FEATUREDSTORY
GIVING HONOR WHERE HONOR IS DUE … an Interview with Howard Rachinski
by Bruce Adolph
I have always said that if you have something that solves a problem for a church – that you have something good .
Several years ago Howard Rachinski saw that there was a need for his local church and a few other ones . From there something quite significant has grown and is now serving the church worldwide . I can personally testify that Howard and his CCLI organization has served not only this magazine but also our Christian Musician Summit conferences for 14 years now … their partnering spirit and friendship has encouraged me countless times .
Howard was recently honored by being inducted into the Gospel Music Association ’ s Hall of Fame … we thought it would be interesting to speak with him about those humble beginnings of CCLI .
WORSHIP MUSICIAN : Take us back to when you first got the idea of creating a vehicle for churches to help them with their licensing … what were you thinking at that time ?
HOWARD RACHINSKI : I was Music Minister for a large church in Portland , OR – Bible Temple . We had an 80-voice choir , 30-piece orchestra and I was very involved in writing , recording , arranging , creating dramatic musicals and overseeing the Northwest Worship Conference . I was “ at peace ” with doing what the Lord had placed within me . In April 1984 , our local newspaper reported that the Diocese of Chicago was sued $ 3.1 million for copying lyrics without permission . Ironically , one of the songs in the publisher ’ s catalog was “ They ’ ll Know We Are Christians By Our Love ( We Are One In The Spirit )”. We were shocked !
I was thinking , “ How could a church be sued for doing that ? That doesn ’ t seem right . This is our worship expression !” Our church had 400 song transparencies and an extensive tape ministry that included our worship services . We definitely didn ’ t want our church to face this type of embarrassment ! I was upset , even angry , that churches could be treated that way .
At the end of 1984 , I began to study the U . S . Copyright Law and began to realize what was really involved in song ownership and song usage . The Copyright Law was fair … but it wasn ’ t practical . Churches have a copyright exemption for singing songs , but they don ’ t have an exemption for copying songs . Simply , a song is an asset and in order to make copies of songs , a church needed to get permission from the song owner . A report in the mid- 1980s stated that 56 % of the churches in America were copying without permission .
When I told my pastor ( Dick Iverson ) this , he said , “ How can I preach from the pulpit about honesty and integrity when behind me we are making copies of songs illegally ?” I told my Pastor that I think we can come up with a solution so that we wouldn ’ t be sued .
In February 1985 , I created a document called the “ Permission of Use ”, whereby song owners could make their songs available to churches for an affordable annual fee and , in return , song owners could be paid royalties from this fee . We called our copyright service – StarPraise Ministries – and introduced this concept to 300 churches at the Northwest Ministers Conference in May 1985 for $ 75.00 . We birthed and operated StarPraise Ministries in our church music department . Initially , we thought this copyright service would only be used by the few hundred churches that we were in close fellowship with . After one year , we had 500 churches working with us and , after two years , we had over 1100 churches . We then realized that this was a need much larger than just our own circle of church acquaintances – churches wanted to be honest , they simply didn ’ t have a resource to help them in this matter . As a result , in January 1988 , we separated StarPraise Ministries from the church , in April 1988 we changed the name to CCLI and in October 1988 we launched our “ new ” service , which now contained 180 publishers . The rest is history …
The driving force in my heart at that time was simply to help churches deal with copyright legally and to support the songwriters fairly .
42 Jul � Aug 2016 WorshipMusician . com