When Ministry Becomes More About Image Than Faithfulness – Highlight Episode 384

When churches begin to center around personality and influence, the focus of ministry can slowly drift away from Christ. Ray, E.Z., Mark, and Oscar discuss the growing trend of churches becoming brands, in which bold personalities and entertainment can overshadow faithful preaching of God’s Word. The guys explain that while creativity and excellence can serve the gospel, problems arise when numbers, popularity, and performance become the measure of success. They emphasize that the pulpit is meant to be a sacred place where Scripture is faithfully proclaimed and where pastors answer to God rather than to cultural expectations. The guys encourage believers and leaders alike to pursue humility, repentance, and reverence, remembering that the church exists to proclaim the worthiness of Christ and the urgency of the gospel.

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Learn more about the hosts of this podcast.
Ray Comfort
Emeal (“E.Z.”) Zwayne
Mark Spence
Oscar Navarro

Transcript

erformance Vs Ministry

SPEAKER_02 0:00

Mark, would you say we're shifting more toward performance rather than ministry? And what's the difference between performance and ministry?

SPEAKER_00 0:07

What is the difference? And that was going to be one of the questions that I was going to raise, right? Because we have pastors that are turning into performers, and you have congregations that are turning into audiences. And you have these pastors, these performers behind the pulpit that are more interested in likes and follows. And what I'm giving is going to be a good clip. First Thessalonians 2, 4. We speak not to please men, but to please God who tests our hearts. So we are not speaking to an audience. We're speaking to a congregation. People that have real issues and they want real answers to what they're going through. Stick to the text. Stick to the text, and you're going to be just fine.

reaching For God Not Clips

SPEAKER_01 0:46

One of the other things that I see is these churches that originally called themselves biblical, who still call themselves biblical churches, that they focus on God's word. Now you see them bringing people on and like their qualification, if we're really being on, like as a guest speaker, and their qualification, if we're really being honest, is that they have 100,000 followers on social media. They're not like, they're not, they're not seasoned biblical preachers, but really it's kind of a form of virtue signaling. Well, they they stand for this or they stand for that, and so we're gonna have them on, and I'm gonna give them the pulpit on Sunday, where historically the pulpit was a sacred place for people to preach God's word. And I think one of the big dangers, one of the big dangers is that ultimately what's happening for these pastors and these preachers is that they're forgetting that their primary audience is God. When we prepare a sermon, if we start thinking first and foremost, how can I get a laugh? How can I have the best memorable metaphor or story? How can I get clipped? If that is our primary way of preparing a sermon, man, we've already failed. Our sermons, first and foremost, need to be a sacrifice on the altar of God. Does this honor the Lord and his word that I am preaching from?

SPEAKER_02 2:02

There's some quote either you you share or that is original to you where you talk about there's no more thunder in the pulpits or say, Do you know what I'm talking about?

aithful Church Or Successful Brand

SPEAKER_03 2:10

Yeah, there's no sons of thunder in the pulpits, there's no flashes of lightning or the thunderings of Sinai to put the fear of God in the hearts of the congregation. So they'll depart from sin. My thought is if we could put Tony Robbins in the pulpits of some of these churches, would it make a difference? Whether you say that's just what I hear every week, the same sort of positiveness. So you can be a winner. And I think uh a successful church or a faithful church, which do we want? A successful church has got a huge congregation and it's just filled with life and entertainment and it's wonderful, or do we want a faithful church that's preaching sin, righteousness, and judgment? And they're the things that these churches have in common: a failure to preach sin, righteousness, and judgment. And if I'm a shallow Christian, it's because I've never dived deep into God's word. I mean, that's what they've all got in common. They're shallow because they don't soak themselves in the word of God. You know, I often think of the scripture where Jesus said, Whoever hears my sayings and keeps them is like to a wise man who built his house on rock. And then when he says, But whoever hears my sayings and does not keep them are likened to a foolish man who built his house on sand, we miss what Jesus actually said there. Whoever hears my sayings and doesn't keep them. The world, that's not the world. They don't hear the sayings of Jesus and don't keep them. It's the church that does that. Week after week, go into all the world, preach the gospel, every creature. Without holiness, no man will see the Lord. Well, Jesus didn't say that, but in essence he did. But they hear what Jesus said, but they don't do what he said. They call him Lord and do not the things that he tells them. And that's a really scary territory to be in.

SPEAKER_02 3:48

You know, Ray, I that brought a thought to mind when I'm sharing the gospel sometimes with an unbeliever, um, you know, and and they respond in that way, like where they'll say, Oh, I know, I know, I know. And then I transfer that over to a believer, like when you're talking to a Christian, right? For the unbeliever, it's one thing, but for the believer, and they'll even finish verses for you. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. And it's like, but they're using that almost like as a badge of honor, whereas Jesus is saying, You're setting yourself up for destruction. Because if you know my word and don't do it, the waves are coming, the storms are coming, and and you're in big trouble, you know. And and I I think, yeah, there there's that there's that lack of reverence, and and what's happening in the church and this arena is yeah, we're we've become performers. I recently had a friend go to a church that I thought was a mega church because of the video clips. Because they they they hone in on the on the stage, big massive screen in the back, hyped up, you know. I mean, I seriously thought at least four or five thousand people. It's like a couple hundred people. But they but they what they're doing is they're trying to build an online church. Yeah. And again, like look, if the motive is I want we want to reach people, we want to impact them. But when the when the preaching is shallow, when when the focus is send in your money, you know, you've got a problem.

