A Men’s Ministry Every Man of God Needs to Know (Part 5): Every Man of God Needs to Know How to Handle Fame

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Previous posts in this series can be found in my article, A Comprehensive Church-Based Ministry to Men.

My late uncle and mentor was a pastor. When I was a young man he told me, “There are three primary temptations for a pastor: money, sex, and fame.” He was right. I have seen men of God become compromised because they fell victim to one of these three occupational hazards. In this post, I will discuss fame and how insidious it can be, not just for pastors, but for any man of God who seeks to do the good works God saved him to do.

Every man of God will struggle with fame at some point…and it can get very ugly

“Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor. ‘All this I will give you,” he said, “if you will bow down and worship me.'” Matthew 4:8-9

“He must not be a recent convert, or he may become conceited and fall under the same judgment as the devil.” 1 Timothy 3:6

By “fame,” I am not simply referring to someone with a mass following, but anyone who is tempted to exalt themself over others, who wants to command a following, even if it is a following of just one other person. We all struggle with this temptation because we think having the attention of others, and the power that comes with it, validates us and gives us a sense of success. But striving after fame always creates conflict.

Many years ago I invited a successful and wealthy Christian businessman onto our board at New Commandment Men’s Ministries. Our focus at New Commandment, of course, is to help churches use teams of men to serve their widowed and single parents. The church this businessman attended had a thriving men’s team ministry. But eventually I noticed something. This man never joined one of his church’s teams in order t serve the widows in his church. He also never supported New Commandment financially. He was only interested taking control of our board. He had no real concern for the needy in his church, or any other church, for that matter. He just wanted power and control over the ministry.

One does not have to be a pastor or on a ministry board to “become conceited and fall under the same judgment as the devil.” I have seen two Christian men argue over who drives the church van. But, in reality, pastors, because of their position in the church, can find this temptation especially overwhelming. Here is why.

Non-liturgical churches tend to foster fame because they are personality driven

I confess, whenever I have traveled abroad, no matter what country I was in, I sometimes ate at the always-ubiquitous McDonalds because, while it certainly doesn’t offer up the greatest food in the world, I knew exactly what I was getting and I could get ice in my water.

But in all of the McDonalds I ate in, I never learned the names of those who cooked my food because it made no difference who cooked my food. The reason was because everything had been standardized by the McDonalds corporation. Consequently, I didn’t made it a practice to go behind the counter of a McDonalds and congratulate the workers in the back with, “That was a fine Big Mac you cooked up for me!” It never even crossed my mind to do so.

Liturgical churches are like McDonalds: say what you will about them being boring and staid, but at least you know what you are going to get. You know what you are going to get because the service has been standardized by the denominational hierarchy. In these churches, the sermon, or “homily,” is normally short and plays only a minor role. Because of this focus on a standard liturgy, any priest anywhere in that denomination can perform the liturgy pretty much just as well as any other priest. Therefore, who the priest is is relatively unimportant.

On the other hand, in non-liturgical churches — and here I’m talking about most of conservative Protestant Christianity — one gets served up a whole panoply of worship styles, depending on which church one attends. But while these churches can be rather fluid in the way they design their worship services, nevertheless, all of them have one thing in common: the sermon is the most important part of the service.

There are a some good reasons for our emphasis on the sermon, of course. One is our belief in sola scriptura; that the Bible is our sole authority for faith and practice. Therefore, preaching the Word of God well is of utmost importance in our worship services. Another reason for this emphasis is that the rest of the worship service is not sacramental in the sense that it bestows Devine grace on us. So by definition, it has less importance. Rather, in worship we celebrate the Divine grace (that is, salvation) that has already been bestowed on us through faith in Christ. This is why we do not believe in sacraments, but rather ordinances, which are baptism and communion.

Because the sermon has such a central place in non-liturgical churches, who preaches the sermon and how they preach the sermon takes on primary importance.

Or rather, instead of a liturgical worship service that is like a McDonalds fast food restaurant where the service is always the same predictable, albeit boring, stuff no matter which church in the denomination you are in, non-liturgical churches are like one-star Michelin restaurants where the chef is all-important, and therefore praising the chef for his great cooking is a natural response. Consider how the following article idolizes a Denver chef who is referenced in a Michelin guide book: “Michelin inspectors were impressed by Chef Michael Diaz de Leon’s approach to seasonality and locality, all the way down to the grains that are milled or nixtamalized in-house. ‘The menu, which is Mexican at its core, has a clear narrative, and is perhaps best displayed in lamb prepared two ways — as a street-style taco and ground lamb leg kushiyaki with a quenelle of mole chichilo,’ the guide says.”

