[mralmostpopular]

Hey Gary,

Listen, what you're talking about is not parody. A parody is meant for humorous purposes. Take a look at the definition of parody:

"a literary or musical work in which the style of an author or work is closely imitated for comic effect or in ridicule"

Merely changing a few words is still copyright infringement. Even if you changed all of the words, but kept the same melody, you would still be in violation.

Now, I have to be frank here. What you're talking about is lazy "songwriting." Changing "I love you, girl" to "I love you, Jesus" does not give you any claim to the song. Now don't get me wrong, I have heard good songs that were Christian versions of secular songs, and they CAN work in certain situations. However these often come from artists who have a long track record of original songs. More often than not, they play the songs live, but don't try to record/sell them. Not the good ones anyways.

You might be able to get away with performing something at your church without trouble, but anything beyond that and you're just asking for trouble. And that trouble will come down very hard and without any mercy.

I hope this helps, man.

God Bless.