Gary Lamb is the lead pastor of Action Church in Canton, GA, which, according to their About Page, “exists to redefine your definition of church!” because “we think it is a sin for church to be boring!”
Decades ago, Lamb founded Ridge Stone Church (later named Revolution Church), which grew to over 1000 people. He resigned from leadership in 2009 after admitting to an affair with his assistant. Within a few months of the news, however, he announced that he was starting a new church- which became his current iteration.
He went viral last week after posting a promo for their Easter service featuring a Playboy bunny, drawing widespread condemnation.
Notably, this is the same “pastor” who featured a weed-themed promo for Easter last year, which also drew negative attention.
At the time, Lamb was unapologetic about it, saying, “Can’t make this s*** up sometimes,” and encouraging his church members to ignore the critics, saying, “We don’t engage with religious assholes.”
He still holds the same sentiment.
In his April 12 sermon, he compared critics of Nehemiah building the wall to critics of the church, drawing multiple comparisons, such as: “Critics will never travel alone. They don’t have the testicular fortitude. That’s balls for you, Pickens County people. They ain’t got the balls to travel alone.”
(He also justified his ‘potty mouth’ on his Facebook the next day)
I got called the Playboy Preacher this week. Last year I was the weed smoking preacher. Man, I’ve been a homeless preacher. The needle preacher? The micro preacher, The gay preacher.
Man, here’s the deal. Critics don’t carry bricks, builders do. Builders build, critics tear down.
He later added:
Critics…want you to respond. That’s their goal. Their goal is not to expose you. Their goal is not to get you to change. Their goal is, they’re so pitiful in their life living in their mom’s basement on their computer….
And I am so thankful this week some of you felt the need to go on there and defend this church. Don’t ever feel that. I love you but you’re wasting your time. There’s nothing that you’re going to say that is going to change their opinion.
Lamb insisted that his critics were just in it for the attention.
“I saw some big news outlet posted about us yesterday… Here’s what they wanted. They wanted the clout of posting about us. They wanted the likes of posting about us.
They’re insignificant 99 % of the time until they post up something we do controversial and suddenly their little notifications go ding ding ding ding ding non-stop and they get people looking at their page that nobody else reads normally.”
He concluded:
“I will not apologize for the vision of this church. I will not apologize for the methods of this church. I will not apologize. I’ve been asked to apologize. The last time I checked it was 121 times I found comments asking me to apologize.
I apologize for nothing.”
