November 14, 2006
Protecting the Pastor's Soul
Practical disciplines to keep church leaders in the race.
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The phenomenon of celebrity pastors in the American church cuts two ways. When a mega-pastor succeeds everyone buys their book, attends their seminar, and emulates their strategy. And when a mega-pastor falls we all look into our own souls for evidence of similar frailty. Although the Ted Haggard story has been all but forgotten by the popular media since the election, there are many church leaders still reeling from the revelations. In this post we highlight insights from other blogs about how pastors can guard their souls from the self-destructive power of immorality.
Professor Scot McKnight address how the environment created by evangelicalism contributes to pastors hiding their sins, and the importance of developing the discipline of confession:
In evangelicalism, and the charismatic stream in which Ted Haggard swims, sin is bad and sin by leaders is real bad. This leads to a complex of features that creates a serious problem.1. Christians, and not just pastors, do not feel free to disclose sins to anyone.2. Christians, including pastors, sin and sin all the time.3. Christians, including pastors, in evangelicalism do not have a mechanism of confession.4. Christians and pastors, because of the environment of condemnation of sin and the absence of a mechanism of confession, bottle up their sins, hide their sins, and create around themselves an apparent purity and a reality of unconfessed/unadmitted sin.5. When Christians do confess, and it is often only after getting caught, they are eaten alive by fellow evangelicals - thus leading some to deeper levels of secrecy and deceit.Read more of Scot McKnight's post.
Pastor of Mars Hill Church, Mark Driscoll, outlines the precautions he takes to avoid compromising situations with women in his church:
Pastors should have their office at the church and their study at home. There is no reason a pastor should be sitting alone at the church at odd hours (e.g., early morning and late evening) to study when anyone can drop in for any reason and have access to him. Instead, a pastor should come into the office for scheduled meetings and work from home on tasks such as emails, planning, studying, sermon preparation, etc. I spend the vast majority of my time working from home. Some years ago when I did not, I found that lonely people, some of them hurting single moms wanting a strong man to speak into their life, would show up to hang out and catch time with me. It was shortly thereafter that I brought my books home and purchased a laptop and cell phone so that I was not tied to the church office.Read more of Mark Driscoll's post.
Finally, Jenell Paris shares about the five sex scandals she's witnessed in the seven evangelical churches she's been a part of. This pattern, she says, is more than coincidence:
Their abuse was allowed to continue, in part, because of evangelical practice. We expect our leaders to be morally superior to the masses, and in order to preserve our expectation, we believe this to be so. We often allow pastors privacy in travel, expenses, and other arenas that we wouldn't allow to others. We often believe men in positions of power more than we believe the women and children who cry out against them. We prevent women from becoming true peers and colleagues to men, and so inhibit the formation of checks and balances that draw on the strengths of all people.Read more of Jenell Paris' post.
Posted by UrL Scaramanga on November 14, 2006
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Much food for thought here. How do these evangelical scandals, (according to this post) caused by exaltation of leaders, compare to the scandals of the Catholic church? They have a system in place for confession, and it has led to the same kind of coverups. What would we do if we found that Paul committed something foul on the road between Lystra and Derbe? Would that negate his epistles? Leave Christ out of this; He knew no sin. But how deep was Paul's struggle that was expressed in Romans 7? As long as there is sin, none of us is immune to falling, regardless of whatever system or relationships are in place to prevent it. DISCLAIMER: The statement about Paul on the road between Lystra and Derbe was simply a rhetorical "what if" kind of thing to illustrate the point.
Posted by: bishopdave at November 14, 2006
No one has really mentioned it ... but I think that a lot of the problem comes with the entire "celebrity pastor" phenomenon that we seem to insist upon having within North American Christianity. We desire our "superstars." We want their books, journals, and stuff. We instill in them such "power" that they begin to think and feel all-powerful. Think about it ... did Ted Haggard honestly think that none of this would ever come out in the open? What sort of thought processes would lead a rational man, much less a pastor, to make such decisions?
As for the suggestions on the post:
*Scot McKnight talked about the need for a "mechanism of confession." I have found that my Savior, Jesus Christ, has been quite sufficient in fulfilling that role. I enjoy several accountability relationships, but Jesus is my only priest.
