“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.