music :: worship :: life
In the Bible it was a miracle when God spoke through an ass. Now it happens every day.
—Dave Johnson
This article at Leadership Journal talks about the tendency nowadays for pastors to focus on developing their ministries and growing their churches rather than building character. The thinking is that “success covers a multitude of sins.” Samson disproved that theory long ago. His many victories over his enemies could not outweigh his own failure to become victorious over the flaws in his own character. His addictive womanizing was his ruin. He was defeated by his unwillingness to build his own character.
When a pastor has the ability to draw large crowds, he is often protected and supported by his followers, despite unaddressed problems with his character. Even when he does not bring the house down with some egregious sin, his lack of character results in a superficial church experience. You cannot lead people where you haven’t gone yourself. The Christian life is, or should be, all about character transformation. So at best, this practice does a great disservice to the congregation, and to the community as a whole.
At worst it results in a meltdown. The growing junior-mega-church I where I served last winter collapsed overnight. It went from celebrating the groundbreaking on a 2800 seat sanctuary, to total collapse in about a week’s time. There were people who left town for spring break only to come back and find that their church had vanished. All of it because the pastor could not overcome his character flaws. His exposure also exposed the flaws in his ministry. The church was a mile wide and an inch deep.
The end result has not been all bad. Two new and thriving churches have started as a result of that. And you can be sure that both of these are focusing strongly on building character through discipleship. We will not be making that particular mistake. We will have to come up with some new mistakes of our own to make.
Anyway, this falls in place with my ongoing study of why the church is not working for so many earnest people—what I call the Prodigal Church. And I love the statement by Dave Johnson: “In the Bible it was a miracle when God spoke through an ass. Now it happens every day.” I wish I’d said that. And I probably will.
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