Many church leaders are masters at making faux disciples …

Insert the word “free” into any copy you write and watch how quickly the eye is drawn to it.

I’m sure you’ve experienced that as you suddenly come across an advertisement with the word “FREE” jumping out in all capital letters and blazing red. It makes you curious to at least see what you might possibly get for nothing out of your wallet.

Lately this has happened to me multiple times while in search of some specific smartphone apps needed as tools. It would excite me when I thought I found what I was looking for, downloaded the app, only to discover upon opening the app that it wasn’t free, they were only offering a free trial for a brief period of time, then the full purchase price would be due once the trial period was over. Businesses making such offerings hope to bait you with a claim of “free,” and then get you hooked on their product during a free trial so that you will dole out the dollars shortly thereafter.

A lot of people just walk away with a sense of bitterness toward companies that attempt to conduct business in such a manner.

And a lot of people walk away from the church when pastors also attempt a “bait and switch” to get people to make a profession of faith.

Many church leaders have a well-honed “sales pitch” about how salvation is free, you don’t have to do anything, and you get to go to heaven. Just say these words and you are immediately endowed with free “fire insurance” relieving you from any fears of hell, your ticket to enter heaven is punched. Missing are the “nuts and bolts” of the Gospel which is much more like these words from Jesus:

“Then he said to the crowd, ‘If any of you wants to be my follower, you must give up your own way, take up your cross daily, and follow me. If you try to hang on to your life, you will lose it. But if you give up your life for my sake, you will save it. And what do you benefit if you gain the whole world but are yourself lost or destroyed? If anyone is ashamed of me and my message, the Son of Man will be ashamed of that person when he returns in his glory and in the glory of the Father and the holy angels,” Luke 9:23-26.

The bait? Salvation is free (which it is, there is nothing you can do to save yourself, salvation comes through Jesus Christ alone), heaven is assured, and you don’t have to do anything, just sit back and BE a Christian.

The switch – Jesus says to be His follower you MUST surrender the entirety of your life to Him, giving up your own ways, and follow Him all the days of your life. What does “following” Him look like? The Apostle Peters says:

“For God called you to do good, even if it means suffering, just as Christ suffered for you. He is your example, and you must follow in his steps,” 1 Peter 2:21.

Even before the onset of the global pandemic we’re experiencing, it had become overwhelmingly evident that many churches were full of people who were faux Christians — pews and chairs full of people thinking they had acquired safety from hell and awaiting an abundance of blessings they were told would be theirs. But these people responded negatively to “the switch” — any encouragement or exhortation to give up the entirety of their lives for Jesus and daily literally follow Him.

If we’re ever going to move out of the morass we find our country in today, church leaders (and any Christian) must drop their “bait and switch” tactics and start consistently preaching the whole Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Scotty