How to construct a professional persona.

In the old days, seasoned Maryland pastors used to say, “If you drink beer with your crabs, be sure to eat your crabs at least fifteen miles from home.” While that was meant quite literally, there is also a broader principle in play: Never let your professional persona down in front of church people. If your services are broadcast, “church people” refers to everyone in the markets in which you air. For this reason, it's best to leave Las Vegas off of the syndication list. Even still, remember that what happens in Vegas seldom stays in Vegas. In other words, very much like a costumed vigilante, you must keep your true identity hidden from all but a few trusted friends and paid professionals.

The first thing anyone will notice about your persona is, of course, your appearance. You must look the part or no one will take you seriously… not even you. If you serve a casual church, you need to resign yourself to the fact that you'll be wearing pressed khakis and shirts emblazoned with promotional messages every day for the rest of your life. If you serve a formal church, your appearance should be closely modeled after network news anchors.

If you wear suits, they must be pure wool or wool-blend. Countless pastors have been fooled into thinking that, from a distance, an inexpensive micro-fibre suit looks good if tailored well. This fails to take into account the reflectivity of polyester under high-powered stage lights. That affordable blue suit may look just fine on the rack, but on stage it will transform into something worthy of a '70s pimp.

Preachers are expected to drive high-end black cars that fit in well with funeral processions. Never mind the fact that you will probably be delegating your funerals to a staff member with less important things to do. Stick with a Lincoln or a Cadillac. Although Buick's image has shifted somewhat in recent years, the brand still says, “sedate follower” to most people who pay attention. Buick seldom ships black cars anyway, which is odd considering how unflattering metallic beige looks on them. When you're just starting out, the Chrysler 300C is ideal. (Forty years ago, Charles Merrill Smith wrote that the 300 was the best car a pastor could hope for… now it is a starting point.)

Stay away from the Acura, no matter how great a value it may be. For some reason, people have a real problem with pastors driving foreign luxury cars. It defies logic, but don't challenge this rule. Riding a motorcycle to the office on a weekday may give you an earthy appeal for some people, but don't try it on a Sunday morning. Convertibles say one thing: mid-life crisis waiting to happen.

Once you have the professional facade perfected, you must dig deeper to the next layer of artificial veneer: your voice. Congregations have a strong preference for baritone preachers. If you don’t naturally speak in a baritone range, you will need to spend many hours with a tape recorder tuning your voice appropriately. Then, of course, you will need to craft your conversational diction. Southern accents are to be avoided outside of the south. In previous eras, the use of contractions by preachers was discouraged, but is now acceptable. Above all, you must always speak in a slow, metered voice. You must ooze spirituality. The ideal style would be a cross between James Earl Jones and Obi Wan Kenobi. Measure every word for its desired effected. Never say anything off-the-cuff. Every sentence must have a purpose, so don’t speak until you’ve figured out exactly what you want and how to get it. Luckily, people expect pastors to be lost in thought. If you close your eyes while you think about what to say, people will think you’re praying for inspiration. Divine inspiration is always a plus, but no one knows whether you actually have it but you.

Finally, a word on body language. Violate personal space as early as possible in every conversation. If you can, place a hand on the individual’s shoulder. This will establish dominance in the relationship. The other person will either accept or reject the dominance. Either way, you’ve learned something important about them that you will be able to use to your advantage later. The benefit of the shoulder maneuver is that it has the appearance of a kind gesture. If your dominance is rejected, they will feel guilty about it. More importantly, if they recoil visibly (which is quite natural) they will appear to be unfriendly to others in the room. Once again, you emerge the winner.

Leaving a legacy: choosing a successor to take the blame.

