“Why Do You Stare at Us?”
Excerpted from Misplaced Glory: Breaking the Spell of Pastor Worship in the Modern Church by Stephen White. Release date January 2026. Reprinted here with permission.
We stand at a critical moment for the church. The old models are manifestly failing. The celebrity pastor system is producing scandal after scandal, burnout after burnout, collapse after collapse. Megachurches built around charismatic founders are discovering that succession is nearly impossible. Congregations shaped by passive consumption rather than active participation are producing Christians who cannot articulate their faith, who lack spiritual resilience, who fall away when their favorite teacher disappoints them.
Meanwhile, younger generations are increasingly suspicious of institutions and authority figures. They have watched too many leaders fall, heard too many promises prove hollow, seen too much hypocrisy masked by stage lights and slick production. They are hungry for authenticity, for community, for a faith genuinely centered on Jesus rather than on human personalities.
This is our moment. We can continue down the path of celebrity-driven ministry and watch the church become increasingly irrelevant and compromised. Or we can return to the New Testament vision of shared leadership, of communities formed around Christ rather than around charismatic individuals, of ministries measured by their faithfulness in pointing beyond themselves.
“Why Do You Stare at Us?”
In Acts 3, Peter and John have just healed a lame beggar at the temple gate. A crowd gathers, amazed, and begins to focus on the two apostles as if they themselves were the source of this miracle. The people stare. They push closer. They look at Peter and John with wonder that should be reserved for God alone.
And Peter, with the instinct of a true apostle, immediately breaks this misplaced awe: “Fellow Israelites, why does this surprise you? Why do you stare at us as if by our own power or godliness we had made this man walk?”
This question should be carved above every seminary door, embroidered on every clerical robe, written across the entrance to each church building: Why do you stare at us?
This isn’t just humility. It is theological precision. The crowd’s instinct to credit the healing to Peter and John’s power or godliness wasn’t simply excessive enthusiasm—it was a mistake about the nature of reality, a fundamental misunderstanding of how God works in the world. This kind of error, if left uncorrected, could distort the gospel itself.
Peter makes three quick, confident moves. First, he denies that the power came from himself or John. The miracle wasn’t a result of their spiritual strength, moral goodness, or inherent authority. They were simply instruments used by God.
Second, he points with laser-like focus to Jesus. “The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God of our fathers, has glorified his servant Jesus.” The healing happened “by faith in the name of Jesus.” Peter wants them to see that the real story is not about him and John but about the risen Christ.
Third, Peter immediately calls for repentance and faith. He doesn’t enjoy the spotlight or seek glory. He doesn’t pause to build a platform or increase his influence. The miracle becomes not an end in itself, not a tool for self-promotion, but a signpost pointing to Jesus.
This is apostolic ministry in its purest form. It recognizes the constant danger of misplaced awe, the human tendency to fixate on the messenger rather than the message. And it consistently, deliberately, even aggressively redirects attention away from the self and toward Christ.
What if we took this pattern seriously? What if we structured our ministries around Peter’s question? What if the primary measure of successful leadership was not how many people were drawn to us, but how effectively we pointed them beyond ourselves to Jesus?
The Friend of the Bridegroom
John 3 provides a positive paradigm for Christian leadership. John the Baptist’s disciples come to him with troubling news: Jesus is baptizing, and people are flocking to him. The crowds that once pressed around John are now following Jesus. His followers sense the threat to their master’s influence and reputation.
One can imagine their concern. They had given up everything to follow John into the wilderness. They had embraced his rigorous lifestyle, his prophetic message. And now this Jesus, whom John himself had endorsed, was eclipsing their master. What would happen to their movement? What would happen to John’s legacy?
John’s response is one of the most remarkable statements about leadership in all of Scripture:
“A person can receive only what is given to them from heaven. You yourselves can testify that I said, ‘I am not the Messiah but am sent ahead of him.’ The bride belongs to the bridegroom. The friend who attends the bridegroom waits and listens for him, and is full of joy when he hears the bridegroom’s voice. That joy is mine, and it is now complete. He must increase, but I must decrease.”
Notice John’s theological clarity about his role: “A person can receive only what is given them from heaven.” There is no room here for careerism, for self-promotion, for the anxious maintenance of position and influence. John understands that his role was assigned from above, that his moment was temporary, that his success is measured not by how large a following he can maintain but by how faithfully he fulfills the specific task God has given him.
Notice his insistence on proper categories: “I am not the Messiah but am sent ahead of him.” John knows who he is, and more importantly, who he is not. He is the forerunner, the herald, the voice crying in the wilderness. He is not the main event. This clarity about identity and calling is crucial. Much of the dysfunction in contemporary ministry stems from leaders who have lost sight of the distinction between proclaiming Christ and becoming, in effect, a Christ-like figure themselves.
But the third element gives us the controlling metaphor: “The bride belongs to the bridegroom. The friend who attends the bridegroom waits and listens for him, and is full of joy when he hears the bridegroom’s voice.”
In wedding customs of John’s day, this figure had a crucial but strictly limited role. He arranged the wedding, brought the bride and groom together, and facilitated their union. But once the bridegroom arrived, once the marriage was consummated, the friend’s job was done. He faded into the background. His joy was not in being the center of attention but in witnessing the union he had helped arrange.
This is what Christian leadership looks like when functioning as God designed it. We are not the bridegroom. The bride—the church—does not belong to us. Our role is to bring people to Jesus, to facilitate their union with Him, and to help them hear His voice. And our joy comes not from being needed or celebrated, but from seeing people genuinely connected to Christ.
John goes further: “He must increase, but I must decrease.” This is not personal preference for humility. He is articulating a fundamental principle of gospel ministry: the whole trajectory of faithful leadership is from prominence to obscurity, from center stage to the wings, from being heard to helping others hear Jesus.
And mark this carefully: John describes this decrease not as tragedy but as joy. “That joy is mine, and it is now complete.” His joy reaches its fulfillment precisely in his own diminishment. This is the great paradox at the heart of Christian ministry. We find our deepest satisfaction not in being celebrated, but in being forgotten; not in accumulating followers, but in directing them to follow Jesus; not in establishing our own legacy, but in ensuring that Christ’s name alone is remembered.
This is the vision of leadership we have lost. This is the pattern we must recover. And recovering this vision is not optional. It is theologically necessary. It is, indeed, a matter of gospel faithfulness.
