Seems to me about the only people who really, really love large churches are pastors—LOL. I mean, apart from the wonderful corporate worship and teaching one can receive at such places on the weekends, almost everything else is better when it’s smaller.
And let’s face it, when a big ship goes down, the damage is greater as well.
When did the Titanic sink? Almost a hundred years ago? When are we going to move on?
Even the cheesiest movie of all time is still the leading grossing movie and it’s based on this ginormous tragedy. And that too compares somewhat sadly to the mega-church phenomena. Who hasn’t heard of the embarrassing and devastating behavior of such mega-church pastors as Ted Haggard, Jimmy Swaggart, Jim Baker and a whole host of others? But here’s one way we are opposite the Titanic situation—and it’s a doosie…
No one tried to patch up the Titanic—place the same captain at the helm, and give’r another whirl.
WHY?
Because it was a failure!
A flop.
We learned from that huge mistake and sought not to repeat it.
But not with churches!
When it comes to mega-churches most of these guys who captained a sinking vessel (and played the role of the iceberg as well) are talking about the thrill of another victory 5 minutes after the agony of defeat. Can you believe it?
I’m serious! And I am extremely hard pressed to think of even one of these situations where the culprit didn’t attempt to rewrite history at some point and get back in the saddle again. “After all,†they reason—“no one is as gifted and unique as they are. If not them, then who?â€
I’ll tell you who—how about a trained monkey—anything or anyone other than YOU! You had your shot, and you chose sin instead of God. How is it you now reason yourself to be the logical choice to sit right back in the captain’s chair?!
Ridiculous.
Recently a pastor I know fell and fell hard. The humility and confession lasted about a week and now he’s talking about how much he can’t wait to get back into ministry!
What?! It was a train wreck dude! And the church you pastured hasn’t even had enough time to fix the tracks and damaged boxcars and here you are trying on engineer caps already!
This really ticks me off.
And the trend shows no sign of abating. In fact, I think it’s going to get worse.
Why?
Because a lot of the pastors starting churches today worship themselves first and foremost—God is way down the list if He’s on it at all.
Given this truth, I see a lot more icebergs and Ocean-liners meeting on the high seas.
You heard it here first.