A few months ago, he was considered one of the greatest sporting champions of all time. Now, Lance Armstrong is a figure of international disrepute, who has been shamed and discredited for his repeated drug taking across numerous competitions. His career has been tarnished by a web of lies involving cover-ups, lawsuits, and ruined lives. To add insult to injury, the film Dodgeball no longer makes sense.
What went wrong for Lance? In his interview with Oprah, he said: ‘My ruthless desire to win at all costs served me well on the bike but the level it went to, for whatever reason, is a flaw. That desire, that attitude, that arrogance.’ Ultimately, he fell too much in love with winning, with cycling, with being the best – that he went to absolutely any measure to ensure that he stayed at the top. His battle with cancer set him back, so he resorted to drugs. Winning became Lance’s idol.
This is an extreme case, and one that doesn’t necessarily relate directly to our situations (we may not be professional cyclists, and are hopefully not embroiled in drug scandals). However, in our own small ways, we can be like Lance. And our cases are no less serious or detrimental.
On setting out to write about the not-so glam topic of idolatry, I had the intention of focusing on teen idols, and the fascination young people have with celebrities like One Direction and Justin Bieber. Idols like these are often surface-level and plain to see, public and easily identifiable. It would be all too easy to talk about idolatry at a distance, how it affects the young people we work with, and how we can help them dismantle the idols in their lives.
As I thought more about it, I came to the realisation that this would be avoiding the elephant in the room. In our case, the idolatry we suffer from is very well hidden. Our idols are much deeper, much stronger, much more crystallised, cleverly disguised and dangerous. We have hidden them even from ourselves. We may take a sense of comfort in Lance Armstrong’s story – thinking that we have the moral high ground and could never do anything quite so horrendous – but in reality, we set up idols in our hearts too. And this, unfortunately, can seep into our youth ministry. Not only does the human heart take good things like having a family, a successful career or a particular skill and turn them into ultimate objects of desire – believing that they can offer us significance and security and fulfilment – but the same can be said for our work with young people. I hope that you haven’t fallen prey to the potential golden calves of youth ministry, the youth work idols. I know that I have.
What is an idol?
It’s amazing to me that having been a member of the Church for 23 years and having studied theology for three of those, I have never had any teaching about idolatry (as far as I can recall), apart from a vague and occasional reference to a golden calf here and there (to which my 13 year-old mind thought, ‘I don’t worship golden calves – great!’). Timothy Keller, in Counterfeit Gods defines idolatry as follows: ‘Anything more important to you than God, anything that absorbs your heart and imagination more than God, anything you seek to give you what only God can give. A counterfeit God is anything so central and essential to your life that, should you lose it, your life would hardly feel worth living.’ In fact, as I read Counterfeit Gods I found myself convicted – page after page – that my heart is riddled with idols, idols which have been left unchecked for years. I have unwittingly been pursuing the idols of success, significance and achievement for the whole of my life. As all of the books on idolatry make very clear, the desires that we have are not bad things; often the things that we desire are good things. But they can become the altars on which we offer our best energies, deepest devotion and highest trust.
Keller goes on to distinguish what he calls ‘deep’ idols from ‘surface’ idols. Examples of surface idols include the desire for money, sex, possessions, a boyfriend or girlfriend or well-behaved children. Lying behind these are the deep idols of success, control, comfort, security or a good reputation, for example. In the case of our young people, the idols they may have are probably surface level. Over years of investment into these idols - allowing them to fester in our lives - they have crystallised into our hearts as deep idols, ones which are ultimately much harder to remove.
Imagine the following scenario with me. Alice decides to give up her well-paid job in the city to become a youth worker. Although she has (most probably) given up the surface level idols of money and status on the work hierarchy, she hasn’t thought to tackle the deep idols of success, power and reputation that she struggles with. These deep idols begin to manifest themselves in areas of her ministry: she wants to have the most flashy, innovative and fast growing youth group, she wants the most speaking engagements among all of her youth worker friends, and she wants to be thought of as extremely ‘holy’, ‘innovative’, or ‘gifted’ by her congregation. Others in the church praise Alice for her sacrifice and dedication to the cause, but she is left feeling that something is missing. Feeling hollow and unsatisfied, as if she can never achieve what she wants.
