The Ministerial Mystique
The ministerial mystique is a danger that can creep into ministry, where a person's style or role becomes more important than their authenticity, and the key to avoiding this is to be loyal to God and humble in devotion.
Art Katz emphasizes the dangers of adopting an inauthentic ministerial persona, which can lead to manipulative speech and hinder true calling. He warns that personal ambition and a desire for recognition can obstruct one's ability to align with God's interests. Drawing from Oswald Chambers, Katz highlights the importance of losing one's self-identity to fully embrace the Divine life, cautioning against the temptation to inflate one's sense of mission. He encourages ministers to remain loyal to God rather than to their own convictions, which can often lead to fanaticism rather than faithfulness.
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One of the greatest dangers facing anyone in ministry for the Lord, be it a worship leader, a pastor, a missionary, a Sunday school teacher, is that an unconscious affectation can creep in unnoticed. It is where a person takes on a style or role that they have adopted for themselves over a course of time. Speech becomes effected and manipulative to get results from otherwise mundane sermons or religious activity. It ends up prohibiting the actual calling in its authenticity, but it is difficult for us to see or relinquish because our 'spirituality' and identity are so much at issue!
Consider Oswald Chamber's My Utmost for His Highest for November 10. There he says, "If you seek great things for yourself-"God has called me for this or that; you are putting a barrier to God's use of you. As long as you have a personal interest in your own character [identity, calling--italics mine] or any set ambition, you cannot get through into identification with God's interests. You can only get there by losing forever any idea of yourself..." Unhappily, multitudes of ministries encourage our own inflated sense of 'special mission' that few can resist.
Chambers cautions us in his November 14th selection to "Beware of making a fetish of consistency to your convictions...the one consistency of the saint is not to a principle, but to the Divine life. It is the Divine life which continually makes more and more discoveries about the Divine mind. It is easier to be a fanatic [enthusiastic visionary] than a faithful soul, because there is something amazingly humbling particularly to our religious conceit, in [just] being loyal to God."
Sermon Outline
- The Ministerial Mystique: A Duplicating of Style
- Barriers to God's use of us
- The Importance of Consistency
- Consistency to the Divine life, not principles
- Loyalty to God, not fanaticism
- Humility in being loyal to God
Key Quotes
“If you seek great things for yourself--God has called me for this or that; you are putting a barrier to God's use of you.” — Art Katz
“Beware of making a fetish of consistency to your convictions...the one consistency of the saint is not to a principle, but to the Divine life.” — Art Katz
“It is easier to be a fanatic [enthusiastic visionary] than a faithful soul, because there is something amazingly humbling particularly to our religious conceit, in [just] being loyal to God.” — Art Katz
Application Points
- We must be careful not to let our personal interest in character and ambition get in the way of God's use of us.
- Loyalty to God is more important than consistency to our principles or convictions.
- Being faithful to God requires humility and a willingness to let go of our own ideas and ambitions.