SPEAKER_03 5:10

Yeah, when when people go to church for entertainment, it's probably be more beneficial for them to stay at home.

SPEAKER_01 5:16

Yep.

SPEAKER_03 5:17

Because the church is not for entertainment. That's good.

ntertainment Culture Replaces Sacredness

SPEAKER_01 5:19

That's so good. And Jamie Smith, I've talked about this before in his book, We Are What We Love, he talks about how in the 80s and 90s that churches, these big box churches, started to feel like they needed to compete with the entertainment industry. They started to look at, they started to shape their chair churches based off of malls, movie theaters, stadiums where you go watch football teams. And and uh Jamie Smith points out that like all of those forms of entertainment are their own kind of liturgy. They've actually created a form of worship. He uses like the stadium as an example. Like when you show up at the stadium, you dress accordingly, you share in your stories and testimonies. I grew up watching this team, my dad got me into this guy. Do you remember when Brett Favre did this or whatever? You sit down, you stand up all together when you're supposed to, you cheer, you stick your hands up for praise and worship. He says, if you look at it like that, is it is a basically a worship ceremony. And he says that what the church has done is that it's tried to compete with these entertainment venues. And the reason why that is now failing is because, as you pointed out, we could be out-entertained. We don't go to church to be entertained, we go to church for the sacredness. And I think the issue is that we have substituted sacredness for showmanship.

SPEAKER_00 6:42

Well, when you begin to build the brand, you got to protect the brand. When you begin to elevate yourself above anything and everything else, well, then you become untouchable, right? You only want to surround yourselves with others that are building a brand. And you become, hey, this person follows me, I follow him. And I only protect that which I think is uh the work. And I think maybe we even measure success that way, right? Look how many followers I have. Obviously, God's hand, God's blessing is upon me. And I think that with that we we got to be very, very careful. If you're not getting the word, then it is focused around something else. Yeah. And I think that's where that discernment needs to come in. Are you leaving that place feeling good about yourself, or are you leaving that place wanting to just worship God? If you're going to a concert and saying, I wish I could sing like him, I wish I could perform like him, or are you leaving saying, I want to know God the way he knows God, the way he's talking about God is contagious. And I want to kind of sneak away and I want to seek after God as He's just revealed and extrapolated from God's word. That's what I want.

SPEAKER_02 7:51

Ray, James 3:1. My brethren, not many of you become teachers, knowing that we shall receive a stricter judgment. How should that play a role in in sobering us up and what other thoughts you have around what pastors can do to change that?

SPEAKER_03 8:05

Boy, I I would um soak my soul in the word of God, especially portions of scripture that produce the fear of God in your heart, particularly when God gave his law to Israel, where he came in peace, as one great preacher once said, with a smile on his face to give his law to humanity, and Moses said, I exceedingly fear and quake. And um Israel said, Don't let him speak lest we die. And what we've got to do is get rid of the image of God that naturally comes with the ademic nature, the uh finger reaching out to play fingers with Adam, that so many people have the image of God when he's nothing like that.

ighlights Wrap Up And Next Steps

SPEAKER_02 8:45

And again, who are we preaching for? You know, 1 Thessalonians 2, 4 to 6, but as we have been approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel, you just just pause there, like entrusted with the most important message, the most important truth that this universe has ever known. We've been entrusted with that. I mean, and notice what's a part of the word entrusted, trust. Like, you know, Ray, you've said this before. The conviction that comes upon you when you're about to pass someone up. There was a time when the Lord could trust me, right? And so we're we're entrusted with the gospel. Even so, we speak not as pleasing men, but God who tests our hearts. For neither at any time did we use flattering words, as you know, nor a cloak for covetousness, God is witness, nor did we see glory from men, either from you or from others. Oh, I mean, this right here is like textbook in terms of how we should be thinking. You know, uh, we've been entrusted with something precious, it's not ours, it's the Lord. We don't do it to please man. God knows our hearts, he tests our hearts, and we don't use flattering words, and we're we're not, you know, walking in covetousness to get anything for ourselves. No, we we we don't seek the glory of men, anyone's, but the Lord's to bring him glory and honor and his approval. I think that that ultimately, friends, for those of you pastors that are listening, needs to be your focus and the mindset and the attitude. Thank you for tuning in to this week's highlights from the Living Waters podcast, friends. We value your time. So we've created a bite-sized version of our podcast for listeners who want to get equipped without the jokes and fellowship. Be sure to check out the full episode every Thursday where we dive deeper into the topic. Until then, you can watch the full podcast episode available now on livingwaters.tv.