Temptation facing leaders

Leadership comes with lots of challenges and temptations: some obvious, some less so. One of the more subtle dangers is when we're tempted to move beyond a legitimate desire to contribute to the expansion of God's Kingdom to an illegitmate lust for personal success.

Tim Keller was asked, "What safeguards should 20-something pastors have in place to avoid the idolatry of ministry fame and the attitude of big numbers equals success?" Here is his helpful answer:

"If you know it is a danger, that is a very important start. Additionally, when you find yourself unusually discouraged because things aren't growing or people aren't listening to you - you have to catch yourself. You have to realize 'This is an inordinate amount of discouragement, which reveals the idolatry of justification by ministry.' Meaning, you say you believe in justification by grace, but you feel like and are acting like you believe in justification by ministry. You have to recognize you are making something of an idol out of ministry. When you do experience inordinate discouragement because things aren't going well, you need to say, 'It's okay to be discouraged but not to be this discouraged. This is discouragement that leads to idolatry,' and you repent.

"Additionally, idols create a fantasy world. You may think that you are just thinking about ministry strategy, but it could be you're fantasizing about success. So be careful about doing too much daydreaming about success, what you would like to see happen. Because it's really a kind of pornography. You're actually thinking about a beautiful church and people acclaiming you: be careful about fantasizing too much about ministry success and dreaming about it and thinking about what it's going to look like."

I'm pretty sure this is often expressed in thoughts along these lines: 'I wish I was like...' and insert your personal favourite: Mark Driscoll, Bill Johnson, Terry Virgo, etc. I know this is a temptation for me, and I suspect I'm not alone.

I'm not saying we shouldn't be inspired by great leaders but there is a moment when appreciation becomes adoration, inspiration becomes imitation, and a hero has become an idol. There's only one leader we should worship, and only one who has given us a perfect example; the rest are just part of His team.

NB. I love and respect Terry Virgo deeply and mean no disrespect to him whatsoever with that image. (For the slower among you, that's not really a photo of him.)