Nation's Largest Christian Retailer is Shutting Down: Family Christian Stores Announces Closure

“Despite improvements in product assortment and the store experience, sales continued to decline," said Chuck Bengochea, the company's president.  "We have prayerfully looked at all possible options, trusting God’s plan for our organization, and the difficult decision to liquidate is our only recourse.”

At its height, Family Christian Stores represented over 30% of physical sales for many Christian music releases. The retail chain's dominance in the Christian book and music market began to steadily decline with major retailers like Wal-Mart adding key Christian releases to their shelves, along with the launch of iTunes in 2001 and the growing presence of online retail led by Amazon.

NewReleaseToday's roots are closely tied with Family Christian Stores. Its founder, Kevin McNeese, started the site in 2002 while managing music marketing at FamilyChristian.com. "It was such an incredible time," recalls Kevin. "But I could certainly see the beginnings of the shift. Between Napster's quick rise and fall, Apple launching the iPod and iTunes and major retailers beginning to latch onto our biggest products, the writing was on the wall."

The nation's largest Christian retailer, Family Christian, is closing after 85 years.

The non-profit company, employing more than 3,000 people in 240 stores in 36 states, said in a brief statement that the retailer had been facing declining sales since filing for bankruptcy protection in 2015 and had no choice but to shut down.

TobyMac Schools Billboard Top 5

TobyMac’s This Is Not a Test enters at No. 4 with 38,000 units (of which 35,000 are pure album sales). The album is the follow-up to TobyMac’s chart-topping Eye on It, which debuted atop the list dated Sept. 15, 2012.

On the Christian Albums chart, This Is Not a Test concurrently debuts at No. 1 -- the artist’s fourth chart-topper.

The week was a notable one for the music industry.

Luke Bryan celebrates his third No. 1 album on the Billboard 200 chart as his new release Kill the Lights makes a smashing debut atop the list. The album moved 345,000 equivalent album units in the week ending Aug. 13, according to Nielsen Music.  Of that sum, 320,000 were pure album sales.

Thus, Kill the Lights tallies the third-largest week of 2015 for an album, both in overall units and album sales. Kill The Lights’ start is also the largest sales week for a country album in three years -- since Bryan’s last studio effort, Crash My Party in 2013.

The Billboard 200 chart ranks the most popular albums of the week based on multi-metric consumption, which includes traditional album sales, track equivalent albums (TEA) and streaming equivalent albums (SEA).

Bryan and Dre’s debuts are a welcome sight on the chart, following a woeful week at the top of the list. A week ago, the Descendants soundtrack opened at No. 1 with both the lowest overall unit total (42,000) for a chart-topping set, and the smallest weekly sales figure (30,000) for a No. 1 since Nielsen Music started tracking sale in 1991.

Combined, Bryan's Kill the Lights and Dre's Compton moved 640,000 overall units, and sold 596,000 albums. To put those numbers in perspective, the 640,000 sum is more than the combined total of Nos. 3-32 albums on the new Billboard 200. Further, the 596,000 sales tally -- which places the albums at Nos. 1 and 2 on the Top Album Sales chart -- is greater than the Nos. 3-65 titles on the Album Sales list.

Also, this week marks the first time two albums have sold at least 294,000 units in a week since the Billboard 200 transitioned to ranking popularity based on overall units earned in December of 2014.

And finally, this is the first week in eight months where two albums have sold at least 275,000 copies each. It last happened on the Dec. 27, 2014-dated chart (reflecting the sales week ending Dec. 14, in the thick of the Christmas shopping season).

The new Now 55 compilation debuts at No. 3 with 76,000 units (all from album sales). The arrival continues the long-running Now That’s What I Call Music series’ hit track record, as every one of the numbered Now titles have reached the Top 10.

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