The Contemporary Worship Music Pipeline, or “Where Did The Psalms Go?” (Marc Jolicoeur) Ep. #189

By Dr. Dru Johnson on February 27, 2025

Who decides what worship songs we sing in church? It turns out, worship music is a massive industry, and the way songs make it from a Nashville songwriting room to a Sunday morning service might surprise you.

In this episode, Marc Jolicoeur joins The Biblical Mind Podcast to break down the business of contemporary worship music (CWM). He explains how four major megachurches dominate the industry, why most modern worship songs are written by teams of professionals rather than individual artists, and how CCLI licensing and copyright structures shape what gets sung in churches.

But is this market-driven approach shaping worship in unhealthy ways? Dru and Marc discuss whether the emotional tone of worship music has shifted, why lament and imprecatory psalms are almost absent from today’s songs, and whether churches should return to singing scripture itself.

Is the worship music we sing today more about marketing than theology? And what would happen if the Psalms were reintroduced into Sunday services?

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Chapters:

00:00 Introduction
00:27 The Landscape of Worship Music
04:25 The Role of Songwriters and Publishing
10:35 Market Penetration of Worship Songs
16:33 The Influence of Megachurches on Worship Music
21:11 The Evolution of Christian Music
25:48 Worship Music vs. Performance Music
28:38 The Role of Ritual in Worship
31:28 Psalms and Their Relevance in Modern Worship
35:29 Lament in Worship Music
45:16 The Challenge of Lament in Worship
49:55 Navigating Worship Leadership and Emotional Contexts
54:44 Imprecatory Psalms and Modern Worship
01:00:47 The Role of Specificity in Worship Lyrics