Josh Howerton: Big Box Evangelicalism, The Money Machine!
Two big box evangelical pastors, Joby Martin and Josh Howerton, are taking a lot of heat right now over the way they are raising money. Both men appear to be working with the same church fundraising firm, and both put out videos to their churches reading what is basically the same script, line for line, explaining how members should fill out a giving commitment card. One campaign is called Into the Breach and the other is Neighbors to Nations, but the instructions are identical: add your normal giving to your expanded giving, multiply it by two because it is a two year campaign, then think about what God has already given you in the past and add that in too. The whole thing reeks of insincerity.
If that were all, I could almost let it go. Ministries need money, and plenty of mega church pastors run tacky campaigns like this. But it looks like the script did not stay in the promo video. These men seem to be carrying it into the pulpit and preaching with the same illustrations in nearly the same words, like the story about taking a man's wallet so he would pay closer attention to the sermon. I can't know for sure where that material came from, but something here doesn't pass the smell test. The Bible talks about giving, and a preacher can preach on giving, but the pulpit is for preaching the Bible, not for running a marketing campaign.
This is the problem with big box evangelicalism. These churches run a circus. They carry enormous overhead, huge utility bills, insurance, and staff just to keep the grounds up, plus executives to manage the empire they built. That keeps the pastor under constant pressure just to pay the bills, and that is how you end up reading a script handed to you by a fundraising firm. Clarence Sexton always taught us at Crown College that the local church is a body of baptized believers who have voluntarily joined themselves together to carry out the Great Commission. That is a church. It is not an empire.
I believe in giving. If you believe in what a ministry is doing, you ought to support it, and I thank God for the people who support our ministry. Tithing is a good pattern if you want to follow it. But giving should come from the heart and be done willingly, not because somebody manipulated you into it. Paul wrote, "Every man according as he purposeth in his heart, so let him give; not grudgingly, or of necessity: for God loveth a cheerful giver" (2 Corinthians 9:7). We have needs too, and next year we hope to raise money to do ministry around the military bases in Japan, but we are going to stay far away from the cringe scripts these big box preachers are using.
Watch the full video on YouTube: Josh Howerton: Big Box Evangelicalism, The Money Machine!. For more Bible preaching and commentary, subscribe to the channel at youtube.com/@spencersmith312.
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