Everyone else will be blogging about it, so I thought I’d get a head start. Here’s the opening song from NewSpring’s Easter service. This is the band’s cover of AC/DC’s “Highway to Hell”:
To see the context of the song with the message, you’ll have to check out the video of the entire service that will be posted on www.NewSpring.cc sometime tomorrow.
I know. It makes you angry. Ultimately, though, this helped over 300 people hear the Gospel and make a decision to follow Jesus.
getting the message out by any means!! Great.
Thanks for posting this! I missed the beginning of the webcampus, and have been waiting to watch it. i love how it fits in with the verses that come before and after. can’t wait to see the rest of the message!
that’s great…300 people that accepted Christ. I love that you’re part of something that will do whatever it takes to help people come to know Jesus!
Love, love, love it! What will make me mad though is those who demonize NewSpring for this. Of course, that just begs the question, “How many came to know Christ at your Easter service?”
unfortunately no one can sing that song as well as Bon Scott….and we probably all know where he is..
Can’t wait to see what the theology / church police do with this! I’m sure they’ll go nuts!
Me on the other hand, I’m just wishing I could rock a fedora like that at my church.
Offend? It should offend those that are more caught up with religion and less about spreading the Gospel. It should scare the crap out of those that don’t know Jesus.
Rock on, Newspring. Rock on, Pastor P. I love it. Keep bringing it, Sunday after Sunday. Praise the most Holy Head Banger, GOD!
I think it is relevant. At the church I attend, we have integrated “secular” songs several times into services. It helps people who are not “church people” relate and connect with the message in ways some “worship” or “praise” songs never would. I am sure AC/DC never thought that song would be played in a church! Bravo!
woohoo! I was going to say “Cheap Trick” but I’ll save that for another sermon…lol
Who cares as long as the Kingdom was expanded and God was glorified! ! !
Awesome! Praise God for the 300 new people who weren’t offended by this!
What? no outfits…..
INCREDIBLE! I hate I missed the live version Sunday (I was in NC w/my family). I was wondering how it would fit in the service, and it was perfect. 300+ people are now on the Highway to Heaven (wait a minute that was a TV show right?).
Awesome job of reaching folks with relevant pop culture.
And? Your guitarist ROCKS the house.
As I guy who skipped his own jr. prom to see AC/DC-that was awesome! The band was rocking. I especially love the intro verses. Any chance that you guys will be making that little excerpt available for a download? I’m actually preaching from those verses at the beginning this week.
Do the ends always justify the means?? And is the Corporation of “NewSpring” making disciples or emotional, in the moment, “converts”??…If the people who were “saved” during this event are truly seeking God, He will not leave them hanging…even if they don’t go to a show like this one….So God doesn’t “need” shows like this one and greedy corporations like “NewSpring” or arrogant, proud, CEO’s errrrrr “Senior Pastors” like Perry Noble…but amazingly God does choose to use them sometimes…
@EROPPER Are you serious? Did you just come into Tony’s house and insult his church? I don’t care what your beliefs are, this isn’t the place to act like you’re Jonah and NewSpring is Ninevah. (BTW, Jonah’s the idiot in that story.)
You got it wrong, bud.
We are all entitled to our beliefs and opinions…..and we are all definitely influenced by past experiences….my experiences with this “type” of “church” have not been good…..
hurt people hurt people.
tony
I was a little unsure when I heard what you guys were planning. But after watching it, I think it turned out to be a powerful song that tied into the message. I really like the way you used scripture to setup the song and then end the song. It made people think and reflect, and it gave Perry a chance to share the truth of the Gospel.
Keep on preaching Jesus and staying true to the Gospel, and don’t worry about all the self-righteous people who complain.
or just maybe “The emperor HAS no clothes on” :)
I know heaven loved it, 300 souls added to the Kingdom!
It takes all kinds of churches to reach all kinds of people, I am all for leveraging culture and even redeeming pop culture for the sake of bringing people to into a real relationship with Jesus. Well done.
But if you guys bust out “Shook Me All Night Long” for your next sex series that might be pushing it. :-)
I’m excited that church’s like NewSpring exist and bring the Gospel to people in innovative, relevant ways-we should be excited about that-but it saddens me to see the response to a brother in Christ is automatically to insult him-eropper and those who share his opinion certainly surrender any spiritual high ground they would hold when they make their attacks personal and insulting (ie arrogant CEO, etc.) but if he’s been hurt by church’s before, then how can we bring him back in and allow those wounds to be healed? Probably not by responding to his issues by compounding his animosity towards the church-but by showing him the same grace that we show those who have never heard the gospel before-the father invited the older brother into the party, so should we.
honestly, I was a bit uncomfortable going in to the weekend wondering how I would respond to catchy music not pointing to Jesus. But then this thought came…Growing up I heard lots of preachers say something like, “If I could I would show you hell…then you’d never want to go there.” I’m willing to bet that most pastors, if honest, would bring Satan himself on stage if by doing so they would win some for Christ.
Many things are secular or sacred by their context. Anything that is used to successfully prepare people to worship and hear the truth of the Good News is sacred. For my two cents, rock on! Anything that denies Satan market share is fine with me.
The funny thing is that by doing this song in a worship context, I actually listened to the song more closely than I ever have, & I’ve listened to it hundreds of times. Ironically the lyrics really do parallel the opening verses. The wide road has no stop signs or speed limits, nobody will slow you down. The only problem with that is that we need to be slowed down. The song is prophetic, but only from the perspective of a someone who has been blinded to their own condition. There, those are my “deep thoughts” on a classic AC/DC tune.
