Several years ago, in my endless quest to figure out how to grow a big church, I visited one of the largest churches in America. It seemed to have all the contemporary earmarks of a modern mega-church: massive buildings, beautiful people, professional logo, state-of-the-art lighting and sound, and of course, the ultimate common denominator of all uber-churches, a larger-than-life superhero for a pastor. These super-pastors often look like super-models with their toothpaste-commercial smiles, designer wardrobes and plastered hair.
But, this guy took pastoral self-promotion to a new level. During his sermon I counted more than ten photos of himself on the four-page church bulletin. Or was it a souvenir program? I found myself playing a “Where’s Waldo” or an “I spy pastor” game, circling his photos in my bulletin. Not only was he omnipresent on the printed page, the education building adjacent to the sanctuary bore his family name. Isn’t there a rule about waiting ‘til a man of God is dead before sticking his name on coins and buildings? If not, maybe there should be.
I thought about this experience recently after talking to a young campus minister about the difference in building a student ministry and ministering to students. Unfortunately it is quite common to build a “successful” ministry and at the same time do a lousy job of ministering to people. Programs and ministries are much easier to lead than people because programs are not sensitive and they don’t get offended when leaders act like jerks. On the other hand, people are extremely sensitive and they do tend to get offended when not treated with respect.
The more I thought about the idea, the more the Holy Spirit seemed to aim pointed questions at me: Do you spend more time preparing messages to preach, or preparing people to minister? Are you more excited about finding new meetings places, or meeting new people? Are you trying to build a ministry, or minister to My people?
Perhaps the real question is: Am I called to build a church, or make disciples? Jesus calls all of His followers to make disciples, not to run a discipleship program. In order to make disciples, we must actually spend time with real live people, not just with Bible study books in Bible school classes.
Jesus never told His disciples to build churches for Him. He is quite capable of building His church in a way that the gates of hell will have serious problems. If we are trying to build His church, then we are trying to do something that only He can do. But if we do what He said to do—make disciples—then we will find that we are cooperating with Him. He will take those disciples and build His glorious church. What a privilege to partner with the King of Kings by simply ministering to people.