In a recent interview with The Christian Post, Australian-American evangelist Nick Vujicic had some strong words for the state of the western church. Vujicic, who is best-known for being born without arms and legs and inspiring people with disabilities worldwide to be all God has called them to, said he worried for the future of western churches. “We are seeing the fruit of us not really discipling the next generation or having accountability,” Vujicic said. “If we look at our country, there are youth pastors that are seen as babysitters, and 95 percent of the churches I’ve walked into, I would never attend because they feel more like a country club and a social gathering.” He stated that many churches gave into the idea of needing to “water down the Gospel” to reach people. “A lot of Western churches in the USA changed their approach and actually started watering the Gospel and bringing a little bit more entertainment, a little bit more fun, a little bit more interaction; they went from meat to milk,” he said.

He said churches have largely avoided speaking out against sins such as “keeping your pants on until marriage.” “Today, we have Gen Z swearing, saying the F word, sleeping around, and everyone knows it, but no one’s really keeping anyone accountable.” He spoke of the many challenges that members of Gen Z face, such as increased depression, technology addiction, sexual exploitation, and more. A recent study revealed that Gen Zers are spending on average 6 hours per day online. Such hefty internet use is exposing younger people to more and more mature content such as pornography and gender ideologies. Vujicic said churches need to do better about addressing such challenges openly. “We don’t talk about the things that we need to talk about, and for as long as we don’t start healing the broken hearts that need healing, and for as long as we don’t bring in boundaries, as long as we don’t hold our leadership accountable, I am very afraid of what’s ahead.” Vujicic called the church to “repent.” “I think we need to repent. I think we need to unify, and we need to be brought into a posture of humility, and while the window is open, we must choose to repent, or otherwise, I really believe that we may see the hand of God’s protection be completely removed from our country where we’ll see jackhammering of concrete so that finally the heavenly rain can touch the soil, because we’re pretty much concreted up right now.”

Vujicic himself knows the cost of being bold in his faith. About five years ago, he found himself suddenly “debanked” for no reason. “I got kicked out of a bank with no warning. They froze my credit cards, froze my debit cards. They gave me a letter to say that they did a review of me as a client and they don’t want anything to do with me,” he previously told CBN of the experience. In 2019, he had given an interview where he spoke against abortion. “Within 16 weeks of doing that, we had a grenade at our house, a false magazine article published against me, a lawsuit threat, a spying drone, and a bank kicked me out.” In 2021, his efforts started to create ProLife Bank, a Fintech company that will give 50 percent of its net profits to Judeo-Christian-aligned nonprofit organizations. ProLife Bank has officially launched and more information can be found here.