Dear Pastors

The Bright Lights Syndrome

One of my frequent early morning musings is this: How is it that we (the Christian Church) have bought into the Celebrity Culture of our day? How come we have bought into what I often refer to the ‘bright lights syndrome’.

The term Celebrity Culture simply means, a shift of focus from Christ to individual leaders. When this continues unabated it will invariably lead to an unhealthy admiration of pastors, worship leaders, or other Christian figures, placing them on a pedestal. In fact when you think about it, the very term ‘Christian Celebrity Culture’ is a complete oxymoron. The two ideas, namely celebrity and pastor don’t fit together. Not according to the Bible anyway.

In an excellent blog last year Mary DeMuth wrote:-

Christian celebrity culture is unreal, unhealthy, and unholy.
1. It deceives. Celebrities move from believing the reality of their own sinful desires to deceiving themselves to believe they’re invincible, powerful, and without fault.
2. It ingratiates. When someone becomes famous, their tendency is to curry yes-people all around them. Yes people no longer have a prophetic distance from the famous one, so they do not speak into that person’s life, fearing that if they do so, they’ll be ousted from the inner circle.
3. It loves numbers. Similarly, when a celebrity’s numbers or fame increase, it becomes increasingly harder to point out issues because God is “obviously blessing” the ministry.
4. It is anti-kingdom. Big trumps little. More overshadows less. Grandiose is heralded more than quiet, faithful obedience. Platform matters more than a shepherding presence.
5. It loves wealth. Outward displays of privilege, special treatment, and isolation from the regular people is more important than generosity , accountability, and humility.
6. It demands respect. Christian celebrities forget that respect is earned by good behaviour rather than blindly granted simply because of an elevated position.
7. It defaults to control. To protect an empire, it must be tightly controlled. Naysayers must be quieted. Rigid systems with arbitrary (unknown) rules must be created to preserve that empire.
8. It slays its victims. The pain of people who spoke up or didn’t fit the vision (and were then dismissed) is simply collateral damage. They’re easily forgotten.
9. It fuels itself. Those in the spotlight find each other, then enjoy their privileges together in an inner circle of exclusivity while no longer meeting with those they minister to.
10. And I want to add, It insists (even demands) special treatment. Things like business class seats, green rooms, a big flash corner office, big salaries and even personal assistants/minders.

I would hope these ten points are worthy of some deep reflection that might lead to some honest questions to self. And by the way its not just big or high profile ministries where this could be an issue. The elements of ‘celebrity’ can be present in small unknown ministries as well. The point is this. Inside of all of us is an impulse, the pride of life we might call it, that if not addressed could quickly lead us down the path of desiring the delights of celebrity status. We must resist it Brothers and Sisters. We must think a lot more about Jesus who shunned public adulation and pedestalling and said very clearly that He came to serve and not to be served.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s wrote in Life Together: “Nobody is too good for the lowest service. Those who worry about the loss of time entailed by such small, external acts of helpfulness are usually taking their own work too seriously. We must be ready to allow ourselves to be interrupted by God, who will thwart our plans and frustrate our ways time and again, even daily, by sending people across our path with their demands and requests.”

Finally Pastor, I can think of no better time then the next seven days as we head to Easter to ‘think upon these things’. But more than this we might even pray, “Lord Jesus, please, by your Holy Spirit, search my heart and see if there be any wicked (deceitful) way in me?”

Blessings
Alan