Why John Mark McMillan Walked Away From The Music Industry (#356)

Religion on the Mind

Religion, Spirituality, Religion & Spirituality

4.7 • 542 Ratings

🗓️ 27 October 2025

⏱️ 81 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

I sit down with musician John Mark McMillan for an exclusive conversation about something I never thought I'd see—one of contemporary Christian music's most boundary-pushing artists stepping away from the touring life after nearly 20 years on the road. What starts as a discussion about the brutal economics of modern music—the streaming pennies, the oversaturated venue landscape, the mounting tour costs—quickly becomes something richer: a meditation on what music is actually for. John Mark shares about a wild night in a Belfast pub where strangers went from wanting to fight him to nearly kissing him (he declined), and how this experience crystallizes his vision for what comes next. We explore why performing the same song 50 times for 50 different crowds might be less transformative than gathering the same people in the same room week after week, why the death of the album as an art form matters, and what it looks like to trade reach for depth. If you've ever wondered whether the music industry's evolution has cost us something essential about human connection—or if you're just curious what makes an artist walk away from the only income they've known since 2006—this conversation will give you plenty to think about. Johnmarkmcmillan.com Previous Episodes with John: (#270) John Mark McMillan: Faith & Doubt (#316) Redefining Success with John Mark McMillan & Thomas Torrey ___________________________________________ Follow Dan on IG: www.instagram.com/dancoke/ Or Twitter: twitter.com/DanKoch Faith deconstruction resources: www.soyouredeconstructing.com/ Join the Patreon for exclusive episodes (and more) every month: patreon.com/dankoch Email about the "sliding scale" for the Patreon: youhavepermissionpodcast@gmail.com YHP Patron-only FB group: tinyurl.com/ycvbbf98 Website: www.dankochwords.com/yhp.html Join Dan's email list: www.dankochwords.com/ Artwork by sprungle.co/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome back, everybody, to religion on the mind, the show focusing on the intersection of psychology
0:16.8	with religion and spirituality. I'm Dr. Dan Koch, licensed therapist,
0:21.6	and spiritual abuse researcher.
0:23.6	And actually, John, since John Mark,
0:26.6	that's what we, that's what I call you.
0:28.6	Since our last, since our last chat,
0:33.6	I did officially get my, your degree has been conferred email. So the paperwork has been
0:40.2	sorted out. And I am officially, Dr. Dan, feels good. Your first time on with the new name,
0:46.7	religion on the mind, but you've been on you, have permission, the old name. A couple times,
0:50.8	we'll have links to those in the show notes. I love having you on. Your career
0:56.3	has been really interesting to me and is an interesting fit for this conversation in my own
1:02.3	background because you started out squarely within the contemporary Christian music industry.
1:07.9	You were never like fully comfortable fit in that world and a lot of the ways that you have
1:15.4	pushed the boundaries artistically and lyrically and thematically throughout your career have
1:21.2	been, have sort of put you on my radar and made you a really fun conversation partner,
1:26.7	a really rich conversation partner.
1:28.5	And so I'm excited to continue that today, except today we got a real different angle here,
1:33.8	which is basically John Mark McMillan is quitting.
1:37.5	That's not totally correct.
1:39.3	That's an overstatement.
1:40.7	But it's kind of like that.
1:42.1	You made these announcements. You,
	...

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