church or personality cult?

Over the years, I have been struck by how much power a person in a position of authority/respect can have. I have had much personal experience with the effects of this when it deals with a pastor. What I find so interesting is that there are many churches out there that seem to be surrounded on the personality of the pastor. Call it marketing--- the pull being 'we've got the dynamic pastor' or 'our pastor knows a lot' or ' our pastor.....' fill in the blank. I am amazed though that this is promoted by making the face of the church the pastor's, literally speaking.

There is a church nearby my house that split from another church and started their own church. The new 'church' had a banner on the outside of it with a picture of the pastor and his name....just in case you didn't know where to find him.....oh I mean it. Every time I drove by it, it sickened me. Every time I see a vehicle from the church and it has his name printed on it, again sickening. When I go to the movies and an ad for a church pops up while waiting for the movie to start.....ok bothersome.....but more bothersome.....it is advertised with a picture of the pastor and his 'sweet, ideal' family. Since when has it been all about the pastor? Possibly this is an age old problem. We're always looking for something to idealize, to give us hope. We want to idealize the pastor and his family, giving us hope that ours will be better. . . .or at least a hope that there's better out there somewhere. Well, the problem is that this idealization leads to dangerous levels at times. Then when one has theological views to reinforce it, it becomes even stronger. I know this first hand unfortunately since I've experienced a church where the pastor beat down, broke down, people and then manipulated them....putting himself in the place of God, since he had a 'special anointing' or he was God's 'anointed', 'ordained', 'appointed' one. He did much damage to people in the name of God.

The epitome of this is those who bring this even into theology. I know of a denomination (they don't think they're a denomination) that teaches a theology known as the Mosaic view of leadership(yes you guessed right, a.k.a. calvary chapel). You see Moses led the people of Israel, i.e. the pastor is the new Moses. Dangerous,dangerous,dangerous! Basically, this puts all the stock in the pastor and encourages the people to, 'cuz after all he's 'appointed by God, speaks for God.' This takes the church to the level of personality cult in my mind. It puts the power in the hands of pastors who may or may not be good people. It makes a top heavy leadership with the wee little people below. Let's see I will show a chart.....maybe you can see the danger of this. This is the view.....as Moses was to God and over all, so is the pastor now in the New Testament. Scary to me! What to you?

This reflection of mine is not to say it is an isolated problem within calvary chapel. It is true that this is a problem in many other forms of Christianity as well. The bottom line, I'm beginning to wonder why very few people see the danger of making Christianity a Kingdom of personality cults?

church?

Sometimes it's hard to not give up hope. I don't know about you but there are times when I just feel so hopeless. My experiences with the body of Christ has been less than desirable over the last few years. When I drive by a church, I often think, "what does that word mean now days anyways?" It seems that anyone can slap that name on anything and people will come. It is so sad to me. It is so sad to me that so many people who are genuinely looking for something more, have a spiritual interest/need, are going to "churches" that are not even anything like what Christ had in mind. I don't know who these people are. I guess I just think of the general masses. I especially think of the power there is in words like "church," "pastor," or even "God" for that matter. It is unfortuate that even Satan has entered so many of these "churches" and used them for subtle evil. Many are just clubs with very little depth of belief or faith. Others are filled with zealous followers looking for someone to look up to. Many of these people find manipulative "pastors" who speak for "God" to feed this need to feel secure. When I think of the hypocrisy and deception that can go on in the church, I feel worse. Unfortunately so much "good preaching" is birthed from charismatic, manipulative pastors (don't get me wrong I'm not saying ALL). In some "churches" truth is found hidden only in one small corner of the room and becomes something that has very little substance anymore. I guess all of this, at times, makes me wonder if it is all worth it. I never thought that this is what being a Christian would involve. Lord have mercy!