Cultivate a Lifestyle of Worship + Love of the Word

Showmanship has become the latest false gospel.

Somewhere along the way, performance became the new prerequisite for the pastorate.

How do we have the greatest show in town?

What will draw the masses like no other?

Here’s the blueprint:

A stadium filled with adoring fans – some call them congregants.

the most engaging and entertaining speaker – some may even call him Preacher.

With just the right inflection and just the right cadence of speech, this ring-leading minister knows exactly the way to sound anointed.

The show must have the best music,

the greatest light, and fog display.

This show has traded Bible truth for cute one-liners and fridge magnet quotes.

Scripture becomes a cherry-picked reference to support the showman’s agenda,

And the gospel of self and wealth often reigns supreme.

Church wasn’t meant to be a show, nor to give the circus a run for its money.

Here, the greatest showman transforms what was meant to be a family of believers into a transactional time filler on a Sunday morning.

Entertainment becomes the newest enlightenment.

Discipleship gives way to dollar signs.

Your tithe and offering were made to be worship, but to the show, it’s become your price of admission.

Rome used to kill Christians for show, but now the show is killing Christians right under their own nose.

Martyrs used to be mauled by lions, but now the church is being ravaged by wolves whose religion is lying.

The church was meant to be a fellowship of family and a training ground to equip the saints for Christ’s work on the earth,

But the show wants you docile and distracted.

The show gets you addicted to a cotton candy version of Christianity, empty of nutrition from the Bread of Life, forever infantilized and malnourished.

You leave the same as when you walked in, trapped in the same cycle of curing your boredom, always looking for the next dopamine hit.

Loving sacrifice is traded for spectacle,

And life transformation is replaced with stagnation.

“¹¹ So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, ¹² to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up ¹³ until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.

¹⁴ Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of people in their deceitful scheming. ¹⁵ Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of him who is the head, that is, Christ. ¹⁶ From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work.

Ephesians 4:11-16

Skilled ministry and musical gifting were meant to be a blessing to the church, and a glory to its Creator.

But Instead of a service to the King, it became a sacrifice upon the altar of status and ambition.

Don’t mistake showmanship for sanctification,

And dynamic preaching for God’s true revelation.

Faithfulness will always trump fame,

And charm cannot upstage true Christ likeness.

The show must always come to an end.

What will be left at curtain call?

And most importantly, what will last into eternity?

Evidence of the fruit of the Spirit will always be a greater measure of success than numbers in attendance.

²² But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, ²³ gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. ²⁴ Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. ²⁵ Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit. ²⁶ Let us not become conceited, provoking and envying each other.

– Galatians 5:22-26

Christ is coming back for His Bride, not an audience.