Christian music is music created by or adapted for the Christian church. It also includes Contemporary Christian music, in which the music explores Christian themes but is designed to be played in places other than churches. Music during service for many churches is a big part of the worship. Hymns are sung, psalms are vocalized and spiritual songs are uplifted to praise God. Sometimes, musical instruments are played while singing is implemented in the service. On the other hand, some times churches use just a cappella to worship God. At times, just musical instruments are only used to express praise towards God. All of these ways are used by one church or another in this period of time.
There is record of the earliest music of the Christian church in a few New Testament books of what are probably hymns. Some of these fragments are still sung as hymns today in the Orthodox Church, including “Awake, awake O sleeper” on the occasion of someone’s baptism.
Being Jewish, Jesus and his disciples would most likely have sung the psalms from memory. However, without a centralised music industry, the repertoire synagogues of ordinary people was much greater than it is today, so they probably knew other songs too. Early Christians continued to sing the psalms much as they were sung in the in the first century.
The most recent common form of Christian music is Contemporary Christian music, or CCM. This draws most of its influence from secular music of the late 20th century and is the most popular kind of Christian music in the Western world. Although there are many Christian music acts in the mainstream music industry, the term CCM usually refers specifically to artists within the Christian music industry that are played on Christian radio. If you look hard enough, there is a “Christian music” counterpart to nearly every popular musical style. Besides Contemporary Christian music, Black Gospel, Southern Gospel, and Christian country music are also popular in the US.
The tradition of Christian hymns in the English language is closely tied to Protestantism. Protestant hymns can range from the Reformation organ pieces of J. S. Bach to the American folk hymns found in The Sacred Harp. Martin Luther composed a number of hymns in the 16th century, reportedly borrowing some of their melodies from popular tavern drinking songs of that period. Another famous hymn composer is Charles Wesley, brother of John Wesley. Dwight L. Armstrong, younger brother of American evangelist Herbert W. Armstrong, was a prolific composer whose scripturally based hymns appeared in the Worldwide Church of God’s hymnals, as well as in the hymnals of churches whose origins are in the Worldwide Church of God. Herbert W. Armstrong believed that the words of many traditional Christian hymns were unscriptural, and thus commissioned his brother to write hymns based on the psalms and other scriptures.
Some hymns, particularly Christmas carols, are widely embraced by various denominations while many hymns are restricted to certain religious traditions. In some cases this is due to doctrinal differences reflected in the words of the song but in many cases it is the result of tradition and the use of denominationally produced or approved hymnals.
The use of hymns was a factor in several historic schisms among Protestant denominations with more traditional members insisting on the use of only the psalms in the service.