had used them 100 of the time.

Artists themselves have also taken advantage of public domain hymns, by tweaking them and subsequently collecting royalties for their new version. No one collects royalties for the original Amazing Grace.

Chris Tomlin and Louis Giglio's version has since become extremely popular. It is the 20th most popular song on CCLI at the time of writing. Now the success of that song is clearly not due to the added chorus alone.

Many churches that would have been regularly singing the original Amazing Grace are now singing Tomlin and Giglio's version, providing the owners with abundant royalties. CCLI is not the only party entangled with secular investors.

Secular Investors in Christian Music

It's recently become popular, thanks to new platforms, to sell song rights to investors. Songs earn royalties for both the artist and the publisher, often split 50 -50 between them. It's unclear how much involvement artists have in these auctions, as many appear to be initiated by publishers for their share of the royalties.

But the following are examples of worship songs that have had a portion of their royalty rights sold to investors. The Lion and the Lamb by Leland, I Worship You Almighty God by Sondra Corbett Wood, Ever Be by Kaylee Heiligenfahl and Forever by Kerry Jobe.

While not designed for corporate worship, many other Christian artists also have songs that have been sold to investors, such as Toby Mac, Lecrae, Trip Lee, Cutlass, Unspoken, Michael W. Smith, Micah Tyler, Sanctus Real, Torrin Wells and the list goes on.

Investors certainly see CCLI as an avenue for profit. One musical rights auction remarks, This catalogue earns royalties from a unique and lucrative source, direct licensing to churches via CCLI. As Kelsey Kramer McGinnis points out in her insightful article on this practice, the more secular investment there is in Christian music, the more incentive there will be for investors to influence what songs churches sing.

This is not necessarily new or limited to songs that have been put up for auction. Many Christian worship songs are published by for-profit entities that are owned by secular investors. The largest entity is Capital Christian Music Group, CCMG, that claims its publishing division currently has a 60 market share of the top 10 songs sung in church in the United States.

Each week.

So whether auctioned or not, many Christian songs are already benefiting secular investors. CCLI likely takes around 10 -15 before distributing royalties. Assuming the common 50 -50 split for publishers and artists, artists will end up taking less than 50 home, with the rest eventually flowing down to investors.

Some publishers are non-profit, but all of them still collect royalties through CCLI. So while it might be claimed that the licensing system is supporting Christian artists, it is also profitable to secular investors, who may be taking in even more.

The Sanctity of Worship and the Commercialization of Ministry

While all these matters are concerning, they are merely symptoms of the root theological confusion most Christians have about the commercialization of spiritual things, that it is permissible so long as it is practical.

Some may object, why can't CCLI operate like any other business? What's wrong with artists making money from songs that belong to them? Why can't they sell rights to royalties if they want to? All of these objections have a common assumption, that there are no biblical prohibitions against commercializing ministry.

See the description down below for links to articles on why the Bible clearly does condemn the commercialization of ministry. Interestingly, secular society has a higher view of worship music in this regard than many Christians do.

In 1976, when US copyright law was revised, an exemption was added for religious services, which still remains today.

It states,.

The following are not infringements of copyright, performance of a musical work of a religious nature or display of a work in the course of services at a place of worship or other religious assembly. The rationale for this exemption is revealed in this analysis provided with the original submission.

The purpose here is to exempt certain performances of sacred music. That is, the reason why Christians should be able to sing songs for free in church is because they are sacred, they are distinct from other songs because of their spiritual nature.

So why do churches pay for a license? When the US religious exemption was added in 1976, most churches would have been singing from memory or songbooks. The main need was just to be able to perform songs without legal restriction.

It was only after overhead projectors became popular in the 80s that churches began copying lyrics themselves, first onto transparencies and then later into digital presentations. Since the exemption only applies to the performance and display of a song, copying lyrics is not technically covered by the exemption.

This is why when you pay for a CCLI license, you are not paying for permission to perform the song at church. That right is covered by the religious exemption. This has been confirmed by CCLI themselves.

Instead, when conducting a simple non-recorded service, you are merely paying for the permission to copy the lyrics into digital slides for the song you are already allowed to sing. If however, you print, record, stream or translate the song, then those activities would not necessarily be covered by the exemption.

