Rock Star Pastors: A How-Not-To Guide
SAN FRANCISCO, CA - AUGUST 10: Wayne Coyne of The Flaming Lips performs during the 7th Annual Outside Lands Music & Arts Festival at Golden Gate Park on August 10, 2014 in San Francisco, California. (Photo by C Flanigan/WireImage)
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Last summer, I saw the Flaming Lips for the first time. Actually, I'd never heard of them before, much to the chagrin of the middle-aged woman standing in front of my buddies and me at the outdoor festival concert in Salida, Colorado. She'd apparently seen the FL's on multiple occasions all around the country. We, on the other hand, had bought tickets for Mumford and Sons, who played on Saturday night (awesome), and on Friday night we figured why not, and so pushed ourselves near the front of the stage to watch, well, one heck of a show. That's not to say that I liked it. It was weird. Think giant dancing star fish, but more trippy than the Katy-Perry-Super-Bowl-halftime variety. And at the center of all the weirdness was frontman Wayne Coyne. Coyne is the quintessential aged rocker, begging the trying-to-be interested audience to prop up his ostensibly tottering ego. He was always front and center, and was often conducting the crowd with not-so-subtle gestures to generate more noise, more love, more (well) worship. At one point he crowd surfed. In a giant bubble. I was amused. I was aghast. I was convicted.
Because, to confess a bit here, I kinda want to be a rock star pastor. Now, the rock star pastor is a relatively recent phenomenon, and I'm not the first to write about it. But let's be clear, the church, and the world the church is to serve, does not need rock star pastors. It's not the way of Jesus. He consistently resisted the temptation to generate and pander to a crowd, and seemed bent on obscurity and small-scale influence. Of course, he did often draw a crowd, but this in no way ever seemed to be his intention. Even his most famous sermon, the Sermon on the Mount, if you pay close attention, is delivered to the twelve disciples, with a crowd around the edges listening in.
And so [throat clear], here are a few suggestions for pastors like me, so as to avoid ever crowd surfing through the sanctuary inside of a giant bubble while wearing a jump suit made out of silver sequins.
1. Talk often about the great things going on that have nothing to do with me. One of the things pastors end up doing a lot, both with church people and with non-church people, is to talk about how great things are going at the church. Leaving aside the fact that there are also not-great things going on, the principle here is for me to look for narratives and plot lines in which I am not the hero. Why should I talk about the current sermon series when I could talk about the missionary that just visited? Why talk about attendance being up (with the tacit, and probably erroneous assumption that this has to do with my preaching) when I could talk about how engaged the youth were downstairs during youth group when I visited? It's not about me, so perhaps I should talk about those things that I'm involved with as little as possible.
2. Guard my performance with prayer. There are certain elements of being a pastor that involve performance, and none more so than preaching. Many preachers would argue that preaching is not performance, but I'd say they're wrong. I'm hoping to engage, amuse, sharpen and enrich those who hear my sermons, and I do the best I can, and spend a lot of time preparing. It's a performance. The intention of the performance, though, to steal a line from one of my favorite preachers, is to influence, not impress. The only way I know to do this is through prayer, because my default mode is to impress. I'm literally on my knees before I preach, and I try to be praying throughout the whole process.
3. Don't always give the crowd what they want. The gospel, the good news about Jesus, is both comforting and convicting. Are my sermons only about the former? Do people always and only have a smile on their faces when I'm standing with a Bible in my hand and the mic on? If so, that could be the rock-star-wannabe within, coaxing the crowd. My preaching, and my leadership as a whole, should not be organized around receiving a lot of "good job" comments. My job is to listen to what God is saying, and to speak and guide according to the voice of that Shepherd, even if this diminishes my popularity. And so, Wayne Coyne, I feel you. And even if you haven't hung up the sequins, I'm trying to hang mine up. Because glitter fades, but the word of the Lord remains forever.