A blogger who uses the name “EvangelicalOrthodoxy” wrote this comment on another blogsite in response to a report of fiscal irresponsibility at a denominational missions agency:
What the mission board experienced is the latest implication of the confusion of what it means to be a pastor. Put simply … decades ago, pastors were poor servants – the biblical model. The only group that really holds onto this is the Catholics. Sometime after the war, as the institutional church boomed, the pastor became a businessman. Like the town banker or lawyer, he served on Rotary Club and wore monogrammed shirts. He adopted the dress, the lifestyle and attitude of the businessman, the CEO. That was the popular cultural model for men, and the church simply reflected the culture. During the past few decades or so, with the advent of easy-access media, the new model is not businessman but celebrity. Hence, you see this whole new crop of wannabe-celebrity pastors. These guys dominate now. Hence, you have Reccord – a wannabe celebrity drawing a CEO salary. Somewhere along they way we in the institutional church lost the concept of vocation and the idea of service.
Wow. The bottom line that I agree with is that anytime we as Christians accept and follow the world’s principles rather than God’s we are trading the truth of God for a lie. We walk by sight and not by faith. We become Abraham, trading Sarah for Hagar. Praise God He is sovereign and full of grace.Â