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“Jordan pastors Beverly Hills Baptist Church, one of the largest and most influential churches in California. Although his church and nonprofit organization take in millions of dollars/year in donations, most of his sermons are not free to download online. Instead, each of his sermons is listed on the church webstore for 99 cents. When people ask him why he doesn’t make his sermons available for free, he typically answers with several reasons.

We are just covering the costs of the servers and people who maintain the website. There is a cost involved in making my sermons available on the Internet. Also, don’t forget that the sermons I preach are considered ‘works for hire,’ so they legally belong to my church, which is my employer. I don’t own them; the church owns them. So when you pay for them, the money doesn’t go into my pocket; it goes into the church’s ministry account. Why wouldn’t my church want to charge for access to my sermons? We don’t think it strange that pastors charge for the books they write. And just like books, these sermons are expensive to produce. 

Jordan means well, and genuinely thinks he’s doing what’s right in the sight of God, but the culture around him has squeezed him into its mold. He has believed the lie that it is impossible to cover the cost of a website by donations. And he fails to realize that the sincerity of his preaching is compromised by selling it, no matter what the price may be. His God is not big enough to provide money to pay the bills.” –Adapted from SellingJesus.org

“Luke is a gifted preacher and speaker. Some of the biggest summer camps book him years in advance, and large churches love to invite him to present at conferences.

In the early years of his preaching ministry he would only receive honorariums as a free gift that churches might give him to help cover expenses. But now he receives more requests than he can commit to. At one point an old pastor told him that he needed to think about charging upfront for speaking engagements. His family agreed that this was a wise idea, and after considering it prayerfully, Luke began making it clear that he would require X amount in payment in addition to all of his travel expenses before agreeing to speak at an event. At first he didn’t like how this exchange felt, especially when smaller, likable churches couldn’t afford what he asked. But as the money started to flow, after a while he got used to it.

Once in a while when Luke has quieted his heart and is out on an evening walk with God, conflicted sentiments crowd his thoughts, and his conscience wonders whether he’s doing the right thing by putting a price tag on sharing what God has freely given him.” –Adapted from SellingJesus.org

“Susan writes Bible studies for women and does speaking tours around the USA. She is the founder of Living Water Ministries, and reaches millions of women with her events and books.

Her latest Bible study of Philippians is called The Surpassing Worth of Knowing Jesus, and you can buy the digital workbook for $20. Conference tickets to her Philippians study tour are $85 for adults. Live streaming tickets are also available, but if you live within a 150 mile radius of where the conference will be held, you are not allowed to stream the event. The streaming cost for a small group of up to twelve people is $125. If you have more than twelve, you must pay $20/additional attendee. Once you purchase the streaming access, the video recordings will be available to you for only 30 days after the event. You can own the digital download of the entire five-session study of Philippians for $50. The ministry website also has the option to give a donation.

Susan has never thought about an alternative way to do what she does. She grew up around the selling of ministry, and in her circles no one has ever questioned it.” –Adapted from SellingJesus.org

In my previous article I mentioned that we Christians are doing something that “distorts our message, undermines our credibility, and leaves us slaves to a master we aren’t aware we are serving.” What are we doing to shoot ourselves and our message in the foot? We have commercialized Christianity. Jesus said, “Freely you have received; freely give” (Matt. 10:8), but we aren’t giving freely. We’ve found ways to make money from the gospel. It’s so ingrained in our culture we don’t even recognize we are disobeying Jesus. While we may be nearly oblivious to this “pulpit capitalism,” you may be assured that those outside the church see it very clearly.