On Being a Servant, Not a Celebrity (Part 2)

Read Part 1.

Is it possible to seek to advance and excel in ministry without being caught up in the celebrity syndrome?

How can we make the greatest impact possible for the cause of Christ—without falling into the traps that come with celebrity status? How can a minister remain accountable in ways that are both effective and healthy, as we travel to preach and teach?

I posed these questions to Dr. Cory Marsh recently as we contemplated the fall of several high-profile celebrity pastors this past summer. Marsh is professor of New Testament at Southern California Seminary in El Cajon, Calif. There he directs the master of arts in Biblical studies and master of theology programs and SCS Press. Marsh is also scholar in residence at Revolve Bible Church in San Juan Capistrano.

In the first installment, Marsh set forth the importance of maintaining a relationship with accountability to a local church and its elders. This is a safeguard that will certainly help to protect against many of the dangers that could lead to a significant fall in ministry.

“Any ministry has to have accountability baked in,” stated Marsh. “Every member of a parachurch ministry needs to be accountable to a local church and involved in discipleship. Accountability needs to be baked into every ministry philosophy. You must be actively involved in a local church and actively engaged in discipleship.”

But we also left off with this admission—the same outward actions might be compelled by servanthood or by the quest for cultural prominence. So how does one discern his true motives in ministry?

“There is a difference between being famous and being a celebrity,” Marsh said. “The difference is in being held accountable.”

He explained: “Adapting from a current definition, I call being well known without celebrity as having social influence within proximity.* If we are going to define celebrity as having influence over people, the Christian leader must maintain influence within proximity. In other words, you are not just a persona. You know the people you are ministering to, and they know you. There is accountability. The people you are ministering to actually know something of your life—not just a persona you are portraying.”

Marsh admits that a Christian servant striving to please both his church and his parachurch ministry employer faces “a tightrope balance.” He stated, “Any Christian ministry needs to prioritize people over programs. Among your parachurch ministry peers there has to be discipleship as well—praying together, reading Scripture together.”

Another question that must be faced is whether we truly seek to have the greatest influence for Christ—or for the sake of our own celebrity.

“In American evangelicalism, we are influenced by empire building and business marketing tactics,” Marsh said. “We don’t need to submit to others, we get to be the top of something.”

For the antidote, he returned to the necessity of local church involvement: “A plurality of elders has accountability embedded in it. Every man who is called by God to lead has an equal voice with equal power. There is no such thing as celebrity in a genuinely functioning plural elder model. There are no celebrities in a true plurality of elders. It is impossible.” Marsh pointed to 1 Corinthians 1:12-13 and 3:4 to reinforce his point.

“If more pastors were actually convicted and satisfied with ‘[shepherding] the flock’ (1 Pet. 5:2) which God has given them, and not being tempted to build platforms in competition with fellow evangelicals, they would have smaller ministries, but they would be doing the real work of pastoring—with the sheep in the pen.”

Yet, as he conceded, “It is baked into our nature that we want to follow and celebritize our favorite Bible teachers and think of them as heroes of the faith.”

Marsh is currently the president of the Evangelical Theological Society Far West Region, and he is working on two books, one of which addresses related themes: A Vintage Faith: Recovering the Fundamentals of Evangelical Identity (Christian Focus, forthcoming). The other book is 40 Questions About Dispensationalism (Kregel Academic, forthcoming). Even in these pursuits, he sees the need for accountability.

“When I am writing or teaching, I bring other voices in. So I try to be accountable even in my teaching,” Marsh said, pointing to the “many witnesses” (2 Tim. 2:2) who confirmed the teaching of the Apostle Paul.

Marsh concluded: “I want to make an impact for the glory of God before the any-moment rapture. Everything we do, we should always be thinking that any moment we could be taken. That should impact everything we do. Time is not on our side. Either we believe that or we don’t. And if we do then it must show in how we live and work.”