When Alexander the Great “retired” (that is to say, when his generals assassinated him), his empire didn't just stop growing... it was quickly divided up among his executive staff. Not much has changed since then. Mega-churches, by definition, more closely resemble social movements than they do permanent institutions. Movements seldom survive the departure of their founders. When they do survive the transition, they come out as institutions. This is somewhat ironic, since mega-churches owe their existence to their ability to cast themselves as being alternatives to conventional religious institutions. Knowing that, in a very real sense, your congregation will someday become the enemy of all you have stood for, it is absolutely critical that you leave it in the hands of someone whom you truly detest. Several options usually present themselves.

If you have children, one of them will probably be praying for you to have a debilitating stroke years before you're ready to step down. The perfect reward for such progeny is to take on massive debt, build an outrageously impractical facility, and then drop it in their hands. You will be remembered as the builder, and your heir will be known as the one you couldn't run a decent capital campaign. This is a win-lose scenario. Such scenarios are perfectly desirable, as long as you are the winner.

If you actually love your children, you will need to find a successor somewhere else. The author recommends examining your staff very closely. Make sure all of your competent leaders are let go long before you retire. This will assure that you and they will never be compared, allowing you to step down gracefully. Then choose the most milquetoast of the survivors.

If you have been foolish enough to invest the power to hire your successor in the hands of a board or committee, under no circumstances should you actually let them make the decision. Allow them to think they have a say if you must, but be sure that the deck is stacked at all times.

If, no matter what you do, your successor turns out to be even more successful in leading the congregation than you were, you will have a dilemma on your hands. It is only natural for you to be resentful that your legacy has been co-opted by something greater than you. Most pastors in this situation have found ways to utterly destroy their former congregations. This author may be a bit old-fashioned, but I beg of you: do not do this. There are two obvious reasons to avoid killing your church, and third that's less obvious. First, the press will paint you as a villain, and they will be correct. Second, the church ultimately belongs to God and it is wrong to kill it, no matter how badly it may deserve it. Finally: It's both easier and more profitable to spend your “retirement” starting a new congregation that can directly compete with your prior congregation. You probably won't match the attendance of your old church, but you can expect to consistently win the time-slot with your telecast.

Appendix A: If you're unfortunate enough to be stuck in a standard-brand denomination.

The dangers of church hierarchy.

Denominational hierarchy is to be avoided at all costs. There may have been a time when wooing higher officials was beneficial to one's career (although this author doubts it), such time has long since ended.

Wise pastors pay attention to the events that take place around them and observe patterns over time. Here is one such pattern: Whenever a new bishop assumes control of an episcopal area, dozens of ambitious pastors surround them in an attempt to court favor. Three quarters of them go down in flames very soon thereafter. The survivors soon learn two things:
1. Being a slightly over-paid yes-man is not all it's cracked up to be.
2. The next bishop will fire them on his first day in office.
Nonetheless, when that next bishop arrives, there will be dozens more willing players for the game that has no winners.

Why you should never invite the bishop to preach.

Inexperienced pastors often think (mistakenly) that there is some possible benefit to be gained by inviting the bishop to come preach in the local congregation. Possible benefits include:
1. The bishop will interpret the invitation as a sign of loyalty and, therefore, reward the pastor.
2. The congregation will be impressed by the rare treat of hearing a truly excellent preacher.
Of course, neither of these benefits will be realized. In reference to the first point, we've already discussed the perils of being "rewarded" by the bishop. In reference to the second, very few bishops are, in fact, competent preachers.

More importantly, inviting the bishop to visit your congregation is something akin to inviting a tornado to visit a trailer park. The bishop will without a doubt consider it his duty to preach a sermon that will contain supposed answers to all of the congregation's ills, most of which will be subtly (or not-so-subtly) blamed on you. The bishop will think nothing of announcing major new initiatives to the congregation (ex.: We're going to merge this church with three others and relocate it north of town...) without consulting you. Furthermore, you will be expected to carry out these new initiatives, which will be ill-conceived and impractical. On the other extreme, the bishop may very well decline the invitation, and bishops seldom feel the need to be gracious when they do so. The last thing you need to do is affirm that your congregation is, in fact, correct in its assessment that the denomination doesn't care about it.

