Bill Anderson

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The Celebrity Pastor

“In America, we have a lot of celebrities, but very few heroes.”

The celebrity pastor tends to …

  • Have a pervasive sense of entitlement
  • Pursue the symbols of success instead of the status of success
  • Believe he is entitled to financial success, so is keenly interested in obtaining it
  • Be enamored with celebrities and run with them
  • Be inaccessible to his parishioners
  • Manifest a corporate CEO mentality, be a manager of people
  • Be intensely pragmatic; if it “works,” it must be the thing to do
  • Quickly copy what “works” for others
  • Be an avid student, and user, of the media
  • Be passionately devoted to his image since, to him, image trumps everything
  • Interpret his success in numerical terms (and, ergo, demand that his staffers produce numbers)
  • See no connection between his own spiritual life and the leadership of his congregation
  • Be famous for…..being famous
  • BELIEVE AND SAY OPENLY THAT HE IS RESPONSIBLE ONLY TO GOD

 

Several final observations:

  • the “celebrity” pastor will not be guilty of all that, but much of it will mark his life.  
  • In the nature of the case, the “celebrity” pastor will vehemently deny such a description fits him, even if it is obvious to those—including family members—about him.  
  • It must be obvious to even the most casual observer that such activity, with the necessary changes, describes political, athletic, and entertainment celebrities. 

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