Tuesday, January 15, 2008
I Am Of Jesus
Out of Ur carried excerpts of a longer piece on hero worship prevalent in the church today.
All this is making me think about humility in leadership. Is anyone humble enough to to resist the temptations this marketing system, and I include viral marketing here too, creates? I am not too sure. This is one of the many reasons I am increasingly convinced that the call to Christian leadership is not a call to proclaim a message or build a church, or any such thing - it is to build a disciple.
Building disciples cannot happen in a mass market setting, and it is also a truly humbling experience. If you do it right, your disciple will soon be teaching you more than you could possible teach him/her.
When you are focused not on the message, but of the result the message produces, it is impossible to become a media star.
Think about it...
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I have nothing against any of the leaders I mentioned above. They are doing what God has called and gifted and assigned them to do, and they have all made a significant impact for the Kingdom. Many of them are worthy mentors and models. But they are also just servants, just like each of us who follows Christ. My problem is not with the celebrities, but with the groupies who have made them such.Actually, there is another bad guy here - the Christian publishing business that makes and promotes this kind of stuff. It is a real Catch-22. The marketing models ensure that the message gets as far as possible, but they also create this personality cult stuff that is pretty heinous.
These groupies try to become clones of their heroes, instead of becoming who God has made them and ministering in a uniquely personal way that no celebrity could ever attain. Instead of claiming their standing in Christ and asking what He wants of their leadership in their unique situation, they settle for a trinkety-bracelet approach to ministry: "What Would Hybels Do?"
I have a friend who goes to an Anglican church because, as she put it, "I kinda like the personality taken out of my church experience." What a contrast to the celebrity mindset so prevalent in our culture.
All this is making me think about humility in leadership. Is anyone humble enough to to resist the temptations this marketing system, and I include viral marketing here too, creates? I am not too sure. This is one of the many reasons I am increasingly convinced that the call to Christian leadership is not a call to proclaim a message or build a church, or any such thing - it is to build a disciple.
Building disciples cannot happen in a mass market setting, and it is also a truly humbling experience. If you do it right, your disciple will soon be teaching you more than you could possible teach him/her.
When you are focused not on the message, but of the result the message produces, it is impossible to become a media star.
Think about it...
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