The problem of idols
I have a vivid memory of going to the cinema with my family to see Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith. Falling marginally in love with Anakin, and not really predicting the storyline to come – I was absolutely devastated by his demise and ultimate fate. (Spoiler alert - just in case you haven’t seen it: Anakin becomes Darth Vader.) I left the cinema feeling distraught, a feeling which continued for several days. When explaining my emotions to my parents, I said: ‘All he did was love her! It’s not fair!’ I was right; all he did was love her. But Anakin Skywalker loved Padme too much. He loved her so much that he became jealous and irrationally worried about her security, eventually killing her. Love in itself is not a bad thing, but Anakin’s obsessive love began to control and destroy both him and Padme.
The problem of idols is that they destroy, and result in shame. Any created thing that we make the ultimate object of our love will begin to control us. The idols which offer us security, hope and love in fact turn out to be vain and empty shadows, unable to fulfil us. As we follow these empty things, we too become empty hollow things, because we ‘become what we worship’ (G. K. Beale). Jeremiah 2: 5 says, ‘They followed worthless idols and became worthless themselves’. Lance Armstrong pursued winning to the point of destruction, of his life, other’s lives and to the detriment of the sport. Now all that is left is shame and regret. According to Hosea, we ‘have exchanged the glory of God for the shame of idols’ (4:7). We have swapped the glory of God for a pale reflection, an empty shadow.
The youth work idols
So how does this relate to youth work? Unfortunately, as idol factories, it is possible to set up mini golden calves in our hearts with relation to any area of our lives, including in ministry. Here are three idols to be particularly wary of, in the sphere of work we are in:
THE IDOL OF SUCCESS Under pressure from other leaders to be ‘growing’, or indeed from self-inflicted pressures of ‘doing well’, it is possible to serve the idol of success. This can manifest itself in the numbers game, where we judge a youth session’s ‘success’ rate on how many people turned up. Numbers begin to be exaggerated during conversations with other youth workers (typically 25 per cent more than the actual number of attendees). We determine the fruitfulness of the year by how many young people made a commitment, how many summer programmes were run, how many outreach projects were coordinated. It is right to want to see fruit in ministry, but there is a fine line between desiring the fruit for the sake of the kingdom, and desiring the outcomes for the sake of our own ministry success-ometer.
This is possibly the idol that I am most susceptible to, and one which I will always have to battle against. For example, I have fallen into the trap of inflating the numbers of attendees at church, on the Sundays when I am preaching. Twelve congregants doesn’t really sound good enough – 20 or 30 sounds much better. Even a teeny tie little lie like this, told to my colleagues on a Monday morning, reveals a desire to be seen as successful or significant. If it isn’t a numbers game, it will be a case of insisting that ‘God really moved powerfully’ in that small group of people. Or in other words: God used me powerfully and I am therefore significant and successful. Either way, it’s the outworking of the desire to have an impact not for the sake of God’s kingdom, but for my own sake.
THE IDOL OF SERVICE This is the story of the omnicompetent youth worker, the youth worker who feels the need to spend every minute of every day working in order to get everything done. Nothing can be delegated, and this particular idol reveals itself in overwork; I have to do everything because ultimately I am the answer. Julian Hardyman shares his own struggle with this particular idol in his book Idols: God’s battle for our hearts:
‘Ministry idols don’t let us take rest days. They make 80-hour weeks for pastors with young children seem so natural and right. “You are the best,” they whisper flatteringly. “Don’t delegate the children’s talk to anyone else – it won’t be nearly as good as if you do it.” Ministry idols are particularly unhappy about your devotion to your church being shared with your family. “Family?” they murmur to you. “Don’t let them be a distraction.” Ministry idols are quite happy to enlist new worshippers, so they are keen to recruit your spouse and children into the cult of ministry. Because your church plant is so important, it is obvious to the ministry idol that everyone must work as hard as you, or feel inferior and be made to feel inferior. Ministry idols love to have ministers who lead their whole church in worship – of the idol, of course. So homes where one or other parent is out at church activities five nights a week are spiritual homes.’
