Many of you are probably aware about the story that broke yesterday regarding Mike Guglielmucci, the Australian youth pastor who faked having terminal cancer. He wrote the hit worship song, “Healer,” inspiring others with this declaration:
I believe You’re my Healer
I believe You are all I need
I believe You’re my Portion
I believe You’re more than enough for me
Jesus You’re all I need
In one Youtube video that received 300,000 hits, he performed the song with an oxygen tube in his nose.
 Several of my worship leader blogging friends have covered this story, such as Fred McKinnon, Chris Vacher, Scott Magdalein and Joel Klambert. Fred wrote a feature on it for theworshipcommunity.com that I encourage everyone to read. I don’t want to merely repeat what they and many others have already said. Yes, we are all sinners. Yes, we need to pray for all those who have been hurt by this, including Mike Guglielmucci’s family, who apparently were also deceived. Yes, we need to pray for the man himself, rather than merely denounce him as a fraud. And yes, we are right to feel anger over this — we represent Christ as His body, His church. It is a heavy, heavy thing to sully the name of Christ, and more so, when we sully the name of Christ while (or after) becoming internationally known as his disciple and while leading others to worship Him.
Another side to this, touched upon by some other bloggers and commenters, is the fact that the “cult of personality” within the modern Christian subculture doesn’t help matters. Many have said in the last ten years that worship leaders are the new “superstars” of the church — a position once held by traveling evangists, radio preachers and televangelists. Praise & Worship music is big business, as is the umbrella CCM industry, although it may well be in dire straights.
I remember when the Michael English scandal broke in the early 1990s. I was working as a Music Director at a gospel music radio station. English was like a younger Bill Gaither in that he carried the respect of people within the CCM business as well as southern gospel, having started as a gospel quartet singer and moved into CCM solo recordings, winning a slew of Dove awards in process.
I visited a local Christian bookstore manager days after English gave up his awards and confessed to having an affair with another CCM performer (both were married). The manager held up a cover of English’s latest CD and said, “Look at more and more of these CD covers. You can see that the industry is treating these people like sex symbols. This stuff is bound to happen.”
Granting that we are each responsible for our own actions, the point is valid. We put music makers up on a pedestal and speak, as I did in the first paragraph, of “hit worship songs.” The industry makes sure they have “the look” and then the rest of us, if we’re not careful, dress like them, cut our hair like them, and in short, act like eleven year old girls watching Hannah Montana.
Author Harold Best has gone on record many times with saying that artists are not “special” to any greater degree than plumbers, bakers or Sunday school teachers. It’s something that we talk about a lot at Sojourn, particularly in the worship arts ministry. Worship Arts Pastor Mike Cosper touched on this in a recent podcast interview. A musician offers her music to the Lord, and a baker offers her cakes to the Lord, each doing all things for His sake.  Neither the musician nor the baker are inherently more holy or worthy of respect.
Of course, the truth is that Mike Guglielmucci was in a position to bless the universal church much more with a musical anthem picked up by Hillsong and aired around the world through various recorded means than if he’d baked a cake for a church social. And, as his sin has affected people all over the world, it is a scandal with international repurcussions.  But, amidst everything else about this situation that deserves our prayer and attention, we need to remember that there are no “superstars” in the body, only saints. And saints are just sinners saved by grace, shedding the filthy rags of their own “righteousness” for the righteousness of Christ.
Pray for this man, pray for those damaged by his sin. Pray for those who have not come to Christ, that they not be blinded by this man’s sin and miss the glory of the cross. But remember that we probably all think of worship leaders and songwriters more highly than we ought to. At their best, they are simply servants of Christ, using the gifts He’s given them to wash the feet of others and call attention away from themselves and to the One who saved them.
the michael english thing made me more mad because the christian world dropped him like a bad habit.
If anybody should show grace its the church
Thanks Bobby. Well said.
Yeah, I think that the CCM world really bungled the Michael English situation, and Christians reacted in variously inappropriate or damaging ways. Hopefully we learned from it.
well said Bobby. good word!
So what do we do? What do we say to a story like Mike’s the next time we hear it?
No offence to Mike or his parents but this guy was not being held up because of his handsome good looks
Mike and his story were being talked about because we believed that God was IN the story!! How could we not?? Go back and watch the video, listen to his voice, read what people were saying about his treatments and his illness and tell me what we should have heard that would have made the difference in this scenario??
I don’t know, man. I’m not jumping down your neck but I’m honestly not sure where we go from here. I wrote my thoughts on my blog and the resulting comments and conversations have been incredible (both on the site and through email) but I just don’t know what our next step is.
Aren’t these the stories of inspiration and providence and “seeing-beyond-my-circumstances” that we want the church to tell the world?? How do we reach through the layers of separation between us and the storyteller to verify that what they are telling us is, in fact, the God-written truth?
Yeah, I understand. To say, as I have done, “We need to be careful about putting people on a pedestal,” as true as that is, doesn’t answer the question, “When someone tells this kind of lie, this large in scope and this audacious, how do we not get taken in?”
This answer may surprise some or seem inadequate, but I think that on a very basic level, the answer is “We fall for it.” What I mean is, we have to trust people. We can’t let ourselves be cynical and jaded, because this leads to a lack of grace and brotherly love.
I’m not saying “Be gullible.” But this guy gave every appearance to those closest to him (not just a world of “fans”) of being a sincere believer and even minister of the gospel. I don’t know what kind of process his church put him through to become a member and then a leader — hopefully there was some sort of process and some accountability.
But the fact is that, although the Spirit guides us and although He makes wisdom and discernment available to His children, we aren’t promised the ability to see through every lie someone tells us. God doesn’t make us into mind-readers or Jedi knights.
