Other "Thinking Drafts" and writing by Keith Drury -- http://www.indwes.edu/tuesday .

THE COLLAPSE OF EGO-BASED MINISTRY

Something's switched in this last year or so across the church. The "Big Ego Style" of ministry is out. It has collapsed. I don't know why for sure. Perhaps it has just run its course. Or the change may be driven by the Generation X penchant for making ordinary people their heroes. But for whatever reason, ego-based ministry is a thing of the past.

I see it in my conversations with D.S.'s this spring. "I don't want a hotshot shooting star type guy -- I want a quality guy who will stick by the stuff and do what's right." I see it in Senior pastors talking about staff openings. "I don't want a 'pied piper' here that is all personality -- I want a solid fellow who will stick to the basics and build the kids, not their own fame." The words I hear increasingly are "solid," "quality guy," "reliable," "integrity" and "spiritual."

What is this "Ego-based ministry" that is collapsing? It is a style of ministry where the minister himself becomes the center of attention, the "big person," the "communicator." Ego based ministry puts the minister at the center of everything. It is minister-as-hero. HE is the issue. He is the one they talk about whenever the church is mentioned. The minister becomes "bigger than life." He "fills up the room" when he enters it. His personality dominates the entire church. He has the answers. He is confident, knows where he is going. He is a "great leader." He expects absolute loyalty from his people. He often makes himself the hero of his own stories and illustrations. His people re-tell his self-inflating stories and his image gradually becomes even bigger than he really is. Soon he tries to live up to the image he has created, and if he can't, he simply pretends to be what the hero-worshipers think he is, (and want him to be.) People idolize him.

He is now a "personality." He is in demand. If he is a visiting speaker, he totes along bundles of his cassette tapes for sale. People buy them, they are hungry for heroes -- he might as well supply that need. If he has written, he will huckster his books and manuals. His credibility is based on the fact that he has "done it." So he tells story after story illustrating how he has "done it." We listen and applaud. We want to be like this man who has the answers. We buy his tapes, and books. Attend his seminars. In fact, he really does have most of the answers for just about every church or personal problem.. He DOES!

So, if he really has the answers, why is the church so fed up with this style of ministry? Because, without ever telling us so, the church has switched its basis of credibility. In the 80's the key to being a hero was to have "done it." The bottom line was your track record, your growth, your size, and the income. Back then we believed that there was some sort of secret method to get growth. We wanted in on that secret. These people had it. The whole thing was almost Gnostic! We wanted to discover the secret method and put it into practice here to get the kind of growth that our hero had. It was almost like those infomercials where the guy tells you how you can make millions on real estate right there in your own little town. We want to believe it was true. And, right there are people who testify that it worked for them!

But the 80's taught us two things that brought about the collapse of ego-based ministry. (It took until the mid-90's for it to really dawn completely on us). First we finally discovered -- There is no secret method for church growth. The secret method we wanted to discover didn't exist. There are many ways to grow a church, and most of them are so intertwined with the personality of the pastor and church, and the local culture ,that they do not transfer from one place to another. With no single secret to discover, we became less enraptured with those who supposedly had the secret. But the second discovery was the final nail in the coffin. We discovered that some of our most successful heroes were spiritual frauds. They were phonies. They HAD been successful and had "done it." But they were morally corrupt. Now we know for sure, (what we knew down deep all the time) -- "Outward success and inward character are only loosely related." Maybe they are totally unrelated.

So the church is tired of heroes. Now we want honest, humble preachers -- men of integrity -- not great "communicators" or "great people." Men and woman who can build a church, get people truly saved, and see growth, yes. But preachers who first and foremost are godly, not "big men." Laymen have changed their tastes for pastors too. "Godliness" may now even become one of the questions for being interviewed for a church, not just your "track record" (as if you were interviewing to be a football coach at a major university). And the people's tastes in outside speakers have changed too. They no longer know for sure that this guy is really a man of character. They have been burned too many times. (Two of the five most popular Wesleyan camp speakers have morally fallen in the last five years.) So they aren't sure they can trust any hotshot speaker. So they accept less pizzazz. Less self-inflating stories. More honest confession. Less flamboyance. Less cassettes and books and manuals. More humility.

So the church has switched the basis of judging who is successful. "Personality ministry" or "Ego-based" ministry is collapsing. A totally new criterion is being introduced quietly everywhere -- in the Evangelical church, and in the Wesleyans church. This new criterion will be the basis of our "success" in the future. It will determine who we pick as our models and heroes. The style of ministry in a local church. And who we want as our leaders and preachers. So, what is that new criterion? That is the subject of next week's column.

So what do you think?

To contribute to the thinking on this issue e-mail your response to Tuesday@indwes.edu