This time last year, I was working part-time for my church, as well as working at Youthwork. It got to a point - in the run up to the Olympics - where I was working through all of my lunch times, answering emails and fielding calls, responding to enquiries late at night and working most weekends to organise our outreach activities. Sundays were most certainly not rest days, with extra meetings and conversations about the event, alongside all of the normal planning and administration involved in the running of a church. I got to a point where I couldn’t keep up with everything, where I had lost motivation and creativity in all areas of life, and couldn’t remember the last time I had had a spare moment to think. Something had to change. I decided to stop working for the church in this role – carrying on with the youth work but stepping back from the organisational aspects. I felt guilty at the time, like I was leaving people in the lurch and disappointing the other leaders, who had come to expect so much from me. Part of this was a culture of service and overwork, set primarily through necessity and a lack of people at a small church. I had to battle through the feelings of guilt and also the feelings of being idle or lazy - which I imagine is the ordinary backlash when we refuse to bow down to the idol of service – but am convinced looking back that it was the right decision. I know it’s silly, but I measure my ‘rest levels’ by how many baths I am having; have you had time to have a bath recently?
THE IDOLISING OF SPECIFIC PEOPLE Unlike the first two ‘youth work idols’, this one is surface level; it is the idolising of leaders in churches or well-known figures on the youth work or Christian ‘scene’. For example, if we will only listen to sermons, read books or attend conferences which Louis Giglio is attending or has created – then we may find we fall into this category. Or it might go the other way; we might avoid these things on the basis of this connection. Sometimes I have found myself overly critical of people, revealing that I had actually placed them on a pedestal, only to be disappointed by them in reality. Similarly, if we can only worship when certain people are leading at our churches, or take something from the sermon when a certain person is preaching – then it would be good to question our elevated view of them. Again this is a balancing act: it is good to find people to trust and follow. Equally, the celebrity culture can slip into the Christian world, and it is important to remember that God can potentially use anyone and everyone to speak through.
It’s all too easy to become like youth ministry Lance Armstrongs, determined at all costs to ‘win’ at youth work – bowing down at the altar of youth ministry, sacrificing our lives, health and families for the cause of seeing growth, and enslaving ourselves in the process. And as with Lance, such an approach only leads to destruction and shame.
Here are some ideas for identifying and dethroning idols:
SPEND SOME TIME WITH GOD To help you in discerning the idols in your life, spend some time with God. Open up to God about these things, confess any idols you feel you may have and ask for his help in overcoming them.
OPEN UP TO SOMEONE ELSE Find yourself a mentor who you can be honest with about these things. Ask them to check up on you in a month’s time, to see how you are getting on.
GO THE OTHER WAY If you find that the idol of success is something you fall prey to – then deliberately go against this idol. See if there are ways in which you can do things which will see no discernible results. If it’s the idol of service – plan in some retreat or rest time, even if you feel you don’t have time for it. If it’s a particular person or style of worship – then listen to something or someone completely different for a month or two, and see how you find it.
BUILD GOOD HABITS Once you have tried going in the opposite direction to your idol, try to incorporate new, healthy habits into your life.
Idolatry self-diagnosis
Complete the following sentences, as an aid to personal reflection:
I will feel happy and complete if... My biggest fear is... I think my life will be significant if...
Looking at the answers, reflect and consider whether or not these are idols in your life.
Further ReadingCounterfeit Gods by Tim Keller Idols: God’s battle for our hearts by Julian Hardyman We become what we worship by G. K. Beale Preacher keep yourself from idols by Derek Tidball The idolatry of God by Peter Rollins No gods but God by Dennis Newkirk
PHOEBE THOMPSON is the deputy editor of Youthwork.
