Ministry Never Becomes Our Idol – It Only Reveals The Idols We Already Have

Ministry Is Never An Idol

I’ve been in and around church ministry long enough to have heard it said about someone that “Ministry has become his/her idol.” And people tut-tut and shake their heads as they watch ministry leaders behave in ways towards themselves and others that are less than healthy, as if ministry were the problem.

Ministry as an idol is a well documented condition and there are plenty of books and conferences (and psychological services) that offer ways in which to counter this.  Well in the 21st century at least.

But here’s the thing: I do not believe that ministry can become an idol. Ministry is never the problem.

I do not believe that something that is on the surface neutral, can become in and of itself toxic or dangerous. I do not believe that ministry is or can be an idol in and of itself.

But if that is not the case, then what is the problem? Can I suggest instead that all situations of unfortunate ministry experiences are simply proof that ministry has become the vehicle or conduit through which we express the idolatries we already have?  And that is a much more pernicious, and hard to root out, problem.

Look at what the apostle John says in his third letter:

I wrote to the church, but Diotrephes, who loves to be first, will not welcome us. So when I come, I will call attention to what he is doing, spreading malicious nonsense about us. Not satisfied with that, he even refuses to welcome other believers. He also stops those who want to do so and puts them out of the church.

Ministry wasn’t the problem was it? Diotrephes did not find his idol in ministry. No he took his idol with him into ministry!  And look how his idolatry played out. He lied. But lying wasn’t his true sin. He rejected fellowship  – and hence was sectarian – but that wasn’t his true sin either. He expelled congregation members who held a different view to his about the apostle John.  And unfortunate and horrible as that was this was not his true sin either.

He simply committed those sins because of his primary sin – his desire to be first. Always. To be honoured above all. To be treated as a special one – given how gifted he obviously was. To brook no rival. To hear no hard word. To turn every concerned rebuke on its head and make out that the problem is the other person. To gaslight.

Ministry was not his idol. His desire to be first was his idol. He just expressed that idol in his ministry, even to the point of chasing out the very man who was so close to Jesus that he could lay his head on his chest!

So I don’t think we should blame-shift and accuse ministry roles/positions/practices of being the problem. No, the real problem is the parasitic nature of our idolatries that will attach themselves to our whatever is in our lives, whether that be church ministries, work and career, or relationships.

Now that ministry is a particularly easy place to hide our idols seems like a no-brainer. I recently wrote here about how easily our idols can be hidden within our ministries. In a sobering revelation in the prophetic book of Ezekiel, God shows the idolatry hidden in the temple. False worship is going ahead at the very time that true worship is being promoted.

There were some good responses to that blog post on my Facebook link, including this one that I want to pick up on around how we might expose the idolatries that can trainwreck a ministry:

Great article. Thanks. What questions would you ask of ministry candidates? And what of established leaders? How exactly do you sniff this out?

Sniffing it out. That’s about the right way to describe what needs to happen to something that will, if left unchecked, start to stink.

One of the reasons that idols can hide in ministry and be so hard to sniff out is that they we can use spiritual language to justify them. We can spray gospel perfume around a pile of rotting meat very easily. And that’s hard to do the same working at KPMG. But in church? Easy to do!

That comment on my Facebook page reveals what is really going on, doesn’t it? Ministry candidates and established leaders are at the opposite ends of the spectrum in terms of experience and opportunity.

Yet it’s clear that an unchecked, untested idol in a greenhorn ministry candidate can easily go on to become a rampant and virile idol in the life of an established leader. The idols will not change. But it may well grow stronger. It will fester and reach its tentacles into a wider sphere of influence. And hence have the ability to create more external havoc.

So whether you are a ministry candidate or not, whether your vocation is as an established church leader (or  CEO of a secular company for that matter), the constant will be the idolatries in your life that are left unchecked.

And if it’s certainly true that the temple is the easiest place to hide your own idol, it is also true that spiritualised language is the best way to use that idol to take illicit power over other people and to get your own way. And to that end – for both your sake in ministry -, and the sake of those you minister to, those idols need to be rooted out.

May I add, the difference between a performance review in the real world, and one in church in which well-meaning people all too often give poor leaders the benefit of the doubt, is itself quite revealing. That we as God’s people know the propensity of our sinful hearts should lead us to do strong and healthy examination, confident that the gospel can hold relationships together even in the face of hard truths. But often it is exactly the opposite.

