Death to Superpastor

I was recently reading about a pastor who began a very succesful church in the United States. The first service at the church was attended by 1,000 people. Less than a year later the attendance had grown to 4,000 each Sunday. At this point they did not have enough room for any more people. So the church purchased a mall and used its facilities for their services. After being at the church for two years 10,000 people attended the church for one of its three sunday morning services.

It is amazing to think about pastoring a church of 10,000 people. Most pastors could only dream of accomplishing such a feat. But the pastor of that massive church felt differently. In the book I was reading he told the story of hiding in a closet before the second sunday morning service. In that closet he wanted to totally walk away from the church. His only thought was how far away he could get before the second service began.

What could possibly posses a man to walk away from such a successful ministry? In the pastors words he was trying to become “superpastor” in his ministry. In other words he wanted to do everything on his own without anyones help. And like so many other ministers he ended up burned out and discouraged.1

Later the pastor went to counseling to help him deal with the stress of his job. While there the counselor made a statement to him that dramatically changed his thinking. “Your job is the relentless pursuit of who God has made you to be. And anything else you do is sin and you need to repent of it.”2 He then suddenly realized the source of his frustrations came because of a wrong goal. It was not God's goal for him to become “superpastor”. Instead it was the will of God for him to become like Jesus Christ.

We all dream of what we want our lives to look like. It is not wrong to dream. The problem comes when those dreams become the most important thing in our lives. Because God does not decide how succesful we are by our riches or fame. He bases his view of succes on how much like Christ we are. That is why the process of sanctification is far more important than become “superpastor”, “supermissionary”, “superbusinessman”, or any other people who are successful in the worlds eyes.

I have a dream of what I want my ministry to be. That dream comes from the vision that God has given to me. But personal growth is more important than making that vision a reality. That's why I am trying to make sanctification my focus. And the day that changes I must be willing to do what the pastor who I read about did. He took superpastor out back and put him out of his pathetic existence.3

1Rob Bell, Velvet Elvis, Pgs.96-104
2Rob Bell, Velvet Elvis, pg.114, par.5, ln.1
3Rob Bell, Velvet Elvis, pg.116, par.1, ln.1