Power ain’t all it’s cracked up to be.
In the Bible (specifically in the Book of Acts) we see the early Christian movement in its infancy; the spectacularly un-spectacular beginnings of The Church in the world.
It was a small, local, grassroots start-up, with no agenda and no mission statement other than boldly sharing the good news of Jesus with anyone who would listen and reflecting Christ’s character tangibly through their shared life together.
There was no business plan, no capital campaign, no demographic studies, no cool swag—and no branding. Their love for each other and the world, was the brand.
There were no lights, bands, buildings, or corporate headquarters.
There were no superstar pastors either.
Sure, there were a few passionate leaders; people like Peter, an impulsive, inconsistent member the original Bad News Bears who walked with Jesus during his three-year ministry, and Paul, the converted Christian-persecuter turned traveling missionary—but they were never the stars of the show. They were not the point.
The oppression, poverty, and resistance they faced in publicly claiming Christ at that place and time, ensured this. The adversity guaranteed humility and authenticity.
This was a movement where name recognition in ministry ensured persecution, not adulation.
Leaders by leading, were simply risking more than the others; sticking their necks out further than anyone else to be chopped-off.
To step out into public leadership in this Church was to paint a target on your chest and be OK braving the bullets.
The early Church’s brilliant “marketing plan” (the way that it would grow exponentially) was actually thrust upon it by the Roman government’s violent, relentless efforts to separate and scatter them.
It was only as they were dispersed throughout the Empire and as they replicated themselves throughout the region in almost consequentially tiny, interdependent communities under extreme duress that the whole thing blew-up in a beautiful way.
(Viral yes, but more like yeast in the dough than reTweeted blog posts).
And these local churches were not well-funded franchises trying to expand brand penetration or grow social media followers; they were scrappy, subversive communities hell-bent on Heaven, and armed with little more than nothing to accomplish it.
The incredible hardship that early believers endured and the absolutely horrible treatment its leaders often received at the hands the world around them guaranteed a few things: Nobody was launching a career, no one was building an empire, and none of them were making a name.
They were welcoming a radically countercultural Kingdom and they had no aspirations to be the King.
In the modern Church, that selflessness, that kind of mission-centered sacrifice, that servant leadership are all about as tough to find as a video store in the suburbs. They are simply dying entities.
Today the Church and Celebrity can often be impossible to separate.
And as an ever more corporate model has been superimposed upon something that began organically, we’ve begun to measure ministry success and spiritual impact with corporate markers; things like size, numbers, and dollars—and star power.
Thousands of individual churches now dwarf the numbers of all the Christ-followers at the time of the Church’s inception. Many boast dozens of beautiful satellite campuses, stunning multimillion dollar compounds, and major multimedia conglomerates approaching Oprah-like influence.
That’s disconcerting in itself, when you rewind to the poverty and smallness of the original “church plants”.
Yet more frightening, is the truth that more often than not these massive religious institutions that we call megachurches are launched, financed, grown, perpetuated, and replicated around the charisma, image, and giftings of one single personality—and it ain’t always Jesus.
The Christian Megachurch is now without question as much as anything else, a star-making machine; generating book deals, online portals, traveling speaking tours, and every kind of perk and privilege for its leader.
All too often those who attend these communities (those who fill the buildings and purchase the product) are only too happy to participate and to place those flawed, ordinary men and women upon their shoulders, elevating them to a position usually reserved only for God.
And here’s the problem. Whether a pastor/leader starts out chasing after this kind of power and hero-worship or simply receives it as the bi-product of a large and influential ministry: They can’t handle it.
And it’s not because they aren’t smart or holy or decent people, but because they were never supposed to have that kind of power to begin with. They were never meant to be elevated over and insulated from those they shepherded.
Recent Church history is absolutely littered with the destructive fallout of the collapse of celebrity pastors; of their financial improprieties, their moral failings, their erratic behavior, and often their criminal offenses.
In almost every case the crisis was either caused, missed, or mismanaged because there weren’t enough people in the mix, up in the pastor’s business, protecting them from themselves and keeping them accountable in the wake of religious-fueled fame.
When these leaders fall and fail faith communities are ripped apart, nonbelievers are confused and the perfect message of the Gospel is obscured by the very imperfect messenger.
There is a high price for our insatiable need for celebrity, even in the Church.
Because of the love we have for that Church, it’s time for the good, Godly people of every massive ministry throughout the country to really love their leaders by lowering them; to demand strong systems of moral accountability, financial transparency, and spiritual undergirding, because it will make them better leaders and the communities they serve more in the image of Christ.
Keep Jesus on the throne and bring your pastor down to earth.
He or she will be better able to see themselves from that vantage point.
