Jerry Clower, the country comedian from Mississippi who kept us in laughter for a generation as no one else could, was once accused of having a big ego. “Sure I have an ego,” he would say. “Everyone needs an ego. If you don’t have one, go out and get you one! You’re going to be needing it!”

He was right, of course, so long as we bear in mind that by “ego” he meant a healthy self-respect. I spent a good deal of time with him and never saw any of the kind of ego we usually associate with “stars.”

David N. Meyer wrote the 2007 biography of country musician Gram Parsons he called “Twenty Thousand Roads.” It’s a sad tale of a lot of talent combined with too much privilege and money topped off by endless drugs and booze. I read it only because I had remembered Emmylou Harris remarking how much she personally owed to Parsons for his contributions to her art.

Toward the end of the book, Meyer is commenting on the difficulty of researching such a story. There’s no point in questioning the stars about what conversations and events. “For stars, nothing ever happened if it didn’t happen to them. If you want the details of the valence of a recording studio, don’t ask the guitar hero, ask the guitar tech.”

If you are the pastor of a church or in the ministry in any way, you may not need this reminder. In a perfect world, all ministers would have sweet spirits and servant attitudes and would be generous, faithful, and honest. Alas, it’s not a perfect world. Not even close.

When a pastor I know fell into sin–it was revealed that he had been a serial adulterer–and the public disgrace that accompanied that revelation, a former staff-member had an interesting insight into his character. “He let everyone put him on a pedestal. And man, he did love his pedestal.”

It’s not a good thing to say about our segment of the Christian church, but let a man pastor a great church (translation: congregations of thousands, budgets of millions, with public acclaim) and he will be idolized as more than he is by large numbers of people. If his ego is fragile and requires adulation, he will soon believe he is the greatest thing on the planet.

Some friends of mine moved across the street from Adrian and Joyce Rogers in Memphis. Dr. Adrian Rogers, now in Heaven, served the great Bellevue Baptist Church there for over 30 years and built an incredible record. He was on world-wide television and his books sold in huge numbers. One day, my friend Bob called to his wife, “Wanda, come quick! Dr. Rogers is taking his garbage cans out to the street!”

His wife said, “Well? How did you think they would get out there if he didn’t take them?” Bob said, “I just never could imagine Dr. Adrian Rogers taking his own garbage cans out to the street.”

It’s funny, but revealing. We–some of us, not all, thankfully–put certain leaders on pedestals and make them something more than human. In this, we’re doing them no favor and even dishonoring our Lord, if you don’t mind my saying so. He alone deserves our worship and adulation.

In teaching through Paul’s Epistle to the Romans six times this January and February, I’ve been struck by three verses scattered throughout chapter 12 that may be the most needed sound in our church congregations and fellowships. Here they are, Romans 12:3, 10, and 16.

“For through the grace given to me I say to every man among you not to think more highly of himself than he ought to think; but to think so as to have sound judment, as God has alloted to each a measure of faith.”

“Be devoted to one another in brotherly love; give preference to one another in honor.”

“Be of the same mind toward one another; do not be haughty in mind, but associate with the lowly. Do not be wise in your own estimation.”

In teaching this chapter, I like to present Romans 12 as the picture of a healthy church, one that begins with its members consecrating themselves to the Lord (vs. 1-2), exercising the grace-gifts God has given them (vs. 3-8), and then relating to each other in love (vs. 9-21). Absolutely nothing affects the relationships of church members toward each other like humility does, and that’s what verses 3, 10, and 16 are calling for.

What “stardom” does is convince us that we are above other people, that the rules which ordinary people live by do not apply to us, that we are somehow better than others, and that when we give them our time we are somehow honoring them. After Jim and Tammy Bakker fell from PTL’s lofty perch, they later admitted that the idolatry they had received and the celebrity they enjoyed convinced them the ordinary rules did not apply in their case.

