Rockstar Status? Part 2

I realize I have this same propensity—sometimes I want to allow myself to be caught up into Christian stardom with the structures and hierarchies we create: “this person is influential and important.” “this person’s church isn’t big enough.” “they always were just different.” And I am somewhat on the “inside” (well, as being a minister myself) of the evangelical culture so I have fallen prey to the notion that significance for God’s Kingdom is only assessed and assigned through human opinion and affirmation. I have seen great devastation in this outlandish attention-getting display of antics that we sometimes call “a great move of God.” I don’t think God needs our press. I think we become dangerous when we believe our own press. And I have seen that proved true time and time and time again. Just look at recent headlines, people like Todd Bentley and Mike Guglielmucci, and before them Tedd Haggard and before him Jimmy Swaggart, Marvin Gorman and Jim Bakker and before them Aimee Semple McPherson and countless others have had major moral breakdowns that have gone very public.

I am not proud when I think that the organization that I’m affiliated with has been the same association as the majority of those, and closely connected with the few that weren’t the exact same association of churches. The Evangelical Christian community seems to have quite the inclination towards allowing this to happen. And the stories of the above aren’t the only ones—there are too many to mention, stories of local Christian School principals sexually abusing vulnerable teen girls, stories of local pastors carrying on inappropriate relations with minors, stories of families ravaged by the media feast of illicit conduct of ministers. It puts the fear of God in me; there are also situations that hit much, much closer to home. I have had to deal with my share of personal heartache by being let down by someone pursuing ministry whom I trusted and by whom I was harshly betrayed (and who for a long time hid deep, painful secrets) and I know of a dozen more stories of others who have been severely wounded by some in and some pursuing ministry whose lives didn’t quite match up with what they publicly touted. And my heart is broken that it keeps happening.