Lost respect and celebrity idols …

Who do you think most Christians respect more: the popular mega-church pastor who preaches to thousands every Sunday, has written a couple books, is often a keynote speaker at Christian conferences, and has a production team who helps him design his sermon series, OR a bi-vocational pastor barely making ends meet as he struggles to work a full-time job while pastoring a church of 75 persons or less?

The answer is obvious … and sad.

Christians have lost respect for “the little guy,” those who serve in ministry positions in small churches, or rural areas, and especially ministers who hold secular employment so they can afford to serve in their ministry.

In America, there are more than 350,000 churches, most of which are made up of 75 persons or less. Yet, in our warped Christian “culture,” we don’t hold the same respect for the small church minister as we do those pastors who speak from sprawling stages with theatrical set designs displaying the title of the latest sermon series.

We’ve bought into the stereotype that “big” means superior talent, and “small” means little skill and giftedness. Actually, that sometimes is true. Sometimes, grand ministries are big because of great leadership and great servants. Sometimes, small comes from lack of knowledge and limited service. But neither of these are always true.

The man in the New Testament who most impacted the world with the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Apostle Paul, was a tent maker! There were times when he supported himself by working with his hands so that he could serve.

Whether tent maker or celebrity pastor, it’s the same God who calls both and the same Spirit indwelling and empowering both. Yet we tend to idolize the guy who has significant resources and assistance available to him and wonder what the tent maker is doing wrong to be stuck with a small church. However, it’s the pastor of the small church we call directly in the middle of the night when life comes crashing down around us. The mega-church pastor is someone we listen to on Sundays but during the week he leads a staff of other pastors who oversee an army of volunteers, and it’s often a “volunteer” who will respond to our need when we call the church!

Even more, Jesus Christ himself didn’t have a church, just 12 guys who stuck with Him, even though they often didn’t “get it.” Jesus didn’t have a church building to speak at every week. In fact, He didn’t even have a home (Luke 9:58).

The issue isn’t a debate about big church or small church, but how we view church leadership. Personally, the man who has been the greatest spiritual example in my life is someone who led two different churches to mega-church growth, who led the development of a Christian college into a Christian university, who has written 29 books and preached around the world. But it was the pastor of a small church on the edge of the Ozarks in Arkansas who first sparked the thought that perhaps God was calling me to vocational ministry.

My life has been impacted by men of faith who lead grand churches, as well as humble ones. It’s not the scope of ministry that made the difference, but the quality of the character and their obedience to God’s call on their lives.

It’s a shame — a very real one — that we use worldly measures of “success” to understand the church and assess ministry. Instead, we need to come to a clear understanding that God has not called us to “success,” but to obedience, and He shapes the outcomes of our obedience into grand or humble results.

As the Church, we should focus on simply being obedient, and then together celebrate how God chooses to bless the results of such obedience. Sometimes it will be in grand ways, sometimes in humble ways, but it is all for Him, through Him, and by Him. To God be the glory!

Scotty