Materials That Expose the Danger of What Lancaster is Doing

I was recently told by an evangelist that a great many independent Baptist pastors are "galled" at my warnings about Lancaster and about others who are leading the way in the "adaptation" of contemporary worship music. I have a question for these pastors: HAVE YOU READ MY WARNINGS? Or are you judging me on the basis of a few snippets you might have read or on the basis of what some other preacher has said about me? I am not infallible. Far from it. Just ask my wife! But my teaching and warnings about contemporary music are not cheap shots. They are based on 40+ years of unique experience, study, and research. The warnings are based on my experience as a musician. They are based on intensive study of God's Word, as my Encyclopedia of the Bible & Christianity and Advanced Bible Studies Series and other books attest, and on long experience as a preacher and missionary church planter. They are based on early experiences in the Pentecostal movement and Christian rock and intensive, decades-long research into these movements. I have attended large numbers of charismatic and contemporary conferences with media credentials as well as many influential churches in many countries. My warnings are based on experience as an author of six books on the subject of contemporary music totaling 2,100 pages, the first written in 1974, plus many videos. I'm not bragging; I'm simply giving my credentials. All I ask is that preachers take the time to listen prayerfully to what I have to say and judge it by God's Word for themselves. "He that answereth a matter before he heareth it, it is folly and shame unto him" (Proverbs 18:13). "Prove all things; hold fast that which is good" (1 Thessalonians 5:21). To simplify the matter, I recently published the heart and soul of my warnings in the book The Independent Baptist Music Wars. It is accompanied by a DVD containing two video presentations that I would beg every IFB preacher to watch: The Transformational Power of Contemporary Worship Music and The Foreign Spirit of Contemporary Praise Music. These videos are available as a free download at www.wayoflife.org.

(Friday Church News Notes, October 31, 2014, www.wayoflife.org, [email protected], 866-295-4143)

---