More than one pastor's career has come to an abrupt end because they were so foolish as to invite the bishop to preach.

The most important reason to avoid bishops is that they will not help you build your mega-church. Any help they attempt to offer will invariably hurt you, so it's best that they don't even know what you're up to. A quick survey of mega-churches will show that the very few mega-churches having denominational affiliations bear little or no resemblance to their denominational siblings. In fact, many of them are actively engaged in open warfare with the denominations that claim to have given them birth. Given the poor track record of mega-churches in standard-brand denominations, it boggles the mind that bishops haven't banned them outright. But, thank God, they haven't yet, which leaves the field wide open to you.

A Note on Chapter Order

I'm sorry I didn't have time to post last week. Holy Week services needed to take priority. I assure you that there will be a post this week... But it will be an appendix rather than a chapter.

Why an appendix so soon?

These chapters are not being posted in any particular order. I'm simply posting the portions of the book that are finished. If I ever get around to compiling this into an actual book, it will look different. Since this book has no narrative, the sequencing shouldn't be much of an issue for you.

Once again, thanks for reading. Hopefully, Appendix A will be posted tonight.

Sex sells, even in church.

There isn't a single mega-church in America today that doesn't have a drop-dead gorgeous woman serving in the role of first lady or, in a few cases, as the pastor herself. Of course, this makes perfectly good sense. Sex appeal has proven useful in selling virtually every type of good and service on the face of the earth. Religion is no different. However, in the case of church, things are slightly more complicated in that the sex appeal must always remain at a subconscious level. This author can recall one famous first lady – turned pastor who wore tight blouses for years. The men flocked to hear her preach... until her neckline began to drop after her divorce. As soon as the cleavage became visible, those men suddenly became consciously aware of the presence of their hormones and began to squirm as if they had just kissed their mothers on the lips. Some men need a sex object to keep their attention in church, but they can never be expected to admit that need to themselves.

If you, the reader, are an unmarried man, the author's advice is simple: Marry the most beautiful woman you can. This may prove to be somewhat of a challenge, given the fact that today's male pastors are generally viewed as being effeminate. Lifting weights, wearing lots of cologne, and driving a car you can't afford can usually counterbalance that perception. If you are an attractive woman, the author's advice is likewise quite simple: If you've got it, flaunt it.

If you are in virtually any other situation, you will need to think long and hard about how much money you're willing to invest in plastic surgery for either yourself or your partner.

Preaching for Popularity

In his classic instructional manual, “How to Become a Bishop Without Being Religious,” Charles Merrill Smith advised that, in order to be successful, a sermon must:
1. Make people laugh.
2. Make people cry.
3. Make people feel religious.
That was undoubtedly true in the 1960s, however the formula needs a slight adjustment for today's audiences:
1. Make people laugh.
2. Make people cry.
3. Make people feel spiritual.

The difference is subtle, but worth noting. Religion seeks to connect us with something greater than us. While that is, in fact, what pastors are attempting to do, we must never admit to it publicly because most of our target demographic is loathe to admit that there is anything greater than us. Whereas religion looks upward, spirituality looks inward. Spirituality seeks to connect us, not with God, but with ourselves. Whereas religion makes people feel humble, spirituality makes them feel important. The reader may object that self-aggrandizing spirituality is counterproductive when one is trying to build a Christian church. However, a church is made up of people and, if you want people to come to church, you have to tell them what they want to hear.

As you endeavor to make people laugh, you must be acutely aware of how humor should function in a sermon. For our purposes, we will distinguish between two kinds of humor. Subversive humor alerts us to the folly within ourselves so that we may laugh at ourselves. Conformist humor alerts us to the folly of others so that we may laugh at them. Mature, secure individuals who seek to better themselves love subversive humor. However, most of the people in your target demographic have intense, if suppressed, feelings of insecurity and inferiority. These individuals will hate subversive humor with perfect hatred. Conformist humor is the way to go.

