Meaning-Making in the Contemporary Congregational Song Genre

This book analyses the most sung contemporary congregational songs (CCS) as a global music genre. Utilising a three-part music semiology, this research engages with producers, musical texts, and audiences/congregations to better understand contemporary worship for the modern church and individual Christians. 

Christian Copyright Licensing International data plays a key role in identifying the most sung CCS, while YouTube mediations of these songs and their associated data provide the primary texts for analysis.  Producers and the production milieu are explored through interviews with some of the highest profile worship leaders/songwriters including Ben Fielding, Darlene Zschech, Matt Redman, and Tim Hughes, as well as other music industry veterans.  Finally, National Church Life Survey data and a specialized survey provide insight into individual Christians’ engagement with CCS. Daniel Thornton shows how these perspectives taken together provide unique insight into the current global CCS genre, and into its possible futures.

The gap between practitioners and analysts of music is normally huge. Daniel Thornton's discussion of Contemporary Christian Congregational Song is welcome for so many reasons, but perhaps the most important is its demonstration of how that chasm can be bridged. Thornton builds on established research and approaches, based on thorough corpus analysis, to provide a rounded discussion which weds detailed treatment of music and lyrics to interview material from a comprehensive range of users. The study is particularly valuable in its traversal of the complexity of writing and production processes and its negotiation of competing values. (Allan F. Moore, Emeritus Professor, Department of Music & Media, University of Surrey, UK)

An insightful author’s mind, a creative method, a global focus, and a compelling topic are a winning combination for a book, specifically this book. What Daniel Thornton offers here cannot be ignored by anyone who wants to know the current status and meaning of a song genre which now captivates the church’s life worldwide. (Lester Ruth, Research Professor of Christian Worship, Duke Divinity School, USA)

Daniel Thornton is the Head of Worship at Alphacrucis College, Australia, and an ordained minister with the Australian Christian Churches. A professional composer and performer, Daniel has written and recorded numerous albums and continues to lead worship and train worshipers in churches around the world.