I have been told by various preachers that Pastor Paul Chappell has said that using Hillsong’s music four years ago was an accident. I am puzzled by that, because the following clip is of Lancaster Baptist Church, Lancaster, California, performing the Hillsong piece “Cornerstone” in April 2014 for their Easter special. The next clip is Hillsong performing the “real thing” as it was written to be performed in a contemporary setting. Hillsong is one of the most radical charismatic, ecumenical outfits, and they know how to put on a contemporary worship service like few others. Lancaster needs to stop playing around with this stuff and really get into it. If you are going to go with contemporary worship, you should go “whole hog. In January this year, Mark Rasmussen, Jr., performed “Lord, I Need You” by the Roman Catholic contemporary musician Matt Maher and posted it to YouTube. Rasmussen is the son of the Vice President of West Coast Baptist College and has long had a prominent role in the Lancaster Baptist Church choir. Mark represents many young people at Lancaster/West Coast who are going beyond the boundaries that Pastor Chappell has allowed in the church services. This is inevitable. Matt Maher prays to Mary, trusts in her intercession, and believes that the consecrated wafer of the Catholic mass is Jesus. Calling himself a musical missionary, he has the objective of creating unity between Catholics and Protestants. I would ask this: Is Maher singing about the same “Lord” as the Bible-believing Christian? If a young independent Baptist wants to sing about his dependence on the Lord, which is a commendable thing, why would he choose “Lord, I Need You” by a contemporary Roman Catholic bridge builder rather than something like the traditional hymn “I Need Thee Every Hour”? Too many Bible-believing Baptists are following their emotions and their vanity and their crowd and their pragmatism (e.g., build bigger churches, sell more books, don’t offend the popular leaders, keep the focus on soul winning, don’t cause division, etc.) rather than the Spirit of Truth. (Friday Church News Notes, May 8, 2015, www.wayoflife.org, [email protected], 866-295-4143) Comments are closed.
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