There is a welcomed trend of churches arming themselves with the Scriptures to teach important messages about the faith that we should find encouraging. Church after church, pastor after pastor, they’re all opening the Scriptures, preaching Christ and Him crucified, and teaching their disciples to obey the commandments of Christ.
Oh, wait. What am I thinking? That’s not what they’re doing at all. A remnant of churches are doing that, and we should be grateful to God for them. But the vast majority of churches have departed the faith, abandoned the Scriptures, and embraced a new gospel altogether—entertainment.
If it isn’t putting on extravagant performances during worship to secular pop music, it’s cheesy gimmicks and circus shows. And the newest trend for this summer is churches putting on “Summer at the Movies” sermon series where the pastor opens up not the Scriptures, but the scripts from various movies and begin to preach about those.
We wrote earlier this week about how Saddleback Church “pastors” Andy and Stacie Wood dressed up like Toy Story characters to preach a sermon. Several churches have preached a Barbie “sermon,” and now, at least one church preached a sermon on Top Gun. The North Carolina megachurch pastor, Micah Coronna, used the movie to teach about “agape love.”
Here’s the problem. The problem isn’t that seeing movies or even mentioning it in a sermon is necessarily wrong or sinful. The problem is the motivation behind it. This same church not only preached a Top Gun sermon, but also a Ford v. Ferrari sermon and an Amazing Gracie sermon, all popular movies this summer. The problem is where the hearts and minds of the church’s congregation is. This is what this pastor believes he needs to do to (spiritually?) feed his sheep?
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This is nonsense. If these people were truly saved, they would be in awe of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, who owed them nothing, yet condescended to Earth to save them. They would not need to be entertained with cheesy movie gimmicks and cute comparisons. They would be satisfied with the finished work of Christ on the cross and His living and active two-edged sword—the Scriptures.
If this is what your church is doing, you need to find a new church.
