How to lead the sheep astray

Here is a satirical post from the Defending and Contending blog site:

Don’t have the money for a paid marketing team to help your church become hip, cool and relevant? Not sure whether you are reaching your full potential as a pastor and reaching the masses like you were destined to do? No longer sure that preaching the old-fashioned message is relevant in the 21st century Laodicean church of America? Then worry no longer - help has arrived!

Here at DefCon, we have studied the best of all the famous, biblically illiterate, money-making, Scripture-ignoring preachers and have compiled a book which you too can own for just 3 easy payments of $9.95 plus shipping and handling and packing and delivery to the post office charges and whatever other charges we feel we can get away with to bolster our own profits.

In this new book yet to hit the New York bestseller list and entitled, “45 Days of Purposely Leading Sheep Astray”, you will learn:

1. How to be cool and hip while wearing the latest grunge fashions,

2. How to be relevant to a growing congregation that does not really care about Biblical expository message and the preaching of the gospel,

3. How to ensure that your people aren’t worried about asking you theology questions, but how you got your newest platinum hair-do,

4. How to preach sermonettes that tickle people’s ears and do not offend,

5. How to make sure your people come back every week with more of their worldly friends,

6. How to use the devil’s music to entice more unbelievers to come and act like unbelievers,

7. How to employ ungodly lyrics with the music with examples from fine music teachers who will teach you how to swing socks around your head,

8. How to use vulgar and crude language in a way that makes you look relevant and how to get well-known pastors to endorse your ministry while using such language,

9. How to employ bedroom humor into the pulpit in offensive ways that make people laugh,

10. How to pander to political types with prayers that invoke the names of heathen gods,

11. How to recognize how you as a pastor can truly have YOUR BEST LIFE NOW!


These are just a few of the many wonderful topics covered in this latest book that will hit the self-help consumer-driven so-called Christian bookstores in a shopping center near you. We promise that these methods will not gain you a “Well-done, good and faithful servant” award, but it will help YOUR church to grow and in time you will be able to have the resources necessary to hire your own marketing team. Your church will be the latest addition to the rollcall of lukewarm Laodicean churches in a trend that is sweeping the nations of the west and you will be alongside an army of men who are leading the sheep astray.

We recommend that you be prepared to receive your rewards down here at the hands of men for there will be nothing to come in eternity, and for those interested in the next step of church and world integration, we are also going to offer bumper stickers for your car, bookmarks for your Reader’s Digest edition Bibles (which cuts out all the unimportant parts of Scripture), and sign add-ons for your church. All of these will come embossed with one word in clearly legible type pleasing to the carnal eye - ICHABOD!

So, without delay, write today. This is one book you can’t afford to be without!