From the days of the early church to the reformation and beyond it, the sanctity of worship was mostly kept pure from commercial practices. Even secular lawmakers have sought to preserve it. So when advances in technology put the religious exemption into question, what did the Christian music industry do?

Rather than seek to affirm and clarify the exemption, they have exploited the legal gap and sought to profit from the worship of God. Not all artists would be aware of the exemption, but even those who are, have continued to commercialise their songs.

Churches that wish to translate songs for another language or benefit from modern day advances in recording and streaming technology must pay a premium to do so. The Christian music industry would have greatly profited from the COVID -19 pandemic, since many churches were forced to pay for streaming licences to stay connected with their members.

Those that do pay for licences also have the additional burden each week of having to report what songs they sing, every time they sing them. Congregations are being burdened financially and administratively by fellow believers who do not even participate in their services.

Churches that are unmotivated or ignorant of these legal restrictions are made lawbreakers by fellow believers. This includes believers in persecuted churches who often love to translate and sing Western songs without permission.

CCLI includes as its clients countries where most of the population still live in poverty, such as Malawi and Mozambique. Compliance with copyright restrictions should not be something congregations in these countries need to think about.

Reforming Worship Music and Returning to Freely Given Ministry

All Christian artists who produce music to edify the church should release their songs free of cost and copyright. Selling Jesus has published numerous articles on why commercialising any form of ministry is a violation of scripture's clear teaching.

These resources also address common objections that arise when the monetisation of ministry is confronted. One common objection is that passages such as 1 Corinthians 9 and 1 Timothy 5 .18, the worker is worthy of his wages, teach that any ministry can be sold.

However, both passages are in the context of those freely giving ministry, not selling it. A second common objection is that Romans 13 .1, everyone must submit himself to the governing authorities, encourages the exploitation of secular copyright law.

On the contrary, it does not require any such thing and artists are free under the law to waive restrictions if they wish to. This is not to say that Christian artists shouldn't be supported or that they have bad intentions when they participate in licensing schemes.

As mentioned earlier, it is appropriate to financially support Christian artists just as it is appropriate to support anyone who's involved in ministry. While we can certainly sympathise with the good intentions of most artists, that is not a reason to dismiss Christ's clear command and example.

When he entered the temple and discovered it had become a marketplace, he was angry. Angry enough to drive out and turn over the tables of all those seeking to profit from worship. Some will be quick to object that this took place in the temple, which was holy and cannot be equated with churches today, yet the very act of worshipping a holy God is a sacred.

Act.

Jesus was angry with people selling ordinary things in a place of worship, whereas what is happening today is not the sale of ordinary things, but spiritual things. They are spiritual songs exclusively about and directed towards a holy Lord.

These practices are so ingrained in the industry, both culturally and legally, that reform for existing artists will be difficult. Songs that are modern, congregational and copyright free are very difficult to find.

Should we then turn a blind eye and shrug because things are unlikely to change? That is not a biblical response that honours God. Instead, pastors should start actively raising up a new generation of musicians, teaching them about the sanctity of worship and admonishing them against any commercialisation of it.

Musicians should release new songs into the public domain and start to build a collection churches can use for free. Those who hope to be supported in this work should ask God to provide through his people, just as pastors and missionaries do.

Churches in the United States that are willing to forgo streaming their services could sing copyrighted music under the US religious exemption if they wish to, but the future eventually needs to be free of commercial worship music altogether.

Whether immediate or gradual, scripture requires all churches to abandon this unbiblical system. Let's pray that believers go back to the heart of worship and say, I'm sorry Lord for the thing I've made it, so that it really is all about you Jesus.

When contemporary Christian music first started to emerge and be commercialised, one artist refused to profit from the gospel. Keith Green, one of the most popular Christian artists of his time, was adamant that if it's ministry you cannot charge.

Keith didn't want anyone to be impeded from hearing the gospel through his music and was convicted to not charge for tickets to his concerts, which thousands attended, and gave away records for free. He died in a tragic accident at the age of 28, but his music continues to impact hundreds of thousands of people today.

Artists have their role model, a man who refused to compromise and took seriously Jesus' words, freely you received, freely give.