Gable Price & Friends Call Out Mega-Church Madness In New Song "Too Good"

There’s no doubt about it: critique and disillusionment are trending right now. Artists are bashed for doing too many backflips or performing barefoot, people across the political spectrum are losing trust in government and popular media, and Gen Z disillusionment in institutions is at an all time high. Protests and grassroots movements have grown in popularity and volume for decades. And even western Church culture has been continually faced with critique from both outside and inside its walls.

There’s a lot of nuance in how this tendency towards critique has affected society in general. There is helpful critique and harmful critique. There are ethical and non-ethical ways of speaking out against injustice. And there are critiques that remind people of Truth and critiques that lead people toward doubting the existence of Truth. In this article, I want to highlight a song that, in my opinion, beautifully offers critique while still pointing to hope.

“TOO GOOD” BY GABLE PRICE & FRIENDS

Gable Price & Friends, an indie Christian band signed to Capitol CMG, have released thoughtful and interesting music since 2018.To be transparent, I’ve mostly been following them from a distance, and am not too familiar with their music. What I am familiar with, though, is how dedicated their fan base is and how consistent they’ve been in an uncompromising dedication to releasing faith-based music that doesn’t fit the mold. As I’ve been developing The New Wave, they’ve been a group I’ve been following as a kind of archetype for what a New Wave Christian artist is… willing to speak the truth of the Gospel in unconventional ways through extremely vibey music.

Recently, a video making fun of mega-churches by YouTuber Druski went viral, and while Druski is by no means a practicing Christian, or even a thoughtful critic most of the time, the video struck a chord. People all over social media were sharing thoughts, and Gable Price saw the moment as an opportunity to bring people to a song he and his band were rolling out. The clever marketing caught my attention, and when the song finally came out and I heard the track front-to-back, I immediately wanted to spend some time highlighting what I appreciated about it.

LYRICS

These first few lines of the verse get straight to the point, describing a church that has made space in their building for a store. The “one-way exit” line reminds me of my days as a kid going to amusement parks and museums… after rides, you would be directed straight into gift shops where all of the different ways you could spend extra money would be right in front of your face.

Gable continues to describe the gift shop, pointing out the likelihood that the crosses sold in the store were probably made in sweatshops, where manual workers are employed under low wages and poor conditions. He finishes out the stanza describing a Bible sold in the store with symbols that are centered more around America than the Truth contained inside.

In the second stanza, Price continues his critique of the monetization of Christianity, mixing in the hope that the Gospel provides (I was lost but now I’m found) with the corrupted version that he sees in this church gift shop. This “lease the Kingdom” line is very clever songwriting… in the same way property owners lease in order to make money, Price argues that these churches are trying to make money off of the Kingdom of God, all while keeping the control and power that they hold (keep the crown).

After spending so much time describing something Price sees around him, he turns to God and asks Him some important questions. ‘Is this honoring to you? Is this what you were thinking when the Church was first established?’ After pondering this, Gable comes to the personal conviction that this version of Church contradicts God’s design. After wondering this, the answer is laid out: no. In discerning how God feels about this, he seems confident that this goes against what God pictured.

While I love the storytelling of the stanzas, this simple chorus is what makes this song stand out to me. A lot of critique of modern Christianity calls out injustice and then proceeds to throw away everything that comes with it. People see church done poorly, and they leave the faith behind altogether. In contrast, Price reminds himself, and us, of God’s goodness. Instead of claiming this practice is a representation of God and his Kingdom as a whole, he points us to God’s goodness.

Here, Price continues to critique the narrative created when people profit off of faith.

In these lines, Gable moves past critique of commercialization and speaks to another common pitfall of churches (especially larger ones)... the goal of getting butts in seats at all costs. In these lines, he is calling out churches that care more about attendance and numbers than discipleship. Here, he argues that once growth becomes the goal, Church becomes less about depth and more about engagement and entertainment.

Once again, we have “I was lost but now I’m found” lined up to directly contrast with ideas and practices that seem to contradict that. The Gospel is preached, and then is used to draw people in and sell books.

At the very end of the song, Price lands the plane of critique into a declaration of God’s goodness to him, no matter what. He realizes how he and other Christians have put God into a box, only turning to him when they need something. He realizes, after all of this observing, questioning, and searching, that following God is not just for some moments in his life, but for all of them.

SOME THOUGHTS

This song is bound to offend some people. If you’re a practicing Christian reading this, you might even feel uncomfortable with such a direct negative portrayal of a part of the Church. If that’s you, I want to encourage you right here… discomfort is not inherently a bad thing. In a world full of distraction, the temptation here is to move on as soon as you feel anything you might perceive to be negative. Instead of retreating though, I think discomfort can actually be an opportunity to lean in. This song is one of those opportunities. In hearing it, I’ve been able to ask myself some very important questions. ‘Does my church community fall into any of these pitfalls? Do I ever reduce God to just meeting my needs? How have I misused Truth to change how people think about me?’ These are fantastic diagnostic questions every Christian should wrestle with, and this song invites us into that in a very direct way.

As I said in the intro, a lot of the critique out there does more to lead people to despair than to hope. In so many instances of calling out, I personally have felt disillusionment towards all kinds of things. What I love about this song is that it calls out, and then points to God’s goodness. It reminds the listeners that there is hope. That God is good. That God did have a vision for the Church– one we can return to through reflection and repentance.

In closing, I would love to add a little bit more hope in the midst of critique here. I’ve lived in four different cities throughout my life, and in each place I’ve been actively involved in churches that many would consider large. At each of those churches, I have seen deep discipleship prioritized, Truth preached without compromise, and deliberate choices made to fight against losing truth and depth to any kind of pursuit of money or personal power. These churches have not been perfect, but they have been so beautiful to be a part of. Why am I sharing this? To a lot of people, all they’ve known of Christianity, from personal experience or from being on the outside looking in, is the kind of church that is being addressed in this song. They are under the impression that “the Western Church” at large is corrupt, commercialized, and 0% what God intended. If that is your impression, I want to invite you to consider a more hopeful possibility– that the unhealthy churches that exist are not an ultimate representation of the church today. There is not just hope for God-honoring community in some hypothetical future… that hope is everywhere, if only you’re willing to put in the work to sort through the mess, seek community, and find a local church that is, imperfectly, doing ministry the way God intended.