The 'Ministry Celebrity Trap'
It's as true now as it was 8 years ago...
Author’s note: I stumbled on this old blog post from 2015 when I was working on something else, and I realized I had never posted it here. Even though I was on church staff at the time that I wrote it, it’s equally true now as a volunteer.
Several weeks ago, I was having lunch with a friend of mine after church on a Sunday. As we were leaving the restaurant, an older couple was walking out at the same time, and the wife came up to me, spoke to me by name, and said, “I just love seeing you on stage at church!” I had never met her before in my life.
At our Spring Fling event the Sunday before Easter, I walked up to a family who was new to the church and introduced myself. The wife said, “I know you — you’re the funny one! You do a great job up there on stage.”
I’ve been on staff at Eastridge going on seven years now (non-consecutively), (a total of 13 years between two stints —CQ) and I’ve served there for many more years than that. My current tenure on staff puts me out front more than my first go-round. I’m onstage hosting the service at least once a month, and I’ve begun leading worship occasionally — something I haven’t done since our church was much smaller than it is today.
I’ll never get used to people coming up to me, knowing my name when I don’t know theirs. Sometimes I can go to town and not avoid seeing someone I know. Yes, it’s one of the features of small-town life, but I often feel bad when I think I should know the name of the person speaking to me.
Here’s my confession: there’s something about a prominent ministry role that I struggle with. I call it the “ministry celebrity trap.” I like to think of myself as down-to-earth, but it’s tough not to let the fact that people know who I am because of my onstage and backstage roles at church go to my head. I can talk about humility all day long, but the straight-up, unvarnished truth is that my flesh craves that attention and those accolades.
Jesus warned His disciples to avoid this trap:
Will any one of you who has a servant plowing or keeping sheep say to him when he has come in from the field, ‘Come at once and recline at table’ Will he not rather say to him, ‘Prepare supper for me, and dress properly, and serve me while I eat and drink, and afterward you will eat and drink’? Does he thank the servant because he did what was commanded? So you also, when you have done all that you were commanded, say, ‘We are unworthy servants; we have only done what was our duty.’”
The secret to staying out of the trap of “ministry celebrity” is an attitude of humility — not some false, “oh I’m soooooo unworthy” kind of self deprecation, but a genuine grounding in who I am in Jesus.
I love my job, and I love to serve. I love the people I serve with, and I love the congregation I serve. Most importantly, I love the God I serve, and I want my words and actions to reflect that love in a truly humble way.