So, you’re right. We do want to tell the world stories of inspiration and providence, to herald the news that God is still at work today. God is still a healer, a provider, a sustainer, a deliverer.
And unfortunately, the devil is still a deceiver and a tempter. So sometimes he is able to pull the wool over our eyes for a short while. And when the truth comes out, it hurts.
One of the mind-boggling things about this case is: how did the man expect to get away with this? Did he really think he could pull this hoax off forever? And that’s what makes it so easy to deceive people initially. You’d think that no one would tell a lie of that proportion, even to his own family, and expect to get away with it. So it must be true.
So I guess my answer is that I’d rather be hurt than hurtful. I’d rather expect the best out of people who have given every indication of being fellow believers than to expect the worst. When that blows up in my face, it will hurt, sure.
And in those cases it is helpful to remember that ultimately my trust is in God, not man. But if I’m going to be wrong about somebody, I’d rather err on the side of trust and love than to think, “Oh, sure. Another Christian is claiming a powerful story of deliverance. I bet he’s a liar,” and then later find out that they were telling the truth.
Wow~ Bobby, that is such an admirable response with a true heart of Christ. It shows that you have true maturity as a believer. It is tried and true, yes, we don’t worship “Worship” however powerful it may be. If God is the center and the source of our worship, (not the leader), then when a “huMan” falls (which many will) we won’t be as disheartened and disillusioned.
Last year, my husband and I moved from Canada to the United States as missionaries. We originally came from a very small full gospel church and have moved cities a few times since then. We’re now in Carrollton, TX (20 minutes from Dallas). We’ve found it difficult to adjust to all of this putting worship leaders on pedestals as one put it. In our search for a home church we tried this church that everyone was raving about. We were a little skeptical of this one church because the worship seemed to be self-centered, but I didn’t want to be judgmental. So, when I heard this guy (Mike Guglielmucci’s) testimony and the song when it was first introduced, I thought, well this church can’t be all that bad if they are taking the time to profile a guy like this who is obviously a real Christian. Shows you what I know. Love always trusts… My mom always says “If God spoke through a donkey/jackass then He can speak a message through anyone” And it’s true, sometimes you hear a really good message through a song. I truly hope people don’t disregard the message of the song that so many have found hope in Jesus. It’s man who is full of flaws; the gospel isn’t full of flaws. And yeah you’re totally right, we should pray for this guy’s family, how sad it must be for them, I can’t imagine the way they feel. “…pray for those who spitefully use you”.
Right now back home, my mom and dad are going through some of the shock & disillusionment with the whole Ray Boltz thing announced a week ago. http://www.onenewsnow.com/Church/Default.aspx?id=250538
“Better to be a poor man whose walk is blameless than a rich man whose ways are perverse. “Prov 28:6
If you could recommend a solid church in our area, we’d love to know about it. We want to go to a church where worship to Jesus, is well, still worship to JESUS. “If I be lifted up, I will draw all men to me”. But yet somewhere where tunes are current and they still live and obey the Bible. I admire you guys for not selling out to this crazy trend of superstar worship leader syndrome. One of our Pastor friends moved to go pastor a new church and so a new guy stepped in. Well, within a few months they had gone through countless interviews for a new worship leader and they thought they’d found “the one” they wanted. They really wanted him because he was the latest Canadian idol winner. We were like, “I guess the Godliness left when their old pastor left”.
I don’t claim to understand it all, but some people do do it for the greed. Read Romans 1:18-32, Timothy 3 is informative too and Hebrew 6:1-12.
Pingback: "Why Do Worship Leaders Do That?" p. 9: Why Can't They Walk The Talk In Their Personal Lives | Sojourn Music
This is something I struggled with somewhat when I was a teen christian. For different reasons, I no longer consider myself a believer. But as long as you keep surrounding good-looking, musically talented people with bright lights, cameras and swelling music, there will always be superstars in the church. Their humility and all the scriptures on humility you can think of wont change that. As long as CCM remains what it is, there will always be a scandal waiting to happen. Human beings, even Christians, all look for people to admire, be it Michael English or Hannah Montana. If the worship leader’s goal is humility and pointing the way to god, they ought not be putting themselves front and centerstage.
I’ve seen many people on around the internet in danger of judgement according to the scripture. Mike repented, asked forgiveness. Also his song is true and from his heart, he did have a disease much worse than cancer which would not have been accepted by the public. Have a little compassion on the man and listen to the Word of the Lord:
Matt 5:7 Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy.
James 2:13 because judgment without mercy will be shown to anyone who has not been merciful. Mercy triumphs over judgment!
The Parable of the Unmerciful Servant
Matt18:
21 Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, “Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother or sister who sins against me? Up to seven times?”
22 Jesus answered, “I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times.[g]
23 “Therefore, the kingdom of heaven is like a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. 24 As he began the settlement, a man who owed him ten thousand bags of gold[h] was brought to him. 25 Since he was not able to pay, the master ordered that he and his wife and his children and all that he had be sold to repay the debt.
26 “At this the servant fell on his knees before him. ‘Be patient with me,’ he begged, ‘and I will pay back everything.’ 27 The servant’s master took pity on him, canceled the debt and let him go.
28 “But when that servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred silver coins.[i] He grabbed him and began to choke him. ‘Pay back what you owe me!’ he demanded.
29 “His fellow servant fell to his knees and begged him, ‘Be patient with me, and I will pay it back.’
30 “But he refused. Instead, he went off and had the man thrown into prison until he could pay the debt. 31 When the other servants saw what had happened, they were outraged and went and told their master everything that had happened.
32 “Then the master called the servant in. ‘You wicked servant,’ he said, ‘I canceled all that debt of yours because you begged me to. 33 Shouldn’t you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?’ 34 In anger his master handed him over to the jailers to be tortured, until he should pay back all he owed.
35 “This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother or sister from your heart.”