The Healthy Church Staff Podcast
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The Healthy Church Staff Podcast
When the Church Becomes the Pastor’s Personality
We unpack the quiet danger of churches that reflect a single personality more than the presence of Christ. When a pastor becomes the brand, culture, strategy, and draw of a church, what remains when they leave?
• Warning signs include all decisions running through one person
• Pastor's sermon clips outperform all other ministry content
• Staff feel like background extras instead of empowered leaders
• Critique is rare because it's seen as betrayal
• The unspoken fear: what happens if the pastor leaves?
• Teams stop taking initiative when personality takes over
• Elders become passive and staff afraid to lead
• Congregation becomes consumers rather than participants
• The gospel takes a backseat to the brand
• Recovery starts with elevating the team and giving real authority
• Normalize critique as care, not rebellion
• Share the teaching load with other voices
• Rebuild identity around community, not charisma
• The Church was never meant to be a stage for one person's greatness
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What happens when a church becomes more about a pastor's charisma than the community's calling? In today's podcast, we're going to unpack the quiet danger of churches that reflect a single personality more than the presence of Christ. Hope you stick around. Hi, I'm Todd Rhodes. I'm one of the co-founders over at chemistrystaffingcom and I'm your host right here on the Healthy Church Staff podcast. What happens when your church's greatest strength becomes its greatest liability? When the pastor is the brand, the culture, the strategy and the draw, what's left when they leave? If your church is running on one person's charisma, it's only a matter of time before the whole thing stalls. So stay with me. We're going to unpack today on the podcast why this is so dangerous and how to fix it.
Speaker 1:All right, let me say the last. It's probably been going on for a lot longer than this, but it's really risen, maybe the last 20 or 25 years, maybe 30 years, and what I'm talking about is the rise of the personality-driven church Because, let's be honest, people love a strong leader, everyone drawn to confidence and clarity and communication of somebody who just gets it. But here's the quiet problem just gets it. But here's the quiet problem when the personality becomes the primary reason that people come back to, your church's identity starts to shift because the church becomes known more for its pastor not for its people, for its mission. They're known more for the pastor than its mission. They're known more for the pastor than even its savior at times, and when that happens, every success builds the platform higher until it's a really long fall down. Oh, does this happen everywhere? It doesn't, and maybe it hasn't happened in your church. Maybe it has. Maybe you're on staff and your pastor is the celebrity pastor. Maybe you are the pastor and you're like I've never really thought of this, but this doesn't happen all at once. This happens kind of subtly over time, and a lot of times it's not intentional. Sometimes it's very intentional, but a lot of times it's not.
Speaker 1:So let's look at a few of the warning signs. Okay, can we do that? Warning signs that your church might be built on personality. And let me say also that if it's not your church, you probably are thinking of one right now. You're thinking of a personality, maybe a national personality. I could name off a few. Maybe it's a church across town that you feel like is built on personality. So let's get practical. What are the warning signs? How do you know if your church or a church has become a reflection of the pastor rather than the people. All right, here are a few signs, and internally, these are internal signs. So if you're just going on a Sunday morning, you might not see these, although I'm going to tell you a story that I had as an outsider, where I, boy, instantly knew that this was a personality-driven church.
Speaker 1:Okay, few warning signs. All major decisions are run through one person. You got to please one person. That's the personality, that's the pastor. Maybe their sermon clips outperform any other ministry content by a mile, and I heard somewhere that if your pastor has and I don't think this isn't true everywhere okay, but for some people this is, you take the bait and it's just. If your pastor's Instagram has more followers than you do, attendees on Sunday morning, it could be a distraction and it could be something that kind of leads to this. So if their sermon clips are by far the most popular ministry content, that could be a sign. Maybe your staff feel like or the staff of the church feel like, background extras instead of empowered leaders.
