Healer Thoughts: Now what?

Yesterday the news leaked that the story of the song “healer” from the new Hillsong, THis is our God CD, was fiction. The news rocked my reader and I posted the announcement as well. Since then the web has blown out, the post has recieved a ton of traffic and about 10 of us (cool bloggers) met on mogulus with Fred Mckinnon to discuss the situation.

Fred told us that a verse came up in prayer Philippians 1:15-18:

15 It’s true that some here preach Christ because with me out of the way, they think they’ll step right into the spotlight. But the others do it with the best heart in the world. 16 One group is motivated by pure love, knowing that I am here defending the Message, wanting to help. 17 The others, now that I’m out of the picture, are merely greedy, hoping to get something out of it for themselves. Their motives are bad. They see me as their competition, and so the worse it goes for me, the better—they think—for them. 18 So how am I to respond? I’ve decided that I really don’t care about their motives, whether mixed, bad, or indifferent. Every time one of them opens his mouth, Christ is proclaimed, so I just cheer them on! And I’m going to keep that celebration going. message Bible

Wow! That verse says it all huh. I got to thinking about all that has gone on by this situation. Mike decieved a ton of people. How many? I don’t know, but with this CD hitting #4 on I tunes and my post on the controversy in a few hours getting 1300 hits I’d say this song touched a lot more people than we even know. So what were his motives? What makes a guy go through that much trouble to even decieve his wife and family? Why go to such lengths? Money…Fame…mental illness…The kingdom? I don’t know what to say about that because only God knows his heart. My heart goes out to the man and I hope we can pray for him in this time.

Also lets make sure we pray for his youth that looked up to him that they won’t be disillusioned with the church. Pray for Hillsong that this does not throw them into a situation where people think they can’t trust them. This is a huge situation, but not one that God was not aware would happen.

So what is our response. Depending on your church atmosphere you mayhave to announce this. Others like mine there probablly is no need. Will you keep singing the song? Is it now tainted? I hink God can breath life into words and His spirit is in His truth. This song is full of truth. It is of God. It just came through a broken vessel. I am still ministered to by this song as I know others are as well because these are tuths about God not fabrications of a deceptive man.

Can God work through false prophets, murderers, adulterers, IRS agents, fishermen…etc etc. Of course he can. We are His vessels no matter how broken. I think situations like this are exactly why he chose the disciples he did.

Peter was a dirtbag, thomas a doubter, judas a liar and traitor, Paul a terrorist and so on. Yet besides all those faults God worked miracles through them and around them. Some failed and God still worked others continued in the faith and God did even more through them.

Are songs powerful or just the people? I’d say that truth is powerful wherever it is found. Truth supercedes our failings.

This is a hope I hang onto in worship every week. “Lord I pray that you minister through me eventhough I am so full of garbage.

Thank God He truely is our healer. Pray that he is our portion.

Read others thoughts on this:

Fred
Rich
Tyler
Carlos

Alex
Chris
Jeff
Alastair
Joshua
Batsirai
The worship community
Gary
Jordan

Comments

23 responses to “Healer Thoughts: Now what?”

  1. Alastair Vance Avatar

    Looks like I wasn’t cool enough to meet on mogulus. I was probably washing my hair anyway. 😉

    Something I just discovered this morning is that those of us who have done Healer covers on YouTube are getting serious abuse now in the comments. I’ve had to switch on comment approval this morning.

    If you have a Healer cover up there, I would advise you to be checking your comments right now.

    My thoughts are here… http://snowjunkie.wordpress.com/2008/08/20/god-is-still-my-healer/

  2. Joe Louthan Avatar

    You know what warms my soul about this.

    Seriously?

    People: Man, that is a great song.
    Us: The dude who wrote that is dying of some sort of blood disease.
    People: Uh, I did not know that.

    In other words, despite the source of the song (i.e. deception), it still reached out and spoke to numerous amounts of people (God).

    I hope God keeps trying to teach us to focus on Him and not other people. I hope He keeps using stuff like this to keep our eyes on Him and desperate for Him instead of us trying to pick the next Moses.

    We can talk to Him. He will speak to us. He gave us everything so we are equipped to worship and serve Him. His only Son died so that we would have this intimate, personal and romantic relationship with God. We are His people and He is our God.

    Everything else, including the latest and greatest worship song, is so secondary it is unreal.

  3. klampert Avatar

    Alastair..Im adding that link to my post

    Joe: you are dead on man..The song for me is brilliant regardless. it is just sad to see that it’s where it came out of was not true.