*Mark Driscoll makes an excellent point about the pastor working and studying from home. That's what I do. But most traditional churches absolutely will not allow it. They are setting their pastors up to fail.
*Jenell Paris - All is can say is, "Wow!" I have never personally heard of so many moral failures among pastors, much less been a personal witness. If you read her post and follow her math through, then it looks like 80% of pastors are pedophiles, closet homosexuals, and porn addicts. Her personal experiences are, I believe, an unfortunate anomaly. They are not the norm. In each of her accounts, people accused and no one believed. In my world, if a pastor is accused of wrongdoing, everyone automatically believes. That's how jaded we are.
I think that throughout Christianity, we must stop creating our "celebrities" and placing our pastors on holy pedestals. We are simply ordinary men ... sinners saved by grace. We need prayer, support, and affirmation. We neither deserve nor need worship. But we do deserve "the benefit of the doubt."
Posted by: Geoff Baggett at November 15, 2006
Celebrity pastors are not the issue, but more of a scapegoat. There are many small church pastors who fail, many middle size church pastors who fail, many associate pastors who fail and the size of the church is not the issue in their failure but it is the issue in our hearing about it.
Posted by: leoskeo at November 15, 2006
Let's not make the compromise and fool ourselves that it is ok for spiritual leaders (pastors, deacons) to sin and sin big. If Paul or Timothy or Peter in New Testatment time had scandals like Ted Haggard; Christianality would have so discredited in the hands of untrustworthy first generation spiritual leaders that it might not even exist today.
However, we should reflect upon who we choose as our spiritual leaders and use what Bible has taught us instead of using the world's standard (or popularity or charisma or looking good on the outside)
Not everyone is called to be spiritual leaders. If one has a secret "dark side", they should know better and not to accept (or step down from) any spiritual leadership. If they don't, then they have made their choice to be a hypocrite, exposing their faith community to the risk of letting Satan taking a foothold of the ministry.
As 1 Tim 3:7 said, "so that he (the leader in position) will not fall into disgrace and into the devil's trap". In 1 Tim 3:10, "They must first be tested; and then if there is nothing against them... "
So if we are serving in leadership positions, and we are hiding a "darkside" that we know if expose will embarrass the church and shame God's name, the only honorable thing to do with integrity is to step down NOW and call a time-out from ministry to have our "darkside" be dealt with FIRST. There is no other way for ourselves, for our family and for our church whom Christ purchased with a great price. That is the honorable handling... NOT TO PROMOTE THAT IT IS OK FOR SPIRITUAL LEADERS TO SIN AND SIN BIG AND FIND A SPACE FOR CONFESSION.
Posted by: need-more-christian-soldiers at November 15, 2006
My comments to "bishopdave"'s remark:
Our focus should not be on "being exposed" vs "cover-up". The truth of the matter is: our sin, our dark-side, will eventually catchup with us. It's a matter of time.
Our focus should be on "Guarding our heart". We must desire to serve our God so much that we choose holiness over "darkness" in order to make us clean vessals to do God's work. The choice is ours to make. We cannot keep our "dark-side" and serve God at the same time. We can only pick one.
I choose to believe that Paul, Timothy, Peters and others are among the great cloud of witnesses.
We should desire to be a member of this great cloud of witness as well.
Hebrews 12:1 "Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us."
There are two types of God's servants: those in this great cloud of witness and those who bring disgrace. The only way not to lose membership in the first "class" is to guard our heart counting on the active interaction with the Holy Spirit INSTEAD OF by our own will power.
Let's maintain the right perspective.
Posted by: HigherGround at November 15, 2006
Geoff Baggett said of Jennell Paris' post: "Her personal experiences are, I believe, an unfortunate anomaly."
I've had the same sort of "anomaly" in my experience at the last few non-demon congregations my family and I have attended.
Jennell, you're not alone.