So, to summarise that, it’s a particular concern for those involved in ministry who can often use spiritual language to both mask their idolatry, and to beat well-meaning fellow Christians over the head with those idols, well-meaning fellow Christians who, despite their negative experiences, often want the best for the leader and constantly fear that any sort of conflict might split the church.

Ministry Candidates and Their Idols

So, first, how would you ask questions of ministry candidates to root out their idols? Well the simple answer is that in a deep sense you cannot. Our idols are not often things that we see, or if we do see them, we can spend an inordinate amount of time “unseeing” them or reframing them.

You know how that works, don’t you? “Everyone else is a gossip, I just say it like it is.”  We so easily reframe our sin. And easy enough to do so to the point that we cannot recognise the idols, or we become adept enough at diverting any true questioning of them.

I think ministry assessment tools, such as church planting assessments for those starting out, is a great first base. But it is only a first base. We become adept at hiding our idols. At some stage we have to ask other people about that candidate’s idols, or at least their propensities toward them. For as we know, idolatries are just misplaced or misdirected desires. Good things gone sour. True north gone south. So those being asked need to be honest. And they need to love the church of God, and the sheep under his care, more than they love the praise or acceptance of anyone else

The sad fact as I look on is that all too often plenty of ministry candidates have been let through into ministry with idols unchecked, not because there was no knowledge of their potential idols and the damage these could do, but because no one had the willpower to ask the hard questions and put up a red flag.

That was me clear experience in The Crowded House church network in the UK where, when it all fell into a smoking heap, story after story came up about how its leader was known to be deeply problematic in how he dealt with people and cast them aside. In fact it was known from pretty much the start of his ministry.

Yet twenty odd years later, and a good many broken relationships and people later, his peers were shocked, (shocked I tell you!) at how things had panned out. I don’t believe for one second that people were actually shocked. I just believe they were saddened, and perhaps a trifle guilty for not having the intestinal fortitude to put a stop to the ministry trajectory.

Established Leaders and Their Idols

Which brings us to how to deal with idolatries in established leaders, idolatries such as the desire for power, or the insecure fear of man that masks itself as brashness and a need to play one-up-manship with others.

There are two sides to this. Firstly established leaders, if they are aware of their idolatries, and self-aware enough to see their own sinful propensities (and allow other people to name those sinful propensities to their face rather than just self-select the more acceptable ones and announce to the world what their sins are), will surround themselves with “No-Men”.

What’s a “No-Man”? Simply the opposite of a “Yes-Man.” So much ongoing parasitic idolatry within the body of ministry is down to ministry leaders who, over time, root out and persecute anyone on the team who is a “No-Man”. It’s not always done obviously, but it is always done.

All too often the established denomination knows that something is off. It knows when they see a steady stream of staff go through a church and out the back door. Launder, rinse, repeat.

A “No-Man” – or indeed woman – on a ministry team is the one who has the courage to wear the so-called “black hat” in the staff or board meeting and call things as he or she sees them without fear or favour. I know who my “No-Men” are. I can name them. I have had them in my life – mostly – for a very long time. They can call me out. I don’t need their soothing words that reframe my idolatries as someone else’s problem.

And this “No-Man” philosophy has to extend to organisations and denominations. Unless established denominations build a culture in which they are willing to put serious road-blocks in the path of existing leaders who are behaving poorly, unless there are one or two “men with chests” who will take a hit for those further down the food chain, then the denomination is creating trouble for itself. And in the end there will be a self-selecting process as good younger leaders look elsewhere. Over time that denomination or ministry context will slide into decline.

There are two equal and opposite problems. The first is that the system has been gamed to make it as hard as possible to remove a leader whose idols are crushing others and wrecking any long term ministry viability in that location for others. I’ve watched that happen in real time. I hear the stories.

The second – and this is more gutting – is not that the system is weak, but the leaders who could something about it are weak. Or compromised because they are in a relationship with the antagonist. Or foolish enough to think that if the issue were to be exposed it would cause offence to the gospel. Yet what does the long-track record show? It’s hiding the issue that causes long-term offence to the gospel. Always.

In just the same way that you are only as accountable as you wish to be, so too a system is only as strong on this matter to the lengths that those entrusted as gatekeepers to the ministry are strong.

And that just might require systemic change over a long period of time. What will that change necessitate? Willpower of course. But willpower will only come about if idolatry and its deep roots into our hearts is spoken of as – and taken as – seriously in the boardroom as it is in the pulpit or on the conference platform.