# Maverick City Music **Summary.** Worship-music collective that rose rapidly from 2018 onward. Produces songs that overlap the CCLI top 100 with Elevation Worship. Some of Maverick City's membership originates in apostolic-prophetic and NAR-adjacent networks, while other contributors are from more traditional Black-church and gospel contexts. The collective is not monolithically NAR but its early network ties — including with Bethel Music — make individual-song evaluation necessary. ## Facts - **Founded.** 2018 (informally), more public presence 2019–2020. - **Key collaborators.** Kirk Franklin (on some projects), Elevation Worship (multiple collaborative albums), Upper Room Dallas (worship arm of the NAR-adjacent network). - **Notable songs.** "Jireh" (with Elevation Worship), "Promises," "Million Little Miracles," "Refiner." ## Critique Vectors 1. **NAR network adjacency.** Upper Room Dallas and other collaborators sit in apostolic-prophetic networks. Not every Maverick City contributor shares those affiliations. 2. **Elevation collaboration.** Frequent Elevation Worship co-production imports Elevation's theological concerns. 3. **Diverse membership.** Some Maverick City artists come from Black-church, gospel, and progressive spaces and do not share the NAR theology. ## Implication Songs require individual theological evaluation, not blanket rejection or blanket acceptance. Provenance is not sufficient for classification. ## Tradition Heterogeneous — apostolic-prophetic adjacency mixed with gospel and mainstream Black-church traditions. ## Open Threads - Individual-song audit for the Maverick City catalog against [[Worship Songs Evaluated]]. - Mapping of which contributors hold which network affiliations. - A page on [[Upper Room Dallas]] as the NAR-adjacent worship arm frequently co-producing with Maverick City. ## Related - [[Bethel Church]] - [[Elevation Church]] - [[NAR Worship Critique Traditions]] - [[Worship Songs Evaluated]]