00:00:00
Mega church or mega cringe or mega
00:00:05
time? Growing up, my family always went
00:00:08
to church. We went to tiny Baptist
00:00:09
churches that had more workers candies
00:00:11
than people. Sometimes we went to bigger
00:00:13
churches that had Starbucks in the
00:00:14
lobby. And one time, we even went to a
00:00:16
church that was inside an old subway
00:00:18
building. I don't know how the subway
00:00:19
went out of business. All you need to
00:00:21
feed thousands of people is like two
00:00:23
fish and five loaves of bread. All that
00:00:25
to say, I'm pretty familiar with the
00:00:26
many, many, many, many, many, many,
00:00:30
many, many variations of churches. But
00:00:33
the one kind I haven't been to is a mega
00:00:36
church. But Chad, what is a mega church?
00:00:39
You know what a mega church is already?
00:00:40
I know, but tell us anyway. A church
00:00:42
qualifies as a mega church if it brings
00:00:44
in a congregation of 2,000 people or
00:00:46
more every week, which might not sound
00:00:48
like a lot because we're so used to
00:00:49
seeing huge numbers on the internet,
00:00:51
like how Mr. Beast has 400 million
00:00:54
subscribers. But thanks to this Mr.
00:00:55
Beast video, we know that a congregation
00:00:57
of 2,000 people would look like this.
00:00:59
2,000 contestants. And thanks to this
00:01:02
Mr. Beast video, we know that an
00:01:04
11-year-old girl crying and pleading for
00:01:05
her place in a competition to win a
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quarter of a million dollars would look
00:01:08
like this. You are a crying. Your time
00:01:11
here is over. I'm so I kind of developed
00:01:13
a curiosity for mega churches about a
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year ago when I found this clip. Sky is
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cracked and Jesus Christ comes again and
00:01:22
every hour. This pastor was apparently
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trying to drive home the point that
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Jesus will be coming again. Lucky.
00:01:30
Lucky guy.
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Man, I wish that was me. Which makes me
00:01:34
wonder how many times he tried to tell
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this to the congregation before he
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resorted to this. He will return and it
00:01:41
will be when you least expect it. Yeah,
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whatever it No, you don't get it. If you
00:01:46
don't listen to me, I'm going to turn
00:01:48
pink. Don't you mean red? Like with
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anger? No, I mean I'm going to turn into
00:01:51
famed singer songwriter pink.
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But I started seeing a lot of videos
00:02:02
similar to this one from an account
00:02:03
called Pastors with Props that post some
00:02:06
of the craziest over-the-top sermons
00:02:08
that you ever did see.
00:02:16
You might be thinking, why would you
00:02:17
possibly need three expensive ass cars
00:02:20
on stage in order to intro your sermon?
00:02:23
And there's a very simple answer for
00:02:24
that. You don't. You don't have to do
00:02:26
that. It's fine if you don't do that.
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Actually, there was a pretty good reason
00:02:30
for this. He wanted to be Marty McFly,
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guys. He has to go back in time and stop
00:02:34
the crucifixion so he doesn't have to
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come in to work anymore. A lot of these
00:02:39
sermons feel like they were created for
00:02:40
reasons other than spreading the gospel.
00:02:42
Some of these pastors seem to have
00:02:44
realized that they can have whatever
00:02:45
they want on stage as long as they find
00:02:47
some kind of way to relate it to their
00:02:49
sermon. God, I thought Hold on. God, I
00:02:51
thought you was doing something. How do
00:02:52
I get out of
00:02:55
I'm your anchor. Oh, brother. Did you
00:02:58
really need to spend probably tens of
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thousands of dollars on an ocean set
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with rain machines and an entire real
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boat just to say that God is your
00:03:06
anchor? That's one of the least
00:03:08
groundbreaking messages in the gospel or
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water breaking cuz the anchor goes
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through. I don't know if they get to
00:03:14
personally keep the items they use on
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stage and if this is some kind of way to
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get things they already wanted while
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getting to write it off as a church
00:03:20
expense, but it's kind of really hard to
00:03:22
think it's not. We're all going on a
00:03:24
journey walking through life when it
00:03:27
comes to who Jesus is. What direction
00:03:29
are you headed? I don't know, but I know
00:03:30
what direction you're heading.
00:03:33
None. You're not going anywhere. There
00:03:35
is no way allegedly that he didn't just
00:03:38
see the Tik Tok trend of people buying
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these under desk treadmills and wanted
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one for himself and then used this
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sermon as an excuse to buy it for the
00:03:45
church. He's literally standing on a
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massive stage by himself. He could have
00:03:49
just done this.
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You know, sometimes it feels like we're
00:03:55
just walking through life and then other
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times we're not getting enough steps in.
