Pastoral Lessons from Bansky

Be very careful what you wish for.

In the world of pastoral ministry (especially the evangelical variety) what seems to be wished for with an increasing frequency is fame. Despite the fact that it is often shrouded in more spiritual terms like “influence” or "maximizing capacity," there is but a razors edge difference between them all. In recent months we have watched our culture develop a healthy unease with "celebrity pastors," and yet, all this discussion has done little to stem the flow of those who continue to follow a predictable script on their path to stardom while simultaneously creating pastoral prisons they are desperately trying escape. 

...Pastor a small but quickly growing church (preferably in an urban setting), write a blog, publish a book, produce a podcast, speak at conferences, get invited to more speaking engagements, start a new church campus, speak at more conferences, develop another church campus, or two, and then…. burn-out, quit, or disqualify.

So common is this refrain in our modern era that the full list of names who serve as exceptions to the rule will most likely run through ones mind before they finish this very blog. Perhaps before they finished that last sentence. Which is not to suggest that there is only a small number, just that they are not known.

And therein we catch a hint of the problem, as well as the solution.

While there is certainly no shortage of reasons given for the current crisis in pastoral leadership, the fact remains that many pastors are, quite simply, bringing these troubles upon themselves. Contrary to popular belief, pastors have considerable control over their celebrity status. Publishing, speaking at conferences, broadcasting their sermons online, or projecting their faces on multiple LED screens across a city are decisions that are not typically being demanded, much less even expected, from average parishioners. Most people just want a pastor.

If pastors are walking away from their pulpits because of increasing “demands and pressures” or the sense that they have somehow “lost themselves” or have "drifted from their calling" many only have themselves to blame. If a great number increasingly recognize that becoming a celebrity is not working out so well for the health of the church, why are more pastors not intentionally protecting themselves?

Maybe more of us in ministry could be taking a cue from the famed artist Bansky whose worldwide acclaim can only be attached to his finished work. No one, outside of a small band of fellow street artists, knows who the real Bansky is. The only thing associated with the artist is the work he has produced. What is highlighted is the product, not the producer. 

What if pastors were as intentional about hiding themselves as Bansky? What if more of them strategically and intentionally refused to speak at conferences, publish their sermons, or grow their congregations beyond the number of names they could remember. What if?

And what if the people who normally sat in conferences and streamed podcasts of their favorite preacher were confronted, in the startling absence of both, with the fact that their local pastor was their pastor. Maybe they would find their pastor is good at preaching or maybe they would discover they are mediocre. Maybe the music would prove to be fantastic or very, very, average. However, people would not know because they would have nothing to compare it to. Congregations would have no other pastor than the pastor God gave them, and pastors would not be pastoring anyone else but the people God called them to. How refreshing and freeing that might prove to be for both parishioner and pastor alike. 

If you are able to imagine a world like that, could you also articulate what it is the church might actually lose if pastors were to shun the pursuit of fame? Fame does not guarantee moral failure or professional burnout, but it undeniably increases the odds. Would God’s great mission to reach the world be hindered in any way if pastors declared universally that theirs was a profession, perhaps one of only a handful of professions perhaps, in which increasing popularity was shunned and fought against at all cost.

As a pastor myself, I wonder what the church may look like if we shepherded souls like Bansky painted? What if faithfulness in our calling could only be gauged by the transformed lives of those who sat under our care. And what if pastors chased solely after the satisfaction of being completely known by just a handful of brothers and sisters who referred to them only in simple and profoundly intimate ways like, "my pastor."

I believe that nearly every pastor who has gathered a fledging church in a living room, a borrowed theatre, or a local gym began with this very vision, to see their own lives diminish while the God of the universe was lifted up and unleashed into their communities.

That dream doesn't need to die. Work in the shadows and let the spotlight fall on the only One who is truly worthy to stand in it.