Megachurch pastor Josh Howerton takes flak for climbing ladders during sermon

Pastor Josh Howerton, senior pastor of Lakepointe Church in Rockwall, Texas, faced criticism on social media for using two large ladders as an object lesson during a recent sermon about the Christian life.

During a Sept. 20 sermon in his sermon series "Fight the Good Fight," Howerton used the ladders to illustrate the difficulty of being a Christian who tries to please an increasingly depraved world. Based on 2 Timothy 3, which describes "times of difficulty" and the wickedness of people in the last days, his sermon singled out the moral trait of those who are called "lovers of self."

"If you're a brand new disciple, let me tell you what is going to happen in your life that you're not aware is going to happen in your life," said Howerton, who noted that the apostle Paul teaches in his epistle to Timothy that "the Word and the world are in constant conflict with one another, and there will come a day in your life when you must choose which one stands in authority over the other one."

By popular demand, here’s the full #LadderGate2026 sermon illustration. Week 7 of series through 2 Timothy, right after a few hundred people surrendered to Christ and are deciding whether to be obedient in baptism next week. Would do this again a thousand times for those ppl (if I weren’t getting too old for stuff like this!)

— Josh Howerton (@howertonjosh) October 5, 2026

Exhorting new believers to follow Joshua's admonition to "choose this day whom you will serve," Howerton straddled two large ladders to visually illustrate the ultimate impossibility of serving two masters.

He likened a new Christian who commits to joining "Team Jesus" and taking "baby steps" in the Christian walk to someone who takes the first step up one ladder, which he noted is close enough to the ladder of the world that both can be straddled at the same time.

"Well, you can go to church, and your friends still all approve of everything you do. It's fine. You can keep it from above. Then you're going to keep going a little farther, and it's like, man, OK, let me take my next steps up here," he said.

Howerton observed that just as the steps of the two opposing ladders grow farther apart and impossible to bridge, so will the new Christian find himself increasingly unable to placate the world as he pursues the Kingdom of God.

"As you keep trying to take steps up this thing, you're going to do some things, and it's going to get farther apart, and it's going to be harder to keep a foot in both worlds," Howerton said. He warned that Christians will often face forks in the road as they take moral stands, and offered growing distance from some relationships as an example of a pain that Christians commonly experience.

"Here's what can happen: there will come a moment in your life, and some of you are there right now, that will be a 'choose this day whom you will serve,' and you will realize, 'I cannot take one more step up this ladder or this ladder without taking my foot off the other one,'" he said, his legs split wide between the two ladders.

Noting that the apostle Paul was warning that many would choose to climb the ladder of the world, Howerton advised against such a decision.

"If you do that, there will come a day at the end of your life, or when you stand in judgment, when you will look back and regret every step you took up this [worldly ladder] that left you off of that [Christian ladder], because you will realize that succeeding at the wrong things is the worst type of failure," he said.

Howerton's object lesson was met with some pushback and online mockery from critics who treated the ladder climb as a stage gimmick rather than a serious illustration. Jon Elder, a Christian entrepreneur who founded Black Label Advisor, criticized Howerton's use of the ladder in a viral Oct. 1 post on X that drew more than 143,000 views and sparked debate on the platform.

"If your pastor uses ladders to illustrate something during a sermon, you’re not at a church. You’re part of a cult. This is classic bizarre, anything goes 2026 Christianity. He is the brand and you are the customer. [Mark] Driscoll mentors him so get ready for what comes next," said Elder, whose opinion prompted allegations from some X users that he was overreacting.

"Apparently, Josh Howerton was not the first to come up with the ladder idea," evangelist Justin Peters wrote in response to an X post from Protestia, a popular Christian X account that showed a collage of many other pastors offering the same illustration.

Protestia issued another post Sunday that appeared to advise against piling on pastors for how they choose to illustrate their lessons.

"With all this talk of ladders, object lessons, and sermon illustrations, we're not sure we've seen a consistent, objectively biblical standard for what's acceptable and what's not. Unless the view is that it should be just a pastor and a Bible and nothing else, which is consistent but you'd be hard pressed to make a biblical case for that, much of it seems to be a matter of opinion or preference regarding which items can be used for sermon illustration and which ones cannot," Protestia wrote.

Apparently, Josh Howerton was not the first to come up with the ladder idea.

— Justin Peters (@JustinPetersMin) October 3, 2026

Howerton took the criticism in stride, reposting the relevant sermon clip to X on Monday and claiming that hundreds have responded to the Gospel during his series on 2 Timothy.

"By popular demand, here’s the full #LadderGate2026 sermon illustration. Week 7 of series through 2 Timothy, right after a few hundred people surrendered to Christ and are deciding whether to be obedient in baptism next week," he wrote. "Would do this again a thousand times for those [people] (if I weren’t getting too old for stuff like this!)"

In response to an X user who urged him against feeling he had to defend himself against "the X mob," Howerton replied: "Oh gosh, not defending myself. You can't win people who pre-decided for you to lose."

"This is for fun, for onlookers, and especially for younger pastors trying to figure out what to think about things like this. There's a decision a pastor eventually has to make about whether he's going to reverse-engineer his ministry from what other pastors in his 'tribe' will like / respect, or if he's going to reverse-engineer his ministry from discipling his people and what will best help them (it's CS Lewis' 'temptation of the inner ring' thing)," he continued.

"Choose A and the effectiveness of your ministry is cut in about 1/3. Choose B and a group of pastors are going to roll their eyes at you from time to time, but you'll actually reach people, make disciples, and honor God. Galatians 1:10," he added.