The Influence and Impact of Sovereign Grace Music
VIDEO TRANSCRIPT
Benjamin Kreps:
Hey everyone, and welcome to the Mark Prater podcast where our aim is to connect our global family of Sovereign Grace Churches with our executive director. Mark, we talked a few weeks ago about the WorshipGod conference that was in Louisville last month. A wonderful time; room full of people, many of them not from Sovereign Grace churches, which is an illustration and the fruit of the fact that Sovereign Grace Music is having a powerful influence, not only in our small family of churches, but actually broadly. And you have a bunch of stats that you want to share with us that show us just that.
Mark Prater:
I do. I put some stats together every year for the Executive Committee retreat, which I was at last week, and I'm only going to share some of those to illustrate the influence and the impact that Sovereign Grace Music has. And these I typically hand out at the Council of Elders meeting. So I'm aware that not all of our pastors are at that meeting, and members of our churches typically aren't at that meeting. So I wanted to share them because they are really encouraging and they demonstrate how God is using Sovereign Grace Music, not only to influence Sovereign Grace Churches, but churches throughout the world.
So here are some stats regarding songs. So these numbers come from CCLI, which is the organization that tracks worship songs sung by churches on a Sunday. They track that for many reasons, but one of them being, I believe, that the songwriters for a period of time get some royalties.
So Sovereign Grace Music has 50 Sovereign Grace songs in the top 2000. And of those 50, 4 songs are in the top 1000. And of those 50, 16 songs are in the top 500. So that tells you that songs are being sung. Sovereign Grace Music songs are being sung in churches just throughout, not only Sovereign Grace, but outside of Sovereign Grace because we're a small family of churches. So those numbers reflect they're not only being sung by our churches, they're being sung by churches here in the states. And I'll give you some stats in a minute that will demonstrate throughout the world.
And I just think that's important because it does represent how Sovereign Grace Music is having this wonderful gospel centered, theologically rooted influence in churches both inside and outside of Sovereign Grace. And that's important because it also reflects that those churches want to sing theologically rich songs, which Sovereign Grace Music songs have. Their lyrics are theologically rich and they are gospel centered. And that's so important in the life of any church because as we've said, it's been said probably for hundreds of years, good theology leads to rich doxology. So ultimately all those numbers point to the exaltation and glory of Jesus Christ within the church. So those numbers were just really encouraging beyond just what's happening in a Sunday service or a corporate public gathering.
Also, 60 million Sovereign Grace songs are being streamed on Spotify in 2023/2024, over that one year period. 60 million songs by Sovereign Grace Music. If you go from Spotify to YouTube, Sovereign Grace Music has 374,000 subscribers on their YouTube channel, adding about 4,000 new subscribers every month. So it's just growing. And to give you one stat of what's being viewed: 255,000 views of the newer song of Christ Our Wisdom, which is on the new Knowing God album; 255,000 views since its release in March of this year, March of 2024. So that song's been viewed a lot.
And then just one other stat; Sovereign Grace Music has songs translated in 50 different languages. And that stat tells you that their influence and impact is not just here in the States, but obviously throughout the world. They're serving and influencing churches throughout the world. And as God has given our small family of churches opportunities to expand globally throughout the world, it's given us the opportunity to sing Sovereign Grace songs in different languages. For example, there's active translation work being done in Italian because we're planting a church in Torino, Italy. It's just wonderful to see, for me, the impact and influence Sovereign Grace Music is having and the way they serve the churches in Sovereign Grace, but churches throughout the body of Christ in the States and throughout the world.
Benjamin Kreps:
Yeah. It is wonderful that Sovereign Grace Music isn't just making music for Christian radio stations to play. They're making music for members in local churches to sing loudly these theologically rich, glorious truths of the gospel. And so it is gratifying to hear how that's happening, not just within our family of churches, but more broadly speaking as well. As you think about what's happening in Sovereign Grace Music in the days ahead, give us some thoughts about Sovereign Grace Music.
Mark Prater:
Well, one of those thoughts is what you just said, Ben, is that Sovereign Grace Music, it is our hope and prayer, will continue to write songs sung by congregations. They'll write congregational songs, not that they wouldn't be played on the radio or on Spotify or on YouTube, but that's their desire to serve local churches, including Sovereign Grace churches. So because of that, it's one of the reasons we wanted to invest into this new music studio that has been used over the past year where the Knowing God album was recorded and produced, because that's an investment into our future; is that Sovereign Grace Music would continue to write congregational songs with a music excellence that does serve churches throughout the world.
And in light of that, as we think about the future, we want to continue to invest in the songwriters. Bob leads a songwriter's retreat every year. And one of the things that's encouraging for me as an older Sovereign Grace pastor is to see that some of those songwriters are now younger members of our churches, because most of the songwriters that are writing Sovereign Grace music are members of our churches. So to see younger generations write those songs, it just gives you faith that God is at work to make the influence and impact of Sovereign Grace Music a multi-generational one, which is real encouraging. So that's a thought.
Also when I think about the future, I continue to thank God for Bob Kauflin and his music team. It's a wonderful team of folks that he works with. And just continue to pray for them, not only thank God for them, but pray for them that God would give them wisdom, that He would give them direction as they continue to write congregational songs and train worship leaders that serve churches, all of those in Sovereign Grace and obviously churches outside of Sovereign Grace. So may that all be done, obviously, for the glory of God.
Benjamin Kreps:
Amen. I know my first introduction to Sovereign Grace was through listening to the WorshipGod Live album 17 years ago, and hearing Jesus, Thank You and instantly fell in love with that song, not even knowing that there was such a thing as churches that were Sovereign Grace. And so I think many others have discovered Sovereign Grace in the same way through the gift that is Bob and the rest of Sovereign Grace Music. So Bob, Devon, Dave, we thank God for you and the whole crew. We thank God for you. Thank you for the good work that you're doing. We're just trying to figure out what songs not to do off Knowing God around here. And so we do thank God for Sovereign Grace Music. Thank you, Mark, for the update. We'll see you here next week. Lord willing. Bye for now.