“Church is the New Radio”: Worship and the WOW Series (1996–2019)

Abstract

It might be a slight exaggeration to say that anybody with an iota of musical gifting—from the singer-songwriters to the person who shakes the tambourine in your church’s worship band—has a worship CD that they’re either promoting on their Web site or selling out of the trunk of their car. But the exaggeration would only be slight, for sure. Over the last decade, worship music has become the fastest-growing category of music within the world of contemporary Christian music (or “CCM”) effectively displacing all other musical subgenres. 22