Shaun Groves
Half of WAY-FM’s West Palm Beach morning show comes clean with his take on the purpose of Christian radio and some spanking words for it’s critics. My tan friend Brant Hansen writes the following:
“I work at this radio station that plays CCM. We play “positive and encouraging” music. This turns off some of my more reflective friends (more than a dozen who read this thing, muchas smoochas…) when they hear this phrase. I love my friends. But honestly: What do you expect? Spurgeon? Aquinas?”
Read the rest of the Brant rant here. And then discuss amongst yourselves while I formulate a “positive and encouraging” response of my own.
WAY Employee says:
As a fellow WAY employee (though not in West Palm Beach), I agree and I disagree with Brant’s statement. I agree that Christian Radio, at least not in our mission, does not necessarily have to be deep theologically nor does it require us to be more than positive and upbeat at times – especially where we’re more of a seed-sowing ministry than a harvesting ministry. However, I’d like to suggest that not all the music on WAY-FM is truly positive and upbeat (although I’d argue that you can get encouragement from most of the songs).
Recently, we’ve played songs that sing “I Can’t Do This”, another song that sings about cursing God – granted that one ends on a positive note that God loves us just the same, but still, cursing God is not the most positve thing in the world. These are just the first 2 examples that pop in my head at the moment, and there are others. Oh, and there is this one song on the station that sings “Bless the Lord” ;0). Okay, so that one is positive, upbeat, and encouraging, sung by some weirdly theological guy… However, on the same note, if a song from White Flag was released that wasn’t as positive or upbeat, I wouldn’t be surprised if it got added – as long as the sound of the song tested well.
Oh, and I just heard a song from Casting Crowns on. Here’s a group that many of their songs have been more of a challenge for the church (If We Are The Body). This isn’t just light fare. Yes, we have light fare on too, I’m not denying that, but sometimes in life a light, encouraging song is what you need (and we have plenty of people who are touched by these so called “light” songs every day – as is shown by the number of emails we receive).
Anyway, I’m definitely starting to ramble now, so I’ll stop without summing up my thoughts, because it’s too early at the moment and I’m not sure where I’m going with this. Maybe later I’ll actually come up with a good ending to my comment here and post a final thought…
WAY Employee says:
As I was on the road today, I had one last thought on this subject, somewhat related to my last thought in my previous post.
I know at WAY-FM we put a lot of emphasis on the encouraging aspect (as I’ve talked to death earlier), but you know, that’s not that bad of a thing. The bible does talk about encouraging one another (building each other up), and I think one of the largest parts of WAY-FM’s ministry is the encouragement aspect. Even the one example that Shaun mentioned with the “Just because your life is up and down doesn’t mean your music has to be” points to us trying to encourage people in those down times. I know that many of the DJ’s on WAY-FM (both the network and local) will be often open and honest (to an extent anyway) about rough times in their lives and do not always paint the picture that everything is always okay – although they’ll usually point to God getting them through. So as I was thinking about it, I don’t think we’re necessarily creating a culture of people who don’t have the down times – we’re trying to help encourage people along when they are in those times. I still think we have to be careful to not make it sound like it’s always good (because it can be easy to do), but I do think that’s a big part of what we do.
Make sense? Just one more thought in all of this.
Oh, and thanks for the great words about WAY-FM Shaun – it’s why I love working there. We try to do radio right (and ministry right) and while we don’t always get it right – it is always our goal to do the best that we can do!
yuri says:
Hey Shaun,
This comment doesn’t really relate to this whole discussion, but yea, I don’t relaly know where else to put it.
I was just reading your lyrics to the “What’s wrong with this world” song. The question I had was … are those lyrics from the perspective of the ‘sinner’ (not born again) or are they from the perspective of the believer (maybe lamenting about the flesh)? Is that song aimed at the church, or at the world?
I guess I would really love some more background behind how you interpret that verse.
