I’m kind of on a tirade and just disgusted with our hip church culture right now. I am frustrated at how twisted it can all become and how the whole she-bang can be turned into a huge beauty pageant, and how we elevate the popular pastors/leaders to an almost legitimate rock-star status. And I’m not just pointing my finger outward, I’m frustrated with myself and how I struggle not to be lured into this mess.
I just have a few things to get off my chest to any rock-star pastors who may be listening(even though I know none are:). It also goes for any future rock-star pastors and pretty much anyone in ministry.
- Do not ever, ever get to a place where you are untouchable. If Godly men around you don’t have full freedom to speak truth into your life and rebuke you of sin, then you are dancing on a hungry fire. That is a great way to either just get really pompous or go down the road of being unfaithful to your wife.
- You have a huge sphere of influence, so please be extra cautious and wary of sin. Don’t give hordes of people another reason to hate the church.
- Don’t let ministry be an idol or a beauty pageant. It’s not supposed to be.
- If you have the gall to demand thouusssaaaands of dollars every time you preach the Word, you are prostituting the Gospel. Your church already pays you too much, and you would make more in a weekend speaking engagement that a lot of pastors and ministers will make in a year. Send some of that money away to missionaries in China or pastors in Podunktown USA who are slaving away near poverty and not getting VIP treatment at conferences. A good litmus test could be that when the question in your mind shifts from, “Where does God want me to serve?” to “Who has the Benjamins to bring me in?”, you need to repent quickly of selling the product of your popularity.
- Please pursue humility. Because success is flinging opportunities for pride on you like the morning dawn. Bathe in the Gospel daily. Be like Matt Chandler, who is one of our culture’s super-pastors, but still wants Christian Hollywood to die as much as I do.
- If your church is a show and the main attraction is you and your personality, you need to get yourself out of the picture as much as possible and connect people straight to Jesus through His Word and through Biblical family. If your people’s faith rests on your jokes, your vision, or your zeal that they are tickled by each week, then you are setting them up for disaster whenever you die.
- Please don’t be changed by success. Don’t give a rip about popularity, and yearn only for God’s glory. Repent quickly and in public. Take sin and the Gospel seriously. All of us young bucks behind you need this desperately. We need to see the humility of Gospel-centeredness carry you to your grave, with people who love Jesus fiercely because of what you taught them standing weeping at your funeral. That’s what our busted world needs, not another rock-star. Please.
That’s it and that’s all.
Death to Christian Hollywood.
Amen.
Yes, yes and yes!! My hands are beating together in a rather random pattern and my head is moving up and down!! This is something that needs to continue to be said and shared until those who need to hear it really do.
Thank you for sharing and continue to do so!
that's good man. humility before honor.