In November I attended a men’s retreat. The theme for the weekend was “The Perfect Storm”, focusing on trials and temptations; and in one of the sessions, our speaker elaborated on how guys in ministry were dropping like flies as a result of involvment in porno and the like. This state of affairs has become epidemic in our churches of late and happens so frequently that whenever I hear of another guy going down for the count, I am no longer surprised. But I have thought on this a lot. Why is it that so many guys start well in ministry only to disqualify themselves, usually for a moral reason? I think the answer is found in another event which took place during the same retreat, which is available to some but not others.
At one point during one of the sessions one of the guys, who most of us knew, got up and basically confessed his sins. He went into some detail telling this group of men how he had struggled with a particular area of sin for a long, long time, until it nearly ended his marriage. He went on to tell how he was in process of coming to grips with it; and he invited any and all men who were struggling to join he and some other guys struggling with the same sin to join a small group with a view to walk together to freedom in Jesus. After he finished, guys applauded him for his courage and some men have taken him up on his offer to join the small group. His time of confession was a highlight of the weekened; and it also holds a key to understanding why pastors are dropping like flies in ministry.
Ask yourself what would have happened if one of the pastors had been the guy to give the confession. What would have happened? What would happen if a church pastor got up on a Sunday and opened up his life and really told people what was really going on in his life? We cannot know for sure, but we can surmise that if the sin was in some area of sexual morality, like porno, or masturbation, or flirtation and the like the guy would be disqualified regardless of the extent of his struggle or whether he was continuing in sin or not. The general stance of many churches to a pastor who actually dares to struggle with certain sins, thanks to the opinions of some loud voices in the American church, is like the game of Monopoly: “Go to jail, go directly to jail. Do not pass ‘Go’ and do not collect 200 dollars.” There is a problem here and the problem is that our churches often resemble a Pharisee meeting instead of a community characterized by grace and mercy. And that’s a problem!! Here’s why.
We know each of us are men of like passions as the men of the Bible; and they were real role models. Think about it. Abraham put his wife up to lie about her relation to him twice because he was a weeney who was afraid if pagans saw her they would kill him to get her (and she must have been drop dead beautiful if he was still concerned about that when she was already 90 years old). His grandson Jacob was a crook. Moses killed a guy thinking he was accomplishing God’s will and then fled to the Midian desert instead of facing the music of his deed. Joshua got tricked by a group of fake beggars and brought hardship on Israel because he didn’t pray about who these guys were first; and Solomon, the wisest man who ever lived, was so wise that he had 700 wives, 300 concubine, knew first hand about all the things he wrote about women in Proverbs and Song of Solomon and in the end rejected the true God because he listened to his wives. With that many wives is it any wonder that he was able to write a sex manual for God’s men and women? We are all men of like passions as these guys; and we know because of this that in many things we all stumble.
Now, in light of reality, what kind of environment should characterize a true church? Jesus parable in Mathew 18 may give us a hint because we’re all like the guy in the parable who owed a debt so huge that it could never be paid off in two lifetimes. Fortunate for him, grace breaks in to lives like his and it broke into his life and he was freed from his debt. Now the response he was supposed to have to his friends was one of extending grace in the same way he had received it; and this should characterize a true church, even in regards to their elders and pastors. But did he extend grace like he received it? Not on your life. Instead, he throttled a friend for owing him an itty bitty debt and had the unfortunate fellow thrown into jail. His friend went to jail, directly to jail, was not allowed to pass go, nor collect his 200 dollars; and so it is among us so often, especially if the guy who struggles is a pastor or elder.
This atmosphere smells more like a Pharisee meeting than Jesus and results in churches showing no mercy and little grace. The atmosphere created in many of our churches is one where, if you are in leadership you are expected to be better than the men in Scripture who are supposed to be our examples; and in that sort of environment leaders are left to struggle alone through their sin struggles; and they do. Feeling unsafe to tell the truth about themselves, they live a lie until someone else finds out the truth about themselves and they are forced to tap out, pinned to the mat by the evil empire; and we are surprised. Is it any wonder that so, so many fall so, so far?
And so, pastors and elders are dropping like flies, while the community that should be known for grace and mercy looks more like the community Jesus spoke his harshest words to. Read Matthew 23 for the context. The Pharisees were so focused on a pure Judaism that they threw out grace, mercy and justice. Have we become like them? I really think that it is better to try and grow communities where Jesus is the only one who is expected to be perfect and we are expected to be who we are; and if we made it easy for leaders to be real about what they really struggle with, we might actually see this state of affairs change.
Some might protest, “How, then can we have a pure church? The purity of the church must be our highest priority!” Well, after reading Acts 5 I think Jesus can handle that pretty well. But we would need to realize that he is God and we….well, we are not!!! Now, that’s a novel idea.
Grace and Peace
