Entertainment Evangelicalism and Why It Sucks
I write this with a heavy heart — a heavy heart of conviction, that is. I have spent my entire life in what is popularly known as “the Bible belt.” Having grown up in the heart of American evangelicalism for more than two decades, I have heard it all and seen it all.
I’ve attended and experienced both traditional and contemporary church settings. I’ve observed a pragmatic paradigm shift with Sunday morning church gatherings.
Sunday mornings in some churches have a vibe that mixes a social country club with an entertainment spectacle. The preeminent focus and goal are to fill the seats and awe the audience with the grandeur of the performance and programs of the specific church’s brand, rather than focusing on the glory of God through the proclamation of the Gospel through praise, preaching, and partaking in the Lord’s Supper.
It is a sad state of affairs. It is entertainment evangelicalism: an overemphasis on the church’s brand and production to entertain, influence, and inspire the audience instead of biblically cultivating a space in which people can encounter and revere the presence of God.
Superficiality is the death of depth. And I fear that many churchgoers have been duped into thinking that a mere happy hour and a half on Sunday mornings is what Christianity is all about. It’s not.
The purpose of collectively coming together as a church is not entertainment to tickle or satisfy some innate religious impulse but to encounter and experience the real and amazing God of the Scriptures.
We should leave church service not feeling good about how awesome we are as individuals but feeling good about who God is and what He’s done for us in Jesus Christ.
Praise
I vividly remember attending a megachurch in Tulsa, where I sat in the second row from the stage. In front of us was a “hype section” where people were standing around or jumping around depending on the song. The stage was filled with a host of singers and backup singers, along with a full band.
Surrounding everything was a camera crew of several videographers and photographers. A camera passed by my face during one of the worship songs. The whole “worship” experience was discombobulating and distracting.
The hype crew was going crazy; the overproduced light and stage show like it was a big-time concert; the persistent presence of cameras to capture it all. I spent most of the time just standing there trying to figure out what the heck was going on.
It didn’t feel like a reverent setting in which we could pour out our praise to God; it felt more like a set production of a TV show about the church or a concert.
And then there was another church I attended. Before the service, the band played various [secular] songs from artists like Taylor Swift and The Killers. I found it odd that they were essentially hosting a garage band concert to set the mood and tone for the upcoming service.
Contrast this with a big church I attended in the Dallas Fort Worth area. There weren’t 25 people on stage; there wasn’t a hype crew section; there wasn’t a craftful camera crew trying to capture everything on stage or in the audience; there wasn’t a tiny concert held before the service featuring songs from famous artists. It was just worship. That’s it.
And for every song, the slides of lyrics included Bible verses at the bottom of the screen — so you knew that what we were singing was biblical.
At this church, the setting and experience were carefully attended to by the worship team, but not to make me feel good about myself or give me a good time, but to focus and orient my heart to Jesus Christ.
Don’t misunderstand me. This is not an indictment and judgment against the style of worship. I’m not calling for a return to old-fashioned hymns with the pipe organ. I’m calling for biblically-based songs and settings.
The point of worship is to praise and magnify God for who He is and what He’s done. I don’t care if you have a full band on stage or just a couple of people with guitars or an acapella group. Whoever is leading the congregation is responsible for directing the focus on glorifying God, not creating an emotional setting to get hyped or feel good about oneself.
We don’t gather to consume; we gather to worship. Because the whole point of praise as worship is God’s glorification, not self-edification.
Preaching
An element pervasive through many churches is the lack of clear, consistent, and coherent biblically faithful preaching.
According to Al Mohler, “Christians who lack biblical knowledge are the products of churches that marginalize biblical knowledge.” [Read the full article for an in-depth diagnostic of biblical illiteracy]. Whether we like it or not, the pulpit drives the church’s people and profoundly influences and shapes how people view God and the Bible.
Quite frankly, much of what passes as preaching in the pulpit or stage nowadays is really nothing more than a Christianized Ted talk. A brief inspirational, purpose-driven, motivational speech, sometimes bacon-wrapped with cherry-picked Bible verses.
- “Let go and let God”
- “God helps those who help themselves”
- “Don’t quit before the blessing, your best days are coming”
- “No matter what the storm or season, there is purpose on the other side”
- “God won’t give you more than you can handle”
Should we really be surprised so many people are biblically illiterate whenever preachers are more concerned about presenting quotable, cliché phrases that can be tweeted or plastered on colorful Instagram posts?
I wish I was joking, but I’m not. I have attended church services where the pastor gets up on stage in hip clothes and skinny jeans, begins with a joke or a story about his family, then reads a verse, and then talks for 20 minutes about how that’s relatable to our lives with vague concepts intertwined with spiritual phrases— all of this taking place while some musician on the side of the stage is playing an E or G chord on a keyboard to set the emotional mood.
