Category — black gospel music

Via his official facebook page, Marvin Sapp, one of the three  judges that advanced an openly homosexual choir from St. Louis in the How Sweet the Sound Gospel choir competition denied knowing about the church.

We asked: “Is Marvin Sapp aware that the Metropolitan Community Church of Greater St Louis is a homosexual Christian denomination? Is he aware that as a judge on HSTS, he has advanced them as regional winners? This is a serious question and I would like to hear from Marvin Sapp as to whether (1) he knew this church is St Louis was a choir of open homosexuals and (2) what does he plan to do about them participating in a gospel event?”
Sapp responded:

“Let me say that I usually don’t respond to these types of post [sic] however we (the judges) had no clue about this church or any other church in the national competition and as judges that info isnt released to any of us by the sponsor Verizon. The judging process is based on accumulative scoring so it’s not based on any one person alone. Our resposibilities is to score based on talent and presentation and thats all we do and that night they were the best choir. The goal of the competition is to advance Gospel and the Gospel music and not agenda…. God Bless”

Sapp’s statement didnt voice any opposition to homosexuality although its believed that (as a former apostolic Christian) he is opposed to homosexual conduct. And if he is correct that Verizon doesn’t mention to the judges that the choir (there have been several in the past) is gay or from a gay denomination that opposes bible truth about homosexuality its intentional. Is that because they know that a great majority of the black church fans of the show would be immediately turned off?  Sapp stated that  the goal of the competition is to “advance the Gospel” but the very presence of the homosexual choir is completely counterproductive to that goal.

We also contacted Shirley Caesar and Isreal Houghton but neither have responded.

You read the headline correctly and it contains zero embellishments.

The homosexual choir from the Metropolitan Community Church in St. Louis won the so-called gospel music competition’s regional finals.

How gay the sound?

Eurweb reported the group among the other winners:

Regional choirs from across the country were on hand to win up to $50,000. Grammy award winning artists CeCe Winans and Donald Lawrence served as mistress and master of ceremonies while award winners Marvin Sapp, Shirley Caesar and Israel Houghton served as judges for the competition.

Verizon traveled to nine cities to hold competitions for church choirs and the winning choirs from nine cities were then flown to Los Angeles to compete in the national finals.

The regional finalists were;
Dallas: St. John Church Ministry (Grand Prarie, Texas)
Atlanta: All Nations Life and Praise Church Choir (Stockbridge, Ga.)
Charlotte, N. C.: Salvation and Deliverance Church Choir  (Tarboro, N.C.)
Washington, D. C.: James E. Jordan, Jr. Adult Choir of Refreshing Spring COGIC (Riverdale, Md.)
Detroit: The Anointed Voices of Higher Ground Young Adult Choir (Columbus,Ohio)
St. Louis: Metropolitan Community Church of Greater Saint Louis (St. Louis, Mo.)
Chicago: All Nations Choir of the Lighthouse Church of All Nations (Alsip, Ill.)
Los Angeles: Family Life Sanctuary Choir (Whittier,Calif.)
Oakland,Calif.: Christian Life Center Mass Choir (Stockton,Calif.)

“We’re looking for tone, pitch, the ability to blend and soulful voices,” said Sapp. “Great choirs have the ability to articulate songs with conviction.”

Note the judges Sapp, Ceasar and Houghton who are spiritual deaf, dumb and blind. And let’s not forget they are being paid to be spiritually deaf, dumb and blind.

The Metropolitan Community Church is one of the most vilest caricatures of Christianity that exists today. Its members and leaders promote and participate in doctrines and practices that resemble what you would find at the bottom of an outhouse. For examples look here here and here.

Unfortunately the gospel music industry and its talking heads (or singing heads) are just as vile and disgusting for reinstating satan in a position that was violently stripped from him by God (see Ezekiel 28:11-19).

Previous GCM Watch coverage of How Sweet the Sound:

• Gay choir wins gospel music competition
• Dorinda Clark Cole approves gay choir as contest finalist

So called gospel music may be on its last stanza according to one Dallas based minister who cites homosexuals in the gospel music industry as one of the main reasons.

Elder G. Craige Lewis of the famed ExMinistries wrote in his blog that compromise, poor quality music, carnality and “copy cat” gospel  has deeply impacted what was once a great asset to the church.

