January (Web-only) 2001

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Christian music sales drop 8 percent
First, the good news: sales of Christian music in mainstream stores soared 9.2 percent in 2000: the largest increase ever. In fact, most Christian music customers are now buying their albums in mainstream stores; 50.4 percent of Christian and gospel music sales come from "secular" stores. Now the bad news: Christian stores experienced a dramatic 38 percent drop in Christian music sales last year. That led to an 8.5 drop in Christian music sales overall—the first downturn in more than five years. CCM Update runs down a list of possible reasons why Christian music took such a hit. Gospel Music Association President Frank Breeden explains, "Basically, none of our gold and platinum selling artists in the contemporary Christian music community released studio albums in 2000. Those are the bread-and-butter of CBA stores, so they had no frontlist to sell this year." Others say Christian music's crossover success may be backfiring. "I think the market's different right now, all the way across the board," said ForeFront Records President Greg Ham. "We're becoming more of a mainstream market, and I think our consumers, maybe for the first time in Christian music history, were buying 'N Sync and didn't feel bad about it."

Jim Wallis: Bush's efforts "encouraging" A few weeks ago, Christianity Today ran an article by Ron Sider on his meeting with President-elect Bush and other religious leaders to discuss how government and faith-based institutions could better work together on poverty issues. Yesterday, in The Washington Post, Jim Wallis gave his perspective of the meeting. "It is an encouraging sign that the president-elect is reaching out to begin discussions with leaders of faith-based initiatives," ...