This was originally sent out as an email newsletter. It's been modified slightly from the original.
Firstly, thank you for your support and engagement in Unified Praise so far! What was just an idea in 2023 started to become a reality in March of this year and, thanks to your feedback and input, it's starting to take real shape. I'm so grateful to everyone who has invested their time and energy into this project. We have a Slack channel for our artists, and June and July in particular saw a flurry of feature suggestions, bug reports and discussion around core vision and values. What's exciting to me is that this is clearly a concept that you are all passionate about - removing the "industry" from worship and making grassroots worship songs accessible to the wider church.
Last month, I met with a handful of our artists over Zoom to discuss some important topics that will have a big impact on the future of the project. We also talked about what the next steps should be and where the majority of effort should be focused. Again, I was really impacted by the passion displayed by those who joined that call. We had an agenda of things to talk about, but we kept circling back to the same few subjects. In this newsletter I'll share with you some of the most important things that we discussed, some of the new features that are available now and coming up, and what the future of Unified Praise looks like.
The vision
My vision is for Unified Praise to be a tool used by the global church, crossing the boundaries of denomination, language and cultures. It's for churches to have a rich and discoverable catalogue of songs to choose from that isn't limited to those put out by a few record labels and mega churches. It's that those who choose songs for their local church would not be primarily influenced by production values or who the writer/performing artist is.
But I also recognise that this requires a huge culture shift from where we are right now. Ground will need to be claimed bit by bit. Unified Praise is about opening up the gates that have been gradually closing in worship music for the past few decades, particularly in the Western church. We have become very used to heavy curation. Only the most exceptional talents in performance are propagated. The songs, in many cases, are second to the names behind the songs. Church-goers have come to expect to hear the same level of quality performances at their local church as they hear on Spotify (and so you can even buy the multi-tracks to make that happen)!
But many people will be unaware that any of this is an issue. Unified Praise's mission must also include a casting of the vision as to why it exists in the first place. As grass-roots worship songwriters we can't compete in terms of production and performance. But, since entering this community, I have heard truly wonderful songs that deserve to be heard, and this is what it's all about: making the unheard, heard.
Creation vs curation
One of the big topics of discussion we've had over the past few months is "creation vs curation". Do we allow anyone to upload anything in the spirit of openness, or do we moderate content in some way?
It's going to be necessary to put some restrictions on the content that can be added to the site. After all, this is a site for Christian worship music - simply stating that draws a line in the sand, and that line needs to be guarded in some way. We only want songs that are appropriate for Christian worship, and we need to have clarity on what that means and doesn't mean. The consensus has been that we should use or adapt a basis of faith that outlines the gospel and incorporates core theologies (the Trinity, sin, salvation, etc), which we can then point to in cases where we need to remove content that's inappropriate. However, I want to keep as hands-off as possible; removing content will be for the most egregious cases, and as long as songs don't go against the fundamentals of Christian beliefs they're not going to be challenged. How we implement this moderation on a practical level is still to be decided.
One thing that UP won't ever moderate is any sort of perceived "quality". Gatekeeping on the basis of production, performance and talent is already a big problem in the worship industry, and something I want to take particular care to avoid for UP. Quality is so subjective and cultural, and I don't want the songs on the site to ever reflect my own personal taste, or the collective taste of a group of moderators.
But I have to acknowledge that this raises more challenges. As noble as it may feel to say that everyone's invited and can upload anything, the truth is that, as I mentioned a couple of paragraphs back, we're trying to change worship culture. People are used to big releases from certain artists with impeccable production values and performances. If we get them to come to Unified Praise and the first thing they listen to is someone strumming a ukulele in their bathroom while hesitantly singing a half-finished song into their phone microphone, are they not just going to immediately give up and leave?
I know from the sign-ups so far that a good chunk of you reading this are song-writers, and therefore I know that you know that the most important thing is the song itself, not how the song is packaged. But how do we convince church leaders and worship leaders? How do we convince people that there's a problem, and that they can be a part of the change?