Posted by: Michelle Van Loon at November 15, 2006
I think one of the biggest shames is that church leadership continues to underestimate the pervasiveness of pastoral sexual addiction. One survey found that a third of all pastors surveyed had viewed pornography in the last month (The Leadership Survey, 2001, in Leadership Journal). I think the idea of confession is a step in the right direction but considering the amount of workplace surveillance that is acceptable nowadays, it might be more appropriate for there to be someone in the church in charge of monitoring websites visited by pastors. Perhaps this job could be done by an ethics panel within the church that conducts spiritual assessments of the leaders as well as directing them to people they can confidentially confess to (like therapists). This is by no means a cure-all but would likely be humbling enough (for who likes to hear that they need to be constantly monitored) to keep pastors from thinking of themselves as spiritual giants.
Posted by: Curtis at November 15, 2006
The problem is not that someone messed up, people! What is really to be discouraged is speaking hateful things against others of different faith (or no faith), practice, sexual orientation etc. Jesus never preached fire and brimstone messages against sinners. There is nothing wrong with being against sin and sinful practices, but the more hatefully you preach against them, the more one has to wonder - when is it all going to blow up in your own face? For goodness sakes - read Phillip Yancey's "What's so Amazing about Grace?" before lashing out in a very un-graceful manner!
Posted by: Anne at November 16, 2006
It's so hard to balance appropriate safeguards against being so strict that you're unable to do your job.
Speaking from the perspective of a parishioner, I am appalled when I read about churches prohibiting ministers from ever being alone with women -- so it's perfectly fine for the singles pastor (for example) to meet up with a young man in the congregation for lunch but not a young woman. Ummmm ... no. There's got to be a better way to protect yourself from yourself than keeping half your congregation at arm's length.
Mark Driscoll's suggestion, to my mind, solves the inequity problem by keeping EVERYONE at arm's length. Come in to the church for scheduled meetings but whatever you do, don't be available to lonely, needy people.
The problems of sin and temptation are real. But there simply HAS to be a better solution than blocking yourself off from the people you're supposed to be serving.
Posted by: Kristen at November 16, 2006
I have a novel idea...how bout we do away with the whole centralized authority thingy in the church.
Spread the responsibility amongst the elders and deacons...I'd bet that would resolve the embarrasment of these episodic events.
Posted by: Sheerahkahn at November 16, 2006
Being subject to "accountability relationships" (I'm not sure "enjoying" would be the right verb here) and practicing a discipline of confession can be two very different things. "Jesus & Me" spirituality can lapse into a mockery of "confession" which does nothing toward rooting out sin in one's life. Jesus was Ted Haggard's "only priest," too, but we've all seen how long it took him to finally own up to the depth and breadth of his deception - for a while, it was "I bought the drugs but I never used them," then "I used drugs, but I only had a massage," then finally "I've been sexually immoral." He's now doing what he should have been doing all along - confessing to fellow pastors who can help him in his recovery.
Posted by: Deborah at November 21, 2006
1 Corinthians 13 says, when the perfect comes then that which is imperfect will be made perfect. All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God and until Jesus Christ returns, the perfect one, then Christians, even pastors and other leaders will have occassions when they fail. That is the whole point of forgiveness and compassion. The only man to walk this earth who has never sinned and will never sin is Christ himself. So we should all be willing to forgive everyone from the pastors to the infidels.
By the way, if a pastor tells a lie should he resign his post and not be forgiven by his congregation? I believe all sins are equal and if you should be forgiven for one, you should be forgiven for all and be accepted aS a human who makes mistakes. Nobody is superhuman.
Posted by: D.H. at November 23, 2006
No D.H. nobody is superhuman but there is the new creature and of course the Perfect has come and still is here... that is why He said in Rev 3:20 Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me.
Posted by: Richard Moszumanski at December 9, 2006
Leoskeo, I know what you mean about a sleepy congregation... those fed to much sugar on theology and creed. Those not having a clue that revival Himself ( as person) lives at the core of their being because the pulpit is trying to conform salvation rather than conform to salvation.
Salvation is and never will be the so and so church, or the so and so church but the living and vibrant Spirit of God.
I would be a poor soul, no, I wouldn't have it if I could not worship my Heavenly Father at all times and everywhere for loving me and mankind so intense, so undeniably.
Posted by: Richard at December 9, 2006