Glibly Giving of Gimmicks
by Christopher Hendrix
I grew up in a time when the American church desperately wanted to increase its size. Churches have created and commissioned another mandate instead of challenging disciples to reach the lost as Christ commanded. The Great Commission is turned to the Great Consumer. Instead of making Christians, churches make clients. This occurs by bringing unbelievers into Sunday worship, conferences, and other church events to ‘save’ them. The reality is these churches need saving. Take, for instance, the latest men’s conference in Missouri several days ago. The opening of this conference involved a male stripper swallowing a sword and climbing up a stripper pole. Thankfully, one guest speaker, Mark Driscoll, called out this sin. The pastor immediately kicked him out and rebuked Mark for not having that conversation privately. The hypocrisy is this rebuke came publicly and not privately. Churches have gone from small transitions away from submitting to God to now openly bringing in idolatry (in the form of an Asherim pole). The glibly giving of gimmicks has come home to roost as sin is produced.
Watch Pastor Chris Hendrix’s sermon on James 4:7-10.
Entertainment is not the answer for churches. The Scriptures give the answer. Places such as James 4:7–10 tell of the human response to God. Within this text, James recognizes there are unbelievers present among the believers. He calls them ‘sinners’ and ‘double-minded.’ These are the same people he mentioned earlier that are void of faith because no works are evident. Their claim to faith falls flat in the absence of works. James gives ten commands in this short passage to call these unbelievers to repent. He didn’t provide gimmicks but gifts of truth.
James calls them to submit to God and resist the devil. Submitting to God requires a recognition that He is supreme. He is Lord. He is King. This submission comes from a heart that acknowledges God as God and people are not. In alignment with submission, resistance to the evil one follows. Resisting the devil is to put away his wisdom and schemes. Resistance involves thinking rightly by rejecting thinking wrongly. Battling in our minds and choosing to live in holiness counter the devil’s attacks. A man-centric church reverses these commands. They submit to Satan and resist God. These entertaining and man-centric schemes are full of evil wisdom and not godly wisdom. Such is the truth of glibly giving gimmicks.
He calls them to draw near to God and then promises God will draw near to them. He addresses their hearts and hands—the total person—by calling them to cleanse their motives and actions. Dealing with sin is vital to fellowship with God. The Lord Jesus Christ died to forgive sins and rose to impute His righteousness. This enables us to draw near to God. God’s promise is to come to us as we cry out to Him. Unbelievers don’t have to prove themselves to be received by the Lord; they must repent and believe. God promises to come to them. The gimmicky churches put stumbling blocks in the way. They teach that repentance and belief are only add-ons. The primary way to God occurs through feelings and being entertained. The sense of self-enjoyment becomes the metric for salvation. If you ‘feel’ close to God through great music, lights, a dark setting, etc., then you are close to God. Yet, James says drawing near to God isn’t through these means but the means of repentance and belief. This counters the notion of glibly giving gimmicks.
Finally, James demands they repent and view their sin how God views it. This doesn’t result in happy-clappy, superficial joy but mourning and weeping. He calls them to humble themselves. These churches that have strayed from the Gospel have reversed this. They aim for the end goal of joy, not God. In doing so, they haven’t humbled themselves but exalted their leadership skills, ability to fill the seats, budgets, and popularity. Evidence of this includes pastors dropping thousands of dollars on fashion and cars, congregants wanting to get past the ‘boring’ part of the service (the sermon), and songs that magnify the self and focus on ‘me.’ This is the Gospel of the gimmick church.
Consider James’ teaching a warning and lens. It’s a warning that we must guard our hearts in our church. When we are given over to seeking gimmicks, events, etc., as the metric for success, we have erred. True success is trusting in the promises of God by submitting to Him, drawing near Him, purifying our hearts, mourning for sin, and humbling ourselves before the Lord. James’ teaching is also a lens. We look at future churches we will join through this lens. Joining a church is not about how captivating the sermon is, how upbeat the songs are, how big the children’s ministry is, how much fun the youth group has, or anything else we seek outside the Lord. Finding a church starts with the proper lens to distinguish between healthy and unhealthy churches. Identify the gimmicks, reject them, and look for churches with the gift of truth.