That writer’s adoration of Chef Michael Diaz de Leon and his nixtamalized food is the same adoration we give our pastors who preach to us. And it can turn them into monsters. “O pastor! That sermon was wonderful. It moved me to tears!” we tell them as we walk out the door of our church in what someone has called “the glorification of the worm ceremony.” Give a pastor enough of that kind of feedback and he can become drunk with self importance and not even know it.

As I have said above, the threat that lionization brings isn’t limited to pastors and preaching. Any man of God doing whatever the good works God has called him to do faces this threat. The reason is because our good works are like light. And while that light is meant to glorify God, it also, invariably, illuminates ourselves as well.

God often counteracts our craving for fame by requiring us to earn a B.D. degree (Backside of the Desert degree)

To inoculate us men of God against the temptation we have to forget our place, to “think more highly of ourselves than we ought,” God often starts our discipleship by isolating us in desolate, strange places. In the Bible, we see God do this in the lives of Abram, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, David, Elijah, Jesus, and Paul. I am sure many reading this have had this experience of God isolating you from everything you hold dear: your family, your work, your home, even your church. The effect this isolation has on us makes us feel lost, alone, small, weak, anonymous, and, yes, forgotten; exactly the opposite of fame.

When I graduated from seminary, I was twenty-five, single, and inexperienced. I had a dream of preaching in a church, but no church wanted a twenty-five year old, single, and inexperienced pastor. (Except one church in Snook, Texas, and only because the church had a young woman in their congregation they wanted me to marry!) So I took a job in Houston as an oil and gas lease broker. I was making great money, but I was miserable. Driving around rural Texas leasing mineral rights from ranchers was the last thing I expected to do after seminary. This city-boy did indeed feel lost, alone, small, weak, anonymous, and especially forgotten … by God.

But God was teaching me an important lesson. He was teaching me my place in the grand scheme of his Plan.

Victory over a craving for fame happens when a man of God learns to be the unworthy slave…and loves it

“He made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a slave.”

Truth be told, we are all just infinitesimally small, ephemeral gnats in this vast universe. But our Bible tells us that we are God’s gnats; created in his image and redeemed through the blood of Jesus, who himself became a gnat like us. And it is this kenosis, this emptying, that Jesus did in order to save us that God wants us to imitate. God wants us to imitate Jesus because it is Jesus’ act of utter humility, and his alone, that cures us of our craving for fame.

I am going to quote Philippians 2:1-8 here, but I am going to reverse the order, putting verses 5-8 first, and then 1-4 after because Paul makes it clear that, as he writes verses 1-4, he already has 5-8 in mind. We know this because of the way 5-8 begins, “In your relationships with one another:”

“In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a slave, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death—even death on a cross!” (Ephesians 2:5-8)

So Paul is talking about our relationships with fellow believers and how the Incarnation informs those relationships. But what kind of relationships with fellow believers will the Incarnation produce if we truly understand it and emulate it?

The unworthy slaves at New Commandment Men’s Ministries

“So you too, when you do all the things which are commanded you, say, ‘We are unworthy slaves; we have done only that which we ought to have done.’”

Having the mind of Christ, Paul teaches us in Philippians 2:1-8, always results in service to our fellow believers. “Selfish ambition or vain conceit” (in other words, “fame”) cannot thrive in that kind of environment. Rather, we “value others above ourselves” by “not looking to [our] own interests but (and here he is emphatic) each of [us] to the interests of the others.” Jesus practiced this selfless attitude toward us as a slave. Now he calls us to practice it as well toward each other…as his slaves. When we do, we starve our selfish, self centered, and sinful nature and our new man blossoms.

Because of that experience I had years ago with the wealthy, power hungry board member, I always make sure now that everyone who joins New Commandment’s board is already involved on a team of men at his church serving their widows and single moms. Because all of us on our board know what the “mind of Christ” feels like in our service to our widows and single moms, we also know what the “mind of Christ” feels like in our service on our board. As a result, over the years we have become close friends, united with Christ, sharing in the Spirit with tenderness and compassion. We are, after all, unworthy slaves, just doing what we are supposed to be doing.

That attitude is God’s will for every man of God in your church as well.

This post first appeared in NewCommandment.org

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Learn how to form teams of men for every widow, single mom

and fatherless child in your church at NewCommandment.org.

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