Charles Merrill Smith pointed out that most people are incapable of distinguishing between true religious experience and simple nostalgia. Likewise today, most people are incapable of distinguishing between true spirituality and simple sentimentality. Thankfully, sentimentality is easy to achieve. Telling a story that brings a tear to the eye usually does the trick, thus killing two birds with one stone. This author receives several such stories unsolicited via e-mail every day. If you don't, subscribe to Reader's Digest and Guideposts as soon as possible. The stories need not be new or fresh. Nor do they need to tie in closely with your message, since their function is aesthetic.

In the mega-church business, multi-media sermons have been the industry standard for some time. However, novices limit their presentations to song lyrics, overpriced graphics, and Bible verses. In your presentations, it is absolutely critical that you use bullet points.
• Bullet points make every preacher appear to be more organized than they actually are.
• Bullet points give the audience something to focus on, which helps them think they’re paying attention.
• Bullet points create the illusion that the pastor could survive in a business environment.

Three bullets is the industry standard. A fourth is permissible if you truly must have it. Beyond that, you're running a serious risk of losing your audience. (The average attention span has dropped with each generation, first due to television, then video games, and now YouTube.) On the other hand, you must have more than two, or they will realize that you're preaching a “Saturday Night Special.”

Always outline what you believe to be true first. Then find Bible verses that agree with you, and quote them. If you can't find any Bible verses to support your position, simply quote someone else who does. Try to choose anecdotes spoken or penned by people who will be perceived as being at least moderately spiritual.

Political activism by pastors, given enough time, always backfires. All of the activist mega-church pastors of the previous generation are now remembered primarily as cautionary tales.

Ideally, if one were to read your sermons several decades from now, they would find nothing in them that would indicate when they were preached or what the major issues of the time were. The author knows one successful pastor whose own teenage daughters have absolutely no idea of what their father believes regarding abortion, or even if he's aware that the practice exists. It takes years of practice to achieve that level of neutrality, and that pastor is to be commended for it.

In preparing for your message, you must either memorize it or use tele-prompters. Since most mega-church attendees have never been to a normal church, they have no religious reference point. Your message will be compared, not with other sermons, but with political speeches, motivational talks, and stand-up comedians. Most of these professionals have a single message, which they perfect through dozens, if not hundreds, of deliveries. Using that level of quality as a base-line, they will consider preaching from a text to be nothing short of cheating. If you lack the technology for a well-camouflaged text feed, you simply must put in the time to memorize the message. Most of the better mega-church preachers devote at least twenty hours a week to this task. You may wonder how you will ever find time to minister to your congregation if you must spend a full third of your work week on rote memorization. The answer is simple: you won't. Delegate that task to people with less important things to do.

You must carefully examine your style of delivery. Preachers have always aimed to match their vocabulary to that of their least educated parishioner. The larger the church, the lower that level will be. Always use your word processor to check the reading level of your sermon. In smaller congregations, a tenth grade reading level is usually a safe bet. In a mega-church, aim much lower. Anything over eighth grade is really pushing it. Sixth grade is ideal. It goes without saying that each sentence much be limited to a single clause. If you don't know what that means, don't worry about it: You're already there.

Finally, you must decide whether you want to be a smiler or a shouter. Those two choices may seem very limiting, but a quick survey of mega-churches will confirm that they are, in fact, the only options. While smiling seems to be new industry standard, the shouters are still going strong. If you choose to smile, you must do it constantly... even when telling emotional stories... even when crying. It reassures people that nothing gets you down and that you are more emotionally stable than they are. If you choose to shout, be very careful. The day of the “stern father” preacher has ended. We are now in the day of the “righteous football coach.”

It goes without saying that all of the advice given in this chapter is vulnerable to the ever-changing whims of public preference. You must be forever vigilant in staying abreast of the trends. In earlier times, preachers stayed on their game by listening to other preachers. Loading up your DVR with sermons from other preachers is not without merit, but remember that modern-day mega-church preachers don't set trends, they follow them. To keep up with the leading edge, your best bet is to periodically attend the motivational conferences that tour the major cities. The greatest compliment you can receive as a pastor is to be compared with a famous motivational speaker.

