ScotFraser wrote:

why I never got heavily
into the gospel thing.


Yikes! Church politics. Sounds as bad as university politics, but without the
participants having any actual pretense to being educated. No thanks.

Actually, for ordained ministers, most mainstream churches do
require both a regular undergrad degree and a grad degree like
a Master of Divinity. Not that all the principals involved in
church politics are necessarily ordained minsters, but usually
they wind up being connected somehow to whatever's going on
(even if it is unwillingly).

However, despite the fact that many church staff members actually
are educated in some sense, the politics can get pretty ridiculous.
A lot of the time, there is an unspoken assumption that since any
production is a ministry, that (a) it's not necessary to do a
professional job because it's about spiritual stuff rather than
"putting on a show", and (b) anyone who gets annoyed by half-assed
stuff is just being uncooperative and would work harder and give
more to make the impossible happen if they *really* cared about
doing God's work. (Combine this second part with the fact that,
despite the central place of grace in the message of the Gospel,
many church people are still obsessed with proving themselves
worthy to God, and you get a really problematic combination.)

Somewhere I read an interview with T Bone Burnett where he said
he tried playing gospel music once (i.e. Christian entertainment
at a church type thing), and it worked out OK for about 10 minutes
until he played a Beatles song and this got people freaked out
and basically praying for his soul.

So basically, I personally would have pretty strong reservations
about doing the gospel thing. Not that I personally am seeking
a career as a professional, touring musician...

- Logan