Somewhere, John Stott is doing cartwheels in his grave—and not the zip-line kind. If the modern church had a mascot, it wouldn’t be a lamb—it’d be a caped crusader on a harness, suspended mid-air like a Party City reject, flailing across the rafters in some desperate attempt to jazz up the incarnation. As if Jesus Christ, the eternal Son, stepping into time—into our dust, blood, and agony—needed a backup actor with a fog machine and a flight path.
Clearly, this is a silent, sparkly admission that the gospel isn’t enough anymore. That Christ crucified can’t hold the room without help from a stunt coordinator. Reverence has been replaced with rigging. The fear of God has been smothered in LED lighting. And somewhere in the tech booth, a young intern is making sure Jesus doesn’t miss his cue.
Spurgeon called it—long before churches had the budget for safety harnesses. “Clowns entertaining goats,” he said. And this clown is the Rev. Charlie Skrine of All Souls Church, Langham Place, where Stott himself used to preach. And now, the goats applaud. They film. They share. They hashtag. Meanwhile, the sheep—those hungry for truth—are left chewing on confetti.
Make a 
