Brothers, We Are Not Directors

It seems that Erwin Raphael McManus has added director of commercials to his uber-cool persona. McManus is the pastor (although he doesn't seem to like that title) of Mosaic, an uber-cool church in Los Angeles. McManus has produced and Mosaic is sponsoring a commercial in a Doritos contest. The winning commercial will be broadcast during the Super Bowl. It's all so, well, cool. Of course it begs some pretty major questions about the purpose of the church, the role of the pastor, and the necessity of the Gospel.

Phil Johnson comments:

McManus's current project is further removed from the proclamation of the gospel than anything you'll ever see from Osteen—and that's saying something. McManus is shilling for an entry in Doritos® "Crash the Superbowl" contest. It's an utterly tasteless commercial called "Casket." ("A guy stages his own funeral just to munch Doritos and watch football undisturbed—in a casket.") McManus himself produced the commercial for the Doritos® contest and Mosaic is "sponsoring" it. They won a spot among the six finalists (out of 4,000 entries)—and tickets to the Super Bowl. The top prizewinner will be chosen by popular vote. So McManus has removed every vestige of his own website and replaced it with an appeal for votes. He's Twittering pleas for votes on a fairly regular basis, too.

He is convinced this is the work of God: "It's a miracle and a divine comedy that we've made it this far," he told USA Today. "I think it's God's sense of humor."

Rick Warren is ecstatic about the prestige and potential $$$ a win would bring McManus. He Tweeted: "My guy Erwin McManus (Mosiac Church) created a Doritos Superbowl Ad! Church could win $! VOTE 4 him!"

Our friend Paul Edwards's Twitter feed, as usual, was more on target: "Majority of Christians will laugh rather than weep at @erwinmcmanus 's commercial because the gospel is no longer central in our thinking."...

Publicity is not the same thing as evangelism. Fad-chasing isn't "missional." You're not "reaching" people in any meaningful sense at all if the gospel is not the center and the main substance of your message to the world.

Read the entire post HERE.