Replacing Jesus

Dear Pastor, Here are 3 Bad Beliefs That May be Leading You Toward a God Complex

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To my friends in church leadership roles (with an open invitation for others to eavesdrop),

You will unlikely come out with the same amount of explicit hubris as Alec Baldwin’s character, Dr. Jed Hill, in the 1993 movie, Malice, as he exclaimed, “I am God.” Nonetheless, the tendency toward a Messianic complex among clergy is real so it doesn’t hurt to run a self-diagnostic of your own mental and spiritual health every now and then. Be aware of the subtle signs you may be thinking more highly of yourself than you ought. The delusion does not suddenly appear one morning with you waking up and announcing, “I’ve realized I am the savior of the world.” Though it can come that dramatically, as history demonstrates with a number of insane cult leaders, more often it will slowly creep into your words and actions as you try to guide others along a spiritual path. I believe there are gradual rationalizations centered on false (bad) beliefs that we can watch out for to avoid this trap.

Bad Belief #1: “I have been called to shepherd the flock.”

It is easy to convince ourselves that we are responsible for protecting the sheep from the big bad wolf. If we can stand in the pulpit and preach the truth and expose heresy, then we can validate ourselves as good shepherds who are keeping the good things in and the bad things out. Those things may start out as love, joy, peace, and the such on the good side, with envy, strife, self-centeredness, and other vices on the bad side. But it usually isn’t long before the “things” become people. We begin to promote certain humans and warn against others, as in lifting up some individuals and tearing down others. We advise people who they should or should not fellowship with. A pastor can take it upon himself to be the judge of who qualifies to be in and out of the flock. Before we know it, our claim is, “The poor innocent sheep need me to be safe from the threats out there. I am faithfully doing my job to protect them as God called me to do.”

This perspective is troublesome for a couple of reasons. First, we forget our battles are not against “flesh and blood” but against evil powers. We let the very forces we should be warring against take root in our minds so that we see enemies all around us, especially if they hold different beliefs or political persuasions. Our preaching about right and wrong devolves into a list of types of people to attract or avoid. We become Pharisees.

Second, Jesus clarifies there is only one shepherd and He is it! Furthermore, He declares that He will manage the gate to the sheep pen and control who gets in and out. In fact, not only will He manage the gate; He lets it be known He will just go ahead and be the gate. The shepherding role is sufficiently filled by the perfect Person. Imposters need not apply. Anyone else, even while preaching behind a pulpit, who tries to take over or get into the sheep pen in other ways is a thief intent on destruction. Jesus is quite plain about this topic. He is direct and forthright.

“I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep… I know my sheep and my sheep know me — just as the Father knows me and I know the Father — and I lay down my life for the sheep… there shall be one flock and one shepherd.”

Words of Jesus (John 10, emphasis added)

Bad Belief #2: “I have been called to build the church.”

With the best of intentions and full sincerity, a pastor can sense a call to plant a church or construct a building in order to expand the kingdom of God. To be intentional about congregating with others is not what I have in mind here; it is perfectly appropriate to assemble as the body of Christ. When the objective shifts to requesting funds or allegiance so that we can “build a church” it becomes a problem.

Since we commonly define “church” wrongly from the outset, we mistakenly pursue the wrong mission. We don’t need to build church buildings to expand the kingdom of God any more than we need to build movie theaters or shopping malls or bowling alleys, but we are confused by thinking of church as a place to meet or an event to hold. We like to view church this way because we can control the parameters. We can decide when and where and who and how it happens. However, once we rightly accept more accurate descriptions of church as empowered people on mission or followers of Jesus in action or the called-out community of faith, we recognize the parameters are set by God. It requires divine animation for the church to be a reality of this kind.

Again, Jesus is crystal clear. He said He will build His church. Hell won’t overcome His church because it is universal, eternal, and Spirit-led. You may have a skill set to organize people around a common mission or hold an audience for a time with your words, and there is no fault in using your skills, but take caution in proclaiming a call to build the church since God already called His Son to do so. As far as I can tell from the Bible, God hung up the phone afterward. He does not have a church-planting directory of pastors’ names on standby in case His Son doesn’t come through.

Bad Belief #3: “I have been called to produce spiritual growth.”

Personally, I admit this one has been my Achilles’ heel. I was convinced that I could coordinate and program spiritual growth similar to academic progress. I treated spiritual growth as a curriculum endeavor. It didn’t help that I had a master’s degree in Christian education by completing coursework or that we called our teaching time “Sunday School”!