  4. lori Avatar

    Great insight here. I think that the conversations this situation is sparking are just great. This is a high profile situation, and one that deserves time, prayer and consideration. I love the scripture reference here because it really speaks to the heart of the matter: no matter what the intent of the individual, the end result is still a song that touches on the truth of our God.

  5. portorikan Avatar

    I had only heard the song once and have never personally sung or done it.

    I think it’s crazy someone would do something like that. Crazy.

    Don’t really know what else to say, but it doesn’t bode well for outsiders to see this kind of thing.

  6. Darren Avatar

    Can I be absolutely heretical here? I only listened to the song once, but I looked at the lyrics over on CCLI a couple weeks ago, to see why it was #1 on their Lead Sheet downloads.

    And to tell the truth, I couldn’t figure out why. It seems to be totally “me” centered – “I believe, all ‘I’ need.” It seems to be missing the point of what we’re supposed to be proclaiming in worship – the objective greatness of God.

    Perhaps I’m all wet here, but that’s why we’d never used it.

  7. klampert Avatar

    darren…
    ha ha
    I get what you are saying but I also put in the same category as say the creeds…we say “i believe”
    I treat this song the same way..I do believe he is my healer and portion…and nothing is impossible for God.

    I also think balance is ok. I songs are good if they are not the entire service.

    Also some songs tug at people so they can give glory to God for thier own situations. THis one has.

  8. czarthoughts Avatar

    Jigga man. I just posted some responses to this on my blog.

  9. Billy Chia Avatar

    Joel,
    I hopped into the Mogulus just as everyone else had left. My most recent tweets said that you guys were hanging out there, but my band practice went long.

  10. klampert Avatar

    missed ya billy

  11. Brandon Teer Avatar
    Brandon Teer

    Joel, great thoughts!!!
    “I’d say that truth is powerful wherever it is found. Truth supercedes our failings.” – that’s a great word!!

    Thanks for sharing…

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  13. worshipcity Avatar

    Wow, I’m pretty torn about this. Good thoughts on whether or not a song means something if the maker of it was full of it. Having spent 5 minutes thinking about it, I’m really torn. Very interesting catching up here though on what everyone’s saying.

  14. JVo Avatar

    Thanks for your thoughts, man. And, thanks for directing me to your blog. I’ll add it to my roll at http://www.johnvoelz.com

    I appreciate your heart.

    “Paul . . . a terrorist” –never heard it said like that before. Appropriate.

  15. casey darnell Avatar

    hey man
    still learning this blog stuff…but great post
    love the scripture…
    interesting how this stretches the church i love that God alone knows how this plays out for His glory when it looks to us a big mess

    thanks again for finding me

    CASE

  16. Stef Avatar
    Stef

    I am fighting stage IV colon cancer (for real!!) and I really liked this song. It does speak to me and there is truth in it. I am saddened by this turn of events, but God uses all types of people for His glory.

  17. klampert Avatar

    Brandon: thanks man

    Conner: yeah man I was at first but now I think i am solid, but I do think in australia right now might not be a good time to play that song

    Casey: thanks for stopping by man

    John V: yeah I always think of Paul as that…it sure changes how we look at the world today.

    Stef: the minute I read this I thought about you. And the truth in this song is still truth brother

  18. jaybrams Avatar

    Joel,

    Just getting caught up. But honestly no controversy that comes out of the Hillsongs camp surprises me. (but He wasn’t originally a Hillsongs guy, right?) In any case there are several controversies and sad stories that would “shock” us surrounding the whole Hillsongs empire that we rarely hear about because they mostly only get pub in Australia. I know they’re all mega-talented and this passage certainly helps keep my frustration towards them in check… anyway, i’m not really going anywhere with this other than “oh … well, not surprised”….

  19. Grace Avatar
    Grace

    Hmmm..I agree with Joel..God uses broken vessles…

    The song is still true regardless the writer..

  20. Nichole Avatar

    Darren,

    On the contrary, this song is actually all about God. You are placing the focus on him by telling Him that you believe that He is. You are placing your faith and trust in him. It’s actually showing that you have total faith in God and that without you Him you understand that you are nothing and you are voicing this. If a man always talks about his wifr and how much he loves her and thinks she is the world but never tells her she won’t feel that love that he has for her. It’s a simple communication to God…it’s good to talk about God but we need to talk to Him and that just means that you say “God, I….ect.” That doesn’t mean you are self focused…you are telling God who he is to you and what his love means and that you can trust Him…you also build your faith when you tell God “I trust in you and nothing is impossible for you.” There is power in the spoken words…..

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