 Whether it's a political speech, an ad for a brand, or an influencer apology, people pride themselves on being hyper-aware of when manipulation is taking place. We feel like for the most part we've gotten good at picking up signs, language, environment, messaging, and methods that would seek to lead us to a response or control our behavior and decisions. But the truth is there's been a major blind spot. Viral social media churches. You know the types. People are either ignorant of this massive movement, or they're so immersed in it that they can't really see what's going on. What is going on right beneath our noses of the modern Christian church, I believe it's manipulation. Now obviously, I'm not saying that every popular church on social media or every mega-church is intentionally manipulating their people or manipulating them at all. And I'm not saying that every church that utilizes some of the methods that'll point out in this video is doing so out of a malicious intent or the intent to manipulate. They may very well just be following the trends, and yes they should be held accountable for that, but it is different. However, often, unfortunately, the results are the same. In this video, I'm going to point out four key practices that I've observed that I want you to be aware of when you're going to a new church or you see a social media video online that's going to help you discern things a little bit more clearly. First practice is overwhelming, overstimulating, and hyper-emotional worship. Now we need to distinguish between two things here. We need to distinguish between the method and the message. Now let's talk about the method first. Two things come to mind that I've observed personally is repetition and fatigue. Melodies, mantras, seemingly repeated endlessly with the combination of the overstimulation of lights, atmospheric haze, just everything that's going on, it can almost put you in a state of hypnosis. Now I do need to clarify. I don't think there's anything innately wrong with repetition. The scripture is full of repetition to get your attention. But what I'm talking about here ultimately is this intention to try to get the person to stop paying attention, basically. It's kind of the opposite in a way to put you in this space of just kind of emptying your mind and not really thinking about what you're saying because when you say something over and over and over and over and over again, it loses its meaning. Part of what we'll discover with this video is there's nothing necessarily wrong innately with a lot of things that I'm going to point out here. It's when they get out of hand that emotional manipulation can take place, whether inadvertently or intentionally. Now I do admit it's hard to draw hard and fast lines, especially when it comes to worship or repetition or how many times or how loud can it be or how many lights you have and all that kind of thing. I understand it's hard to draw a hard and fast line, but I do believe it exists and it's something that we should think about. It shouldn't just be something that, you know, okay, we can do whatever we want because it is the most entertaining or it's the most visually interesting because ultimately worship, when we get to the heart of it, the method is that you don't want to be so distracting that you lose focus on what is the main attraction. Who should be? God. You may very well have been in some of these environments and have walked away experiencing God's presence or feel like, oh man, I really felt the Lord close to me in those moments. Maybe in those moments you really did experience God in a close and personal way and if that's the case, that's awesome, but maybe just maybe you were overstimulated and exhausted and emotionally drained and that puts you in a vulnerable place where you felt like this deep experience. In a lot of ways, I think it's like the youth camp effect. You know, you go to youth camp and you're so hyped and you didn't get a lot of sleep and you're hanging out with all your friends and maybe you're worshiping and maybe there's an altar call and everybody comes out the front and everybody's so whipped up emotionally, but then you go home, you go back to everyday life and you kind of go on unchanged in a lot of ways. The next thing we need to focus on here is the message, which a lot of people would consider to be primary, even above the method. So when we think of the message in worship, we're thinking about the lyrics, are they testifying to who God is in praise of God, in confession of sin, or are they mainly focused on kind of my miracle power or my resurrection power that I have within myself and what I can do? Like these are the things that we got to be thinking about because who is the attention on with those songs? Is it about what I can do or what God has done? How often is the gospel clear and simple being preached within the songs that you're singing? Or are they only focusing on one aspect of the gospel or one aspect of the reality that we're living in? Because there's nothing wrong with a song that hones in on one part, whether that's our sin and needing repentance or forgiveness or truth or new creation in Christ and what that empowers us to be. But when all your songs that you're seeing are focused around one thing, that's all people are going to focus on. If it's just all about, man, what I can do now and like, man, I'm so, you know, I'll find victory. And I'm just going to push down every boundary because I am strong and I am powerful. Like if that's all your songs are about, right? And even if you kind of throw in God that it's all through God, you're kind of presenting that particular reality. You're not giving people a full orb of view of the gospel and the Bible in general. And I think that's so powerful. I've heard certain churches do this and I think this