Speaker 1:Maybe honest critique is rare, because if you critique something, it's seen as betrayal against the person in charge and maybe the biggest unspoken fear of not just the team and the staff and the board, but the whole congregation is and maybe they'll never say this but what's going to happen if he leaves? What happens if she leaves? If you feel the tension, no-transcript, that's good because it means you care, but it also means that there might be some warning signs. So what does this do to the church? Like I said, it's a slow erosion that happens. When this happens, when you've got a personality that's taking over, teams just stop taking initiative and elders become passive. This happened with, if you remember, what happened at Willow Creek with Bill Heidels when the final report came out I believe it was the final report that came out and it just said that the elders had become passive because they didn't want to tackle Bill, they didn't want to mess with him because Bill was the guy. So the elders became passive. Maybe staff are afraid to lead and the congregation becomes consumers of content, not participants in the mission, and a lot of times the gospel starts taking a backseat to the brand. A lot of times it's unintentional, sometimes it's intentional, but other times it's unintentional but it is devastating.
Speaker 1:A few years ago I was at a big church I won't tell you where it was, tell you what city I was in or where this church was, but you would know the city, you would know the church, you would know the name of the person. But I tell you what as soon as probably when I got out of my car, in the parking lot I believe there were some pictures of the senior pastor even in the parking lot. But I got inside and there was a bookstore that had, oh, like all of the books of this person, like big displays. There was a big cutout, a life-size cutout of the pastor, who actually didn't happen to be there that Sunday, but a big, life-size cutout. The screens before the service were all about this person and his newest book and the next conference. And even though that pastor wasn't there to preach that day I don't know how many times his name was uttered from the stage, but you knew it was La La La's church. Okay, I won't say who. It was. Totally a personality-driven church. Okay, I won't say who. It was. Totally a personality driven church, totally a personality driven church.
Speaker 1:So, if you're in one or one, is it possible to get back? Yeah, I think it is. I think it is, but it's difficult because you got to shift the culture and you got to shift the culture from that personality driven back to health. So how do you do that? If you're seeing the signs of this, first of all, don't panic. Chances are. Ministry's still getting done, still a lot of followers, although, yeah, but don't panic. But there are some things you could do, and I know these are easier said than done and according to where you are in the organization maybe you're the senior pastor, maybe you're the personality there are some things definitely that you can do. Maybe you're on staff, maybe you're on the board, and this doesn't have to. This isn't just a megachurch thing, okay, this happens in small towns and rural congregations as well.
Speaker 1:So how do you? Where do you start? First, you elevate the team, give real authority, delegate, give visibility to other staff and to other leaders and invite honest feedback. You have to admit that there's a problem. You have to admit that something is askew. And you got off, got out of the guard, outside of the guardrails, okay. So normalized critique is a form of care, not rebellion. Share the teaching load, let other voices kind of shape the tone and the theology and the culture of your church and then rebuild identity around community, not charisma, and eventually you've just got to center everything back on Christ and not on a content calendar, toward getting as much content out as you can or elevating the personality. Now, this isn't about playing small. It's about building something bigger than any one person is, or more than what any one person can carry All right. So here's the big idea, the takeaway for today. The final Church was never meant to be a stage for one person's greatness ever. It was always designed to reflect the glory of Jesus through a body of believers, and when we remember that, we build something that lasts. So let's do it. Let's do it that starts today.
Speaker 1:Hope this has been helpful for you and I'd love to hear your comments. Maybe you disagree. I would love to hear from you. Podcast at chemistrystaffingcom. Maybe you agree. You're like Todd man, that's right. I would really hear from you, just kidding.
Speaker 1:I'd love to hear anything that any listeners to the podcast have to share Podcast at chemistrystaffingcom. And if there's any way I can partner with you and your church and your team to create a healthy staff environment. Maybe that's hiring a new staff member, maybe that's working with compensation or just coming in and helping to assess the health of your team. I'd love to be able to do that Again. Podcast at chemistrystaffingcom. I read every email that comes in. I try to get right back as soon as I can with some kind of response to each and every email as well. All right, very good, I will talk to you next time right here on the Healthy Church Step Podcast. Hey, if you haven't subscribed, go ahead and subscribe so that you get notification. But even if you don't subscribe, we're here every single weekday, right here where you're listening right now. Have a great day you.
