for KING + COUNTRY Making an Album About Marriage, Aging Parents and Ordinary Life Matters Because Christian Music May Finally Be Growing Up With Its Audience

Christian music has always been good at writing songs for beginnings.

New faith.

New love.

New purpose.

New hope.

But eventually the audience gets older.

Marriage gets complicated.

Parents age.

Children grow up.

People disappoint you.

You disappoint yourself.

The miracle is no longer getting the dream.

Sometimes the miracle is learning how to live faithfully inside the life you actually got.

That is what makes for KING + COUNTRY’s upcoming The Most Beautiful Colors interesting.

CCM Magazine’s advance listen describes the Sept. 18 album as enormous in production but surprisingly grounded in subjects including marriage, divorce, death, aging parents, family legacy, fatherhood and the everyday work of becoming a good husband, father, son and brother. (CCM Magazine)

That is a meaningful shift.

Christian music has a demographic problem it rarely discusses.

Its listeners grow older.

Its themes often do not.

There is nothing wrong with songs about breakthrough and purpose.

But what happens after the breakthrough?

What happens 17 years into the marriage?

What happens when your parents begin needing you?

What happens when the career you prayed for starts interfering with the family you prayed for?

What happens when you realize there is no final stage of adulthood where everything stops being complicated?

Those are deeply spiritual questions.

They simply do not sound as dramatic on a T-shirt.

CCM describes the record as existing somewhere between Christian radio and congregational worship, with faith emerging through practical stories rather than songs built primarily for Sunday-morning use. (CCM Magazine)

That space is incredibly important.

Christian music becomes culturally narrower when every spiritually meaningful song must also function as congregational worship.

Faith does not occur only while singing directly to God.

Faith happens while apologizing to your spouse.

Calling your father.

Raising your children.

Attending a funeral.

Wondering whether you are becoming the person you thought you would become.

Proverbs belongs in Christian music too.

That may be the album’s most interesting opportunity.

for KING + COUNTRY has always operated at enormous scale.

Big drums.

Big lighting.

Big concepts.

The fascinating move is using all that spectacle to explore smaller human realities.

Because as people age, the definition of adventure changes.

At 20, adventure can mean crossing the world.

At 40, adventure may be keeping a marriage tender while both people are exhausted.

At 50, it may be helping an aging parent retain dignity.

At 60, it may be learning who you are once the children leave.

None of that is less cinematic.

We have simply trained ourselves not to see it that way.

Christian culture could benefit from recognizing that ordinary faithfulness is dramatic.

A family remaining connected is dramatic.

Forgiveness after 20 years is dramatic.

Showing up again is dramatic.

Growing older without becoming cynical is dramatic.

The next stage of Christian pop culture may depend on artists willing to mature publicly rather than attempting to preserve the emotional vocabulary of their breakthrough years forever.

The audience is ready.

Because the audience is maturing too.