First McKinney Lead Pastor Sam Holm stood firm on Christian doctrine Sunday, describing Islam as false teaching and backing guest preacher Warren Samuels’ call to pray for and reach Muslim neighbors.
Holm offered no apology for Samuels’ sermon in either Sunday service, according to the full-service transcripts reviewed by The Dallas Express. He recalled the guest preacher’s warning about compromising Christian beliefs and affirmed the call to share the gospel with Muslims in the community.
Holm’s remarks followed DX’s October 10 report about the chance of an apology over Samuels’ October 4 sermon. On Sunday, he reaffirmed Christian doctrine and backed Samuels’ call to reach Muslim neighbors with the gospel.
Doctrine and outreach
Before preaching from Revelation 3 about the church in Sardis, Holm revisited Samuels’ message from the previous week about Thyatira, a church Jesus rebuked for tolerating false teaching.
Samuels challenged the congregation to recognize that “what the church believes is just as important as how a church behaves,” Holm said in the first Sunday service.
Holm then described Islam as “a false teaching” that Samuels had discussed during the October 4 sermon. He also recounted a conversation with Samuels about a congregant who had struggled with prejudice toward Muslim newcomers.
Holm connected that account to Samuels’ challenge to get on their knees and pray that God would use them to reach Muslim neighbors with the good news of Jesus.
“That’s my heart for our church,” Holm said as he affirmed that mission.
He said congregants had filled the chapel to learn how to share the gospel with their neighbors. His summary of the previous sermon joined the warning about false teaching with the importance of staying faithful to the Bible and bringing the Christian message to others.
In the second service, Holm underscored that outreach should extend to everyone, saying his heart for the church was that God would use it to “reach all people.”
Rejecting Islamic theology, loving Muslim people
Samuels’ October 4 sermon paired criticism of Islamic theology and opposition to the McKinney mosque project with a call for Christians to love Muslims and reject violence.
“Islam is absolutely totally incompatible with the message of the cross,” Samuels said in that message.
He also challenged Christians to confront their own attitudes toward people whose beliefs they reject.
“You’re going to have to get to the point where you love the Muslim people more than you hate what they teach,” Samuels said.
Later, he stated: “Muslims aren’t our enemy.”
“That means violence is never the answer,” he added.
The October 4 transcript contains no named candidate endorsement or instruction to vote for a particular person or party. Samuels acknowledged political differences among congregants while telling them those differences should not prevent love or respect.
Holm’s Sunday response affirmed the themes of doctrinal faithfulness and outreach. He did not announce a position on the mosque project or discuss voting instructions in the response passage. His remarks did not constitute an endorsement of every statement in the guest sermon.
A call to remain faithful
Holm’s broader Sunday sermon urged Christians to wake up spiritually, depend on the Holy Spirit, return to the gospel and walk with Jesus in obedience. He warned against allowing comfort and outward reputation to substitute for a living faith.
He also said the church would continue talking about Jesus even if the country moved away from doing so. That statement came during his teaching about remaining focused on the gospel, rather than his earlier discussion of Islam.
“Are you worried about the world’s response or are you worried about Jesus’s response?” Holm asked later in the message.
First McKinney’s published beliefs identify the Bible as the inspired, inerrant Word of God and the foundation of its doctrine. The church also affirms Christ’s full deity and humanity and its responsibility to make disciples.
The church’s sermon archive now lists Holm’s October 11 message on Revelation 3:1-6. Readers can watch the archived sermon through First McKinney’s website.
