Saturday, March 27, 2010

Calvary Chapel Continues Its Connections With New Age/ECM: this time through Leonard Sweet

As Lighthouse reports:

This coming June, Calvary Chapel Albuquerque (a veteran Calvary Chapel church pastored by Skip Heitzig) will host the National Worship Leader Conference in Albuquerque, New Mexico and will feature New Age sympathizer and emerging church leader, Leonard Sweet. The NWLC event will take place in three different U.S. locations with Sweet participating in two of them.

The worship conference is presented by Worship Leader magazine, whose chief editor is Chuck Fromm (Chuck Smith, Sr.’s nephew). On the conference website, a banner promotion by Greg Laurie, (another veteran Calvary Chapel pastor) sits in a prominent spot. Laurie states: “In Worship Leader magazine, you hear from the leading thinkers, artists, and pastors on how we can more effectively worship God.”

With general promotion of Worship Leader magazine by someone as popular as Greg Laurie, and with the conference taking place at one of the larger Calvary Chapel churches, undoubtedly, the event will be accepted by many Christians as a credible, trustworthy conference. But Leonard Sweet’s involvement should cause serious concern for believers.

By the way, Chris Tomlin and Keith & Kristyn Getty will be sharing the platform with them, as well as a few women "pastors" , and various Willow Creek leaders or former leaders. Interstingly, there's a woman described as the "executive producer" at a church who "oversees all aspects of Sunday services". Executive Producer? Yup, nothing but an entertainment hour for them.

2 comments:

Phil Perkins said...

Thanks for the heads up on Calvary Chapel. I had no idea. Thought Smith had kept himself and his group out of it.

Phil Perkins.

Denise said...

Well, I guess its no surprise when Smith's family members go down the wrong road and he has no problem with it. Remember his son? Here is Smith Sr. revealing his compromise: http://articles.latimes.com/2006/sep/02/local/me-smiths2

Calvary Chapel/Greg Laurie embracing Warren: http://surphside.blogspot.com/2009/09/michael-w-smith-david-crowder-greg.html

And then of course, Smith Sr.'s nephew who is the editor of Worship Magazine which sponsored the National Worship Leader Conference that had Leonard Sweet speak.

So basically, it seems Smith Sr. compromises when relationships are at stake.

Thanks for dropping by.