Pastors are no strangers to the concept of good things replacing God as the object of a worshiper's attention. But what does this look like when church itself is the "idol" a pastor is venerating?
Craig Groeschel and Kyle Idleman are familiar with the struggle. Each has written a new book on idolatry—Altar Ego by Groeschel and Gods at War by Idleman (both Zondervan, 2013). Leadership Journal correspondent Greg Taylor interviewed Groeschel (senior pastor of Edmond, Oklahoma based LifeChurch.tv and one of the creators of the YouVersion Bible app) and Idleman (teaching pastor at Southeast Christian Church in Louisville, Kentucky) for a candid take on what happens when ministry begins to supplant God.
Your new books deal with idolatry versus Christ identity. What prompted you to address this topic?
Idleman: As I've spoken to different churches recently about what it means to be completely committed to Jesus, I have found that one of the chief problems is not lack of desire, but lack of alignment. There are many Christians, myself included, who want to totally commit to Jesus. The problem is that our lives are aligned around something or someone else. The best word for that is idolatry; we're replacing God, even while we're "totally" committing to discipleship. The challenge to follow Jesus is the challenge to find our identity in Christ. Idolatry sabotages that by replacing him with something or someone else.
Groeschel: My reason is similar. Deep down, we really don't know who God says we are. What I'm trying to do in Altar Ego is to help people lay down the false images they have of themselves and replace those with their identity in Christ. We all feel insecure, inadequate. I think we can grow to see beyond that. When we know who we are, we can live into God's true calling.
You both preach to thousands of people. You're insecure?
Idleman: Yeah, it's pretty easy to feel insecure, whether you're in front of three people or 3,000. I remember struggling with this in the first church I ever preached at. There were only like 30 people, but it was hard on me. I'd have old ladies tell me that I kept my hands in my pockets too long, and other people critique my delivery. It became overwhelming.
Groeschel: I don't know any pastors who don't battle with insecurity at one time or another. I've done this for 20 years, and I'm still overcoming my fears about what people think of me. Being a pastor can breed insecurity, and we have to find our identity in Christ just like anybody else.
There's also a special danger that pastors face in this area. Sometimes we'll start to find significance in results or in what people think about us, instead of in our identity and calling. We can get obsessed with the thoughts of others. That's the quickest way to forget who you really are.
Social media makes it even easier to get caught up with what people say or think about me. I can see what people are saying about a sermon on Twitter. I can count the "likes" of an Instagram picture. I can hope for comments on nuggets of Facebook wisdom. Before long we find ourselves managing our public persona instead of developing our private devotion to Christ.
Idleman: That's especially true for those of us who really feel our love for the congregation. We want to be liked by people, and when they do we interpret that liking as "doing a good job as a pastor." Then, if those feelings aren't there, we feel like we're failing, when in the big picture, we're not.
What does insecurity lead to for pastors?
Idleman: It leads to what Ed Stetzer calls "ministry pornography." We start lusting over what we don't have. When we become enthralled with what they are doing, and what we're not doing, it leads to competition. If it's hard for me to rejoice over what God is doing through a nearby congregation, that says something about me.
There is a ripple effect when the church takes God's place in our lives. Being a pastor can breed insecurity, and we have to find our identity in Christ, just like anybody else.
Groeschel: Insecurity can also influence us to take credit for things we're not really doing.
Once a singles ministry that my wife and I led dropped from 100 people down to four—and two of them were us. It haunted me until I realized that in that circumstance, I was trying to take blame for something that was bigger than I was.
The flip side of blaming ourselves for declines is then one day taking credit for the increases. I try to remember that I can't take credit for the growth, and I shouldn't blame myself for the decline. I can control what I do, but I can't control the results. Those fall to God alone. It doesn't matter how successful whatever your corner of the world is, there's another corner that you're not as successful in.
Let's go a little more directly at this: What happens when your church becomes your idol?
Groeschel: I have to speak from personal experience. In the early years of my ministry, my church was unquestionably an idol for me. Eventually I had to do two different rounds of counseling to break out of it. I was a workaholic; my whole identity had become wrapped around what I produced. Who I was—in God's view—was withering away. I had become a full-time pastor and part-time follower of Christ.
I've made a lot of progress, but I'm not 100 percent over that. I've had to ask honest questions about why I'm driven to minister in the first place. Am I driven to please God, or to accomplish something selfish? Am I driven to reach people, or to build a church that makes me feel good?
Idleman: We can worship the god of achievement, and put our hope in what we are able to accomplish. Ultimately that always leads to disappointment. As a preacher I constantly ask myself two questions: What does God want me to say? and How will the people respond? I get into trouble when I get those out of order.
When the first thing that I consider is how people will respond, that's idolatry. That's me putting the response of people ahead of my faithfulness to what God has called me to. I think most preachers can relate to that, constantly struggling with those two questions, but we have to have them in the right order.
Okay, what are some practical indicators that your church is becoming an idol?
Groeschel: If you don't take a regular day off, that's a real good sign. Or if your family resents the church. If you are not willing to openly listen to correction or criticism about your ministry or work habits, that's a sign. If your emotions rise and fall largely based on "results," that's another indicator.
