# 2026-04-21 CMP — What Is the Convergence Music Project **Summary.** The Convergence Music Project (CMP) is a network and collection project that gathers contemporary worship music aligned with progressive, mainline, and emerging-church theological commitments. It addresses the gap Linstatter named — contemporary praise music as "an unplowed field for feminist work" — by aggregating and producing songs that share the musical energy of the contemporary worship scene without the NAR/prosperity theology of Bethel, Hillsong, Elevation, and Jesus Culture. Progressive tradition. ## Bibliographic - **Publication.** Convergence Music Project website ("What Is CMP"). - **Full source path.** `Readwise/Articles/What Is CMP.md`. - **Tradition.** Progressive, mainline, emerging. ## Core Claims 1. **Progressive contemporary worship exists.** The story that all contemporary worship music is theologically NAR-adjacent is a false constraint. CMP documents a different catalog. 2. **Theological guardrails.** The CMP catalog is screened against inclusive, justice-centered, doubt-tolerant, embodied criteria — a different evaluation rubric than the CCLI top 100. 3. **Musical literacy matters.** CMP treats progressive churches' relative unfamiliarity with contemporary forms as a skill gap worth closing, not a reason to retreat to organ-only hymnody. 4. **Collaborative network.** Composers, arrangers, worship leaders, and pastors across denominational lines share work, resources, and permissions. ## Co-founders and Key Figures - **Brian McLaren.** Emergent voice. Author of *A New Kind of Christianity* and many other works. See [[Progressive Christianity]]. - **Cameron Trimble.** CEO of Convergence (the parent network). Mainline-adjacent leadership training, coaching. - **Otis Moss III.** Pastor of Trinity United Church of Christ, Chicago. UCC voice. ## Associated Composers and Communities - **Mark Miller.** UCC composer. "Child of God," "I Choose Love," "Imagine the People of God." - **Ken Medema.** Composer and pianist in the progressive-Christian tradition. - **Christopher Grundy.** Eden Theological Seminary. Composer of progressive liturgical music. - **Trinity United Church of Christ, Chicago.** Otis Moss III's congregation; strong Black progressive worship tradition. - **The Many at LaSalle Street Church, Chicago.** Contemporary progressive worship band. ## Hermeneutical Framework Progressive-mainline. Historical-critical reading of scripture, full LGBTQ+ inclusion, liberation theology's preferential option for the poor, feminist recovery of divine imagery. ## Contradictions Logged > [!contradiction] > **CMP position:** progressive churches can and should adopt the contemporary worship form while refusing the NAR theology embedded in most of its catalog. > > **Strict-hymnal progressive position (some UCC, Lutheran, Episcopal):** the contemporary worship form itself — the band, the climax, the emotional build — imports the theology. Using the form while renaming the theology is insufficient. > > **Reformed-cessationist position (Aniol):** even the inclusive-language CMP catalog likely violates the Regulative Principle of Worship. The concern is not content but form. ## DARVO and Coercion Flags None. ## Connections to Existing Wiki - Anchors [[Convergence Music Project]] (stub to build). - Complements [[Inclusive Language Hymnody]] by addressing the contemporary-praise gap. - Cross-references [[NAR Worship Critique Traditions]] as the positive alternative the progressive tradition offers. - Seeds [[Brian McLaren]], [[Cameron Trimble]], [[Otis Moss III]] (stubs). ## Open Threads - A concept page on the CMP catalog's actual titles and their evaluation against the [[Worship Songs Evaluated]] rubric. - A comparative analysis: CMP vs. CCLI top 100 — what does the overlap and gap look like? - Coordination with [[St. John's UCC Chambersburg]] worship planning — CMP as source material. ## Related - [[Convergence Music Project]] - [[Progressive Christianity]] - [[Inclusive Language Hymnody]] - [[Worship Songs Evaluated]] - [[NAR Worship Critique Traditions]]