Curation playlists
In any case, for those who are coming to the site for the first time, curious but unconvinced, I don't think we can simply present them with a sea of uncurated songs. At the same time, we don't want to fall into the CCLI SongSelect top 100 trap, which is a self-reinforcing cycle where the top songs stay more-or-less permanently at the top. To that end, I've added a few new smart playlists, which will guide people in different ways. For instance, there's now a "Being played" playlist, which contains songs that have been played the most in a recent period of time - this will be reset occasionally to stop it stagnating. For balance, there's an "Undiscovered" playlist which is effectively the opposite - lesser played songs for those who are looking for something different. We also have "Recently liked". It's likely that these auto-playlists will need tweaking in the future to keep them fresh, but we'll see where this takes us for now.
But the playlist that I'm most excited about is the new "Artist Picks" playlist - this is a collaborative playlist that's made up of songs chosen by artists on the platform. Each artist, via their profile settings, now has the ability to add songs to their "picks", which is a unique type of playlist that they can also choose to feature on their profile. It can only include songs from other artists, so they can't choose their own songs! Songs added to artists' picks playlists will be combined with the picks from other artists, and the top 30 chosen songs will make up the site-wide picks playlist. The idea is that this playlist would serve as the primary introduction for new people visiting the site, and that the songs chosen by artists would be a good representation of what's on UP.
This is about as far into "curation" as I want to go, and it's extremely important to me that the site will always feel open and fair, and that all songs will be discoverable. Playlists are also just one way to use UP - for the more adventurous, there's the full library they can dive into. For those who know what they're looking for, there's the search & discover features. And for others, they may just want to receive email updates with new releases.
A new audience
Until now, most of the features that I've been developing have been focused around artists - e.g. auto-generated chord sheets, albums, importing from Spotify, etc. The feedback I've had has been overwhelmingly positive, and I'm convinced that UP can bring value to songwriters. But Unified Praise will only achieve its mission if it can provide value to people who are selecting songs for their church, whether this is worship leaders, team leaders, church leaders or someone else. For want of a better phrase, I'll call these people "song-selectors".
I've worked on a few features that I hope will provide value to song-selectors (personal playlists, smart playlists, the discover section and library), but what we really need now is some tangible feedback from people in this category. Do they like the concept, and can they get behind the vision? What features would they like to see? What, if anything, is holding them back from using it today? I've created a feedback form that I will invite all users of Unified Praise to fill out (you included!), and I'm really curious to see what kind of feedback I will get from non-artists. You can fill out the form here. Even if you are an artist, I'd still very much appreciate your feedback - there's still plenty to do, and I need help prioritising the next set of features.
Do you know any "song-selectors"? If you're not responsible for choosing the songs at your church, who is? Could you invite them to join Unified Praise with the purpose of trying it out and giving early feedback?
I'd love to get a couple of dozen sets of feedback over the next month or so. This will be crucial in helping me form the plan for the future. So please, if you know people who you think would fit this description, please send them the link, and encourage them to sign up, try it out and fill out the feedback form (they'll get it via email automatically after they've signed up).
Final thoughts
I could keep talking about Unified Praise, but this email has gone on long enough. Thanks for sticking with me. I really do believe that this could be something unique that challenges the status quo, but I also feel the responsibility in guiding it in the right direction in this early stage. That's why your support, input and engagement has been such an encouragement to me.
I haven't fully opened the gates yet. There are still restrictions on artist sign-ups while I work out costs and such. I haven't advertised the site or encouraged others to do so. We're still technically in "beta". But I don't think it will be too long before all of that changes, and I'll let you know when it does.
Before I go, just to say that if you're an artist and haven't joined the Slack channel, check your profile settings page for the link. There's been a lot of great discussion there and it would be great to have you.
Until next time, thank you all!
Blessings,
Jon