This GARBAGE Is Not Church!

The Rise of Entertainment-Focused Megachurches

Hey guys, Colin here, and welcome back to Fight For Truth. In this video, we're going to talk about the problem of modern entertainment-focused megachurches. Now, the clips you're about to see were compiled in an excellent video made by Justin Peters, so please go check that out, link in description, and subscribe to his work.

Justin has been calling this stuff out for years, and he's truly one of the most important voices in the discernment space today. But in any case, what we're diving into today is the rise of what I like to call Goofball.

Church.

It's a particular brand of so-called church that heavily emphasizes using what I would call the bread-and-circuses model of ministry. In this model, you have a church that is led by a highly charismatic head pastor.

That's step one. But step two is that this head pastor is constantly dreaming up new ways to entertain and captivate the ever-shortening attention span of the modern-professing Christian who attends his.

Church.

So, instead of deep teaching and reverent worship, instead we get a shallow emotional therapeutic experience. And all of this is done in the name of winning people. Because for the modern, trendy megachurch pastor, evangelism has virtually removed the need for sound doctrine or common sense.

Case in point, many of the clips you're about to see are from Craig Groeschel's Life .Church, which by many accounts is the biggest church in the United States. In fact, Stephen Furtick, Joel Osteen, and many other false teachers claim to have been heavily influenced by the ministry of Groeschel.

His church practically invented the goofball church ministry model, or at least, they've certainly seemed to perfect it. But another church in these clips will be Crossroads Church in Cincinnati, Ohio, another massive megachurch, this time led by Pastor Brian Tome.

He provides another great example of what pastor you should never listen to, and what church you shouldn't touch with a 10-foot pole. And I have the receipts to prove it. The following clips are from the various churches I've just talked about.

Super Bowl-Themed Church Services and Theology by Commercials

Here's the first one, in which they advertise their Super Bowl-themed church service.

Watch this.

This weekend is 32nd Theology. We are having a huge football party at church, which means we are going to have some Gatorade.

To drink.

We are going to have games for the whole family. Make sure that you wear your favorite football jersey. Don't forget about the hot dogs that we are going to have.

Now, I cannot think of a better example of the modern, trendy megachurch than what you.

Just saw.

We have a man being buried in various forms of entertainment as he begs you to please come to their super fun event. But fear not, because in the last 3 milliseconds of the video, if you listen very closely and squint your eyes ever so slightly, he yells out 5 words that sound kind of vaguely Christian-y.

In our culture, that pretty much qualifies you to run a church of 40 ,000 people. But next, we have the hype video for a theology series based in popular TV commercials.

I want to see you this Sunday for 32nd Theology. It's where our pastor Craig Rochelle uses popular commercials to illustrate biblical truth. So we need you to bring your family, bring your friends, because here at Switch, we've got students who are excited to invite you to 32nd Theology.

This clip is a great example of the youth-oriented culture that we see in so many modern megachurches. Everyone, including the fully grown adults, are treated like bored children who are about to leave the room unless someone comes in and gives them something fun to do.

And if they were being honest, the pitch sounds something like this. You don't like actually having to study theology? Don't worry. Our pastor's just going to preach some short sermons about Lemu Emu and Doug.

And the Geico Gecko. And Jake from State Farm. Does that make you feel better? Don't you see how funny and quirky our pastor is? Please come to our church and let us entertain you. That's basically the pitch here.

Parables Are Not an Excuse for Entertainment-Driven Ministry

And at this point, I can already hear the defenders of Goofball Church getting their keyboards ready. I can hear it from a mile away, because they're all about to type the same thing. Don't you know that Jesus spoke in parables?

Yes, I'm aware of that. But surely we can all understand that a sober-minded sermon illustration, a parable, is not the same thing as using popular TV commercials to convince bored people to attend your church.

Yes, Jesus spoke in parables, true. But he also courageously called out sin. He gave deep, true teaching. And he quoted the Book of Deuteronomy frequently. When's the last time your trendy megachurch pastor did that?

You see, this is what Goofball Church does constantly. They are always looking for out-of-context passages to justify their entertainment ministry.

Model.

But I would love to see them try to defend this next clip biblically, wherein a church says that they're going to give random phrases to their pastor that have to be used during the sermon.

Watch this.

In each quarter, preachers will be given a random phrase that they must effectively work into their message.

And my understanding is these are completely random. They have never seen them before.

So here we have yet another cringey gimmick. But in 1 Timothy 2 .15, Paul tells young pastor Timothy to labor diligently in, quote, rightly dividing the Word of Truth. This requires a pastor to study the Word of God and know what he's going to preach before he preaches it.

