A friend sent this quote by Chuck Colson to me. It got me thinking and its something we should ponder:

“I miss traveling abroad.  I always returned home from visiting out partners in Third World nations invigorated, revived, and encouraged.  I would often find more exciting, growing, church vitality in places like Sri Lanka or Papua New Guinea or Peru than in comfortable churches at home.

In many nations, the church is a tiny, embattled minority – and it has no superstars. So when the church wants to evangelize, for example it can’t depend on a celebrity or bring in Billy Graham for a crusade. The people do the work themselves. Which means the church functions as the church, not a bunch of observers watching someone else perform.

When we sit passively in our pews, paying some charismatic leader to entertain us and other staff people to do ministry, we do much more than miss the living dynamic of how Jesus intends His church to work in the world.  When we mimic the culture around us with our pedestal complex, we offend a holy, all powerful  God, the most grievous consequence of all.

Of course we should respect those who are invested with spiritual authority.  That’s biblical.  But there’s a difference between respect and adulation. With the latter, we are always in danger of stepping over the line giving glory to man rather than God.

It’s easy to see how the world’s fascination with fame has snuck into our tents  and sapped our effectiveness. Yet this attitude runs absolutely contrary to that which Christ modeled when He, the King of the universe, came to live among us as a suffering servant.”

P. 334-335  Being the Body by Chuck Colson.