Finding Restoration in a Broken World

Today is the offi­cial release date for my book, Fallen Pas­tor: Find­ing Restora­tion in a Bro­ken World.

I’ve got a thou­sand dif­fer­ent emo­tions going on and a lot of things I want to blog about, but today, I want to take a moment to write about the basic idea of the book.

I fell from the pas­torate two years ago when I com­mit­ted adul­tery. There were a lot of fac­tors that led to my fall that are com­mon among other pas­tors. Unre­al­is­tic expec­ta­tions, iso­la­tion from friend­ships, declin­ing rela­tion­ship with spouse, church con­flict and major tragedy. In the end, it was my deci­sion to sin. I’ve dis­cussed that a lot on this blog.

Today, I stand in amaze­ment, though. I’ve found restoration.

Two years ago, I hit rock bot­tom. I thought God wasn’t lis­ten­ing and I was sure He didn’t care about me. I felt like a fail­ure as a pas­tor (before and after I fell), I had lost both par­ents in sep­a­rate acci­dents within a year of each other, and I had no one to talk to. In fact, I was pretty sure God had it in for me.

There were days long before I even con­tem­plated adul­tery that I stood in the pul­pit with a smile on my face, tie on prop­erly, shirt pressed, but with a dark, hard­ened heart. Then the fall came. Dur­ing the months after, I was sure no one would ever speak to me again. I was sure the stain of sin would be a mark that could never be removed. I was sure that shame would be my con­stant com­pan­ion for the rest of my mis­er­able life.

Slowly, repen­tance came. I dis­cov­ered that truly, God is a long­suf­fer­ing and patient God. If He were not, I would have been a grease stain on the car­pet of my for­mer church a long time ago. He waited for me when I would not wait for Him.

After I sinned, I had few peo­ple who would speak to me, but the ones who remained were the right ones. They encour­aged me, loved me and walked with me. I had two close friends who were patient, some­times firm, but always lov­ing. I reached out to fallen pas­tors through­out the coun­try who were in var­i­ous stages of their own fall. They each encour­aged me, told me the truth and prayed with me.

My new wife Alli­son and I also went through a process dur­ing that time as well. She watched me as I went from angry to depressed to anx­ious to humbled.

Those months were ter­ri­ble, yet redeem­ing. They are etched in my mind and will stay with me for­ever. They were nec­es­sary for God to break me and make me into some­thing usable.

Very few are will­ing to reach out to a fallen pas­tor. It’s some­thing I pon­der in the book. A lot of peo­ple don’t know what to say to him. Some peo­ple think they might be “guilty by asso­ci­a­tion” if they speak to him. Typ­i­cally, he is cast out, never to be heard from again.

At some point, God grabbed me and said, “I’m not done with you. I have plans for you, but I’m going to hum­ble your proud heart in the process.” He did. And He con­tin­ues to do so.

When I speak of restora­tion, I don’t mean restora­tion to the pul­pit. I don’t even mean restora­tion to the min­istry. I just believe that fallen pas­tors need to be shown com­pas­sion and love. They need peo­ple to walk with them, to show them the way to bro­ken­ness and repen­tance. It’s impor­tant because even a pas­tor can’t always find the right path, even though we think they should know the way.

I recently joined a min­istry team, Fallen Pas­tors (www​.fal​l​en​pas​tors​.com) who help pas­tors who are con­tem­plat­ing sex­ual sin or who have already fallen. They have a small staff, but do their best to answer every email. If you are a fallen pas­tor or are in trou­ble, please don’t hes­i­tate to reach out for help. It can become iso­lated, it can feel like you’re alone. But you’re not.

This book isn’t about me. It’s not about my glo­ri­fi­ca­tion. It’s about the glory of God and restor­ing those who have fallen. There is a prob­lem with the cul­ture in which we live. The best thing about prob­lems is that they are fix­able. Together, with the com­pas­sion of Christ, we can fix peo­ple, we can fix cul­tures and we can find restora­tion in this bro­ken world.

_​_​_​_​_​_​_​_​_​_​_​_​_​_​_​_​_​_​_​_​

Fallen Pas­tor: Find­ing Restora­tion in a Bro­ken World is avail­able at Ama​zon​.com. It will be avail­able soon at other out­lets. Ask your local book­store about availability.