As though speaking to this stardom-syndrome, Paul–and the Holy Spirit addressing us through him–harps on that theme: “do not think more highly of yourself than you ought,” “give preference to one another,” and “do not be wise in your own estimation.”

God has given us a number of resources for restraining our out-of-control egos. One is family. No one can prick the balloon of pride better than one’s mate. “Honey,” said the smug pastor one Sunday afternoon, “how many really great preachers do you think there are in the world?” Knowing where he was going with this, the wife said, “I don’t know, but I can tell you there’s one less than you think there is.” (It’s an old story, but still works.)

Your children will also keep your ego earth-bound with their questions, demands, and honesty.

The second resource God has given pastors for preening egos is the people you work with. Deacons, staffers, and other key leaders are normally not overly impressed by the accolades coming the way of their ministry. They knew him when, or to state in another way, they know him now.

She shocked some viewers when she said it, but I heard a minister’s wife being interviewed on television about family relationships. How did she deal with being the spouse of such a famous clergyman, the interviewer asked. “I saw him this morning without his pants on,” she said. That was all she said, but she said enough. “No man is a hero to his valet,” the expression goes. I would add, or to his assistant pastor or staff or deacons.

Now, God has given the indwelling Holy Spirit and the Holy Bible’s teachings to the minister to also keep in check his self-centeredness.

There’s a way around these, I expect you probably know: draw back from your wife, put distance between you and the deacons, and quit praying and reading your Bible.

If that’s not a recipe for disaster, I’ve never seen one.

Which is the point, of course. Nothing heads you on the road to disaster like shutting down negative voices and giving full vent to your ego.

I’m going to list some ego-killing exercises which you may want to consider. Readers are encouraged to add your own discoveries at the end of the article by clicking on “comment.”

1. Volunteer in the ICU waiting room at your local hospital. Keep the room clean, the coffee made, and the family members of patients comfortable. You will see more suffering in a day there than you have seen in a month from the pastor’s office.

2. Volunteer in the serving line at your local rescue mission. Find out what it means to serve others.

3. Give the church custodian the day off and borrow her cleaning buckets and spend the morning swabbing out toilets. The secretary will hold your calls. Do not tell anyone else what you’re doing, and absolutely do not use it in a sermon or article later; otherwise forget it.

4. Tell your secretary you’re out visiting this afternoon, then spend the next four hours at a local nursing home. Check in at the front desk so they’ll know who you are, then sit with the elderly and infirmed. Watch television with them, listen to them, love them. Do not tell them you are a preacher, and of course, leave your preacher clothes at home.

5. Put a card in the Sunday bulletin which invites members to write in: “If I could change one thing about my church, it would be” or “If I could make one suggestion to the pastor, it would be.” You’ll get more ego-destroying input than you will need in a year.

6. Ask your deacons to conduct an evaluation of your ministry among the members of the congregation. I did this once, some years ago. To my surprise, they took the suggestion far more seriously than I had intended. They came up with a 7 page questionnaire, then divided into teams and made personal calls to every seventh church member. The results were very thorough and actually quite positive. I invited the other ministers on our staff to have the deacons do the same with them, but they declined the honor. I never did it again either. Some of my pastor colleagues accused me of having suicidal tendencies.

7. Find out where the homeless in your city congregate, put on some old clothes, and go down and hang out with them. Eventually, you might figure out some way to help them. (Again, no fair telling them you’re a minister, and using this in a sermon is verboten. You may want to alert a friendly cop, however, to drive by occasionally and check on you.)

8. Ask around for the names of the most popular preachers in your area, and make arrangements to drop in on their services. Hearing some really good preachers and seeing their churches packed will administer a needed dose of humility to your own situation. (When you hear only yourself preach–and most pastors do just that–it’s easy to lose your sense of perspective and conclude either that you are a failure or the best in the land. Visiting other churches might restore your perspective.)

I’ll stop here. What have you discovered that you’d like to share with us?