Eighty-one percent of evangelicals voted for Trump.  Presumably, the same percentage of evangelical leaders did the same.  This begs a question…why did you vote for Trump but run your church like the Hillary campaign?

Pastor, Why are you running your church like Hillary’s  campaign?

By Mario Murillo

Hillary brought in A-list entertainers to buttress her dull message.  Pastor, is your church heavy on perks, smoke and mirrors and jazzy presentations but light on truth, power and the presence of God?  Is it because you believe the message of Jesus is dull without those accouterments?

People came to Trump rallies to see Trump.  It was a wake-up call when Donald Trump’s rally in Pennsylvania was many times bigger than Hillary’s rally even though she advertised JayZ and Beyoncé.  People went to a Trump rally to see Trump!

Jesus should be the main attraction at your church.  Jesus said in Matthew 18:20, “For wherever two or three are gathered in my name, there I am in the midst of them.” We are the only movement in history where the founder attends every meeting.  The miracle-working, devil-defeating, glory-inducing Son of God is in your service.  If you realize this, it will bring a total transformation.

This transformation is not simple.  You must get an inner fire and a revelation.  You must reacquaint yourself with how astoundingly attractive Christ is to the human heart.  The Bible calls Him wonderful and The Desire of Ages.  When Christ taught the people, they not only hung on every word—they refused to take meals for fear of missing something He might say.   

Hillary constantly avoided clear positions on most issues in order not to offend her base.  She hid her true beliefs.  Seeker pastors everywhere have been instructed to do the same thing.  Joel Osteen told Larry King, “I know the Bible says homosexuality is a sin, but I am not going to preach against it.”  While I credit him for his honesty, he is dead wrong.

The whole point of addressing sin is so you can offer the cure.  You may look tolerant, but you are no more than a doctor guilty of malpractice.

People were constantly warning Trump, “You can’t say that!”  People were continually pronouncing him dead.  He declared things that were burning in the hearts of most Americans, but they couldn’t find the words.  He attacked elites and media tyrants and proved they were paper tigers.  And he did not die.

Imagine transforming your pulpit into a fire hose of truth.  Imagine preaching the whole counsel of God without regard to men.  Trump proves you can do that.  You must risk being labelled.  So what if you are called racist, homophobic, Islamophobic?  We have proof because of Trump that slander will not stand in the face of truth.

Hillary believed in massive programs.  The continual drumbeat of the media was that Hillary had a better ground game.  She had volunteers going door-to-door.  She had a vast Get Out the Vote campaign.  She would win because of the myriad of things her campaign machine was churning out.

She knew it wasn’t working.  She screamed, “Why am I not 50 points ahead!?”

Similarly, many megachurches overflow with programs.  Members are asked to be busy almost every night.  There is always something to sign up for.  Yes, a church should meet the needs of families, but we have gone too far.

Worshipping programs because we believe it makes attendance grow takes our eyes off the Holy Spirit.  We run the house of God like a corporation, relying solely on our business plan.  Staff gets burned out.  People are run ragged.  Church feels like the express lane at Walmart!  The unspoken message is, “Get in, get out ‘cause the next group is waiting.”

Trump focused on the experience his followers had at his rallies.  Make America Great Again was a unifying cry that released excitement at his events.  People felt like family, not customers. No one was in a hurry.  Trump took the time to help people make an emotional connection with his message. In the last days of the campaign, he focused more and more on this, even though experts screamed that it was a mistake.

She spent $1.2 billion and lost.  He spent one-fifth that amount and won.  Some churches waste a ton of money on things that are substitutes for how God grows a church.  E. M. Bounds said, “What the Church needs today is not more machinery or better, not new organizations or more and novel methods, but men whom the Holy Ghost can use — men of prayer, men mighty in prayer. The Holy Ghost does not flow through methods, but through men. He does not come on machinery, but on men. He does not anoint plans, but men — men of prayer.”

Hillary did not realize that America had changed.  She felt entitled to win.  She was liberal. She had the money.  She had Obama rallying for her.  She said, “This has always worked in the past.” What she did not know was America had changed.

Pastor, you need to know that America has changed.  Fair warning!  It is time to get out of the Christian Witness Protection Program.  America is screaming for a new breed of Christian.  They know—as well as, if not better than, we do—that watering down the Gospel was an epic mistake.  They were not fooled.

It was not just a terrible waste of time and money, it was something worse.  Omitting the “offensive” parts of the Gospel—to attract people—drained its power to set people free. The church became a co-conspirator in America’s decline.

The earthquake that put Trump in office will now rock the church.  Yes, those growth models worked in the past, but not anymore.  Can I put it bluntly?  The American culture will be pierced by vessels who speak words their generation cannot resist—warriors who carry addiction-breaking, disease-killing, miracle power.