is really cool to have kind of a narrative to your music throughout the service to begin with kind of creation in the fall and to see our sin and rebellion and then repentance and faith and Jesus and him coming to die and seeing the gospel clear and simple and what that empowers us to do and the motivation and the empowerment of the church moving from that place. I think that's such a cool narrative to point out as opposed to honing into one block and just kind of only talking about that within your music. The second area where manipulation may be happening is something that I don't hear people refer to very often. But if you ever watch kind of a trendy church sermon, you'll see that there are people in kind of bleachers behind the pastor. So when you're in the audience, you see all these folks back there. And when the pastor is preaching pretty much everything that he says is getting a hearty amen, preach it. You know, it's this kind of verbal encouragement, this verbal affirmation. And ultimately, like I said before, there's nothing innately wrong with that. But when it's constant, when the pastor kind of gives off the weakest analogy that you've ever heard and you hear somebody say, oh my goodness. And then he starts dancing around, thinking that he came up with something that's super powerful even though it's not super deep. It begins to almost gaslight you into thinking that something's deeper than it really is. Like, wow, people are really reacting in a powerful way here. I guess I should feel the same way. And this is where kind of manipulation grounds its roots because you're seeing these people behind the pastor, they're front and center. And believe me, they're placed there so then you can see them. So you can see their reactions. And in a lot of ways, so you can mirror their reactions. You can quickly get lost in group think and lost in the hype in general. Man, everybody's getting riled up about this one analogy that the pastor doing and thinking it's so powerful. But then you're, you know, it takes you to take a couple of steps back and you're thinking, wait a minute, this doesn't really pan out. Maybe this isn't even according to the Bible. And you gotta be asking yourself, man, are people's Bibles open? Or are we just giving complete affirmation to whatever the pastor says? Look, yeah, I go to a Baptist church. It's not the most, you know, oh, amen pastor. Oh, yeah, preacher pastor kind of church. Like, I get it. It's a different cultural kind of deal. But at the same time, when it is so overblown that I've seen it on some of these churches web pages or some of the churches that I've attended in the times that I've looked for a church, it just becomes to this point where you're like, okay, this doesn't, this isn't authentic. This is just completely manufactured in order for us to kind of mirror these responses, which I just think is disingenuous. And maybe people don't know that they're doing this, but ultimately creating that culture of just complete endorsement of whatever the pastor's saying is dangerous to me. The third area where manipulation takes place, and it's probably the most obvious, is within the sermon. So many quote unquote sermons these days are just glorified TED talks. They're ultimately about me and how I can live a better life with biblical principles. Old Testament passages and stories become a tale of how I can overcome the Goliath in my life as opposed to Jesus being the greater David, the greater king, the greater defeater of our ultimate enemy, sin and death. The vast majority of what you'll see is topical sermons. Capacitor is having an issue that they want to address. There's nothing wrong with the topical sermon from time to time. But ultimately, if you're kind of popping around from place to place, hitting on what you think is most important, you're gonna miss some of the more challenging aspects of the scripture that should be addressed from the pulpit, but maybe, you know, it just doesn't fit in your sermon series or you know, we just don't get to that or that's not as popular. It gives you that flexibility to kind of only hone into the things that you think might get views or might get more attention as opposed to the other stuff that is a little less popular, but is equally important. And this is where manipulation is taking place here is because people think that they're being fed. People think that they're getting this really solid, you know, biblical framework and foundation, but ultimately they're just being fed milk or a pastor's hot take, something that would be good for a YouTube video or a TikTok or an Instagram reel, but now is just kind of converted into a sermon. Like there is a difference. There's a lot of good stuff that can be said and good life teaching that can be talked about and conversations that need to happen, but we need to recognize that church is something different. It's not just where the pastor spits off his hot take of the day, but rather is exegeting the scripture to tell us, help us understand what it says so we can be fed. They make you feel like they're going really deep, but ultimately what are they spurring you on towards? It's this moralistic, therapeutic deism, this kind of idea that God just kind of wants to make you feel good and make you live morally and so I wanna create a message that can help you do that and a lot of messages these days reflect that intent, but is that it? Is that all that God has for us? How often is the gospel actually being preached? How often are you talking about what Jesus has done and what ramifications that has for us today or is it all just, man, this is how you can have better relationships or this is how you can forgive this person? It's like, okay, that might be nice stuff to talk about, but if you don't get to the source of the solution, then what do we even