Introduction

Forty years ago, Charles Merrill Smith wrote the now-classic instructional manual, “How to Become a Bishop Without Being Religious.” In its day, Smith's book guided many young pastors to fame and fortune. Nothing of comparable significance has been written since and the need for a practical guide to successful ministry can no longer be denied.

When Smith's book first appeared, most Christians were part of a standard-brand denomination. Success for the pastor meant moving up through the ranks, orchestrating promotions to influential pulpits, and ultimately achieving whatever top title your denomination offered. Those days are long gone. Since most Christians now belong to independent congregations, it is the author's assumption that the reader has no denominational affiliation whatsoever. In the absence of the possibility of promotion, the only way to get a bigger church is to build it yourself. Thankfully, this is far easier in an independent congregation because there is no bishop to critique your methodology.

If you are so unfortunate as to be stuck in a standard-brand denomination, and yet are reading this book, you have already reached the realization that your best hope for survival is to avoid alerting your bishop to your existence. Since bishops are now essentially irrelevant in the national religious landscape, to aspire to be one would be downright foolish. The path to success for the stand-brand pastor is the same as it is for the independent evangelical: bigger is better in every way. Unfortunately, standard-brand denominations are suspicious of large congregations and you will have countless obstacles to overcome if you are to be successful. These obstacles are addressed in Appendix A.

Our nation's overabundance of mega-churches being led by charismatic-but-average pastors is proof positive that anyone can build a mega-church if they know how. Since charisma can be easily simulated, you should have no difficulty if you are of average intelligence or better. This book will give you the church-building tools you need to get started.

The first thing you will need to do is forget virtually everything you learned about preaching and church administration in seminary. Seminary professors know quite a bit about theology, homiletics, liturgy, history, and other aspects of religious life. But they know absolutely nothing about building large churches because they've never done it. Most of them have never even attended a large church. If you follow their advice and waste your valuable pulpit time promoting the virtues of the New Revised Common Lectionary, you will undoubtedly impress your old professors in the off-chance that they come to visit. But you won't impress anyone else. If you have the advantage of working within a tradition that doesn't require seminary training, you will find yourself at an advantage. You will be able to apply secular business models to your church without the encumbrance of a highly developed theology of Christian morality.

Finally, a bit of apologetics: You may wonder if it really makes sense to build a mega-church given the critics' perennial charge that mega-churches do not produce mature disciples and are filled with people who are only nominally Christian. Consider the alternative. While it is true that most Christians now attend mega-churches, it is also still nonetheless true that most congregations are micro-churches. That is, most churches in America have an average attendance of only a few dozen people, most of whom share the same last name. Do the critics honestly think that micro-churches are any better at producing disciples?

When you ask the average micro-church attendee to explain their faith, they typically embark on a trip down memory lane, reminiscing about childhood years when they played hide-and-seek in the church cemetery. In other words, most of these people attend church for reasons that have far more to do with family traditions than with God. Given the choice, would you rather work your fingers to the bone serving a few dozen nominal Christians for starvation wages, or would you rather make a darn good living preaching to thousands of nominal Christians? The choice is yours. Now, you may object, noting that there is a third option: Medium-sized churches offer the benefits of both extremes minus the pitfalls of either. That may well be the case. However, since virtually all medium-sized churches initially set out to be large churches, the point is moot. It is best to set your sights as high as possible.

The author feels the need to emphasize the fact that being successful at building a large church has absolutely nothing to do with being religious. A religious life consists of practicing the spiritual disciplines and doing works of justice. Since neither of these activities can be observed from the back of a 10,000-seat stadium, whether or not you choose to engage in them will never matter to the majority of your congregation. They won't know anything about you... except what you tell them from the pulpit.

© Copyright 2010 by Stephen W. Humphrey, Jr.