Did your church host a halftime show for Super Bowl Sunday?
In a Super Bowl Sunday sermon, Crossroads Church, located in Ohio, decided to do something that has given megachurches a bad wrap: they pressed forward with a worldly gimmick to catch lots of attention.
In a video posted to X by Protestia, the church’s “halftime show” for their Super Bowl Sunday sermon included sons from K Pop Demon Hunters, The Ramones, Bon Jovi, Bad Bunny, Cardi B, Beastie Boys, Olivia Dean, and plenty of beach balls floating around the sanctuary. Instead of true worship, songs that tickle the ears of those who are seeking anything but sound doctrine appear to be on display.
For Crossroads Church's Superbowl sermon, they had a 'half-time show' between the preaching, where they performed a mash-up of the Beastie Boys, Cardi B and Bad Bunny, The Ramones, Olivia Dean, Bon Jovi, K Pop Demon Hunter, and others.
— Protestia (@Protestia) February 8, 2026
Check out the wild intro ⬇️⬇️⬇️ pic.twitter.com/f7nFJqhuli
This, however, is only half of the entirety of Crossroads service. On their website where the whole message can be watched, the church decked out with everything from professional-looking sports news desks, confetti, and two “teams” of pastors that would compete with one another regarding their messages. Speaking about needing community as “huddles,” and shallow football analogies, the message was missing some key ingredients to it: God’s holiness, the reality of sin and our need for Him to be the Lord over our lives.
Crossroads Church made headlines back in 2020 for their Super Bowl message, where the pastors punted a football as part of “kick off.”
To order Travis Johnson’s new book, [Un]Embarrassed of Jesus, visit Amazon.com.
This moment should make Christians pause. When the church begins to mirror entertainment culture more than it reflects the holiness of God, something is deeply out of alignment. Scripture teaches that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, yet productions like this communicate the opposite—that God is casual, optional or simply another backdrop for spectacle.
A true church is not called to compete with the world—it is called to shine in contrast to it. Believers are commissioned to be salt and light, not imitators of culture’s noise and trends. The world is already saturated with entertainment, but what it is starving for is truth, conviction, holiness and the presence of God. The church’s mission has never been to look like the world in order to win it, but to reflect Christ so clearly that the world sees something different, something holy and something eternal.
Abby Trivett is a writer and editor for Charisma Media and has a passion for sharing the gospel through the written word. She holds two degrees from Regent University, a B.A. in Communication with a concentration in Journalism and a Master of Arts in Journalism. She is the author of the upcoming book, The Power of Suddenly: Discover How God Can Change Everything in a Moment. For interviews and media inquiries, please contact [email protected].
