Walk into almost any modern Evangelical church today, and you might be forgiven for wondering whether you’ve mistakenly stumbled into a concert hall, a corporate team-building event, or maybe even the set of a reality TV show. The flashing lights, slick branding, and carefully choreographed “worship experiences” give off a whiff of marketing genius, but there’s something sinister lurking beneath the polished facade.

This isn’t biblically how church was meant to be—it’s a pale imitation, a manufactured spectacle where the line between holy and secular has been thoroughly erased. And the tragedy is, it’s not just the big names like Hillsong, Elevation, Bethel, or Church by the Glades anymore. No, this disease has spread like a plague to the vast majority of Evangelical churches.

They all want to stay relevant, but in chasing that cultural dragon, they’ve lost their identity. And the result? The people of God are left groping in the dark, unsure whether they’re worshiping God or merely being entertained.

It wasn’t long ago that even the smallest churches understood the gravity of what they were about. They knew worship was a holy, set-apart time—a time to approach the throne of grace with reverence. But now, churches from coast to coast, no matter how humble or obscure, seem desperate to play catch-up with the big boys.

“Relevant” is the new golden calf, and they bow before it eagerly, hoping it will save them from obscurity. It’s almost amusing, if it weren’t so sad. They’ve traded in hymnals for fog machines and iMag screens, expository preaching for feel-good TED Talks, and instead of training up mature disciples, they’ve become masters at cultivating crowds.

This phenomenon is like a fever sweeping through the Evangelical world, and it’s remarkable how quickly churches have adopted the tactics of their larger, more infamous cousins. The blueprint is simple, mimic the spectacle. Darken the sanctuary, turn up the volume, make the music sound more like the latest pop hits, and most importantly—keep it short.

After all, you don’t want to bore the audience, right?

Who needs long, tedious sermons about sin, judgment, or—heaven forbid—repentance when you can instead fill the service with platitudes and vague affirmations? It’s as if they’ve ripped the heart out of the gospel and replaced it with cotton candy—sweet to the taste but guaranteed to rot your soul.

And just look at these “worship teams,” or rather rock bands, that have replaced choirs. In an increasing number of churches, they no longer lead the congregations in song and hymn, but instead, they’re performers, complete with rehearsed gestures, tight outfits, and songs that are more about stirring emotions than exalting Christ.

The songs, ironically, are often about “me”—how “I” feel, what “I” need, what “I” deserve. The people up front may as well be contestants on a glorified talent show, vying for applause and validation. Are we worshiping God, or are we simply creating an environment where people can have a good time? Because if we’re being honest, it’s becoming harder to tell.

This isn’t just happening in the megachurches that everyone points fingers at. No, this hollowed-out form of Christianity has made its way into the everyday Evangelical church in your town, the one you used to trust. The one you used to attend. You see it in the pastel lighting, the abbreviated “sermons” that more closely resemble a motivational speech than a message rooted in Scripture.

You see it in the pastor’s desperate attempts to seem “cool” and “relevant,” often adopting the vocabulary of the day’s social trends, hoping to connect with the youth. But while they’re busy trying to be cool and relevant, they’re becoming utterly irrelevant to the mission Christ gave His church.

These churches are nothing more than cheap knock-offs of the culture, trying to blend in with the very world they’re supposed to stand against. They’ve traded in the sword of the Spirit for a limp noodle of human approval. It’s like they’ve taken the church’s identity and sold it off in a garage sale, hoping to purchase a seat at the cool kids’ table. And what do they gain in return? Crowds, sure. But crowds that are as spiritually thin as the paper they hand their bulletins out on.

Do they think they’re fooling anyone? Do they think the world doesn’t notice their desperate attempt to be hip, to be liked, to be accepted? It’s pathetic. The church was never meant to conform to the culture—it was meant to confront it, challenge it, and call people out of it.

Yet here we are, watching as even the smallest churches fall into the same trap, mimicking the big boys in a sad attempt to stay relevant. They’ve dressed themselves up in the emperor’s new clothes, convinced they’re leading the charge when in reality, they’re marching straight into obscurity.

Is it any wonder why people leave these places disillusioned? Unchanged. And ultimately walk away from the Church altogether? They walk in expecting to encounter the living God, but instead, they’re treated to a feel-good therapy session. They’re entertained, sure, but are they transformed?

Are they convicted? Are they even challenged? Not likely. The church that was meant to be a mighty fortress of truth has become nothing more than an echo of the very culture that’s leading people to destruction.

And so, the question remains—what’s left? What remains of the church when it has traded the gospel for gimmicks, holiness for hype, and discipleship for showmanship? Nothing of value. Nothing that can save. Just a hollow shell of what once was, a fading echo of a message that used to have the power to save souls from death but has since been neutered and commercialized for mass appeal.

Is this what Christ died for? A church that is indistinguishable from the pagan world around it? A church that is more concerned with filling seats than filling souls? A church that would rather entertain goats than feed sheep, as Spurgeon so eloquently put it?

If you can’t tell where the world ends and the church begins, you’re not in a church anymore—you’re in a theater. You’re in a circus. You’re witnessing the great Evangelical masquerade, where everyone plays a part but no one seems to care that they’re all headed down the path of destruction.

The fact that this is happening in so many churches—small, medium, and large—makes it all the more tragic. Because if the body of Christ can’t be bothered to be distinct, if we’ve become so obsessed with relevance that we’ve made ourselves irrelevant, then we’ve already lost. These churches aren’t bringing revival, they’re bringing ruin. And the saddest part is, they don’t even know it.