Can you be a professional Christian musician?

Many young musicians come to me and ask me how they can earn a living in Christian music.  For someone who is passionate about music, making music your occupation seems like a dream come true.

So they come to me with their dreams of publishing, performing, writing, producing, etc.  And I always tell them the same thing…

Go get a real job.

I don’t say that to be mean and it has nothing to do with their talent at all. But I really think that for 99% of aspiring musicians, that is the best advice I can give. That is the decision I made. I entertained the idea of becoming a professional musician back in high school, but fortunately, I gave up on it and got a degree in computer science. For about 8 years, I did very little in music. It was not until I was 30 that I started recording.

That high school decision to give up on music was an important one.  In retrospect, it was the decision that would eventually allow me to come back to music in a much more successful way.

Because here is reality: Christian music is an incredibly tough place to be.  I know many an industry professional who has more talent in their little finger than I have in my entire body.  And yet, almost all of them will tell you that they have a very tough time in many ways.  For example, most of them struggle financially.

The financial pressure by itself should keep many away from Christian music.  If you are single and don’t need much to live on, that is one thing.  If you are married with children, you need to think very hard before deciding your dreams are more important than the security of your family.  God may want you to take that step but often, I am afraid God gets blamed for our selfish decisions.

I do not say these things to be pessimistic.  I am rather trying to give you an alternate way to reach your goals.  I think it is a better way and I think the success rate is probably much higher.

Here is what I suggest.  Keep your music dreams a hobby for a while.  Develop a career and get solid work.  If you want it to be in music, go on staff at a church. Or teach music lessons.  But it doesn’t have to be in music at all.

Invest time into your family and other important things.  Don’t make your family second place to your music hobby.

But on the other hand, don’t sit around and watch TV very much.  Don’t waste your time.  Keep learning about music. Invest time in it every day. Get up a few hours early if you have to.  Get a great teacher.

Then slowly work your way into the music industry.  Start submitting pieces you want to get published.  Do a recording. Start doing a few concerts if the opportunity arises.

Take your time.  And don’t mortgage your financial future to do it.  Invest money into your music that you can afford to lose.  Watch what happens.  If your music starts to generate money, reinvest it into your music.  If a recording makes money, go ahead and spend some of that money to get better quality on the next recording.

Over time, you will get a sense of whether you have any hope of focusing on music full time.  And if you do it right, you will likely have some control over when you make the transition from your main career into music.

I could name many people who have taken this path.  I know of none who regret it.  And that includes me. At this point of my life, even though I could go to music full time, I still prefer to keep my business ties outside music.  You would not believe the pressure it takes off me.

The financial advantages are huge and here is why. Christian professional musicians are under enormous pressure to do the almost impossible: produce well-received music that will be accepted by Christians who are hopelessly fragmented in what they believe about music.

I have written this before and it is still true.  Too many Christian writers and artists make decisions about their music not based on what they feel they should do but rather to avoid losing people in their niche. They are already tight financially and they can’t afford to lose any churches/followers.  So they end up making music decisions for financial reasons.

If you possibly can avoid this scenario, you should.  As an artist, your music should reflect what you believe about music and what you think God wants rather than what some particular niche believes you should do.

Being a true artist means taking risks.  And you are going to have a very hard time taking risks if your family’s ability to eat is jeopardized as a result.

Do you see what I mean? That is why I am such a big proponent of the plan I have laid out in this post. Because I am not financially a slave to any group, I have freedom to do what I think I should.  That is why I can afford to take some risks that other musicians cannot afford to take (such as my recent Gwinnett concert).

A published writer wrote something once that I have never forgotten.  In regards to the Christian music wars, he said this: “Let your music do your talking; let it tell the world what you believe about Christian music.”

That is good advice. All Christian musicians should strive to get to a place where they are able to produce the music they feel they should.  In other words, they should be able to let their music do their talking for them.

Yes, it is possible to get to that point.  But as I have found, the path to get there might not be the one you suspect.