00:03:59
So, we need a compact treadmill for our
00:04:01
home office. He literally walks to the
00:04:03
treadmill to demonstrate walking. And
00:04:05
you know what? He didn't even need to do
00:04:06
that. We know what walking looks like.
00:04:08
It's not like we were struggling to
00:04:10
picture what he was talking about. You
00:04:11
know, the other day I was thinking while
00:04:13
I was on the toilet,
00:04:16
this is what that looks like, by the
00:04:17
way.
00:04:19
Holy.
00:04:20
And I started thinking, you know, we're
00:04:23
all just kind of farting our way through
00:04:25
life. And this is what it would look
00:04:27
like if this video was sponsored. This
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video is sponsored by Rocket Money. A
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Money for sponsoring. And let's get back
00:05:26
to the video. For some reason, vehicles
00:05:28
seem to be the most common things for
00:05:29
these pastors to incorporate. I don't
00:05:31
know why. It couldn't be because those
00:05:33
are some of the most expensive things
00:05:34
you could incorporate into a sermon. It
00:05:36
couldn't be that. It couldn't be that
00:05:38
reason. Obviously, we have Marty McFly.
00:05:40
We have the boat. But we also have a
00:05:42
full stage of motorcycles,
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[Music]
00:05:48
which might seem like a flashy,
00:05:50
pointless expense, but they're actually
00:05:52
part of the choir. You should hear them
00:05:53
sing. They've got crazy pipes. And then
00:05:56
we have this. Man, that was amazing. Was
00:05:59
that I did double loops. I did not
00:06:03
expect a double loop. I mean, I guess
00:06:04
this is fine as long as he's got some
00:06:06
kind of way to tie it back into the
00:06:07
message and it's not something obvious
00:06:09
and dumb like life is full of ups and
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downs. What? Life is full of ups and
00:06:14
down. Never mind. When I was going
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through these videos, this roller
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coaster just kept showing up.
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[Music]
00:06:34
You know, I broke my foot yesterday. Oh
00:06:36
my god, bro. He went around twice. Why
00:06:39
does he need to go around twice? It's so
00:06:41
awkward. This was longer than actual
00:06:43
roller coaster rides. That went on for
00:06:45
so long that by the time he got off, his
00:06:46
name was Ed Old. I do like the theme
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song for this event just being people
00:06:50
singing the word of the thing on stage.
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[Music]
00:07:03
Here's the roller coaster again at a
00:07:05
different church.
00:07:09
Except this time they have a curtain of
00:07:10
sparks. Jesus loves a curtain of sparks.
00:07:12
And here it is again at a different
00:07:14
church. Come on, somebody make some
00:07:16
noise. Come on, everybody give it up for
00:07:19
Jesus today. This prop is even crazier
00:07:21
to me because there's barely an attempt
00:07:22
to hide the fact that this has nothing
00:07:24
to do with preaching. This is just a way
00:07:26
for them to make a grand entrance like
00:07:28
they're headliners at a concert. He does
00:07:30
give this line to try and tie it back in
00:07:32
though. It's amazing to have a creative
00:07:34
God who has creative stuff going on and
00:07:36
when the world is in chaos and they're
00:07:38
all flipping upside down, we're just
00:07:40
having a good time. Thank you. Thank you
00:07:42
guys. Please be seated. You know, it's
00:07:44
great to have a creative God who makes
00:07:46
creative things like roller coasters.
00:07:50
And next week, he's going to create me a
00:07:52
porch. My favorite part, though, is when
00:07:55
the crowd doesn't cheer enough for their
00:07:56
extravagant entrance, and he calls them
00:07:59
out for it. What? Come on, you can do
00:08:01
better than that. We know that a lot of
00:08:03
you in the crowd today can't afford to
00:08:05
take your families to Disney World. So,
00:08:06
we decided to spend thousands of dollars
00:08:09
recreating one on stage to write in
00:08:11
front of your impoverished faces. Now,
00:08:13
clap, clap louder.
00:08:17
I tried to look into the church that had
00:08:18
this roller coaster, but it turns out
00:08:20
this is one big church group
00:08:22
conglomerate with a bunch of locations
00:08:24
in three different states. So, I assume
00:08:26
they're shipping this one roller coaster
00:08:28
around, which I'm sure is easy to do
00:08:29
since it's so tiny and small and skinny
00:08:32
and light. I also tried to find out how
00:08:33
much it would cost to make this thing
00:08:35
and found this ride manufacturing
00:08:36
company saying that a small roller
00:08:38
coaster can cost up to $50,000.
