How to Make Sure Your Church Is Healthy

May 10, 2016

One of the primary goals of church leaders is to nurture, grow and develop healthy church communities. A healthy church impacts all aspects of life…spiritual, mental, physical and emotional. A few years ago, Saddleback Church Pastor Rick Warren challenged his leadership team and congregation to commit to a healthier physical lifestyle.

“As pastors, we tend to like to focus on ‘spiritual’ things,” Pastor Warren says. “But God is the Creator of our physical bodies, and it’s in our physical bodies that we live our spiritual lives out before others…For every excuse we can come up with to ignore our physical health, there are other pressing reasons to consider it.“

And like most of Pastor Warren’s teachings, Saddleback has shared their program and resources with other churches…The Daniel Plan: 40 Days to a Healthier You. Whether or not your church provides a structured health program, your facilities may be used for fitness classes.

We’re seeing a growing number of churches that host aerobics, exercise and dance classes in their facilities as part of supporting physical health coupled with spiritual, mental and emotional faith. It’s a great environment to nurture health and combining faith with health programs, but what about the legalities of playing music in these types of classes?

“A healthy church is copyright compliant,” says Chris Railey, Sr. Director Leadership/Church Development The General Council of the Assemblies of God. “Honor songwriters by making sure you have licenses in place for all music use throughout your church.”

Many church leaders don’t realize that all types of music played during aerobics and exercise classes require performance licenses to be able to legally play music in any of their facilities–whether a fee is charged for the class or not.

It’s pretty straightforward. Churches need performance licenses from ASCAP, BMI and SESAC (performance rights organizations in the US) to play music in a public venue, such as a church building.

The good news? There’s an easy, simple and affordable one-stop performance license that includes more than 20 million songs from ASCAP, BMI and SESAC through CCS’s PERFORMmusic, Christian and secular, for one annual fee based on the size of your church congregation, starting as low as $229.

Exercise and dance classes provide a great opportunity for churches to reach out and connect with their surrounding community, touching the lives of many of the unchurched. Now there’s a quick and legal way to feature the uniquely-styled music for the dance and exercises classes and honor the music copyright owners.

This PERFORMmusic License covers playing music in your fitness class (or any dance/aerobic class), as well as throughout your facilities, including the following types of activities:

  • Social events and fundraisers
  • Concerts
  • Youth events
  • Seminars and conferences
  • Camps and VBS
  • Music-on-Hold
  • Music played in coffee shops and book stores
  • Coffee shops
  • Bookstores
  • Movie nights
  • BBQs and dinners
  • Carnivals and festivals

Sign up today for the PERFORMmusic License, and you’ll be free to play and perform music anywhere on your church premises or satellite campuses. Coverage of 20 million songs is immediate when you sign up and pay online.

About Christian Copyright Solutions: CCS’s quest is to help churches and Christian ministries “do music right.”  CCS is an expert on church music copyrights and our primary focus is providing licensing and clear educational resources to churches, as well as representation, administration and advocacy for copyright owners. Follow us on Twitter, Facebook and Youtube. The information contained herein is for informational purposes only, and is not legal advice or a substitute for legal counsel.

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