The Rise and Fall of the High-Profile Pastor

In her book, If You Can't Live Without Me, Why Aren't You Dead Yet? Cynthia Heimel wrote about the disastrous nature of celebrity:

“The minute a person becomes a celebrity is the same minute he/she becomes a monster.  Sylvester Stallone, Bruce Willis, and Barbra Streisand were once perfectly pleasant human beings with whom you might lunch on a slow Tuesday afternoon."

But now they have become supreme beings, and their wrath is awful. It’s not what they had in mind. When God wants to play a really rotten practical joke on you he grants you your deepest wish and then giggles when you suddenly realize you want to kill yourself.

Heimel's harsh words about the power of celebrity may be exaggerated but they are worth noting especially in this age of celebrity pastors. Before the information age, very few pastors gave much thought to becoming famous. Sure, they may have wanted to write a book someday or speak at a large conference, but today young pastors can dream about founding a start-up with franchises all over the country, each one displaying their sermons on the big screen. The more franchises, the more people. The more people, the more profit. Pastors used to be sheep keepers. Many today are shop keepers! That can be dangerous.

Over the years I have noticed a pattern that seems to be present in the well-documented moral failures of famous pastors. It goes something like this:

Personality - there are some pastors who are born with a winsome personality that attracts others who just want to be in their presence. With this "presence" comes...

Popularity - over time a strong leader with a strong presence enjoys a growing popularity. I recently read about a Columbia University study that discovered the power of popularity even in health care. Doctors were found to give more time to patients they liked than those they didn’t. One study showed that children with likable parents received better health care. It pays to be popular. With popularity comes...

Privilege - popular pastors are granted privileges that other staff members do not enjoy. For example, high-profile pastors often make decisions without being accountable to anyone. This kind of unbridled privilege leads to...

Power - the assumption is that if you are busy and in high demand you must be good at what you do. This leads to an inordinate amount of influence in an organization or in the lives of those you are called to lead. Once you become powerful you are afforded...

Protection - strong leaders with loyal followers are considered so valuable to the organization or the cause that they enjoy protection from the daily demands of life. In order to provide protection, the leader is given an extensive amount of...

Privacy - because high profile pastors are in such high demand, they are granted a great deal of seclusion. It is very difficult to get to them without going through multiple assistants or even security personnel.

So, there you have it - Personality + Popularity + Privilege + Power + Protection + Privacy = PROBLEMS!

To be fair, technology is not our problem. Many have used technology for the advancement of God's kingdom agenda. The problem is progress in the hands of depravity. If our motives are mixed, then our methods will be muddled. Let's pray that God would give us the attitude of Corrie ten Boom who was once asked if it were difficult for her to remain humble. Her reply was simple. “When Jesus rode into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday on the back of a donkey, and everyone was waving palm branches and throwing garments onto the road, and singing praises, do you think that for one moment it ever entered the head of that donkey that any of that was for him?” She continued, “If I can be the donkey on which Jesus Christ rides in his glory, I give him all the praise and all the honor.

”Be the donkey!

- Gary