Hey, if you have time … I know you’re busy starting radio revolutions and stuff (which I’m very much for, btw).
Thanks,
Yuri
you can email me if you wish to take this discussion of here: . Thanks.
WAY Employee says:
Shaun,
Oh yeah, I agree. It kinda goes back to my little bunny trail at the end. Christians spend too much time trying to make it look like they aren’t having a life of ups and downs instead of admitting to others that sometimes life isn’t that easy (which is why I love the new Todd Agnew song we’re playing that has the line that says that basically says sometimes he curses God – we all feel like that sometimes! And you know what – I don’t think it’s wrong – although I’ve heard people complain about that very song because it says “when I curse you” because we should never curse God. Sorry, but sometimes life isn’t all great)
Life without the low and hard parts is no life at all… So yeah, I’d have to agree with you on that.
On the same note, one thought I has as I was about to publish my comment, is that it is good to be able to be encouraged when we are in those low moments, and we are good for that. I do, personally speaking, think we (not just WAY, but Christian radio everywhere) need to be a bit more careful on how we word some of those little promos. =0)
WAY Employee says:
Hmmm… I’ll try to see if I can do WAY-FM justice here without getting myself in trouble…
Let’s see, I’ve never seen an official definition of the words positive and upbeat. I’ll leave the encouraging part off, because in my ramblings early this morning, I believe I mentioned that the encouragement is self-evident. Even in songs that don’t paint as pretty of a picture, I think there is still some encouragement there.
But for the positive and upbeat – Well, the upbeat is kinda ubiquitous (okay, give me a star – I finally have used that word in a sentence!). You could argue we’re just saying the music itself is upbeat. And overall that is true – especially if you compare us to, lets say, an inspo station. So, okay, we’re upbeat. If you’re looking for defining upbeat as being uplifting, then that falls in the same category as I put encouraging – even the songs that aren’t as happy, they can still uplift in some way. (Am I digging myself a hole here?)
Now positive, there’s the rub. I’d say the vast majority of songs are positive, and WAY-FM truly tries to put forth a positive message (as in, we’re a positive alternative to mainstream stations – and in that sense, I’d definitely say that we ARE positive). However, if you are going on a song by song basis, I wouldn’t call all of our songs completely positive. I wouldn’t exactly call those same songs negative, there are more of straddling a fine line, reflecting life.
Even though I hold those opinions, I’ve never considered saying that it is just a marketing tool and really lies. And really, as I think about it, I still don’t think I’d call it a lie Most WAY-FM staff members, if asked, would say that all of our songs are positive (but then again, I also don’t think most of them really disect all the songs we play, but that’s another story entirely). Now, I know that doesn’t make it true, but when it comes down to it, it’s true the majority of the time and the station itself IS positive.
As far as being a marketing tool, I wouldn’t say it is just a marketing tool. It definitely is one, but you have to market the station in some manner. However, I think (and this is my opinion), that it’s just as much to encourage people in their lives, to give them a positive influence and the such. I know that is the heart behind most of us that work at WAY-FM, and really the heart behind the statement.
(anyone else notice that I’m really wordy? My wife gets on me alllllll the time for that)
Of course, this brings up an interesting question,is it good to make it look like the Christian life is all positive, upbeat, and encouraging? Does it just encourage fakeness in people’s lives? I don’t have a good answer for that one. Christian radio isn’t the only ones who do that – Christian’s in general in America tend to do that. I’ve always found that Christians in general tend to encourage people to be fake and to put on masks. We don’t like showing our ugly warts, we don’t want people to think that we’re not good Christians – and I think Christian radio in general doesn’t do a lot to dispel that notion. Is it bad that Christian radio just shows the rosy side? I don’t know. What I do think is that it’s bad for Christians themselves to pretent to be perfect all the time – but now I’m getting into another topic entirely.
Looking forward to your take on the situation. I’d say you’re definitely one of the deep thinkers of Christian music and I love reading your thoughts on your blog!