There is a strong temptation to develop discipleship models that keep people coming back for more. By offering Sunday School classes, youth group events, seminars, workshops, and programs, we ensure interested participants become dependent upon us for their instruction. I never saw a problem with this because I felt called to do it. I thought God wanted some people to have this role as an occupation. My error, which is so common in Western Christianity, is that I equated knowledge with spiritual growth. The end game was an accumulation of facts and doctrines. I often hear this goal in the way people talk about heaven. “I can’t wait to get to heaven to ask God…” or “When I get to heaven I will finally know why…” or “We won’t have all of the answers until we get to heaven.” We are so obsessed with knowing that we have substituted perfect knowledge for salvation. So many people describe this aspect of heaven, which I don’t even find in the Bible, and virtually never mention the true prize of heaven, eternally being in the presence of Christ. Still, we chase knowledge rather than rest in God. I honestly don’t hear much difference in the way many Christians talk about heaven and the original temptation to know more in the garden of Eden. The serpent presented knowledge as more valuable than life, and I don’t see that we have progressed much past that sales pitch, “You will be like God.”

Church leader, listen carefully, I was wrong in thinking that I could coordinate and program anyone else’s spiritual growth. I was wrong in thinking that by filling people’s heads with knowledge I was making disciples.

This is tricky because knowing more and learning facts absolutely can be, and should be, part of the fundamental process for genuine discipleship. Repentance, after all, is a change of mind, a new way of thinking. There is certainly a cognitive component to holistic growth, but the knowledge necessary for spiritual maturity does not come by listening to sermons and attending classes without having heavy doses of social interaction, dialogue, and service alongside others. Even if we wanted to reduce spiritual instruction to an academic task, brain science has made it clear that people need to be engaged physically, emotionally, and socially to learn and retain information. The brain filters incoming stimuli by their usefulness to our survival first, then their emotional impact and relational relevance.

What we find in scripture is a pattern of ordinary, untrained people being qualified for ministry and evangelism, not by attending classes and programs, but by an encounter with Jesus and receiving His Spirit.¹

Furthermore, the ultimate game-changer for me came in the discovery that the gospel is a foolish message, a truth that only makes sense when illuminated by the Spirit. When we reduce the transmission of the gospel to merely human efforts through our education and training programs, we miss the single most essential element of the gospel. The revelation of the gospel is spiritual. Contrary to our normal way of thinking, the Bible teaches us that the gospel cannot be understood by the human mind. It takes supernatural revelation. It is SPIRIT-ual, only revealed and received by God’s Spirit. In fact, it is so senseless without the Spirit that it causes people to stumble. Only by the Spirit does the foolishness of the gospel transform into salvation. There is no other way for Christ crucified to become majestic Power.²

Despite this truth, I spent countless hours in higher education and ministerial courses studying the gospel in preparation to adequately explain it to others. Think about that. I was invested in a process to humanly orchestrate the very thing God said we could not and should not do!

I can relate to the pastor who is totally bewildered while reading this article. What, then, are we supposed to do? Are we not to teach others? There is definitely still a place and need for guidance and instruction. (I concede that is exactly what I am doing here.) The difference is that it comes from side-by-side journeying together, not from a stage. It does not happen with one person being active in front of a passive crowd. The teaching that has any chance of leading to true discipleship constantly points to Christ and is relentlessly reproducible. It is not hindered by hours tucked away in sermon preparation. It is serendipitous because it happens in real-life situations. Ultimately, spiritual growth is transferred by loving. The curriculum is love and the instructional delivery method is love. The unit test is not reciting facts or displaying knowledge; it is the display of the fruit of the Spirit.

Conclusion

The clergy-laity distinction is a dubious one on its face. It does not exist in the kingdom of God, but it is the basis of just about everything in the organized Christian religion. The truth is God does not need or want individual human superstars to shepherd flocks or plant churches or be in charge of the spiritual growth of other people. Each of these activities is reserved for the Spirit of God.

There is much pressure within some church circles for a pastor to be a strong leader in these areas, but don’t give in to it. Resist the urge to boost your ego and let God do His job. If you already see that you have made mistakes based on the bad beliefs above, then it is a simple fix. “Lord, forgive me. You can have Your job back. I will simply follow you moving forward. Amen.”

But I recognize the problem goes deeper. I have lived it. The truth is these myths have led to an identity crisis for Christian leaders. Frankly, it is an ego boost to answer Jesus' call rather than my own. I get to be needed, save people, bring healing, preach the truth, be the head, shepherd the flock, etc. It is humbling to embrace the truth that I, like any other follower of Christ, am meant to be a body part, not the head. I am meant to be a sheep, not a shepherd.

An honest self-assessment is difficult. This goes for parents, mentors, teachers, and all caregivers, as well as pastors and youth leaders. The question is not what will happen to our children without us. The correct question is, What will happen to them without Jesus?

It is time to be FREE. Yes, pastor, you are created and called…just not to be Jesus. You are not called to save, heal, or judge anyone. You are to remain in Jesus, NOT replace Him.

1. Scott, Marc. You Don't Have to Do That: Moving Past What Is Wrong with Religion to Embrace What Is Right with Jesus, 57. Outskirts Press, 2021.

2. See 1 Corinthians 1 and Galatians 1.