Why We Don't Use Contemporary Christian Music

In Exodus 32, Israel held a worship service. It was loud. It was full of energy. It used God's name. And God called it corruption. In this message from Curtis Corner Baptist Church, Pastor Paul Chapman draws a striking parallel between Israel's golden calf worship and the modern church's embrace of contemporary Christian music. Just as Aaron wrapped idolatry in religious language — calling a pagan feast "a feast to the Lord" — today's contemporary Christian music movement has borrowed the world's sounds, rhythms, and styles and repackaged them with Christian lyrics. The result, Pastor Chapman argues, is not worship that honors God, but a deceptive substitution that looks and sounds spiritual while leading the church away from the things that matter most. This is not a sermon about preference or style. It is a careful, Bible-based examination of why music in the church matters — not just what words are sung, but the very sound itself. From Colossians 3:16, we learn that God's music is meant to let His Word dwell richly, to teach and admonish, and to direct the heart outward to Him — not inward to self. From Leviticus 10, we see that God requires distinction between the holy and the common. And from Psalm 145:4, we understand that each generation is called to hand something sacred and proven to the next. Pastor Chapman works through seven reasons why Curtis Corner Baptist Church does not use contemporary Christian music.