Celebrity pastors Archives

Not as many people are talking about consumer-driven churches these days. Maybe it’s because there has been a switch in some of the mega-churches from lighter content, to teaching that positions itself in a conservative stream like the big-gospel movement.

Still, I think that the consumer-driven approach is quite common. Maybe it is so common that churches have simply given up resistance to the sales-customer model of church life.

Lost Vitality

David Wells was one of the key voices addressing this problem in the late 20th century. Through his books he documented how a renewal movement like neo-evangelicalism could flourish after WWII, only to be overtaken and hollowed out by the lure of cultural power and a marketing impulse.

This switch occurred in the 1970’s according to Wells, and the result was to bleed evangelicalism of its doctrinal and spiritual vitality. It had worldly success, but the renewal movement was losing its soul.

Jesus’ Warning

Of course, there is always the temptation for movements inside the church to turn parasitical upon it. Jesus warned of this when he said pointedly:

“Beware of the scribes, who like to walk around in long robes, and love greetings in the marketplaces and the best seats in the synagogues and the places of honour at feasts, who devour widows’ houses and for a pretense make long prayers. They will receive the greater condemnation.”
Luke 20:46-47

This challenge has existed throughout the history of the church. It is part of the reason for Martin Luther’s protest at the Reformation. In the current climate of #MeToo and #ChurchToo, there is a need to ask serious questions about ministries, churches and what they exist to do.

Why Does the Church Exist?

As in the case of the scribes, the consumer-driven movement subtly shifted the questions of why the church existed. In such a case the church is no longer the gathering of sinners in a compelling community with supernatural, rather than natural bonds. Instead, the church is a vehicle for:

cultural power, (social gospel/social justice; “Court Evangelicals” a term coined by historian John Fea; liberal Protestantism)
personal platform (prosperity gospel preachers, other celebrity speakers)
building a brand (some church planting cultures, some denominations)

There are other variations of these, and some which could include all three (such as the church of Rome). If we can get back to clear thinking about what the church is, and what it’s for, we will resist false analogies that will lead us away from the church’s mission.

A False Analogy

Wells made the observation that when the church views people as consumers, then they have adopted a false analogy from the world of capitalism. In the article, The Bleeding of the Evangelical Church, Wells wrote:

Consumers in the market place are never asked to commit themselves to the product they are purchasing as a sinner is to the Christ in whom belief is being invited. Furthermore, consumers in the marketplace are free to define their needs however they want to and then to hitch up a product to satisfy those needs, but in the Church the consumer, the sinner, is not free to define his or her needs exactly as they wish. It is God who defines our needs and the reason for that is that left to ourselves we would not understand our needs aright because we are rebels against God. We are hostile both to God and to His law and cannot be subject to either, Paul tells us. Now, no person going into the marketplace, going to buy a coffee-pot or going to buy a garden hose, engages with their innermost being in the way that we are inviting sinners to do in the Church. The analogy is simply fallacious.
The Bleeding of the Evangelical Church, David Wells

Unfortunately, Wells’ analysis is being mostly forgotten by those over 40, and those under 40 have not learned the cautionary tale of what happened to a bright and hopeful movement called Neo-evangelicalism. But maybe there are some gains we can make, starting with some small purges.

Purging Parasites

How can we purge the unseen parasites in our practices? Here are three suggestions:

Stop asking people to ‘serve’ before they are saved. In too many church plants, as well as larger churches, the temptation is to get people ‘involved’ but asking them to plug holes in the ministry machine before they are saved or effectively discipled.
Accept the cost of being less responsive to non-biblical preferences. People are used to thinking of themselves as consumers. Churches should resist feeding that mentality, but sticking to biblical essentials, and habitually being less responsive to non-biblical preferences. Each church will have preferences based on geography, culture, demographics, etc. But to keep the focus on biblical essentials will lessen the elastic responsiveness which some churches have toward changing fads among the people.
Audit your ministry for any areas you think are indispensable, and adjust your reliance them. Consider if you had a worship band that was just average. Or your children’s program was reduced. Or your meeting space was changed to a different facility. How indispensable have things become which are unrelated to the indispensable gospel of Jesus Christ? This includes the possible indispensability of the pastor’s personal ministry. As Charles De Gaulle said, ‘The graveyards are full of indispensable men’. Maybe it’s time to cultivate elders and pastors in the church who can preach in the event that God takes a pastor home?