00:08:42
What the [ __ ] do you mean? I don't
00:08:44
really care if it got more than one use
00:08:46
by being shipped to their other
00:08:47
churches. There was no need for it to
00:08:49
exist in the first place. $50,000 could
00:08:52
have helped everyone in your
00:08:54
congregation that couldn't afford rent
00:08:55
that month. Or a car. You could have
00:08:57
bought a whole car for a family in your
00:08:59
community that needed one. I don't care
00:09:01
if you get more than one use out of
00:09:03
something that's useless. Hey man, when
00:09:05
you're done with a giant, broken, and
00:09:06
also empty gumball machine, can I borrow
00:09:09
it? Ah, man. I would, but I actually
00:09:11
loaned it to Paul. What? I'm sorry. Why?
00:09:15
Yeah, and I'm not going to be done with
00:09:16
it for a while. But Paul, I need it to
00:09:22
Well, too bad because I'm using it for
00:09:27
[ __ ] All right, that's it. Oh, yeah.
00:09:30
What are you going to do? Come on. Come
00:09:31
on, guys. Please don't run. Bring it.
00:09:33
Oh, I catch you. Don't run in face at
00:09:35
each other. Guys, I wish I could say we
00:09:38
were done talking about megaurches
00:09:39
bringing vehicles on stage, but we're
00:09:41
not even close to that. I haven't even
00:09:43
talked about this yet.
00:09:54
And what is this? Is this some kind of
00:09:56
monster truck thing assembly? No, this
00:10:00
is a men's church event. Church. This is
00:10:04
church. This is the annual Stronger
00:10:06
Men's Conference hosted by James River
00:10:08
Church, which has 16,000 regular
00:10:11
attendees. This is the craziest thing
00:10:14
I've seen in my life. Why are there
00:10:16
trucks? Why is there so much fire? Why
00:10:18
are there flames?
00:10:21
Was that Master Chief? Is that [ __ ]
00:10:24
Master Chief? The conference has a
00:10:27
fantastic lineup of world-class speakers
00:10:29
and a stronger warrior competition,
00:10:31
which as far as I can tell is similar to
00:10:33
like American Ninja Warrior because
00:10:35
you're not a good Christian unless you
00:10:36
can scale up a fiberglass wall with your
00:10:38
bare hands. Jesus said so. According to
00:10:41
their website, their worldclass speakers
00:10:43
include superstar athletes like Harrison
00:10:46
Butler. You know that guy who spoke at a
00:10:49
college and told the women graduating
00:10:50
that day that they should probably just
00:10:52
have babies instead. You know the guy
00:10:53
who definitely shouldn't speak in front
00:10:54
of thousands of people. He probably
00:10:56
shouldn't speak at all ever. Also,
00:10:58
according to their website, if you just
00:10:59
scroll down here, you can actually
00:11:01
register today. Register today. I mean,
00:11:03
register today. Register today. Register
00:11:05
today. Register today. Register today.
00:11:08
Register today. Register today. They
00:11:10
have monster truck rallies, MMA
00:11:12
fighting, Master Chief. I still don't
00:11:14
know what that's doing here, but I'm
00:11:15
sure it this alone was thousands of
00:11:17
dollars. They've got bull riding. And
00:11:19
finally, they've got throwing football
00:11:21
on stage. This conference is like what
00:11:23
you would get if you handed millions of
00:11:25
dollars to a bunch of 12year-old.
00:11:28
Essentially, they have two days of
00:11:29
grossly exorbitant entertainment, throw
00:11:31
a couple sermons in there somewhere,
00:11:33
charge people $200 a pop, and then
00:11:35
abracadabra, you've made $2 million of
00:11:38
tax-free money, allegedly. But maybe I'm
00:11:41
being a little unfair. I mean, the whole
00:11:43
point of this is to become better
00:11:45
fathers, sons, friends, and husbands.
00:11:47
And you can't put a price on that, babe.
00:11:49
I know you want me to be a better
00:11:50
husband by like taking out the trash
00:11:52
sometimes or maybe talking to our kids,
00:11:56
but the only way for me to do that is to
00:11:57
go to church and become a better man by
00:12:00
watching a monster truck crush other
00:12:02
smaller trucks. I saw this comment on
00:12:04
the tank clip and it says, "What if I
00:12:06
told you thousands of salvations come
00:12:08
from these conferences? It's great
00:12:10
people share these clips, but what about
00:12:11
the clips of all the men worshiping God
00:12:13
together? Strange that you never see the
00:12:14
best part shared. instead out of context
00:12:17
snippets cut down to support a childish
00:12:19
claim. And I think that's funny because
00:12:20
the account that posted this clip didn't
00:12:22
have a caption. There was no claim. It
00:12:24
was just a clip of the conference. Hey,
00:12:26
you can't show this clip of me picking a
00:12:28
wedgie out of my ass in Walmart. This
00:12:30
implies that I would pick a wedgie out
00:12:32
of my ass in Walmart. I'm sure there is
00:12:34
some amount of worship happening at
00:12:36
these conferences. I would hope so since
00:12:38
that's supposed to be its entire point.
