Do You Attend The Church of Online Influencers?

Culture is not something that simply happens to us. It is built, brick by brick, from the beliefs we hold, the values we cherish, and the assumptions we carry, often without even realizing it. Thus, our culture is informed by what we deem to be true. It is the ongoing formation of who we are and how we see the world. Which raises a question that every serious believer must ask: Who is doing the educating? Who, exactly, is shaping your beliefs? Whose voice is forming your values? Whose assumptions are quietly becoming your own? Decoy 

Where Do You Go for Help?

Think about it this way. If your sink breaks, you call a plumber. It would be foolish of you to call your neighbor who owns a hair salon and ask their professional opinion about your plumbing. If you want to build a house, you hire an architect and a contractor, professionals with training, credentials, and proven experience. You submit to their expertise because the stakes are high and the consequences of ignorance are real.

Now ask yourself: If you need advice on how to live, who do you turn to? If you are wrestling with your identity, your purpose, your morality, your understanding of God, where do you go? For many people today, the honest answer is: social media. Podcasts. Influencers. People who are not theologians, not pastors, not Bible scholars, not by any stretch of the imagination.

And yet we consume their content by the hour, letting it quietly reshape our theology, our ethics, our view of the church, and our understanding of Scripture.

The Problem with Influence Without Accountability

There is nothing wrong with being influenced. We are all influenced by something. The question is whether the source is trustworthy. And today, influence has been almost entirely decoupled from accountability, training, and proven character.

Anyone with a smartphone and an opinion can position themselves as a spiritual authority. They can accumulate hundreds of thousands of followers, brand themselves as a faith leader, and deliver confident pronouncements about God, the Bible, and the Christian life, without ever having sat under serious theological training, without a community that holds them accountable, and without a track record of shepherding real people through real trials.

The result is a generation of believers whose faith has been quietly curated by content creators rather than formed by the Holy Spirit through the Word and through anointed, accountable teachers.

Leadership - Accepted everywhere but the Church. 

The word "authority" has become a byword in contemporary Christian culture. People bristle at the idea of submitting to a pastor, sitting under a teacher, or allowing an elder to speak into their lives. Independence has been confused with maturity. And yet, in almost every other area of life, we honor the principle of authority without a second thought.

When you hire a personal trainer, you follow their program, even when it is hard. You do not argue with their prescribed reps. You trust their expertise and submit to the process. When a police officer signals you to stop, you stop. When a doctor tells you to change your diet, a responsible person adjusts their habits. We recognize, in those contexts, that submission to legitimate authority is not weakness, it is wisdom.

We submit to coaches, doctors, and officers because we understand that expertise matters and that accountability produces results. The same is true in our spiritual lives.

So why do we accept this principle in every sphere of life except the spiritual one? Why are we so quick to place our physical health in the hands of trained professionals, but so reluctant to sit under someone who has given their life to understanding God's Word and shepherding His people?

What Pastors and Teachers Were Actually Given to You For

The Bible is not silent on this. God, in His wisdom, established specific roles within the body of Messiah, apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers, given, as Paul writes in Ephesians 4, "for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body."

This is not a power structure. It is a gift. God gave these roles to the church as an act of love and provision. A genuine pastor is not someone trying to control your life. A true shepherd's role is to lead you beside still waters, to guide you through green pastures, to restore your soul. Their calling is to minister to you, to equip you for your own ministry, and to help you grow into the full stature of Christ.

Yes, there have been abuses. Church history is not without its wounds. Leaders have failed. Authority has been misused. But the existence of counterfeit currency does not mean we throw away our wallets. It means we learn to recognize the genuine article. And God, for such a time as this, has raised up men and women who are genuinely anointed, truly called, truly trained, truly accountable, who are here to serve you.

Stop Letting Influencers Be Your Theologians

Please stop allowing unqualified, unaccountable, untrained influencers to be your primary teachers about God and the Bible. The person with the most followers does not have the most wisdom. The video with the most views has not necessarily been vetted against Scripture. Charisma is not anointing. Confidence is not calling. A compelling delivery does not make a sound theology.

This is not elitism. It is stewardship. Your faith is too important, your eternal soul is too precious, your family's spiritual formation is too consequential, to be shaped primarily by people who have not paid the price to know what they are talking about.

A Call to Return

So what does it look like to allow your culture to be properly informed? It begins with returning to the foundational sources: God's Word and the Holy Spirit. Read the Bible. Study it. Wrestle with it. Let it form your categories of thought.

Then find teachers who are genuinely equipped, theologians, Bible scholars, pastors with proven character and real accountability, and sit under their teaching. Not because they are infallible, but because God placed them in the body for your benefit. Learn to discern the anointed from the popular.

Ask the hard questions before you give someone your spiritual ear: Are they accountable to a community? Do they have genuine theological training? Has their teaching been tested over time? Does their life match their message? Do they point you to Scripture and to Yeshua, or primarily to themselves? Do not allow their mistakes to send you into isolation or back to the much worse world of influencers.  

Culture is built by education. Education is built by the voices we allow to teach us. And the voices we allow to teach us will shape everything: what we believe about God, what we believe about ourselves, how we raise our children, how we treat our neighbors, what we are willing to stand for, and what we are willing to surrender.

Choose your teachers wisely. Cultivate a culture built on true biblical beliefs and values, not on the shifting opinions of those who have traded in theological rigor for social media reach. God has provided what you need. Return to His Word. Listen to His Spirit. Find His anointed servants. And let that be the foundation upon which your culture is built.

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