(OPINION) Things are getting bizarre on the stages of churches across America, as pastors from all backgrounds are coming up with new ways to get their congregations to pay attention in church.
No ideas are too far-fetched as some of the stunts in church include powerlifting; getting a shave and a trim; and shockingly, punting the Bible like a football. Here are three stunts performed for church audiences in recent days:
Megachurch pastor Perry Noble of Second Chance Church in Anderson, South Carolina, used weight lifting as an illustration during his sermon on the need for community and not isolating oneself from others.
He used his attempt to lift 400-lbs to highlight his need for others to help him achieve this goal. “This represents the weight that all of us carry in life,” said Noble alluding to the weight set.
“Every single day that we wake up, we carry weight, whether it’s spiritual, emotional, psychological weight. Everybody in this room is carrying a certain amount of weight.” When pondering the possibility of lifting these weights in life by oneself Noble came to one conclusion, “Ain’t no freaking way.”
Similar to Noble’s demonstration, fellow megachurch pastor Michael Todd of Transformation Church in Oklahoma set up a barber’s chair on stage and got a trim from his long-time barber according to The Christian Post.
The point Todd was trying to impart upon his congregation was that if you want the fruit of God’s blessing, your going to have to be willing to be cut and reduced in the process.
“I just came to tell somebody that the church has … done a bad job in this last season of emphasizing how comfortable serving God would be,” Todd says to the congregation.
“I need to say this to you, like ‘just come to God and all your fears and all your tears, and He bottles them, and He’s going to coddle them.’ And we make you feel like when you come to God, then somehow it gets easy. … I just want to let you know that our desire for comfort has made us despise His cut.”
This act of disrespect towards God’s Word admittedly goes far beyond the previous two non-traditional sermons. There is nothing outright heretical about the demonstrations, even though many will argue over the appropriateness of them in church.
But to kick the Word of God in an effort to “make church fun” crosses many lines a pastor should never even consider doing, it makes a strong case that such a person should not be a pastor at all.
Sadly, this is what happened when a video of Crossroads Church, located in the Cincinnati, Ohio area, and the teaching pastor Allie Patterson performs a kickoff to lead pastor Brian Tome using the Bible as a football in their 2020 Super Bowl service. (READ MORE)
