It seems like nobody believes in “paying their dues” any more. Everybody wants the short cut, everybody wants it now, everybody has huge problems with delayed gratification. The problem is that there is a good reason for “paying your dues”. The reason is experience.

You would hope that the Church would be exempt from this nonsense, but it isn’t. There are many self proclaimed clergy out there who rapidly “promote” themselves because they want to run their own show, or feed their own ego, or achieve fame, or any of a host of other misguided notions. As a result, there are actually clergy out there with very little experience in ordained ministry who have declared themselves “bishops” and recruited clergy to associate with them. I am virtually certain they don’t tell those who associate with them that they haven’t the first idea what they are doing. There is a word for that, and the word is deception.

A ministry based on lies is no ministry at all. It is the product of ego run amok, and it is a problem in the Church. It is especially a problem in the Independent Movement, which has credibility problems in many areas due to this sort of irresponsibility. For these folks, it’s all about them when it should be all about God.