Did you want to be a winner?
Did you want to be an icon?
Did you want to be famous?
Did you want to be the president?
“Spiraling” by Keane
You may not know the bridge of this Keane song, but you know the feeling it conveys. Too often, we seek leadership because they want to be winners. We want to be icons. We want to be famous. And we think a leadership position is the way to get there.
The sad truth is that this happens inside of church world just as much as outside of it. Young leaders can far too easily fall into the celebrity trap because we have let this mindset become a pattern inside the church.
Mike Breen writes about this epidemic in the book Multiplying Missional Leaders (which is now available):
It doesn’t matter if you’re at a megachurch or a church of 100. The pastor is a celebrity. Megachurches just have more famous celebrities.
And honestly, here’s what we must see: The American church thinks this is OK.
Recently I was at a conference with 14,000 leaders in one room. The guy on the platform said this: “Three years ago, I sat up in the cheap seats at this conference, sitting up there in the upper decks, and I prayed that God would put me on the main stage. And here I am. I am proof that God makes dreams come true.”
There was a pause, and then everyone started to write down what he’d said as if there was absolutely nothing wrong with it.
Really?
Literally 14,000 people just took it in, wrote it down, and prayed that one day they would be on the main stage.
I was sitting there thinking, “Ummm, are we OK with what he just said?”
This statement sounded normal to all the Americans in the room, but as an outsider who grew up in another country, I’m thinking, “I don’t know about you, but I’m thinking the emperor is showing all of his private bits right now!”
He was embracing the idol of celebrity, and everyone accepted it as OK and perfectly normal…