“Kirk Franklin posted on his facebook that Gospel Music sales are way down. Wanna know why? I can give you 5 good reasons why, and here we go.
1. Homosexuality – Even the married male gospel singers are suspect these days because they approve of the homosexual ones. They are on the stage with them, they make music with them, they have them singing background and playing instruments for them, so, where are the real men in Gospel Music? How does this affect the sales of Gospel music you may ask? Well, the devil controls the music industry so, his plan is to kill ALL sales of Gospel by merging the gospel with the secular industry. So, as Kirk puts on the pink, and Tonex dances in drag, while Dillard drops it like it’s hot, and Woods openly performs at a lesbian wedding, the devil has a greater plot. The LGBT is getting ready to shine it’s flashlight on the church and it’s gonna catch a lot of these artists and pastor with their pants down. Once they get the goods, they will force these Gospel Artists to come out like Tonex and support Carlton Pearson’s inclusion. Who wants to buy inclusion gospel music? No one, because inclusion gospel music is secular music!”

Pink lip syndrome?

Kirk Franklin’s comments may reflect 2011 sales issues. And then again with his pink lipped “I smile” video images, people may be backing off gay-themed gospel music.

According to Gospelmusic.org, the top 10 markets for Christian/Gospel music in 2008 were Los Angeles · New York · Dallas/Ft. Worth · Atlanta · Philadelphia · Chicago · Washington D.C. · Houston · Washington D.C. · Seattle/Tacoma · Minneapolis/St. Paul

A 2009 article in Eurweb contended sales were up, but concerts ticket sales were down.

Gospel music sells have exploded in recent years. The Christian music industry as a whole sold more than 44.9 million units in 2006 with twenty percent of those sales attributed to black gospel music. Black gospel music has grown to being heard on mainstream radio formats nationally and has a platform few imagined.

Although sales in the genre are up, attendance at gospel concerts have not followed suit. Major artists are struggling to fill seats causing local concerts and national tours to suffer. Some of those tours, backed by major sponsors including the Patti Labelle Tour and the Sisters In The Spirit Tour, have been cancelled abruptly leaving gospel music fans standing in the refund line scratching their heads.

James Walker, Esq., of Walker & Associates, an attorney for some of the biggest names in the business, blames market saturation.

“The explosion of gospel music has been a blessing and a curse in some ways for our touring business,” Walker told Gospel News Now. “There was a time when you could only see your Gospel artist once or twice at most a year in a given market, and rarely on television or in a video. With the present billion dollar state of gospel music and the industry as a whole, many of the artists are touring all the time and the feedback from consumers has me very concerned.”

If you are a gospel music idol worshipper, you won’t like this.  If you are one of those deceived false converts who believe homosexuals have place in God’s house, you won’t like this either. And finally if you are a fearful of standing for holiness, you definitely won’t like this. Perhaps at this point, you should just exit this story.  Despite all the feel good goobley-gook that is called preaching in the contemporary church, GCM Watch apologetically holds up God’s standard. Let God be true and every man a liar.

The homosexual churchfest is back in the spotlight. Each year, you can count on some misguided gospel industry worker to show up to collect a check “minister”. In case you missed previous installments, you can review at your convenience.

• CeCe Winans [b]
• Albertina Walker [b]
• Crystal Aikin
• Daryl Coley and Lecretia Campbell
• Monique Walker
• Dwayne Woods

In short, the storyline goes like this: the gay church people wave money but obfuscate their real agenda.  Gospel music industry booking agents, hungry to keep their client in the spotlight and get paid, grab the gay church money.  No mention of gay church appearances is made on client’s website. When GCM Watch shines attention on the dirty deeds,  managers claim ignorance, gospel music industry workers claim ignorance or feign “ministry”.  Gay church stands by and snicker like alley cats. And around and around we go with all the gay church-gospel music drama.

So, here we are again.

We can now add LeAndria Johnson to the list of the fallen ones. Johnson is the “Season 3″ winner of  BET’s top money making gospel blackface show Sunday’s Best. Johnson is the second winner of the show to matriculate into the gay churchworld. But is that any surprise that SB is cranking out gay church performers?

Attempts to reach Leandria Johnson (and family) for comment have gone unanswered. A booking agent listed on her facebook site at first affirmed his association with Johnson, then on a follow up confirmation called denied association.

