#40records

https://youtu.be/-QZhjR6PPlc For a few years I was president of Integrity music in Mobile, Alabama. I was President of 40 Records, which was a division of Gotee Records, which was their worship label. I have a lot of experience in worship music. What we've seen over the last 10-20 years and even longer than that, is that many churches are now becoming worship labels, like Hillsong and Elevation Church. Years ago you were looking at Marinatha, Vineyard, and now Bethel. People ask me, “what do you think about a church being a music label?” I've got multiple responses to that.  First of all, as a believer and a new Testament believer, I believe the best songs, the best worship songs come out of the local church. I believe the church was designed to birth worship music and not to create songs, but to create an atmosphere for worship. I believe the church is becoming worship labels and music labels. I've not really had a problem with that at all because I think that is the presence environment, which creates the culture and the atmosphere in the presence of God for worship songs to be created. Now there is a line where I think the function of a traditional label may be done better outside the local church. So a lot of times you're finding local churches sending off their distribution or their marketing or their publishing to a third party. They are the content provider. The church provides the content and then they may sub their distribution and other services that they're not really as well equipped for, because it's not really a function of the church. I think this modern trend to go with local churches is a very good trend - as long as they merge their services with somebody that has the functions, the ability and the resources to do those things that a local church is not created to do. They're not created to have their own distribution. They're not created to have a lot of the things that a record label provides, like a large staff. But again, my heartfelt belief is the music should be created and sent out of the local church and then distributed through other facets. View this video on Vimeo Read the full article

Jason Upton is a dear friend of mine. I was at Regent University speaking to one of the business classes about the music industry. While I was out there, they asked me to go to chapel with them. Jason was a seminary student. He had a year or two to go and he led worship at the chapel. I was just like, “Wow, I've never seen anybody flow in prophetic worship like he did.” I made sure to shake his hand and introduce myself to him. I was living in Nashville and working for Gotee Records and 40 Records at the time. Two years later when Jason graduated, we signed him to 40 Records which was the worship label owned by Gotee.  I've known Jason 20 years now. I was president of the label when he made his first album. In fact, of all the artists and all the albums I've ever worked with, and I've worked with some great artists from Bill Gaither to Lecrae, my proudest moment was Jason’s Faith record. Nobody had done a record like that before and everybody was scratching their heads. It was a powerful worship service that we re-mixed into a free-flowing worship album. I talk to people now in their late twenties and thirties  about that record and they all say Faith really had a big influence on them. I knew Jason before he got married, knew him when he was a newlywed, and now he's got three kids and one's now in college. That tells you how old I am, and how long I've known Jason.  Read the full article