In recent years, there has been a growing trend among megachurches using popular movies as a way to evangelize and attract people to church. The rationale behind this action is the same one that is echoed throughout most, if not all, megachurches in America today. And that rationale can be summed up in this manner: Church has become boring, so we must look beyond scripture and employ strategies that will make church relevant, fun and attractive again.
It is obvious that pastors won’t blatantly communicate that statement in that manner to their congregants. As a result, they masquerade it in a way that seems good and honorable towards God. Consequently, this results in everyone’s naive cooperation and the idea of even questioning these tactics all of a sudden seems so inconceivable that if you question any of it, you are called out for not adhering to the vision of the church and for not being a team-player (I speak from experience). For example, here is a quote directly from the Saddleback Church website describing the purpose behind movies at church: “Movies are a reflection of us — each story shows us a glimpse of the human experience…We’ll be talking about blockbuster movies and how we can apply their messages to Scripture…At the Movies will be the perfect opportunity to bring friends, co-workers, or neighbors to have a fun weekend and learn life lessons from our favorite movies.” Doesn’t this sound like a good idea? From a superficial perspective, I would say so.
For those that don’t know, Saddleback Church is the largest church in California and one of the biggest churches in America. They’ve had a rather huge impact on many other evangelical churches, and that impact has widely spread to multiple churches throughout the country who have also embraced many of the strategies employed by Saddleback — including movies at church.
Now the question we must ask ourselves is: Is this biblical?
In other words, is this an effective and biblical strategy to reach the lost?
I would argue that it is NOT.
One of the main reasons that more and more churches are using movies as a way to evangelize is because of their eager determination to see more people come to church, especially those who would never in their lifetime set foot in a church building. Now, right off the bat, this seems like a good and virtuous idea — and it is! As Christians, we should all desire to reach the lost. After all, that is the Great Commission assigned to each and every Christian by our Lord Jesus Christ (Matthew 28:19–20). So, as far as I’m concerned, the desire to see people come to church is good and admirable, but at what cost? At the cost of butchering the scriptures? At the cost of watering down sermons? At the cost of truth?
I think this issue needs to be strongly addressed because instead of red flags going off in people’s hearts and minds, unfortunately, more and more people are blindly accepting these tactics in their respective churches. As a result, I fear they are neither equipping the saints because pastors refrain from teaching sound doctrine, nor are they reaching the lost because the entirety of the gospel is not being preached — only some verses that are nice and unoffensive are preached and they are usually taken out of context in order to fit the topic of whatever movie is being shown.
Frankly, this is concerning and it leads me to my next topic — and that is the subject of eisegesis versus exegesis. One of the main reasons as to why these churches deliver movie-style sermons is that they believe they can reach more people with this approach. If the sermon is too deep and if the preacher implements heavy, theological words, then the listener will be lost, bored and will not be receptive to the message. So, as a result, preachers have done away with exegeting scripture and have now adopted topical-style sermons infused with their own interpretation of the Word. This further enables the usage of movies as a way of preaching because the preacher is able to draw their own interpretations from any movie and fit it to any verse of the bible. This is not good — not good at all!
Eisegesis offers a simpler way of preaching. The preacher doesn’t really have to put in much effort to prepare a sermon because all he has to do is develop a topic, pick a few verses that fit his topic, and lastly, pick a popular movie that will entertain the audience. Picking the movie is the easiest because the preacher is able to make anything fit into his narrative — the movie is just the added bonus to make church more “culturally relevant and fun.”
In relation to these churches utilizing movies in an attempt to make church relevant and fun, we need to address the purpose of the church. The general consensus of these megachurches is that church is for unbelievers, and not so much for believers. This general belief amongst churches is the driving factor behind many of the strategies they implement in order to increase their weekly attendance. Therefore, they justify their use of movies by adhering to this belief — that “church is not for believers, but for the unbeliever, and we must do anything short of sin to reach them!”
A simple bible study will quickly demolish that erroneous notion. First of all, the word ekklesia is the Greek word for church, and it is frequently used in the New Testament. The meaning of ekklesia is “the called-out ones.” In other words, when the writers of the New Testament used the word church, they were specifically referring to those who were saved — i.e., believers. It is also interesting to note that when Paul wrote to various churches, he often addressed the churches as “saints” or “to those sanctified.”
Here are a few examples:
“To the church of God that is in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints together with all those who in every place call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ…” — 1 Corinthians 1:2
“To the church of God that is in Corinth, with all the saints who are in the whole of Achaia…” — 2 Corinthians 1:1
“Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, To the saints who are in Ephesus, and are faithful in Christ Jesus…” Ephesians 1:1
“Paul and Timothy, servants of Christ Jesus, To all the saints in Christ Jesus who are at Philippi, with the overseers and deacons…” Philippians 1:1
“To the saints and faithful brothers in Christ at Colossae…” Colossians 1:2
So, what does all this mean? Well, simply put, it means that the church is comprised of believers. It means the church is for believers. It means that a church service should be designed for believers and not unbelievers because the church is for “the called-out ones.” When Paul wrote to the churches detailing specific instructions on how to carry out an orderly church service, he always addressed believers. Why is this important? Well, as I previously stated, modern churches today will engage in unbiblical, worldly behaviors, and design their services to appease unbelievers — i.e., movies at church.
So, in the end, are movies at church helpful? No. Are movies at church hurtful? Yes. They do not help the saved because there is no depth within the messages — it is all so elementary. And they do not help the unsaved because there is no exegesis, which in turn twists the true meaning of scripture, and because the entirety of the gospel is not shared — only a few hand-picked verses to make people feel good about themselves. Consequently, the saved are not edified and the unsaved are not reached. What’s the solution? Just preach the gospel faithfully and trust that God will take care of the rest. There is no need to rely on worldly methods because it is the Spirit of God that saves — not Hollywood. We must feed the sheep and stop entertaining the goats. If you keep relying on worldly methods to attract people, then unfortunately, you will have to continue to rely on worldly methods to keep them.