Fistfights, crashing helicopters and gun-wieldi
ng guerrillas flashed across the screen. The auditorium filled with the sounds of the jungle as Senior Pastor Rob Seagears clomped onto the stage in camouflage and combat boots, toting a rifle, canteen and machete.
“Good morning, Mountaintop!” he growled to the congregation before launching into his Sunday sermon based on the R-rated, curse-filled Hollywood hit “Tropic Thunder.”
The audience chuckled at his grizzly soldier act, and gave him some loud “Amens!”
If there were an Oscar for sermons, Seagears would be a contender. There’s his “Dark Knight” performance, when he roared up to the pulpit astride a Suzuki motorcycle, dressed like Batman. And his whip-cracking Indiana Jones, and his green-suited Hulk.
Perhaps most memorable was when he bumbled out wearing a ratty wig and a blood-red smile across his face, ranting like a maniac.
“When I went into the church as the Joker, there was complete silence,” Seagears recalled fondly. “People were stunned because I was acting as if I was evil.”
Since June, Seagears, senior pastor at Christ Chapel Mountaintop in Prince William County, has based his sermons on the summer’s blockbusters, managing to draw life lessons from the most unlikely subject matter.