July has arrived—and so has the annual blockbuster sermon series sweeping churches across America: “At the Movies.” Complete with red carpets and popcorn machines. Lobbies are decorated as movie sets. And sermon titles like “Finding Jesus in Frozen” or “The Gospel According to Top Gun.”
The idea is to draw crowds by connecting biblical themes to popular films in an effort to be engaging and culturally relevant. “At the Movies” sermon series are designed to be a crowd-favorite, seeker-sensitive marketing strategy to boost attendance and keep the audience entertained.
On the surface, this appears to be an innovative outreach strategy. But let’s be honest—“At the Movies” sermon series are the theological equivalent of fast food—cheap, flashy, instantly gratifying… and guaranteed to leave you spiritually and theologically malnourished.
So, why do churches continue to serve this theological junk food every summer? Because it draws a crowd. Because it’s easy. Because it feels relevant. And because somewhere along the way, we started believing that entertainment is more effective than exposition. After all, why exposit Scripture when you can just exegete Pixar?
But just because something fills a room doesn’t mean it feeds a soul. Emotional engagement isn’t the same as spiritual transformation. If we’re going to take preaching seriously—and we must—then it’s time to leave these “At the Movies” sermon series on the cutting room floor and get back to the kind of preaching that actually makes disciples. After all, “man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God” (Matthew 4:4).
As pastors, we must commit to the authority of Scripture, expository preaching, and the spiritual maturity of the Church. Here’s why these “At the Movies” series raise some serious concerns.
The concept is simple: show movie clips, insert a couple Bible verses, tie it all together with an emotional story, and boom—you’ve got a “sermon.”
Except you don’t. You’ve got a feel-good, crowd-pleasing, vaguely spiritual TED talk with just enough Scripture sprinkled in to make it seem legit.
Somewhere along the way, we decided that the inspired Word of God wasn’t compelling enough on its own, so we imported Hollywood into the pulpit. Now, instead of opening the Bible, we’re breaking down character arcs and moral lessons from whatever won Best Animated Feature. Scripture becomes a seasoning, not the substance—a theological garnish sprinkled on top of a Pixar plot.
“If your sermon needs a movie trailer to hold attention, it’s not preaching—it’s performance. Preach the Word, not the box office.”
But the pulpit is not a stage for cinematic storytelling. It’s a sacred place for proclaiming the living Word of God. Paul’s charge in 2 Timothy 4:2 is not “Preach the movies with clever illustrations,” but “Preach the Word.”
If the average churchgoer can’t tell whether they just left a church service or a faith-based film festival, we may have lost the plot—literally.
Let’s be honest—“At the Movies” sermons send an unspoken message: the Bible isn’t enough. Apparently, divine revelation needs a little help to stay interesting. Something flashier. More emotional. More… entertaining. So we borrow entertainment from Hollywood, slap a few verses on it, and call it “relevant.”
Translation? We don’t think God’s Word is compelling unless Iron Man is involved.
The underlying assumption is dangerous: that the Holy Spirit needs help from Marvel Studios to hold people’s attention. Which is weird, because last I checked, Scripture was described as “living and active” (Hebrews 4:12), not “a little boring without background music.”
When we build sermons around the box office instead of the Bible, we’re not being creative—we’re being compromising. We’re quietly admitting that God’s Word needs a cinematic hook to be effective.
But that’s not preaching. That’s pandering.
If you think the Bible needs Hollywood to make it powerful, you may not understand the power of Scripture—or the purpose of the pulpit. Preaching isn’t about entertaining the masses. It’s about unleashing the truth.
Let’s get one thing straight: the Gospel is not about “believing in yourself,” “following your dreams,” or “becoming the hero of your story.” That’s Disney. That’s the serpent in Genesis 3. But that’s not Jesus.
Yet when sermon series lean heavily on film plots for spiritual insight, the Gospel often gets reduced to moralism dressed up in movie metaphors. Jesus gets demoted to a supporting character in a feel-good story rather than the crucified and risen Lord of glory.
“The Gospel doesn’t need a costume or a cameo—it needs to be preached. Unapologetically. Boldly.”
Yes, some movies contain redemptive themes. But here’s the problem: movies might inspire, but they don’t redeem. At best, they offer vague notions of hope, love, or sacrifice. But none of them preach sin, judgment, substitutionary atonement, and the call to repent and believe. Only the Word of God does that. The Gospel doesn’t fit neatly into a movie plot because it shatters the plot—it confronts us with a holy God, a hopeless condition, and a crucified Savior who rose in victory.
So no, the Gospel is not a subplot in your personal coming-of-age story. It’s the headline. The point. The center of redemptive history. Stop shoehorning Jesus into screenplays and start proclaiming Him from the Scriptures. The Gospel isn’t an illustration. It’s the only message that saves.
Do we really think 30 minutes of emotionally manipulated movie clips with a devotional twist is going to raise up mature disciples of Christ? That’s not preaching—it’s content marketing.
You might win a crowd with clever editing and a Dreamworks tearjerker, but don’t be surprised when they drop out of church the moment things get theological, controversial, or—heaven forbid—convicting. What you win them with is what you win them to.
And these “At the Movies” series? They don’t train people to love truth. They condition people to crave spectacle. To expect amusement over admonition. To sit back and consume, not pick up their cross and follow Jesus. The result? Fans of Jesus, not followers. A crowd that applauds the message—but disappears when the message actually costs them something.
But hey—the seats are full, right? Isn’t that the goal?
NO! Because when real suffering comes, or doctrinal confusion sets in, or cultural pressure tightens, “Lessons from The Lego Movie” won’t anchor anybody. Emotionalism won’t ground a soul in crisis. And moralistic messages won’t sustain someone through grief, temptation, or persecution.
You can attract a crowd with spectacle. But you can only build a Church with the Word.
The world already has movie theaters, streaming platforms, and infinite on-demand content. It doesn’t need the Church to become a low-budget version of Netflix with worship music and a sermon series based on DreamWorks.
We live in an age addicted to spectacle. Screens dominate our attention. Stories shape our worldview. The Church has a rare and powerful opportunity to be truly countercultural—not by imitating Hollywood, but by boldly proclaiming the Word of God, without apology and without gimmicks.
But when we package our sermons like summer blockbusters, we send a message loud and clear: cultural relevance is more important than biblical faithfulness. We exchange our prophetic voice for public approval. And in the process, we lose both.
The Church isn’t called to be clever. We’re called to be clear. We’re not called to entertain. We’re called to equip. And we’re definitely not called to repurpose Disney scripts in the name of discipleship.
What if, instead of mimicking the world, we trusted that the plain, bold, Spirit-empowered preaching of God’s Word was enough? (Spoiler alert: it is.)
Flash might fill the room. Faithfulness feeds the soul.
Flash creates consumers. Faithfulness makes disciples.
Flash entertains. Faithfulness transforms.
Let me be clear—I’m not against storytelling. I’m not against culture. I am not against movies. I use illustrations myself—they’re helpful. But here’s the catch: illustrations support the sermon. They don’t become the sermon.
Preach the text. Teach people how to read, wrestle with, and apply Scripture. Give them biblical categories for sin, grace, faith, and obedience. Show them Jesus in Genesis, not just The Lion King.
Because when the lights go down and the popcorn buckets are empty, only one thing endures forever—the Word of our God (Isaiah 40:8).
So, pastor, skip the red carpet and open the Bible. Culture can illuminate truth, yes. But when the movie becomes the sermon and the Bible is reduced to a footnote, we’ve completely flipped the script.
Don’t preach the movies—preach Christ (2 Corinthians 4:5).
Entertainment fades. The Word endures forever.