When We Become The Expert Of All Experts

It's a song called "Craig". It's by an up-and-coming country artist named Walker Hayes. It's essentially about a guy who doesn't know Jesus, but he knows a guy who does (Craig), and the gift of a mini-van was one way Craig showed the love of Christ to someone outside the traditional walls of a church.

A few lines of the chorus - "I know, he sounds cool, right? Not your typical Sunday School, right? I still ain't figured out church yet...but Craig, I get. Nah, he can't walk on water, or turn the Napa Valley red, but he may just be tight with a man that did".

(Go listen to it if you want. I'll wait right here).

A couple of months ago, someone in our industry took a chance at playing the song. It hadn't been released to any radio format, but this programmer thought "I want my listeners to hear this and be inspired to "Be A Craig" in their own communities". Jesus-type stuff. Someone else in the Christian radio circle noticed what was happening with this song and campaign on this station and posted a "this is cool, well done" message on Facebook.

Then the Russians took the data and stole everyone's identities and the end.

I don't think I need to explain what happened next. The comments. OH THE COMMENTS. Pop the popcorn and settle in folks, because we Christian radio people sure do have our opinions and convictions and we sure love looking like we know a lot of things.

It went like this - some of us loved the creativity of the campaign. Some of us asked if the artist lives a "clean enough" life to be on our stations. Some of us made sure to tell people that we know a lot about music in all formats and that playing the song is a bad move and we have the testing to prove it.

You guys. My fellow brothers and sisters. It was gross.

I'm all about having opinions and expressing them. If my PD would let me, I'd have my own in-studio soapbox to stand on and talk to the world about sports parents and self-checkout lanes and slow drivers. But when it comes to this sort of thing, a station making an effort to do ministry in a non-conventional way, is it really worth our time and energy getting into virtual punching matches with each other?

Think about this. If Satan wants to take our industry down, the fastest way to do that is to break us up from within. Little disagreements here or there over the songs we're picking, the content we're producing, and the shows we're promoting. Little jabs here and there will eventually create a giant divide among people who are trying to accomplish the same goal. Eventually, we lose sight of that goal and find ourselves wrapped up in things that really don't matter in the big picture.

Say it with me. It's okay for something to work on one station and not another. It's okay to be excited when something works for someone else that didn't work for us. It really is. We don't all have to do it the same way.

The next time something like this happens (because there is ALWAYS a next time), I would love to see us celebrate the wins instead of poking holes in the idea because we want to show our social media circle that we are THE MOST EXPERT OF ALL THE EXPERTS.

Sure, there will be decisions you don't understand. Maybe look at the intent and celebrate that. Curious what the thought process is? Maybe send a private message or an email or pick up the phone and call. There are a ton of smart, passionate people in our industry and it's possible we could learn and be inspired by them if we stop screaming our own thoughts and take a moment to be quiet and really listen.

To quote another country song (Kenny Chesney's "Get Along")... "get along while we can, always give love the upper hand..."

With lyrics like those, maybe it shouldn't come as a huge surprise that when the "Julies" aren't listening to my station, they're listening to the Country one...