During the past year, there have been public signs that Christian pop music is on the rise.

Last spring on American Idol, a pair of openly Christian contestants vied for the title and one of them, Kris Allen, won. Your TV doesn't have to be on long to hear the rumblings of Switchfoot, one of Christian music's top bands, on commercials for BlackBerry's new Storm2 smartphone. Late in the summer, when Christian rockers Skillet released their latest, Awake, it perched itself atop iTunes' rock album charts and at No. 3 overall.

Pretty good stuff for a niche genre, eh?

But beneath the surface, there have been rumblings for some time.

Late in the summer, Gospel Music Association president and CEO John Styll stepped down, saying he was sacrificing his salary in an effort to stabilize the organization, which has laid off a number of staffers. Then, in October, the GMA held an all-star fund-raiser — we're talking Amy Grant and Michael W. Smith heading a lineup that included Casting Crowns and chart toppers — billed as "Save the GMA."

Even though that $1,000-a-head event apparently was a success, raising more than $350,000, there were rumors late last month that the GMA was closing its doors.

The association's troubles come on the heels of other setbacks in Christian music, such as closing the print edition of industry's flagship publication, CCM Magazine, which was founded by Styll, and attendance drops at some festivals.

Christian music also has faced the double whammy of the economic downturn and the effects of a rapidly changing music marketplace less dependent on major labels for distribution and increasingly challenged by problems such as digital music piracy. (Yes, people are stealing Christian music. Go figure.)

These are problems affecting the music industry as a whole, and you know that if the top of the pops is getting battered, the foundations of a niche genre really must be getting shaken.

It's a situation that can lead the mind to wander so many places. Christianity is far and away the dominant faith in the United States, but with a few exceptions, what is sort of sanctioned as faith-based pop music has never registered as a major force in modern pop culture.

The current situation, an industry shaking and its highest profile organization on shaky ground, raises again an age-old question: Why is there contemporary Christian music? What purpose has been served by developing what Ichthus Ministries director Jeff James refers to as a "mirror culture" of artists who look and sound like mainstream acts but perform in an altogether separate sphere.

After all, when Larry Norman started singing, "Why should the devil have all the good music?" there was no Christian music industry and his faith-based albums had to go into the mainstream market and succeed or fail on their own.

That is still the way in most parts of the world. Over the years, I have talked to many Christian artists from overseas who found the concept of a Christian music genre odd when there was no such parallel culture back home in England or Australia.

Does there need to be?

Like I said at the top of this column, while the foundations of Christian music have been shaking, some of its stars have been soaring.

Why shouldn't Switchfoot's new music be featured on a BlackBerry commercial and the band be booked on shows like Jimmy Kimmel Live (midnight Thursday on WTVQ-36)? Their new album, Hello Hurricane, is great and stands with anything else out there (review coming next week).

Why shouldn't singers who have honed their skills in churches be among the finalists on American Idol and other talent-scout shows? Churches have been producing chart-toppers for years.

Why should a message of faith be reserved for adherents of a small genre when the charge of Jesus Christ was to go into the world?

Going into the world doesn't mean artists can't have successful careers, that promoters can't put together focused tours and festivals and people of faith can't embrace musicians who articulate their beliefs in song. There are plenty of artists who are embraced by communities they speak to.

It is, without a doubt, a painful time in some pockets of the Christian music world. We in print media know all about losing jobs.

But maybe these recent events are someone's way of giving contemporary Christian music a little shake on the shoulder and saying it's time to grow up.