00:12:40
But I think if it took being lured in by
00:12:42
monster trucks and fire and sparks and
00:12:44
MMA fighting and motocross competitions
00:12:46
and tanks for you to find God, then you
00:12:49
probably didn't want to find him that
00:12:51
bad. Dear God,
00:12:54
please
00:12:57
I can't focus. I need some white noise.
00:13:02
Dear God, please help me find peace. I
00:13:06
know all of this might seem like an
00:13:08
excuse for guys to get out of the house
00:13:09
for a weekend and watch sports, but the
00:13:11
church does also have one for women,
00:13:14
except this one is boring. It looks like
00:13:16
all they have is singing and speaking,
00:13:18
and they're even holding Bibles here.
00:13:20
That's weird. What's that about? I was
00:13:22
going to ask why the ladies don't need
00:13:24
all that extra entertainment to find
00:13:25
God, too. But then I remembered how hard
00:13:27
it is for husbands to find anything. And
00:13:29
God's probably harder to find than a
00:13:31
bottle of mustard behind the orange
00:13:32
juice. So, I've got to cut them some
00:13:34
slack. Oh, also the women's conference
00:13:36
is $230 per person instead of the $200
00:13:39
they charge per person at the Stronger
00:13:41
Men's Conference, which I think is good
00:13:43
actually because at least some taxes are
00:13:45
being paid here, even if it's just the
00:13:47
pink tax. Pastor of this church has also
00:13:50
used his sermons to try and get people
00:13:52
to vote against laws he doesn't like.
00:13:54
And if you live in the city of
00:13:55
Springfield, we're asking you on April
00:13:58
7th to vote yes to the repeal of the
00:14:00
sexual orientation and gender identity
00:14:02
bill. And his reasoning for this was
00:14:04
homosexuality is a sin according to the
00:14:06
Bible and Christians should vote for
00:14:08
repeal. But that's not what he was
00:14:10
saying when his church hired a male
00:14:11
stripper to perform at the Stronger
00:14:13
Men's Conference.
00:14:16
[Music]
00:14:19
I don't really see how male pole dancing
00:14:22
will strengthen these husbands and
00:14:23
fathers. I think the only strengthening
00:14:25
happening here is probably in the
00:14:27
pastor's hands. Anyway, moving on to a
00:14:30
different mega church.
00:14:33
[Applause]
00:14:36
Just kidding. It's a Justin Timberlake
00:14:38
concert. Gotcha, [ __ ] Sorry, you're
00:14:40
not a [ __ ] Just kidding. Yes, you are.
00:14:43
But the fact that you almost can't tell
00:14:45
a difference between a church service
00:14:46
and a famous celebrities concert, I
00:14:50
think, is a very bad sign. I feel like
00:14:52
this is all in an attempt to get more
00:14:54
people to come into church. I'm sure
00:14:55
there's a lot less people physically
00:14:57
going into church every Sunday nowadays
00:14:59
and this is how some of them are trying
00:15:01
to adapt. They think they need to make
00:15:03
things louder and flashier. They think
00:15:05
they need to have Master Chief. I still
00:15:07
don't know why that was there. But to me
00:15:10
personally, this has very much the
00:15:12
opposite effect. This doesn't do
00:15:13
anything except boast how much wealth
00:15:15
some of these churches have to the point
00:15:17
that they're able to toss it into these
00:15:18
pointless theatrics instead of actually
00:15:20
helping people the way their religion
00:15:22
teaches they should. And I don't know
00:15:24
exactly what Jesus would do, but I'm
00:15:26
pretty sure it wouldn't be this.
00:15:32
Hello,
00:15:34
it's me,
00:15:37
the Lord. And I want you to follow me. I
00:15:41
am Halo reaching for you so that I can
00:15:44
give you my love. Yes, sir. Which is
00:15:46
Halo infinite. All I want is to be
00:15:49
there, Halo, for you. And you never have
00:15:52
to be afraid because I will fight your
00:15:54
Halo Wars. Together, we will be
00:15:56
unstoppable because I am the Master
00:16:00
Chief
00:16:02
of the Universe.
00:16:07
[Music]
00:16:15
This is my second video in a row that
00:16:16
ends with the Halo theme song. I'm going
00:16:18
to call it there, guys. Thank you for
00:16:19
subscribing. And if you are still here,
00:16:22
thank you so much for watching. I
00:16:23
appreciate you clicking on my video out
00:16:25
of all the videos that are on here. And
00:16:28
I'll see you next time. Okay, bye.
00:16:31
[Music]