Rob Bell, Cocoa Puffs and the Mega-Pulpit (Jeff Cook)

This post is by Jeff Cook.

When Rob Bell announced he would step out of pastoral work at Mars Hill Bible Church this December, there were many critical reactions.

No less a voice than Rick Warren decided to tweet, “Speaking tours feed the ego = All applause & no responsibility. It’s an unreal world. A church gives accountability & validity.” And later “[Bell will have have] less [impact], no base 4 credibility.” A handful of other commenters advanced the same line of thought, and there seem to be few backing Rob’s decision. Apparently many agree with Warren’s expanded analysis, “The local church has been, and always will be, the PRIMARY tool for God’s will in the world. Other ministries are important but secondary.”

With much due respect to Warren, are such critiques justified? Is the recent resignation of Rob Bell (or Francis Chan or NT Wright for that matter) necessarily that of an immature man who simply wants to shirk responsibility for applause? Must we conclude that someone like Bell lacks wisdom, or gumption, or humility, by stepping out of his role as Pastor?

There have been numerous condescending responses to Rob Bell’s announcement on both blogs and Twitter—and I think they are deeply short sighted, for three things seem clear to me:

First, assuming Bell gave his best to Mars Hill Bible Church, there is something praiseworthy about raising up living things and letting them breathe and carry on without you. This was the church-planting technique of St. Paul. This is the primary pattern of all zoological life, all discipleship, and (despite how many of us who have planted churches feel about our own importance) it is the only sustainable path for creating enduring churches.

Secondly, this line of thought deeply minimizes the vital work done by many who *aren’t* pastors. I appreciate deeply when pastors think they have the greatest job on earth (this is a great good), but the self-superiority of some online who have looked down on Rob’s decision because they think other jobs couldn’t possibly be as fruitful as theirs is simply unwarranted. Jesus consistently moved away from serving local communities of thousands of people in order to do non-pastoral work. Apparently going from town to town and speaking about the kingdom of God—despite the applause and notoriety —can be a worthy choice.

Lastly and most disturbing to me, what these resignations are exposing is a deep-rooted value judgment many of us hold. We apparently believe that being the speaking pastor of a church of thousands is the most important job there is. In fact, some have been openly reprimanded and accused by other well-known pastors of being “cuckoo for cocoa puffs” when they pursued work outside the pulpit. Because so many of us hold the ability to create and lead a megachurches in such high regard, it is easy to see why Warren and others can make claims that their work is more “real world”, more “accountable,” more “valid”, more “credible,” more “primary” than *any* other work. But this is clearly false and the error has persisted for too long now.

Because of such myths the pastor, not the church, will continue to be seen by our culture as God’s priest, as God’s mouth piece, as God’s hands in a dysfunctional world. We will continue to exalt the power of the microphone over the revolutionary power within seemingly common jobs—like elementary school teacher, lawyer, business owner. More tragic still, the primary focus of our churches—how they’ll be judged, how they’ll view success, the chief goal and most important element—will continue to be one of the least world changing: Preaching on a Sunday Morning.

I expect Warren would actually agree, and as such I think reconsideration of his claims would be good—for we should applaud men like Rob Bell who give a dozen years of their lives to a community in pastoral service. We should not mock them when they choose other roles that we might not find valuable. Instead, when such men step out of the pulpit, they should be saluted like veterans—those who threw their bodies into the middle of gunfire for the sake of the Kingdom of Christ.

Men like Rob Bell are worthy of such honor.

Jeff Cook is the author of Seven: the Deadly Sins and the Beatitudes (Zondervan 2008). He teaches philosophy at the University of Northern Colorado and is apparently taking fire at Atlas Church in Greeley, Colorado.