After 30 years...

I've been subscribing to CCM Magazine since ninteen eighty-something. I still have every issue I ever bought, much to my wife's chagrin. Mostly they are packed up in boxes in the attic.

I just received the final in-print copy of the magazine in the mail. It was kind of a weird feeling, knowing that I'd never hold a new CCM again...

After 30 years of publication, CCM has gone totally online. While I can still read up on whats going on in the CCM world, it's still strange knowing that it won't come in my mailbox anymore.

I guess if it can be said that video killed the radio star, it can maybe be said that the internet killed everything else.

Anyway, a quote in an article by John Styll caught my eye and I think it really applies to the church as a whole, in particular the church we're currently attending:

Harold Best, former Dean of Wheaton College’s Conservatory of Music once said on these (CCM's) pages, “Sincerity of heart is never a substitute for excellence, even though far too many Christians hide behind this, excusing mediocrity or defending quick results. As has often been said, holy shoddy is still shoddy.”

Whatever you do, you should do it with excellence, to the best of your ability, then leave the results up to God. (This is something I'm still trying to learn!)

Another very appropriate quote, "Too much blind acceptance of the status quo is like a rudderless journey to oblivion."

That's so true. Some people get so stuck on the way things have been that they can't accept change. Without change comes stagnation, and with stagnation, putrid disease. "We've been doing it that way for 30 years!" Yea, so? If something is clearly not working anymore, you have to change it to be effective.