Be careful in that sometimes what you draw people with, you draw them to. Regarding the statement “Ultimately, though, this helped over 300 people hear the Gospel and make a decision to follow Jesus”…..Who draws people to Christ? Who gets the credit and glory? Does the Word, the Gospel faithfully proclaimed really need AC/DC? If so, why not play it every Sunday? Why just Easter? Also, reading a bit about Charles Finney might be of interest to some. Also, do you know now what kind of soil the seed was sown in? And will you nurture these 300 souls with tender loving care, feed them and protect them from ravenous wolves as a pastor is called to do? Will you discipline those sheep who stray? Such is one of the functions of the church elders and pastors are called to do in the New Testament.
When the church gathers together for corporate “worship”, everything we do should glorify God. This song does not glorify God nor does it promote worshiping and praising an almighty God. The primary weekly time of a church is intended to be a time for worshiping God and edifying the saints. Sunday services are not intended to function as the primary evangelical outreach. This song does not promote the biblical mission of a corporate weekly gathering of the church. Though well intentioned it may be to draw the biggest crowd into a sunday service so that they may hear the gospel, that position is not biblically supported.
AND we have NO idea how many souls were added to the kingdom this weekend so let us not use that to support the unbiblical use of this song in a corporate worship service.
Sam -”Though well intentioned it may be to draw the biggest crowd into a sunday service so that they may hear the gospel, that position is not biblically supported.”
I hate it when the bible tells us that we should try NOT to get large crowds in one place to talk about Jesus! What were they thinking over there at NewSpring? Thanks for your wonderful interpretation of God’s word.
[...] Hat tip: Tony Morgan. I must admit: I liked the Greenville campus’ performance better, which is why I embedded it [...]
DJ…..In the New Testament, we read where people, crowds, would gather to Jesus to see miracles, to be healed, to be fed. Jesus often had difficult things to say about these crowds. It is recorded in the New Testament that He did not always trust them, these crowds, because He intimately knew the hearts of men. He acknowledged that many who claimed to follow Him were not true disciples.
Too, He would sometimes say something hard, something difficult, and the crowd of thousands would drop to 12. I think you will find these things recorded in the Gospel of John, if memory serves.
The bottom line and question is this….what is the nature and purpose of worship on Sunday? Have we, with the best of evangelical intentions, redefined the Biblical purpose the gathering of the saints on Sunday, a place and time where the saints are nourished, are to be fed substantively of grace from the Word so as to be enabled to go out into the world, to our places of work and play, to spread the Good News, to glorify God and enjoy God in all we do and say?
Where in the Bible are we told to bring the unregenerate into church as an overarching methodology of proclaiming the Gospel to the world? That is your job, my job and calling, not necessarily the pastors. It is easy and to invite someone to church. It is much harder to share the Gospel personally. I know that to be true.
And sadly, we sometimes get the message confused. We sometimes add to or remove things from the Gospel to make it more easily digestible…and we end up treating Jesus as a means to an end…of falling into the trap of selling a Gospel Lite to the unregenerate and a Law Lite to the church. Not that we always do that….but there is a real and present danger.
Might be of some interest to read some of Michael Horton’s books and articles on the contemporary church.
I’m outta this dialog for now. Thanks for indulging me….
I would never doubt the good intentions of those who engage certain methodologies.
Sorry about some of the poor editing of the last somewhat rushed post…did not mean for that last line to be positioned where it is in the comment….hit ‘post’ too soon… ;-)
“where in the Bible?” read I Corinthians 14 if you’re interested in one example of where the “unregenerate” (someone who isn’t a Christ-follower, an unbeliever) were part of the worship gathering. Jesus also encouraged this in the parable in Luke 14.
just thought i’d respond to your question.
tony
Ron,
I rarely involve myself in these debates online. I disagree with your definition of what the bottom line is here. Are we discussing the intention of worship? Or, is it the commission of the church? The vision of the leader here is to create worship and to reach those that do not have a relationship with Christ. Is it not possible that they could coincide?
Folks, as followers of Jesus we’re all on the same team. While I would not choose to “worship” the way that NewSpring does, they’re within the guidelines of Scripture and are following God’s leading on their ministry. I applaud them for that and for their unabashed desire to be culturally relevant and unashamedly evangelistic.
If we were more concerned with falling in love with Jesus and having him change us to be like him, we wouldn’t have the energy to throw stones at others seeking to do the same thing.
If God wants to change something about how NewSpring does ministry, I’m pretty sure He doesn’t need us to make that happen. Right now, I’m too busy getting the “log” out of my own eye to be worried about anyone else.
I have no doubt Newspring did not do this unthinkingly…and I celebrate all they do in reaching people for Christ.
But some of the things I am sure they thought about were these…
1. all things should glorify God, not Satan
2. We should focus on pure and holy things, not evil ones
3. AC/DC are one of the most evil and demonically based groups ever, they did make great ‘music’…but I personally believe a lot of their influence is spiritual
4. I hope those in Newspring are not grandiosing their freedom in Christ, to the detriment of the Body of Christ.
5. I personally, because of my background and love of ACDC music before I became a Christian, would find it hard to hear this song in church…because of all the connotations and feelings it would bring up in me.
6. I wonder if sometimes the non churched community think we are ‘try hards’ for emulating something AC/DC do far better.
7. Having said all that, our band did some U2 songs in our service over Easter… :)
ok, that was fun. now we’re done. you can continue the conversation on your own sites.
tony