have? And just referencing Jesus offhand isn't enough. The last area that I wanna talk about that I think is really problematic in terms of manipulation within the church is this idea of gaslighting you when you see a problem. Like I see this all the time. People will kind of come away from these churches and they'll say, yeah, there was kind of a lack of accountability and all of a sudden they'll be like, oh, there's not, there's just a bunch of haters. One of the clear examples of this more recently that I've seen is Michael Todd and he wore this T-shirt of his wife in a bikini and people got upset about it because they were like, hey, that's obviously inappropriate. Like even a non-Christian could see like, yeah, you're on stage at church and you have a T-shirt just very obviously of your wife in a bikini and for people that are watching, they don't even know it's your wife. So for all they know, it's just some random lady in a bikini on your shirt as you're trying to preach about Jesus. It's very questionable, right? Everyone would have questions. You wouldn't blame them for that. And yet Michael Todd comes on the next day or the next week and he says, oh, it's church people. I can't stand these church people. They're so uptight. They're so, you know, I'm just showing off my wife kind of thing. And we're like, oh wow, oh, like, I guess I'm in the wrong. Like we're being gaslit to think that we're crazy. Even though we point out something that everybody would point out. Now, this is not new with Michael Todd. There have been other pastors throughout the years that have been the vision casting leader. And in a lot of ways, they almost kind of speak for God within their church. That this is the direction they want to go. This is the decision that they're making. So everybody else just kind of conforms and they go along with it. And when they make a mistake, they maybe take accountability in some ways, but ultimately it's like, they're trying to change things up. They're trying to be edgy because they're trying to reach people and you're here just the Pharisee judging them. You can see it so clearly that it is just about the retention of power. And I think that's so dangerous when you have a church structure that's oriented that way. When a church grows so quickly based on a charismatic leader, as opposed to just kind of the solid biblical teaching that's coming out of it and people being attracted to the teaching as opposed to kind of this kind of charismatic person that's a personality or social media influencer that everyone wants to go to their church now because they do the coolest analogies or they have the coolest clothes or all those other things that aren't as important. You get in a tricky space when that's when people, why people are drawn that way. Because it gives people and that particular person an inflated ego or perspective of themselves. And I know how this is. Like I don't have a church, but I have a YouTube channel and you got to watch yourself to be like, oh, I have all these subscribers. So that means that I have really something to say or my word goes or I have authority in this issue. But for me, it's about like ultimately, I'm not perfect at this, but trying to recognize, no, I have a lot to learn. There's a lot of missteps that I can make here and I should be aware of when I do make those and to ask for forgiveness or take down videos and remove things that are incorrect and try to approach it in a humble way. I'm not saying I'm perfect at it, but it is a lot harder when all of a sudden you have thousands and thousands of people in front of you every week and they're listening and hanging on your every word. It can be really easy to just want to retain that power. For an overseer as God steward must be above reproach. He must not be arrogant or quick tempered or a drunkard or violent or greedy for gain. Now I feel like there's been a lot of bad news that has been shared in this video. A lot of downers, maybe a little depressed, you're seeing this in maybe churches that you've attended or things you watch online or things your friends watch online and you're kind of disappointed and discouraged in some ways. I do wanna let you know there is good news. God can draw a straight line with a crooked stick. People have said, hey, I've been positively impacted by these preachers, teachers or churches and I think that's great. God can do amazing things to broken vessels. That's what he's in the business of doing. Does that mean that we continue to approve all that these churches and these folks and these pastors are doing? Simply because a couple people have been positively impacted or maybe quite a few people have been positively impacted despite the error. No, it doesn't mean that we need to give our full approval. We can praise God that he does bring good out of bad situations. It is my hope though. It is my hope though that these churches would return or come to the first time to the simplicity of the gospel and that through that, their worship, their teaching, their culture would all be reformed. The truth is you can't manipulate people into the kingdom. You just can't. Your strategies and your methods are going to be for naught if you're not holding to the true gospel and so that is what we should value the most. Thanks so much for watching guys. If you enjoyed this video, subscribe because I'm putting out new content all the time. A huge shout out to everyone on Patreon for supporting what I'm doing and my mission of equipping people to follow Jesus daily. If you enjoy this content or want to get behind my mission, click the link in my description and sign up today. You can get access to all sorts of exclusive rewards and perks and it's a lot of fun over there. So I'd love to see you over there. Until next time guys, I will see you later. God bless.