Avoid the Cult of Personality!
The word church is from the Greek word ekklesia. Ekklesia is not a religious word as originally used among the Greeks. Ekklesia is a compound word meaning “ek” out of, and “klesis” a calling. The word is used in its basic, secular sense in Acts 19: 32, 39 - an assembly and, then, a lawful assembly.
From BibleQuestions.org
Some folks at my church are in a tizzy. Our preacher is away on sabbatical for six weeks. This is a part of our church’s “rules,” asking each staff minister to take a sabbatical every so often. Well, the last time we had a preacher who took a sabbatical, when he came back he resigned to take a job at another church.
So now, some folks are worried. But they’ve got it wrong. They have put too much stock in a man as leader of the church.
Now I like our preacher. He’s funny. I feel I learn something from his sermons. But he isn’t the church.
We are. The people.
A preacher is integral to the success of the church, no doubt. He is a teacher, but he is not the church. It is obviously important to be fed spiritually on the Sabbath, and that generally comes from the pulpit.
But we aren’t there to follow the man in the pulpit, we are there to follow The Man that the man in the pulpit is teaching us about (that’s tough to follow, huh?).
If the preacher comes back from Sabbatical and says, “I feel the call to go to (fill in the blank) church” we, as the church, should feel excited. First, the preacher is answering God’s call. It’s always easier to stay than to leave.
And second, that mean’s that God has someone new in store for the church, a new leader that He has been cultivating just for that body of Christ.
We have to be careful that we don’t get so wrapped up in our leadership that we lose sight of The One we are there to worship, to learn about.
If we elevate our preachers and other church leaders too high, we are nothing more than a cult of personality.
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