The Underbelly of Christian Platform

I tread three tightropes in the Christian influencer space.

One: before I was published, I was a public speaker (still am). It’s not something most people know about me, but it’s been my longest running ministry throughout my adult life. I love to communicate about Jesus. I love moving (through the Spirit within) a crowd toward Jesus. I feel fully alive when I’m teaching and preaching. Nowadays, I speak less (though I’d love to speak more), and I consider my daily podcast, Pray Every Day an extension of that ministry.

Two: Perhaps I’m most known for my role as an author. And in that space, I have had to build what is called by industry professionals, a platform. A platform is simply a delineation of all the people you have contact with, whether through email, podcast audience, social media channels, You Tube, or your personal networks. When I started as an author, this word platform (in terms of the way I’m describing it here) did not exist. To get published as a novelist, I had to write the entire novel and a synopsis. As a nonfiction writer, I had to write a stand-out book proposal and pen the first three chapters. I have done both. But never, in those early years, was I asked how popular I was on the internet.

Three. A few years ago I started my own literary agency, Mary DeMuth Literary, where I take on author clients and represent them to publishers. This was a hand-in-glove match for my love of mentoring authors and teaching what I know about publishing. Currently, I represent a little over 30 authors. And the number one thing they wrestle with is this idea of platform. They, more than I did, have to grapple with their online presence. They have to convince publishers that people who know them will buy their book. And sometimes, it gets discouraging, especially if a first book doesn’t meet sales expectations. I used to think, naively, that if I sold my first book, I’d be set for life as an author. But there are so many pressures and sales goals to meet to be able to write again.

It helps to know in this discussion of Christian platform’s underbelly, that I used to attend a church whose leader is firmly established now as a Christian influencer whose platform has morphed into the millions. People now take vacations to visit that church, to hear that man teach in person.

And therein lies a problem.

If you have money or access to money, you can buy your platform. You can purchase followers. You can pay your way to prominence. If you’re part of a bigger ministry that platforms you, you can make a lot of headway in growing your numbers.

Used to be, books and speaking engagements came from actual influence, from people who had something to write or say that touched us, deepened our walk with Jesus, or had exceptional insight. Think: Eugene Peterson. I’ve heard it said that if Eugene were alive and trying to be published or get invited on stages today, neither would happen.

Something is terribly wrong when money and power enables you to have a big, fat platform, but thoughtfulness and scholarship and great writing matter very little. The result is sound-bite or hot-take communication that provokes but doesn’t grow a person.

In this cult of personality where big names get bigger and bigger platforms (and more and more revenue), books and conferences highlight only those so-called “platform gifted” authors and speakers. So little care is taken to look at their fruitfulness.

I know that Christian publishing is a business. I’ve been in it for 22 years now. I know the realities of book sales, marketing, PR, and going viral. But I’m becoming much less enamored with platform because what in the world does it really mean? And how, precisely, does it relate to God’s upside down kingdom?

I think about Jesus who did have crowds follow him, only to alienate them by speaking the truth. He didn’t build his platform, he edited it. The church was erected upon the shoulders of eleven, and those men were not popular, per se. They were faithful. And they relied on the Holy Spirit to do supernatural work.

Sadly, in conversations with authors who have crossed over to a New York publishing house, I have heard that platform is less important than it is in the Christian spaces. Help me understand why that is. Shouldn’t we be the ones less enamored by fame?

This gets at the infiltration of the cult of celebrity in the American church. We worship people who seem important to us, who are known and applauded. We chase after the famous, particularly if they’re controversial or they speak the truth (but not in love). We deify the platformed. We fawn in their presence. We are told that if we ever get to meet our heroic Christian leader, we’ll experience a “once in a lifetime experience.”

Bleh.

A platform is simply a place to kneel. It should point to the only One worthy of the highest platform. Any influence we have is derived from Jesus. But any platform we chase for the sake of insecurity or fame mongering will be burned up in the next life. It is wood, hay, stubble.

So I do my best to navigate this publishing and speaking space with humility. I do my due diligence as an author so my publishers will see that I’m a hard worker, and I am actively making sure (if there can be such a thing) my books sell. Most of the time, I don’t win. A lot of the time, I get discouraged, especially when I see AI books selling or hear plagiarized sermons that people share with excitement.

There’s that niggling voice inside that says, “Your faithfulness doesn’t matter unless you have a lot of followers.” And “You are unseen, and your hard work amounts to very little.”

I have to remind myself that God doesn’t waste our work. He sees it. But he measures it differently than the world’s system. He doesn’t look at follower count. He looks at faithfulness. And that is what I want to strive for.

Word after word. Obedience in the small places. Trusting that heaven’s economy is wholly different.