Idleman: When our church becomes an idol, we pastors have a hard time giving ourselves to people who can't advance our "cause." Our calendars morph. We begin to schedule conversations only with people who we feel advance our cause of growing the church. Our questions of church members center on what they can give to the church. We begin to forget "the least of these." Eventually, we begin to get frustrated with people in the church; they seem like obstacles to our goals, rather than the people we're called to love and serve and pour our lives into. We start to act as if they're in our way.
Groeschel: Yes, like they are just tools to build "our vision" instead of people to love.
How do you break that mindset?
Groeschel: You have to be intentional. It's so easy to let the work of God replace your own intimacy with God. There were years I did that, and it's still a temptation. Starting with honesty about our weaknesses and vulnerabilities is vital. Through that we're able to say, I'm a Christian first—I'm a child of God first—not a pastor first.
My identity is not in my church calling. My identity is as a child of God, and I must really drive that into my heart, over and over again until I can really believe it and live out of it instead of the opposite.
Bill Hybels said it well: "The way I was doing God's work was destroying the work of God in me." When I first heard that, it pierced my heart. That was me. We have to fall in love with God's Word, be strengthened through prayer, have genuine Christian community where we are truly open and do life with others. Sometimes as pastors we let those life-changing basics slip.
Idleman: It's the Mary and Martha story. Martha was being distracted by doing many things, and Mary was choosing what is better by being with Jesus. We need to cultivate the determination and intentionality to constantly choose what is better.
How transparent are you with your churches about this? Do you publicly confess to them that you struggle with idolizing the church?
Idleman: I try to model repentance and brokenness by talking about my challenges or my struggles. But to me that's different than letting the church listen to me pray a prayer of repentance before I preach, or to see brokenness because I know I'm talking about something that God convicted me of personally before I got up there to preach on it.
I think it's more than just being honest with a story of something "unphotogenic" that happened in my home. I certainly think that can be good, but I think that we need to go further.
Groeschel: I was trained in seminary not to be transparent. They called it "guarding the pastor's mystique." That was one of the most dangerous teachings that the older generation passed along. It was wrong. If you are not being transparent, you are not going to reach this generation today. You have to be authentic. We have to struggle and be vulnerable in front of the congregation.
Let's move outside of the pastor's inner life. How does a pastor's church idolatry impact those close to you?
Idleman: There is a ripple effect when the church takes God's place in our lives. I talked about "alignment" before, and this comes back to that. It's like getting the top button on a shirt wrong … you get that one wrong and all the others are off; but if you get that one right all the others line up. When God isn't in his rightful place the rest of the buttons in our lives are not aligned.
I was trained in seminary not to be transparent. They called it "guarding the pastor's mystique." That was one of the most dangerous teachings that the older generation passed along.
Our families start to find that when attendance is up we are up, and when attendance is down we are down. This is why some people have such a hard time stepping away from being the pastor of a church. Their whole identity is found in their position. They own it … and the staff feel like they're being led by a dictator rather than a shepherd.
As Craig mentioned earlier, church idolatry brings out obsession with the numbers, which leads to competitive relationships with other churches and other leaders. We become consumed with our statistics at the cost of our people.
Groeschel: It's not uncommon to have family members resent the church because the church gets the best of their parent or spouse. Even when physically present with their family, he or she might not be emotionally present and engaged.
Idolatry can also alienate staff members because they feel they're seen as only a tool to help achieve the minister's goals instead of as people to love and develop.
Let's come back to where we started, to this idea of pastoral insecurity. What practical steps do you personally take to hang on to God's view of you?
Idleman: Well, this is a constant struggle for pastors. Insecurity for me isn't as much about how I perceive people viewing me, my personal insecurity comes more from my own view of me. Whichever you struggle with, the answer is to die to self. Then the challenge (since this is so internal) is to find how you're going to make that part of your life.
A few years ago, I was really struggling with this. I ended up going into the garage, grabbing a can of black spray paint, and painting the classic words from the Apostle Paul on my closet wall: I DIE DAILY. For me, every time I saw my indoor graffiti, it summed up my challenge.
Groeschel: To be honest, it's not easy to overcome people pleasing and focus solely on what God thinks. Social media can get to me, so one thing I do is avoid social media during ministry times. I may tweet something, but I won't look for retweets or comments. This keeps me more focused on God rather than being distracted by what people think.
As well, I have a routine before preaching of closing my eyes and reflecting on my moment of salvation. I think about where I was, the prayer I prayed, and how God changed me. Then I walk through different verses in my mind reminding myself of who I am in Christ. I am not who others think I am. I am who God says I am. I am his child. I am loved, secure, and accepted through Christ. I am filled with his Spirit, an overcomer by his blood and my testimony. I am called, set apart, and chosen. I can do everything he calls me to do.
To me, this kind of prayer matters most. If I am praying consistently as I minister, this reminds me that what I am doing is for God and from God. When my prayer life slips, it's so much easier to do things for the wrong reasons. A disciplined life of prayer helps me keep my eyes on Christ and off of the approval of people.
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