Becoming a Pastor is NOT a Career Path
Christian leaders are using the Church of God as an industry to profit from financially. Becoming a pastor is no longer a calling, but a career path. The first step at the age of eighteen years old is to decide to pursue the ministry just as if you were going into the business world. You major in a Bible-based degree in college and then continue to seminary for an additional degree. After graduating, you then apply for a pastoral job at any church that will take you. Often, you will church hop every several years when a better position becomes available. The ultimate goal is to plant your own church to build it into a mega-church, so you can author books, speak on the conference circuit and have your own teaching ministry to hopefully rake in millions of dollars. Last time I checked, that was not a strategy found in Scripture.
The Church is then treated like an entrepreneurial mission, instead of simply a family of believers. Almost every church has a branded logo, a marketing team including social media, with a focus on strategy and growth. If a church’s attendance stops increasing, it’s viewed as a sign of stagnation and failure from the church leadership, which means they’ll need a new CEO... I mean, pastor... to take over, casting a new vision for its future. Jesus had the perfect response in John 2:16: “Do not make my Father’s house a house of trade.”
One of the strategies employed for church growth brings a central focus of the church to a charismatic pastor, attractingseekers to begin attending their church, which essentially creates a celebrity influencer with a fan base. This is a serious problem because the success of the church hinges on a single man. This will lead into a series of repercussions, including a focus on PR and even the covering up of sin in order for donations to continue.
The Apostle Paul took a completely different approach, which needs to be emulated. He wanted the church to be about Christ, not himself. His church growth strategy is explained in 1 Corinthians 2:1-5:
And I, when I came to you, brothers, did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom. For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. And I was with you in weakness and in fear and much trembling, and my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, so that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God.
Paul understood the serious repercussions of a cult mentality and was very intentional that the churches he planted not gather because of him, but for the preaching of the Gospel. He wanted to inspire followers of Jesus Christ, not followers of Paul.
This article is an excerpt of the book Church & State: How the Left Used the Church to Conquer America, which brought together authors Pastor Greg Locke, Dr Michael Brown, Denise McAllister, Pastor Cary Gordon, Jeff Dornik, JD Rucker, Pastor Ken Peters, Dr Robert Oscar Lopez, Dr Mike Spaulding, Pastor Sam Jones and Dustin Faulkner. This team of authors exposes the strategy employed to overthrow America through the infiltration of the Evangelical Church. Order your copy today!
