As I look at the state of the church today. I am at a crossroads as to what really constitutes the state of worship. Within the past fifteen years, the church has seen the concept of worship come from a couple of Integrity Hosanna cassette tapes into a phenomeon that rakes in millions of dollars for the Christian retailing industry. We have seen Integrity Hosanna grow from an upstart company in a garage into one of the leading distributors of praise and worship music. We have seen modern church groups such as Calvary Chapel (Maranatha Music) and Vineyard place their own personal tastes in this area. Where Contemporary Christian artists once did Christmas music because it was the "in" thing to do, we now see contemporary Christian artists now do worship CD's because it's the new "in" thing to do. We are now seeing many of the revival "hot spots" release their own worship CD's to complement their teaching series and to complement their "formula" of renewal. According to many within Christian music, the praise and worship genre of Christian music is the fastest growing genre of Christian music. Praise and worship music sales are growing faster than other forms such as the contemporary and urban music forms of Christian music.

The worship music that was brought forth in the mid 1980's was considered at that time to be both "revolutionary" by some and also as "heresy" by others. We saw churches split up or almost destroyed as the battle of "out with the old, in with the new" raged internally as the battle lines were drawn of hymns versus praise choruses. The hymn lovers took the narrow perception of "Nobody writes songs better than Fannie Crosby nor sings it better than George Beverly Shea", "Not of God", etc. while lovers of this new music looked at hymns in a narrow perspective as "obsolete", "out of style", etc. As music ministers wrestled with obtaining pleasing worship to God versus losing the financial base of the church versus losing the new generation, we saw tensions rise as this new music (most at that time were actually Bible verses put to music) began to be merged with the old music. In this early time, we saw music written about basic fundamental doctrines being replaced by music taken directly from the Scriptures. Many music ministers did an about face turn and dropped the hymns for the praise and worship, which to say I believe was wrong while other churches bucked the trend and continued in hymns. We even heard sermons from music ministers comparing hymns as "Moses" and praise and worship as "Joshua" justifying a drop change from hymns to praise and worship. I too fell into this trap without realizing that some hymns do reinforce sound biblical doctrine.

I have fond memories of this time within Christianity when I first heard a sample cassette tape from Integrity Hosanna entitled "Glorify Thy Name" with Kent Henry (who I met later on and found him to be a genuine man of God). At that time, it was the most revolutionary type of music I had ever heard. I remember experiencing the worship I was supposed to feel while singing hymns as I listened to this tape in my car. I remember later on listening to more of Integrity Hosanna's products and also being introduced to this new breed of worship leaders such as Lamar Boschman, Martin Nystrum, Charlie LeBlanc, etc. for I wanted more of this music and also more of the personal intimacy with Jesus the music helped me obtain. At that time, this music was primarily bible verses (usually Psalms) put to music. This was a great way to both experience personal intimacy, worship, and to memorize the Word of God in my heart. The other beauty of this worship music was that the first recordings were done live and you heard the praises and the worship of the audience in the background as the worship leaders and musicians played and lead people to worship. In the past, recordings of hymns and Christian artists were done in a studio setting with the musicians singing out to the listener. Integrity Hosanna's recordings of live worship brought out the interaction of worship team, congregation, and God and the bi-directional pathway of both man communication to God and God communicating back to man.

As the 1980's progressed, many cutting edge churches shifted their musical worship from the hymns to the new praise and worship music. Some churches had a delicate even balance of the hymns and praise and worship to keep both sides happy while other churches went to a mixture of hymns and praise and worship at the worship leader's discretion which was supposed to be based on his prayer time with God. We also saw the shift from the part-time minister of music or a volunteer piano player who led the weekly choir practice to the worship leader placed on full-time staff and a worship team concept of three to five singers and musicians. This shift in thinking showed the commitment of the church to obtain a balance between the Word, worship, and prayer. The focus of going to a church started to change from "That pastor is a fireball" to "The music is great and the pastor is annointed". Churches who grew in memberships did so with the addition of worship as an integral part of the church service and church life. We also saw this trend show distinct generalities of hymns lovers subscribing to pentecostal theologies while praise and worship lovers adhering to a more charismatic theology base. The Bakker and Swaggart scandals and the handling of the scandals of the late 1980's helped institute a mentality of "Gee, all the ministers who sin are Pentecostal." Therefore, many people left the pentecostal churches in droves and either never went to church again or embraced the Charismatic churches and the new praise and worship music. Therefore, the shift from hymn to praise and worship began in the lives of many believers.

In the early 1990's things began to change in the area of praise and worship music...

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