[Side note: if you want to get a glimpse into the ridiculousness of the modern-day pastor’s vibe, visit the PreacherNSneakers page. Nothing says I’m relatable like high-end designer clothes and $800 shoes I guess]
Then there’s the approach to Scripture which is man-centered rather than Christ-centered. The focus is shifted onto us and our potential to be used by God rather than on the faithfulness and power of the Lord [watch the excerpt clip from the American Gospel documentary].
The Bible is not about us. It’s about God: who He is and what He has done for us with Christ’s redemptive work.
In the Old and New Testament, we do not see self-help religion or focus on humans and their potential. No, what we see instead is the revelation of the Lord’s sovereign work throughout human history to save and redeem sinners through the person and work of Jesus Christ.
No matter how charismatic and influential people in the pulpit might be, their [personal] ideals and prerogatives fall vastly short of what we find in Scripture. Tragically, we see far too many pastors pulling verses and passages out of context to fit into their own ideological/social/political agenda.
Let us all heed the Apostle Paul’s instruction about the importance of preaching and discerning God’s word: “Preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching. For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions” [2 Timothy 4:2–3].
If preaching is essentially just a Christian Ted talk or a motivational, self-help hype sesh, then we’ve failed not only to help those in attendance but to be faithful to the God we claim to serve.
Perhaps these modern-day preachers are simply afraid to give people what they really need. Entertainment pastors settle for superficial social media theology and spirituality rather than exhort believers to dive into the deep end of all that Scripture offers to equip them to biblically think, behave, and navigate this life. A shame, really.
I stand with men like C.S. Lewis who think Christians need not stay in the kiddie pool: “They all say ‘the ordinary reader does not want Theology; give him plain practical religion.’ I have rejected their advice. I do not think the ordinary reader is such a fool. Theology means ‘the science of God,’ and I think any man who wants to think about God at all would like to have the clearest and most accurate ideas about Him which are available. You are not children: why should you be treated like children.”
The surest way you know you’re in an entertainment evangelical church is when the pastor treats the congregates like children: giving them vague motivational Pinterest-board principles and pragmatic practices over giving them the faithful exposition of God’s word.
Partaking in the Lord’s Supper
When was the last time you had Communion in church? Does your church even serve Communion? Is the Lord’s Supper a central point of the church service, or is it nonexistent?
Traditionally known as the Eucharist, Communion was commonplace and central in the early Christian church [see the book of Acts and 1 Corinthians 11]. Sadly to say, with much of the focus on entertaining the masses that pile into the auditorium, it’s no surprise that the Lord’s Supper has fallen wayside in so many churches.
Look at the photograph. What appears to be the focus? Where is everyone’s attention driven to? The stage. The band, the music, the dazzling light show.
In this hyper-visual age, everything is carefully crafted in such a way to create an enjoyable experience that keeps people coming back every week.
What should be the centerpiece of the corporate gathering of believers? God’s word and the Lord’s Supper. That was the focus for so much of Church history. Now, you’re lucky if you go to a church that has both.
You might be wondering what’s the big fuss over having Communion. Well, the Lord’s Table is essential because it reorients the service and our hearts on the Gospel: the willful, loving sacrifice of Jesus Christ for sinners. Partaking in the bread and the cup focuses our attention and affection on Jesus: His life, death, resurrection, and His coming again.
For the non-believers in attendance, it is an opportunity to see something peculiar: a group of people dedicated to remembering and celebrating a man called Jesus and that He did something for them.
Communion, from the perspective of the non-Christian, provokes intrigue or bewilderment, which might culminate in asking questions and digging deeper into the matter.
All this to say, the Lord’s Supper should not be forgotten or left out of a church service. If your church doesn’t do Communion regularly, do you know why?
It’s undoubtedly worth inquiring and investigating why a church has concluded that partaking in the Lord’s Supper is not necessary or inconvenient to incorporate into the Sunday morning services.
In short, the church isn’t supposed to be a business. It isn’t supposed to be an entertainment center. And yet, we appear to live in a day and age where churches are far too preoccupied with building a brand instead of God’s kingdom.
Church services resemble a concert vibe rather than the congregation of believers humbly coming together to worship and adore God and His Gospel; the preaching is more of a Christian Ted talk rather than the exposition and expounding of God’s written word; the Eucharist is placed on the sidewalls and rarely mentioned rather than being the home base, a central point of focus of the service.
So then, if entertainment evangelicalism is all we have to offer, it’s no wonder why Christians bounce from one church to another seeking a feel-good experience; it’s no wonder why so many people have a superficial knowledge and understanding of God; it’s no wonder Christians are spiritually starving and dehydrated.
Entertainment evangelicalism might suck, but God doesn’t. I am confident in Christ: His Spirit, power, and providence. I know that even amid all this entertainment facade here in America, God is working all across the globe to build up and advance His eternal kingdom.
Do I suspect that there will be a significant reversal in American churches and return to God-honoring, biblical foundations? Hard to say due to the high demand for the modern consumerist church model, but let’s pray God shakes things up a bit.
