Honoring Pastors Without Making Them Kings

Key takeaways

• A tattoo raised the question. The hosts watched a video of a man with a pastor tattooed on his forearm and asked where honoring a leader becomes idolizing one.
• People keep crowning kings. Pastor Adam Mesa said every group looks for a leader to represent it, and that this pull is as old as Israel asking for a king.
• Honor listens. Mesa described honor as recognizing a pastor's voice in your life and acting on it, as a man in his seventies did when he joined a church fast.
• Honor stays loyal in private. Mesa passed along a line from a leader he knows: public honor creates private leverage.
• Honor starts in the heart. The hosts agreed that honor is more than kind words from a stage, and that it shows in what we do.

A tattoo that raised a question

On this episode of Beyond the Letter, Pastor Adam Mesa and his co-hosts watched a short video of a man showing a tattoo of the preacher Philip Anthony Mitchell that covers his forearm. In the clip, the man says he got it to honor his leaders, and he defends the pastor against critics who object to the price of a ticket to his events.

The hosts were not sure the video was real, and they noted that Mitchell had not responded to it. The question they took from it was bigger than one tattoo: where does respecting and looking up to someone cross a line?

Where the line starts to feel wrong

The first reactions were personal. One co-host said he would never put a leader on his skin. The first tattoo he would choose is Jesus or a cross, and he said that putting images of people on your body takes a different turn.

Another co-host has Jesus tattooed on his arm and has been wrestling over a portrait of his father, a man he deeply loves. Every time he prays about it, something stays unsettled. As he put it, "there's something about putting my dad on the same arm as Jesus". He decided there are other ways to honor his father.

Mesa said he carries a picture of his wife, Ashley, from their wedding day on his arm. For him it is a way to hold a memory, and he is not worshiping her. He agreed there is still a line to talk about, especially when the person is alive. One host said a living pastor has not yet heard "well done" from God, and that admiration can turn quickly when someone says something that offends you.

Another host described the danger as a shift of focus, from the God who is using a person to the person himself.

Why we keep looking for kings

Mesa widened the lens. He said he makes the same comment whenever someone new blows up in the church world. As he put it, "Israel always wants a king." He pointed to the stretch from Judges to the first book of Samuel, where Israel asked for a king like the other nations had, even though God said he was leading them (1 Samuel 8).

In Mesa's telling, the modern church does the same thing. Groups form around ethnicity, income, culture and generation, and each tends to pick a leader who represents it. A host added that Paul dealt with this in the early church, where some followed Apollos and some followed Peter (1 Corinthians 1:12).

Mesa said leaders respond differently. Some want the admiration. Others see their influence as grace they are responsible to steward. Either way, some people lift a leader to the level of an idol, and others are so against influence that they look for a reason to hate him.

He also told a story about a gathering of Hispanic pastors. No one spoke to him or Ashley at the first night's mixer. Then the best-known pastor in the room introduced Mesa from the panel, and afterward everyone wanted his phone number. Mesa said the lesson was how tribal we are, and that unhealthy idolizing is always asking what we can get from a person.

He gave one more warning. Some young people say they will be digital disciples and skip a local church. Mesa said he knows how that tends to turn out, and he asked what happens if the preacher you built your life around falls short.

Honor that listens

Mesa said he is old school about honor. In his view, honor means opening your heart to a person's guidance, and that includes your pastor's voice in your life.

He told of a man in his seventies who recently joined one of the church's newer campuses. When Mesa invited the congregation to a water fast, the man looked around at the raised hands and thought those people were crazy. Then he saw his own hand in the air. Mesa recalled that the man told him, "I did it because you're my pastor and you care for my soul." Mesa is thirty-six, and the couple had no history with his church or his father.

Mesa said that was honor, even though the man never used the word. Honor, he said, is recognizing a person's voice in your life. It also means defending your community, staying rooted until you are told otherwise, and refusing gossip and slander.

It also involves submitting when you would rather not. Mentors have told Mesa to do things he did not want to do, and sometimes they were right and sometimes wrong. His conclusion: "I'd rather choose honor than pride."

Honor that stays loyal in private

Mesa retold a scene from Saving Private Ryan. A captain's soldiers push him for his opinion about a risky mission, and he refuses to give them a foothold to disrespect the chain of command. The captain says complaints go up and they do not go down.

Mesa connected that to a line he heard from a leader he knows: "public honor creates private leverage." His view is that people who gossip and publicize what they are angry about lose the standing to be heard. He said his own father knows what the two of them argued about, and no one else will hear it from him unless his father tells it first.

He also said honor takes effort. When his father shared in a staff meeting a dream of a Sunday night service to reach the next generation, Mesa and Ashley took it as a burden to carry, and the service started. When his father began a leadership class, Mesa sat in the front row every Tuesday so his father would know he was not alone. Mesa's point was that honor shows up when something is inconvenient.

Honor that begins in the heart

A co-host recalled Jesus' warning about people who honor him with their lips while their hearts are far away.

‘These people draw near to me with their mouth, and honor me with their lips; but their heart is far from me.

(Matthew 15:8, WEB)

He said the church often reduces honor to a platform moment, with nice words about a pastor. As he put it, "honor just isn't something that we say, it's more so in what we do". It shows up in sharing a leader's burden and putting your hands to the work.

Another host offered a simple test: ask how you honor God, then let that shape how you honor your leaders. He was clear that this does not make a leader God. It is a way to check your heart.

The conversation ended with the next generation. One host said younger people may not care about kings at all. What they want is formation, meaning someone to teach them to pray, to fast, to be silent and to read God's word. He said the answer is to teach Jesus as the king and let them decide whether it is real.

What this means for you

You can admire a pastor, thank a mentor and learn from a preacher online without crowning anyone. This conversation suggests a few questions worth asking yourself.

Is anyone taking the place in your life that belongs to God, or to the church where you are known? If the leader you follow fell tomorrow, would your faith still stand? And when your pastor shares a burden, do you carry any of it?

Honor, as these men described it, is quiet and consistent. It speaks well of people in public, keeps its complaints to itself and still shows up on a Tuesday night. When it costs you something, it is probably the real thing.