A sermon is not for yelling out random phrases. It's for instructing and encouraging the body of believers in what the Word of God actually.

Says.

It's not about being silly and having fun. It's about being taught the Word of God. But speaking of pastors and sermons, this next clip is a sermon introduction for Pastor Brian Tome and some of the other people involved on their Super Bowl Sunday at Crossroads Church.

Watch this.

Well, hey folks, time to meet our players. Let's head down to the field for today's starting lineups.

The myth, the legend, Brian Tome.

So first we have the man, the myth, the legend, Pastor Brian Tome. And then we have some pastors running up and down the aisles giving high fives to people while there's smoke and lights and loud hype music in the background.

But wait a minute, says the goofball church apologist. Surely none of this means that they're unqualified to preach. Isn't it entirely possible that this was just the entrance for the sermon? And perhaps they're going to calm things down and begin to preach a solid biblical sermon to their congregation?

Don't judge them based on just the intro. My response to that would be, okay, fair enough. Let's see what kind of good, solid teaching they're about to offer.

Watch this.

Kicking the Bible and Turning Church Into a Halftime Show

Call it in the air.

Tails!

What I'll be kicking.

It, uh, yeah. Let's just go with tails. Would you like to kick or receive the Bible?

I will receive.

Tome wins the toss, chooses to receive the Bible. Patterson back with the kick. Oh my goodness! Is that a touchback?

First time in 18 years there's a touchback for the kickoff.

So here we have it. This is the sound biblical teaching that we were assured of. We have a group of so-called pastors kicking a Bible off the stage. Just to put this in perspective, we have Christians right now living in third world countries who have to share Bibles amongst themselves because there aren't enough to go around.

Imagine that.

We have Christians who literally don't have an adequate Bible translated for their own.

Language.

And then we have Christians in the world who would be imprisoned just for owning a Bible if they were caught. But in America, we have this. We use our incredible wealth and religious freedom to hire a bunch of cringy entertainers to kick a Bible off their stage.

If you don't see the problem with this, then you're not paying attention. 2 Timothy 3 .16 says that the Bible is profitable for teaching, for correction, and for training in righteousness. I must have missed the part that said the Bible is also profitable for kicking.

But we might have to consult the original Greek on that one to be sure. But we continue with the church service having a brief halftime show.

Watch this.

Reverence, Worship, and the Meaning of Hebrews 12:28

So now we have them singing Friends in Low Places by Garth Brooks and then Wrecking Ball by Miley Cyrus. They even go so far as to imitate the music video in which she is famously naked while riding a wrecking ball.

And this, ladies and gentlemen, is the endgame of the seeker-sensitive movement. It's all one big race to the bottom of the barrel. But what is the central problem with it? How do we know that this is wrong?

I'll tell you. Hebrews 12 .28 says, quote, Let us offer to God acceptable worship with reverence and awe, for our God is a consuming.

Fire.

So I have a simple question. Did any of the clips that I just showed you actually convey any kind of reverence for.

God's Word?

Would you do any of those activities, for example, at a funeral? How about at a wedding? Of course not. Because what's happening at those events is considered important. It has gravity to it. It's not time for being silly, in other words.

The question is, why exactly do we think that God's Church is somehow less important? Answer? Because we need to win people. Because we need to evangelize people and spread the Gospel. And therefore, we need all these events and all these entertainment strategies to convince people to come to our Church.

Right?

No.

If hype and entertainment in the Church are so important, why do we see them in Scripture exactly zero times? And why is it that none of our fathers in the faith found it necessary to use this strategy for the first 2 ,000 years of Church history?

You see, the real reason the Church has become this way is that modern pastors like Craig Rochelle and Brian Tome have found that it works. It's that simple. It makes their churches bigger and more successful, and it does it much faster than reverent worship and sound teaching would.

To be clear, I have no doubt that there are many people in these churches who are actually saved by Jesus. But the fact is, what you're really doing with all of these strategies is taking what many people actually worship, which is comfort, entertainment, and themselves, and you're turning that into Church.

In other words, if they won't come for Jesus, we'll make them come for something else and call it Jesus. That's the strategy here. The fact is, none of these people are qualified pastors, regardless of how much experience they may have or how big their Church is.

They have missed the most basic elements of reverence for God in the Church. So please stay away from the modern, trendy megachurch, and find a good, solid, biblical Church near you instead. I have several ministries and Church networks linked in the description below.

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Thank you, and God bless.