Irony Alert! J.D. Greear Chastises Congregants for Treating Church like a Production: ‘You’re the Problem!’

Summit Church pastor and former SBC President J.D. Greear is under fire for a tongue-lashing he gave his congregants during a recent church service, chastising them for coming in late, not making personal connections with guests, treating church like a religious show and production, and ironically enough, streaming the service from home rather than coming to in-person services. He told his members:

Wouldn’t that be a way of demonstrating the gospel, (spending time before and after the service getting to know new guests) saying ‘here,  you matter and you are important.  You’re not invisible in here.’

Do you know what kind of place this would become if we did just that?  Honestly, it’s one of the things that irritates me about you guys that cruise in 10 minutes late or leave five minutes before we dismiss.  It’s not that I’m mad that you’re missing part of the service,  it’s that you treat church like it’s a religious show instead of a welcoming family that you’re a part of.

When people say that the church is unfriendly and it feels like a big production,  you’re the problem. And don’t even get me started on you guys that are still sitting at home in your pajamas streaming online when health-wise,  you can and should be back in church,  okay?  If you got health issues,  I get it, that’s fine.  If you’re traveling,  I understand.  But some of you are still sitting at home right now on your couch because you’ve reduced church to a program you watch and that is not church at all.  

First, there’s something scathingly sad about Greear complaining about his church services being seen as a big production and religious show, given that they have likely near $500,000 in audio and visual production equipment for their sanctuary and frequently put on lights shows to great effect. I mean, there’s whole articles about it.

Second, there’s the time he twerked and danced to Whitney Houston, which is not something one would do if they were concerned about the church service being viewed as a show.

J.D. Greear can chastise his congregants all he wants for staying home and not coming to in-person services, but he’s calling out what he specifically enabled and encouraged.

Let’s not forget that Greear closed his church doors to in-person services for OVER A YEAR. In fact, while hundreds of other faithful churches were fighting to stay open, Greear announced in August 2020 that they were closing down until at least 2021, only doing virtual services, which he likened to having thousands of little church services.

Even as late as October 2021, congregants were required to show proof of vaccination or a negative COVID test to attend services at specific locations, which would discourage many people from attending and instead leading them to stay home.

In fact, he routinely cancels church services around Christmastime, so please, spare us the false indignation.

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