I was recently approached by a new sister who had recently been baptized and became part of a local, independent, Baptist church. She was concerned because her new church was planning a singing fellowship at a local park. They had voted to invite other Baptist churches of like faith and order to bring their singing groups to participate in this fellowship. They were encouraged to invite friends and other people from the community, but no groups or individuals would be allowed to sing before the group that were not from a scriptural Baptist church. She was very concerned that this position would be detrimental to the Lord’s work. She had several questions that she asked. Isn’t praise and worship just that, no matter who sings? Isn’t the point of inviting people to the fellowship to get everyone involved? Do we come off "self-righteous", taking this position. Is this a Christian belief or just something Baptist’s believe? Who are we to judge another churches music, isn’t God the judge? It was evident she had put a lot of thought into the issue before she approached me.

   It appears to me that there are many, in the Baptist ranks, who believe we can get together and sing with other groups, but of course, we would not invite them into our pulpits to preach. They are willing to go to a singing convention with all the religious groups in town, but believe pulpit affiliation would be wrong. How can this be? Even some of our singing groups, (quartets, choirs, etc.), seem to have no problem going and singing for Pentecostal, non-denominational, and other Protestant groups. Is singing a different realm that gives us a platform of fellowship with the Protestant and Catholic world? I believe the Bible teaches that we are to separate ourselves in worship from all that is contrary to God and His truth.

   Having said that, let me give my opinion on this issue. I do not believe we should ask groups who are not in true churches, to sing for us. There are several reasons for this, but before I get into the reason, I believe it is important to note that we do not believe that a person has to be a Baptist to be saved. God offered salvation, as a free gift with no strings attached. One does not have to be baptized, join a church, give up anything, or start doing anything to get saved. Repentance and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ is all that is necessary. However, serving Christ in an acceptable way is another story.

   Ephesians 3:21 "Unto him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without end. Amen." This scripture says God gets glory by Christ through the church. If we are going to glorify God in our service, as a saved child of His, then we will do it His way. During the personal ministry of Christ here on earth, Jesus called out and established His local visible church. He promised this church would exist in every age. Matthew 16:18-19 "And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven." The gates of hell would never prevail against her, she would always be able to produce a historical lineage back to that first church. He said His church was built on Him, and He gave her authority (keys) to bring people into that body (binding into the church, this is why we vote on receiving a new member into the church), and also the authority to put a person out of the church (loose from the church, this is the reason it takes a church vote to exclude one from the church membership). The church was built on Jesus, the foundation, and He made the rules for what would be acceptable service to Him. This can be a little confusing today when we have thousands of different kinds of "churches" with thousands of ideas about how to serve God in a correct manner. There, of course, was no question about what was correct when there was only one church in existence and her pastor was Jesus Christ. It wasn't until the church started multiplying after Christ had gone back to heaven that the ideas of men started creeping into the church and positions and doctrines contrary to Christ came alive. When Constantine started the Catholic church in 313 AD the corrupt churches that had fallen away from God's teachings joined that group. For approximately 1200 years there were only two kinds of churches. The catholic and the Lord's. So even up to this time in the 1500's, when the reformation began, it was pretty easy to distinguish where God was getting glory and what He wanted His people to stay away from. During that 1200 years the Catholic church killed some fifty to sixty million of God's people because they hated the truth they taught. In fact, their hatred of God's people is how we got the name Baptist. They started calling God’s church Ana-Baptist, (re-baptizers), because the Lord's church would not accept the baptism of the Catholic church as scriptural. This word "Ana-Baptist" was a derogatory term but the name Baptist stuck and thus God's true churches use that name today as a distinction that identifies us with the true churches of ages past.

   Up to this point there would be no problem understanding that true churches do not ask groups from other religious organizations to sing for them. The Catholic church no doubt had some great choirs and singing groups but those early Baptists understood you do not ask groups who are in doctrinal error to sing for you. 2 John 1:10 "If there come any unto you, and bring not this doctrine, receive him not into your house, neither bid him God speed:" The scripture reveals that if we act like people with false doctrine are brethren, we encourage them to stay in their untruth. God asks us a very important question in Amos 3:3 "Can two walk together, except they be agreed?" How can we walk with people who are doctrinally in error without indicating that it is ok for them to continue in their wrong? Today we face false doctrine on every front of the religious world, Which singing groups will we allow to sing in our worship of the Lord? The early churches of the Lord would not invite Catholics, would we today? Martin Luther, though smart enough to realize the Catholics were wrong, came out of them and started the Lutheran church, but he still hated those Ana-Baptist and persecuted them as his former church had. Will we invite the Lutheran groups to come and sing for us. Calvin started the Presbyterian church during the reformation and he too hated the Baptist and killed them. Will we invite their groups to sing for us? How about the Mormons, Jehovah Witnesses, Christian Scientist, Seven Day Adventist, etc.? Do any of these have a place worshipping with the church that Jesus said the gates of hell would not prevail against? There are many groups that teach the plan of salvation and produce brother and sisters in Christ for us to love and be friends with. We do not spend our time tearing them down in what they do but we are not going to encourage them in their error by making them believe they are just like us. They say they love Jesus, just like we do, but do they love Him just like us? Jesus said to His church in John 14:15 "If ye love me, keep my commandments." His commandments are not just to be born again, but to be scripturally baptized, to join His church (Baptist), to learn His commandments and to keep them, to live as an engaged bride showing our faithfulness to Him each day. One thing an engaged bride does to prove her love to her fiancee is to not flirt with other guys. The Bible teaches us to not fellowship unrighteousness. 2 Corinthians 6:14 "Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness?" The term unbeliever does not have reference just to lost people but even to the saved who do not believe the truth of God's word in all areas. Unrighteousness is anything that is not right and religious organizations that do not have a historical lineage to Christ’s first church, and are not practicing the doctrines of Christ, are not right. They are not churches of Christ, they are simply organizations created by men and they have no place as instruments in God’s worship services.

    Our desire is to win people to the truth. We want to use every method we can think of to get them to come to our church and find out about the Lord's church and the advantage it will be to them. What we don't want to do, in our zeal to win them to the truth, is to violate the truth. We want them to see the scriptural way. We don't want to encourage them that the things they are doing contrary to God's word is all right. We need to love people and do all we can to get them to come and enjoy themselves with us in worship and study, while we make it clear that God's word cannot be violated. I think most times it is not necessary to even make mention that their group could not sing for us, the invitation is just to come and listen to our groups and enjoy the fellowship. If a professional singing group were having a concert there would be no question that we could not bring our group to sing with them.

   I don't think excluding other groups from having a part in our worship service makes us come off "self-righteous", because we are not saying we are more righteous than you, we are just saying God has set an order of how to serve Him, we cannot violate His rules. We do not judge others in their motives or purity of heart, we just follow God's word. He teaches us to love them and let them know we care about them and share His truths, praying that the truth will set them free. The question is not whether they are sincere in their motives, or whether they really love the Lord or not, the question is can we compromise God's truth to make others feel good?