From booty shaking youth groups, to secular love song singing shepherds. From old school concerts to homosexual Gospel performers, where has our church gone?What happened to church being a house of prayer? What happened to church being a place where people came to change? Our churches are going south and it's the fault of secularized, insecure, affirmation seeking pastors.
Remember when divorce took off in the 1960's and the American family was challenged by the hippie movement, baby boomers, and feminist agenda? Homosexuality, infidelity, promiscuity, and drug use swept across America and began to undo the moral fabric that held our marriages together. The divorce and wedlock child bearing rates soared and an insecure nation of young people began to emerge. What began to happen was that the children of the broken home began to grow up with deficits.
The lack of strong fathers in the home birthed children that needed constant affirmation from their peers and social groups to replace the validation they lacked in their homes. They needed constant approval and validation because they felt that at least 1 of their parents didn't want them. Drugs, porn, gay lifestyles, etc. began to plague that generation of youth that sought to plug the missing parent hole in their hearts with the approval of their peers. And if their peers were gang members, then so be it. If their peers where alcoholics, drug users, promiscuous, you name it, they had to do it to fit in and get the approval that was missing in their homes. 
Whether we want to face the fact or not, children deal with the death of a parent better than the divorce of a parent. You see, divorce usually leads the child to believe that they are not wanted by the parent that doesn't get full custody of them. No matter how you slice it, it gets sliced, and that has a negative affect on the child either way. This is a proven fact and yet homes are breaking up like never before. Ok, back to my original point. What happens when these young people, the children in need of validation at any cost, grow up? Well, they became our pastors and leaders, and, unless God fixes them, that hole that they have always sought to plug will continue to get bigger because the older they get, the more they will need attention and approval. What happens when an insecure man is put in position to lead? He uses that position to get security and validation. He uses that platform to be a "star" in the eyes of the people so they can feed his need for validation. What happens when a homosexual man, which is the highest form of insecurity, is put before people? He will use the people's applause and accolades to validate his lifestyle and existence since God and nature will not. This is where we are people of God. We have full grown insecure men leading our churches and they are using their platforms to promote themselves so they can overcome their insecurities and lack of validation. They surround themselves with armor bearers and male cheerleaders. They fill their pews with people that deem them human gods and follow their every word. They lift themselves up and lord over their audiences. They do what they feel and want, not regarding the spiritual ramifications of it.
They do not lead, but instead, they appease and give the people what their flesh is desiring in order to be loved and adored by their congregations. These pastors are full of it and they make a mockery of God and his standard of holiness that he is calling for. They mix secular music into their gospel music. They mix secular themes and worldly fun into their preaching and teaching. They basically put the stamp of Jesus on the ghetto club mentality and promote the very lifestyles that are destroying God's people. Yet, for the sake of fame, notoriety, accolades, and validation by applause, they sell God out and do whatever the people desire. All of this has happened before, and Christ dealt with it all in his messages to the 7 churches of Asia. We have been covering these churches on our radio program and you can download these sermons for free here.
These same, insecure pastors build large buildings and live lavish lifestyles that require them to keep the people coming so they can pay the bills. They live like this to overcome the opinions of those that said they would fail or they wouldn't amount to anything. So, instead of taking small steps and establishing themselves gradually, they live to prove people wrong and build, buy, and floss, without establishing foundation and following God's leading. When you raise your standard of living and the churches financial responsibility up high, then you must keep the people coming to sustain it. This is a trap that the modern day, ambitious pastor, falls into. He sees what other men have and desires to grow to that status. But it comes with a price because if the people stop giving or coming, you are stuck with bills you cannot pay. So, the focus of the ministry has to be tithes and offerings and you have to keep entertaining the people so they will keep coming. Truth cannot be preached for fear of losing people, so, compromise becomes the spirit that resides in that house. And the people take on that same spirit and begin to live sinfully and in a spiritual state of compromise all because the pastor was overly ambitious and has selfish motives.Then, they go for hollywood and get some movie stars, athletes, and money makers to attend services so they can help pay the large notes on these properties. This means that you have to accept the agenda of these people and not preach against them in order to keep them coming and giving. Now, our churches are coming apart at the seams because these carnal idolatrous pastors are leading them straight to HELL. They won't preach against sin and they accept any trend that is popular and will draw a crowd.
They welcome garbage into the house of God at any cost just to keep driving the cars, living in the big houses, and paying the bills of these lavish sanctuaries. Don't get me wrong, I am not saying there is anything wrong with having a large sanctuary and audience, but if you build it around your personality, then you my friend will have to sustain it with your ideas and concepts. If God builds it, then that would mean that the truth will sustain it. But if you have to resort to entertainment, lies, and extortion to keep the bills paid, then it wasn't God to begin with.
We are at a crisis people of God. Our singers and performers have sold out. Our pastors are selling out. The church as a whole is in trouble and the home church is fast becoming the norm because people do not want to subject their families and children to the foolishness of these insecure pastors. Only insecure, un-affirmed men would use the house of God to show themselves and gain approval of people. These products from the broken homes of the 60's are grown up and running our churches into the ground because of their own private agendas. Only God can deliver us and set us free from our own agendas and heal us from our deficits. Whether it was divorce, molestation, abandonment, abuse, or being born out of wedlock, we must be healed by God before we can ever truly deny our plight to get the approval of men! And God forbid we put ourselves in a church where the leader is struggling with validation issues himself.
God is not pleased people! Look around you. If you are at a church where the youth are hip hoppers, the young adults are club goers, and the seasoned saints are singing Franky Beverly and Maze at the church picnic, then you my friends are under a selfish, insecure, carnal leader and the spirit of compromise will rule your house and family. Don't believe me? Look at the state of your children and you will see, because this is where the compromise takes it's toll......on the next generation. What the adults do in moderation, the youth will do in excess!
Jeremiah 12:10-13 Many pastors have destroyed my vineyard, they have trodden my portion under foot, they have made my pleasant portion a desolate wilderness. They have made it desolate, and being desolate it mourneth unto me; the whole land is made desolate, because no man layeth it to heart. The spoilers are come upon all high places through the wilderness: for the sword of the LORD shall devour from the one end of the land even to the other end of the land: no flesh shall have peace. They have sown wheat, but shall reap thorns: they have put themselves to pain, but shall not profit: and they shall be ashamed of your revenues because of the fierce anger of the LORD.
Hear me church,
G. Craige Lewis