Johnson is listed as singing at the June 22nd consecration of a homosexual bishop at the Vision Church in Atlanta. Johnson should be ashamed and blacklisted from every church door that believes the Word of the Lord. Appearing at a homosexual church event, picking up those foul spirits and then spreading them to unsuspecting people in black churches should be an urgent concern to pastors everywhere.

Can a backslider minister?

If a Christian is in an admittedly backslidden state, why would anyone want to PAY them to “minister”? Minister what? Minister to whom? But at a Brooklyn church in January, Johnson broke down and admitted to the church that she was in no state to be ministering to anyone.

Johnson seemed very regretful that she had even gotten involved in the gospel music industry. Undoubtedly, she’d had a glimpse of the wickedness that goes on behind the scenes…and was influenced by it.

“Pray that my mind stays focused on Jesus … Even after ‘Sunday Best’ I found myself going back to where I had came from … I didn’t think I’d minister again,” she confessed.

“I’ve been holding this in for a long time and I didn’t know how to express myself,” Johnson continued with tears streaming down her face, “I’m tired of turning my back on God … that’s why I ask for your prayers. Please keep me in prayer.”

After that admission, as several women encircle Johnson and pray an unidentified woman takes the microphone and said, “The enemy is after our musicians … and the enemy knows how to send people that just wanna get in to the fame and into the limelight and they’ll let you do what and say what you want. But thank God for some leaders that don’t mind telling you the truth and when it’s all said and done, we’re going to pray until something happens.”

While we hope that she has recovered and is living holy, its 10 steps backwards to legitimize people who are working against the Word of God. If Johnson were serious about living right and ministering to truth to people, she would cancel her appearance at the homosexual churchfest AND  call on them to repent.

Does God send his ministers to minister to people who are living in rebellion against him? Of course he does. The question which determines whether God has sent someone or whether someone is just doing a gospel music gig depends the message delivered. God sent Jonah to Nineveh with one message: “repent”! When the occupants of that great city repented with great humility from the least to the greatest, God turned away his judgment. But the gay churchfest is a celebration of sin, not a turning away from sin.

The bible says: let everyone that names the name of Christ depart from iniquity (2 Tim 2:9). Its simple if you call yourself a Christian, you should separate yourself from iniquity, not set an elaborate religious ceremony celebrating it. You can see from the gaggle of  false prophets, heretics and court jesters attending the ceremony, there’s only one god who will receive any praise from it.

While many people bemoan the presence of homosexuality in black churches, in their music “ministry” and in the pulpit. But the ugly truth can be seen in the nearest mirror. When a person supports a perverted, celebrity cult worshipping show like Sunday’s Best, they are directly contributing to the worst blight of sin on the church in recent history.

Indeed, when seducing spirits gain a stronghold in the church, it is because they have been invited in and allowed to operate.

Nevertheless, I have this against you: You tolerate that woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess. By her teaching she misleads my servants into sexual immorality and the eating of food sacrificed to idols. Rev 2:20

Leandria Johnson performed at TD Jakes so-called leadership conference in March. She also performed at Dorinda Clark Cole’s music conference.  If we really want to know why homosexuality and the spirit of perversion is so strong in the church, the blame is squarely at the feet of so called leaders who have opened the doors of God’s house of prayer and made it into a den of sexual perversion.

And when you buy their music and attend their concerts,  you by proxy, endorse their sins.  Pornography is more than looking at naked images. Too many so called saints are spiritual porn addicts, getting their fix on vicariously through these workers of iniquity.

Do not be hasty in the laying on of hands, and do not share in the sins of others. Keep yourself pure.

Courtesy of Pastor Kim Burrell. vice president of COGIC International Music Department.

The new trend in gospel music: presenting agape as eros.

Read Pastor H. Burnett’s post on this video and its video-vixen.

Black Gospel music has long been a draw to get people into the institutionalized church. Many people will come to a church to hear the choir sing before they will come to hear the preacher preach.  New competition shows like How Sweet the Sound are now elevating the spiritually nebulous choir to greater prominence as representatives of the black church, while sex and money scandals are diminishing the role of  the preacher.

GCM Watch has covered the rampant homosexuality entrenched in the Black Gospel music industry before here and  here .  However, you should be aware that industry workers are using the “new cart method” of traveling gospel music/comedy tours, gospel music artists appearing on late night talk-shows, and gospel music artists  partnering with ungodly secular artists allegedly to “reach the youth”.

