The Church’s Unhealthy Obsession With the Evangelical Conference Circuit

I had the misfortune of attending a G3 Conference in 2023 in Atlanta. My wife and I spent the money on the tickets, the hotel, and the travel, hoping for an experience we never actually had. We hoped we’d get there, be met with open arms by what would feel like a small glimpse of heaven, a large convention of the gathered body of Christ, and be edified by the preaching of godly men who desired nothing more than the glory of Christ in all things.

Instead, what we were confronted with was a highly commercialized circus: promotional materials, a massive bookstore—with many great books, don’t get me wrong—booths selling goods and products, and cliques.

People standing in line for hours just to get to shake the hand of their favorite celebrity speaker or to get them to autograph their book. What did not happen was real, serious fellowship, real corporate worship, or edification that lasted outside the doors.

Now, I’m not saying it was all bad, or that there was no edification at all. In spite of the overall experience, I still met some wonderful, godly people. And the majority of the preaching was still beneficial.

But in the end, what we felt like we were peons in the midst of an elite class who clearly believed they were above the rest of us—we had simply paid admission to observe evangelical royalty.

If you’ve been keeping up with the news, you’re probably aware of the latest scandal at G3. If not, you’re not missing much, so I wouldn’t concern myself with it too much. But it involves accusations that the leadership of G3, and the leadership of Prays Mill Church, which oversees the G3 Conference, essentially threw another G3 speaker, Tom Buck, under the bus over alleged plagiarism.

To make a long story short, Buck was charged with using phrases and wording from commentaries in his sermons without proper attribution. Buck’s church dealt with the issue internally and cleared him of any disqualifying wrongdoing.

But that wasn’t good enough for G3—and G3 allegedly participated in anonymously passing around accusations about Buck, demanding that he be held accountable publicly.

The scandal here isn’t that Buck plagiarized a few Puritans here and there, the scandal is that G3 dismissed its former leader, Josh Buice, over anonymously attacking other church leaders without any accountability for himself. And when he was caught, G3 threw him out for the dogs to rip apart.

Now, G3 has allegedly done exactly the same thing to Tom Buck that they dismissed Josh Buice for doing—and they allegedly did so under the notion that they did not want to have to deal with the aftermath tarnishing G3’s name.

But G3 isn’t really the problem. It’s just one manifestation of the real problem. The real problem is the monster we’ve built as evangelicals—the Evangelical Industrial Complex. The evangelical speaking circuit has become one of the most profitable ways for church leaders to line their pockets.