The Rise of Churchtainment: When Worship Became a Product

Virgil Walker | Sola Veritas

We thought fog machines and clever sermon series would reach the lost—but it’s the Church that’s gone missing.

I’ve been in a lot of church services over the years. Some left me trembling at the holiness of God. Others felt like I’d stumbled into a Broadway warm-up act—complete with moving lights, motivational monologues, and a countdown clock flashing on a 60-foot LED wall.

Somewhere along the line, we stopped calling it worship and started calling it an “experience.” The sanctuary became a stage. The preacher became a performer. And reverence quietly left the building. What replaced it wasn’t ministry. It was marketing.

The Shift Nobody Noticed

It didn’t happen all at once. Like most compromises, it was gradual. A little more flash here. A little less Bible there. Until eventually, the Church wasn’t forming disciples anymore—it was managing customers.

The goal used to be honoring God. Then it became about growing attendance. Then about retaining it. That’s when entertainment crept in. Somewhere between “seeker-sensitive” and “purpose-driven,” churches were handed a lie: that the way to reach people is to look as little like the Church as possible. And we bought it.

We traded the weight of glory for the haze of fog machines. Reverence was sacrificed on the altar of relevance. We didn’t contextualize the gospel—we compromised it.

How We Got Here

Innovation isn’t the enemy. The gospel has always advanced through new tools. But tools should never set the tone. That belongs to Scripture alone.

In the 1980s and 1990s, the Church Growth Movement reframed the mission. Success was measured not by faithfulness, but by size. Strategy replaced shepherding. Vision boards replaced expositional preaching. And the pulpit began to sound more like a motivational seminar than a call to repentance.

Critique this shift, and you were labeled rigid, outdated, or stuck in tradition. Many churches stopped asking, “Is this biblical?” and started asking, “Does this draw a crowd?” And draw a crowd it did.

But a circus can draw a crowd too.

Paul warned us in 2 Timothy 4:3–4 that a time would come when people would not endure sound teaching, but accumulate teachers to suit their passions. That time is now. Churches didn’t need to reject doctrine outright. They just had to stop serving meat and start serving dessert.

And a sugar-fed church will never have the strength to stand in the day of battle.

The Fruit of the Show

Churchtainment has a cost. It has produced biblical illiteracy—people know the pastor's catchphrases but not Paul’s epistles. It has created shallow discipleship, with believers who are emotionally moved but not spiritually anchored. And it has given rise to deconstruction, as many leave a version of Christianity they were never truly discipled into.

When the Church builds itself on entertainment, it raises spectators, not saints.

Then hardship hits, and those spectators wonder why the God they danced for didn’t show up when the lights went out.

This isn’t just bad strategy. It’s spiritual sabotage.

What We Traded

We traded sanctuaries for sound stages. Elders for entrepreneurs. Reverence for relevance. Shepherds for showmen. And now, we’re reaping what we sowed.

Worship used to be marked by awe. Hebrews 12:28–29 reminds us to offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe, for our God is a consuming fire. But now, the average Sunday "experience" wouldn’t recognize reverence if it walked in wearing a name tag and carrying a Bible.

There’s an entire generation growing up in churches that don’t know what it’s like to worship with the lights on, with a hymnal in hand, and with a clear, sacred sense that they’ve entered the presence of God.

Instead, they’ve been shaped by LED stage lights, emotional build-ups, and branding masquerading as reverence.

Many pastors have become more concerned with mood, momentum, and marketability than clarity, conviction, and Christ.

The sermons sound more like TED Talks with a sprinkle of Jesus.

And in the process, we didn’t just lose worship. We lost our witness.

What Must Be Recovered

We don’t need louder music. We need men with fire in their bones and Scripture on their lips.

We don’t need gimmicks. We need pulpits that shake hell when they thunder the truth.

We need:

Biblical preaching that wounds the conscience and heals the soul.

Sacrificial leadership that bleeds for the flock.

Worship that centers on the glory of God instead of the comfort of man.

We must stop asking, “What will attract people?” and start asking, “What will please God?”

Because the Church doesn’t exist to impress the culture. It exists to glorify the King.

Let the world keep its show. We have a sword to wield. We have truth to proclaim. We have a risen King who doesn’t need our production value—He demands our obedience.

When Christ is at the center—not consumer expectations, not stagecraft, not applause—revival doesn’t need a marketing plan. It needs a pulpit with backbone and a Church with knees bent in awe.

Not the kind with confetti and hashtags. The kind marked by repentance, renewal, and reverence.

Final Word

Have you seen this trend in your city or church? I’d love to hear from you.

And if you’re a pastor trying to resist the pressure—stand firm. Let them mock. Let them leave. Let the crowd thin. But never let the glory of God be bartered away for human applause.

The sheep don’t need a show. They need a shepherd. And the wolves won’t slay themselves.