What is new cart method? If you read 1 Chronicles 13 ,it tells how King David used a new cart to bring the ark of the covenant into Jerusalem,  following the pattern of the Philistines who used a new cart to transport the ark of the covenant. The Philistines didn’t know any better because they were unaware of the methods and restrictions of transporting the Ark which literally housed the presence of God.  As King, David should have known better, because Israel were covenant people.  The scripture records that as the ark was being moved it almost fell to the ground. But a man named Uzzah instinctively reached to steady it. When his hand touched it, he was killed instantly . Judgment was swift because King David didn’t seek the proper order of the Lord. Uzzah was the son of Abinadab where the ark of the covenant had been stored at his fathers house for years. He had been around the ark nearly all his life, however he was ignorant and didn’t understand that God required his commands to be followed to the letter. And in his zeal without knowledge it cost him his life.

Deadly mix: strange fire, gospel music and new carts

As reported by gcmwatch, you have Mary Mary toured with R&B artist Maxwell and made guest appearances on BET’s 106 and Park,  Kirk Franklin and Steve Harvey (yes the one with the profane mouth) are now together on a “gospel comedy tour”.  A slew of gospel music artists are now making foot kissing missions to the foul mouthed comedian Monique. Who are they?  Kirk Franklin ,  Yolanda Adams, Marvin Sapp , Tye Tribbett , Deitrick Haddon, Vickie Winans, Bebe and Cece Winans, Shirely Caesar, David and Tamela Mann to name a few.

In the process of attempting to be relevant to the world, to make church hip and cool, the gospel music industry has put the glory of God on new carts to win the world’s acceptance. Instead of relying on the Holy Spirit to convict lost sinners in the world to repent and be saved, acceptance and false love seems to be the goal. Gospel music is a means to the end of achieving that acceptance.

Defending Mary Mary’s worldly partnerships, a person commenting on Facebook said, “the church needs more relevant music that would draw young people”. That’s a major error circulating with black gospel devotees. It elevates music/entertainment over Jesus Christ and over scripture as the guide for so-called evangelism. But didn’t Jesus say if “I be lifted up from the earth I will draw all men unto Him.” Church folk have lifted up their gospel idols more than Jesus Christ, and the results reflect that.  It has produced a spiritually shallow,  carnal minded Christians.  The new cart method creates opposition to Five-Fold ministry which is the proper order of the Church to equip and edify the saints. Utimately, God’s gifts are to bring the body of Christ to maturity so that we’re not tossed to and fro by every wind of doctrine. Music does have a place in the church, but it was not intended to  usurp the authority of Jesus Christ and his governmental gifts.

The proper order of music ministry

After the mess the gospel music industry has caused with its illegitimate “ministry”, concerned music ministers should seek to right the cart using God’s proper order within the Church.

1. Singers should sing unto the Lord, and should praise Him in the beauty of holiness(2 Chromicles 20:21). They should be separated from the world unto God. Both singers and musicians should have an inward disposition of reverence and purity, and resists all that offends the holy nature of God(1 Chronicles 16:29).

2. Songs sung in the House of God should be unto the Lord, and not for entertainment purposes to entertain the flesh and people(1 Chronicles 25:7). Songs that are sung should glorify God.

3.  True minstrels/musicians help set spiritual atmosphere for the supernatural which does not include thrill seeking song that appeal to the flesh (2 Kings 3:15).

4. Singing and the use of musical instruments being sung and played unto the Lord should be used for spiritual warfare (2 Chronicles 20:20-24; 1 Samuel 16:23).

5. The church should only accept  songs and music which are —like scripture— inspired by the  Holy Spirit ( Ephesians 5:19 ; 1 Chronicles 25:1-6).

6.  A difference between holy and unholy should always be the standard in music. Gospel music artist who claim to love God, should not partner with those who promote ungodliness, sexual immorality and use gratuitous profanity. (1 John 2:15-16 ; 2 Chronicles 19:2).

7.  The cult of celebrity should be destroyed as quickly as possible at its roots. True singers and musicians of God reflect Jesus and serve people, instead of  demanding service and accolades. (Mark 10:45).

8. Use singing and music to lead people into true sacrifice unto the Lord( Hebrews 13:15).

Pastors, leaders, church singers, and church musicians must repent from the new cart method, sanctify and follow the order of the Lord . To avoid God’s  judgment, HIS church must return to holy living.  Its a disgrace to our Lord to lead people into entertainment based false worship of people and gifts. Jesus wants back into your church. Now.