Bethel Music

And you can encounter him, but the way it's being presented to us is not what the Bible presents.

And especially in some of these NAR, the Bethel-style environments, the progression we get in services like that is we got our music.

It builds to an emotional intensity.

Somebody starts to manifest something.

I want to be asking, what is the theological tendency of this worship group? What does the song assume? Or what is it asking me to believe? And I want to look at some of those things that we're asked to believe or that we're being told to believe or that we're being taught to expect.

as we go through now the first one i want to look at is a big one that we've mentioned before and that is inviting the holy spirit into the room kind of theology now there's some questions that we want to ask and this is what so if you're wrestling with these or if you know somebody and they're all in about the music maybe the music's what's holding them in these are some questions that you can be asking and i have a whole lot of questions that we need to ask ourselves and ask the songs so some of the questions you can ask of the song If the Holy Spirit indwells every believer, then what exactly are we asking Him to do when we say to come into the room? Does the Scripture ever teach Christians to summon God's presence through music? Is God's presence something that fluctuates according to whether or not we're worshiping intensely enough or hard enough or we're surrendered enough? Do we see these things in the Bible? And I would say the answer is no, we don't.

Now, that's especially relevant to the Bethel-style worship because a lot of the Bethel discussion that we've seen online lately is really talking a lot about this encounter and this presence, and that's where a lot of the troubles out of that ministry come from.

and worship is a means of facilitating revival a lot of those roads point to bethel so inviting the holy spirit into the room you hear songs like that those are some of the questions that maybe we should be asking people that are writing these songs even asking ourselves about these songs to shake us out of this because it's really hard to break from some of this Another line of thinking that you see in a lot of modern worship now is experience as evidence.

Another example is Bethel Church in Redding, California.

They developed a similar kind of influence through Bethel Music alongsar- alongside a larger charismatic ministry culture involving healing, prophecy, supernatural ministries, and Bethel's School for Supernatural Ministry.

Bethel has explicitly said that their goal with Bethel Music was to spread their theology to churches, which is why I think that we should be extremely careful...

Actually, I don't think we should ever sing a Bethel song in a church.

But if you are going to sing a Bethel song in your church, you need to be extremely careful about the theology that that particular song confesses.

Now, obviously some do.

Our local megachurch just left the Assemblies of God, but loves Bill Johnson.

My point being, though, is that there's a lot of churches that would absolutely not let Bill Johnson into their church, and yet they still sing Bethel music.

So we talked a little bit about that, but I do wanna just on a broad scale address that question for those of you who were asking.

And so I think the most simple way that I could put it is that if, if anything that's produced by Bethel Music, or Jesus Culture, or, um, something like IHOP Kansas City, anything that's produced from that, those entities is going to be what we're talking about with NAR music and NAR songs.

And, um, my advice would be, I, I think in a perfect world I'd love to see church pa- uh, like worship pastors and lead pastors really think critically about the types of songs they're bringing in.

There are many churches right now that have just taken a stand and said they're not gonna have Bethel songs in their churches.

He said he went somewhere to minister, and as he was...

You know, Bill Johnson is the pastor of Bethel Church, Bethel Music, the, uh...

You know, they do nice music.

You know now, uh-huh.

Swaying to the sound of guitars and strings, the group of worship leaders at the White House that day lifted their hands and sang about God defeating the enemy and being lifted high.

"'I saw angels on assignment,' declared Jen Johnson of Bethel Worship about the gathering, noting, "'the good that's happening that you don't hear about on biased media.'" I've just been in tears all day, Job added.

It's been incredible.

I'm just so thankful to be part of this today and to see what God's doing in our White House.

So it's going to have plenty of room for everybody to come, praying that the rain holds off or goes away during that time.

But it's an evening of worship and community music featuring contemporary Christian group of Bethel Music, Jen Johnson, and then... award-winning Christian hip hop artist, KB.

Yeah.

Isn't that incredible? No, I don't.

I want you to go listen to it, cry your eyes out, and then come back and listen to us talk about it.

So All Hail King Jesus is written by Jeremy Riddle, and it was a Bethel music song, like 2017 is about when it is.

I personally was not familiar with it until I, you know, very, like very recently, probably 2023 or 24 about that time.

I was not, I was not familiar with it, but so if you listen to the song or, you know, the song it's, it's the transition from this is me geeking out a bit.

Typically, you know, I was always serving another person's ministry, right? In Kansas City, it was someone's.

At Bethel, it was someone's.

At my church in Colorado Springs, it was someone's.

At my church in Michigan, it was someone's.

Yeah, like everything was coming through.

Not only that, but radio, K-Love.

I opened the door to K-Love via Reckless Love for Bethel.

You were in vans with Chris Hauser for hours.