Making these kinds of adjustments will be painful, but they will develop greater church health over the long term.

A Different Formula

Churches may use tools that are part of the modern marketing world just to get their message to people (Facebook, MailChimp, etc). But they must also ask themselves if the unwitting pursuit of cultural power, platforms, or brand expansion are subtly eroding the supernatural community which Jesus promised.

We ought to remember, that Jesus said regarding the true church, that even “the gates of hell shall not prevail against it” (Mat 16:18). That is a formula for success which no marketer can ever accomplish.

Егор Камелев

The Church Universal

When churches share their pastors, they show that they care about the mission of the church universal as well as their local church. Consider the generosity of Westminster Chapel in London sharing Martyn Lloyd-Jones in the sixties and seventies. Think how Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minneapolis sacrificed in sharing John Piper to take time to write books and speak at conferences. In each of these cases and many others you could name, the local churches paid the salary of men who were fruitful beyond their own local congregation. Their generosity by their sacrifice lead many others to be blessed.

Now it might seem obvious that Christians in these churches that I mentioned would want to be generous with their pastors and bless others with their time. But the fact is that many church members do not want to share. A friend told me his perception of what a congregation thinks about sharing their pastor. He said everyone thinks, “What’s in it for me?”

So pastors often have to persuade and promote the good work that they have opportunity to do outside of their church. Many times pastors are simply asked to help, asked to speak, or asked to equip. The pastor views it as a chance to do extended ministry. The church can view it as being cheated.

Painting the Neighbour’s Fence

Church members can feel this way when they don’t find that the pastoral care is sufficient, or that the organization of the church is to their liking. I have had people question why I would go to equip pastors in a difficult East Asian country for two weeks. They thought that there was more than enough ministry at home to do. Why go there? For many people, any service outside the church is like painting someone else’s fence when your own could use some touch-ups or even a second coat.

Neglect

Now there can certainly be a case when a local church pastor neglects his congregation in order to give his best time and effort to others. If that is the case then the church’s elder board ought to discuss the frequency of his speaking engagements and set limits on them. Or maybe that pastor needs to request a reshuffling of responsibilities so that his ministry in the local church is more effective, while he carries out important ministry outside the church.

Suspicion

Some people in the church are simply suspicious that opportunities their pastor has for wider ministry necessarily make him prone to pride, seeking a name, and the praise of men. Of course, these temptations exist when a pastor speaks, teaches or writes beyond his congregation. But they are not unconnected with the temptations in his local church ministry. If the church members and their elders see a consistent humility in a pastor while he leads the local church, they can at least know that he has a starting point for faithfulness in outside work.

Celebrity Pastors

Many of the “celebrity pastors” who have fallen have been marked by characteristics in their local church that got amplified in a larger area of influence. If they were bossy, or flirtatious, or attention-seeking while they are in their own church, the larger stage only amplifies those sins and works of the flesh. When I hear stories about the ‘behind closed door’ talk of some pastors who later had moral failures, often the wrecks could have been predicted.

Publicly Shared, But No Celebrity

Most pastors that I know are not celebrities–even ones that speak at conferences or have written a few books. They are not in the category of ‘celebrity’. But their churches have shared them, sacrificing generously to do so. The pastor who has been publicly shared by his church can then speak to others or create resources for them knowing he is accountable to his local church and supported by them. Church members truly are partners in that ministry. Paul showed his appreciation for publicly sharing him when he said to the Philippian Church:

I thank my God in all my remembrance of you, always in every prayer of mine for you all making my prayer with joy because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now

Phil 1:4-5

If you read a blog post, read a book, listen to a podcast, hear a sermon, or read a book which comes from the labours of a pastor not your own, then you’ve benefitted from someone’s sacrifice. If you live outside of Los Angeles, Chicago, Washington DC, and yet you benefit from the ministry of pastors there, you have received the sacrifice of others. Another church has generously shared their pastor with you. If all of us took the attitude of giving and receiving with sacrificial generosity, then maybe our pastors would be more accountable because their churches would be more involved in the outside work. Maybe there would be more unity and fruitfulness among churches together as they share the gifts God has given them, including their pastors.