Taking A Pastor's Fall Personally

I’m the kind of guy who takes things very per­son­ally. Some peo­ple are just wired that way. I like to act like things just roll off my back and I really don’t care but I’m pretty sensitive.

For instance, if some­one said to me, “You sounded like you didn’t care about Chris­t­ian issues in your last post about “Chick-​Fil-​A.” I’d prob­a­bly get a lit­tle upset. (But no one did because appar­ently since my server changed, my com­ments are dis­abled — haha!) I’d take it a lit­tle per­sonal. One, because that’s not true and I’d assume they read it wrong. And two, because I do care. And under my strained sar­casm I do have a heart.

I’ve got­ten bet­ter since I started blog­ging about not tak­ing things per­son­ally, which is a good thing for all of us to learn.

I men­tion it today for a very seri­ous rea­son. And this is a blog to be read very, very carefully.

Know why? Because I care about every­one on every side of this issue. Fallen pas­tors, their spouses, those they’ve been involved with, their churches, their fam­i­lies, their fel­low pas­tors, their chil­dren — every­one. Know why? Because they are all wor­thy of the love and care of Christ.

When a pas­tor com­mits adul­tery and falls from the min­istry, it hurts many peo­ple. Since my fall, I’ve had time to lis­ten to peo­ple on every side of the fall. Of course, I was the adul­ter­ous pas­tor. I knew what it was like to be self­ish, leave the min­istry and not lis­ten to anyone.

I’ve also had time to lis­ten to the wives of fallen pas­tors. Hear their side of the story. I’ve also heard from the women who com­mit­ted adul­tery with the pas­tor. I’ve talked to church mem­bers and friends of the fallen pas­tor. I’ve seen this issue from all sides and I must say, it has hum­bled me even greater than before.

After a pas­tor com­mits adul­tery, it breaks hearts. It wounds peo­ple. It makes a story for every­one. Some­times it ends up on the front page of the news­pa­per if the church is big enough. It always makes the rounds in gos­sip in the com­mu­nity. Regard­less, it is an act that hurts many peo­ple. It angers many. It leaves many ask­ing, “Why? How? What are the reasons?”

Read more after the jump.….

Let me state this very care­fully. Because some peo­ple may read it very wrong. So I’m going to start with Scrip­ture. After David com­mit­ted adul­tery with Bathsheba, he wrote Psalm 51. He said in verses 3 – 4:

For I know my trans­gres­sions,
 and my sin is ever before me.
 Against you, you only, have I sinned
 and done what is evil in your sight,
 so that you may be jus­ti­fied in your words
 and blame­less in your judg­ment.
(Psalm 51:3 – 4 ESV)

I used to won­der what David meant by, “Against you, you only, have I sinned.” He was talk­ing to God. Surely David knew he had sinned against Bathsheba’s hus­band by killing him. Surely fallen pas­tors know they sin against their own wives when they com­mit adul­tery. So what’s the deal?

Here’s the deal — when any of us sin, the sin debt we owe is owed only to God. We will only face Him for judg­ment. Him alone. At the end of it all, we face no man. We face God Almighty. That’s a lot of judg­ment to answer to.

That’s why it’s so impor­tant for us to walk a right­eous path. To be jus­ti­fied in Christ. To then walk a life of holi­ness. To repent after we have sinned and cry out to God after our transgression.

Now, to the tough part. When a pas­tor sins, he hurts a lot of peo­ple. I’ve heard a lot of pastor’s moth­ers, sis­ters, broth­ers, men­tors, cousins, grand­par­ents, church mem­bers and so on say, “How could he do this to us?”

Let me say this very gen­tly. He didn’t do it to you. It feels like it though, doesn’t it? Your pas­tor didn’t sin directly against you. He did a very self­ish, sin­ful thing, but he did not directly do it to hurt you. Don’t take it per­son­ally. He chose a path of sin, did it con­sciously, with his own flesh in mind, but he did not have you in mind when he did it. He was not try­ing to directly hurt you in the process. You can­not take it to an extreme per­sonal level that you begin to har­bor hor­ri­ble feel­ings toward him.

I can speak to this because I’ve been hurt before by a direct fam­ily mem­ber. He hurt me. He left our fam­ily. Hurt us. And I took it per­son­ally. He even told me he didn’t mean for me to take it per­son­ally. Look­ing back, I know he was right. he didn’t mean to hurt me personally.

The fallen pas­tor, like my fam­ily mem­ber did what they did because they were sin­ners. They were self­ish. Did your fallen pas­tor hurt you? Absolutely. Did it have an effect on your rela­tion­ship with him? Yes, with­out a doubt. Was he under the influ­ence of sin? Yes. But did he do it mali­ciously to harm you? More than likely not.

Now let me ask a ques­tion. When you are self­ish in your life. When you sin. When you do things to please your­self. When you com­mit sins of gos­sip, lying, cov­etous­ness, idol­a­try, steal­ing, lust, pornog­ra­phy, cov­er­ing up other sins — are you nec­es­sar­ily doing it to per­son­ally harm some­one else? A fam­ily mem­ber? Prob­a­bly not.

So what is your role now? If you’re a rel­a­tive, a church mem­ber, a fel­low pas­tor or a friend? Well what does Scrip­ture say? Does Scrip­ture say to take it per­son­ally and hold his sin against him? No. It says in the spirit of Gala­tians 6:1 to restore him. But you may say, “But I don’t have it in me. It hurts too much. I don’t under­stand why he did this.”

In my expe­ri­ence in inter­view­ing fallen pas­tors, you may never under­stand. But you have to keep pray­ing. Keep the door open slightly. Keep let­ting him know you love him. That doesn’t mean con­don­ing his sin, but let him know that you love him for who he is. That doesn’t mean lov­ing him for his sin, but lov­ing him because he’s him. That may be the hard­est thing you’ve ever done, but it may mean more to him that you’ll ever know.

When I fell, I had about three peo­ple reach out to me. None of them were fam­ily. It took fam­ily about three months to talk to me. It took four months for the first church mem­ber to say some­thing. I want you to know some­thing very impor­tant. A pas­tor is just as much a mem­ber of the body of Christ as any­one else. If he falls, we are to go after him. If he shows signs of repen­tance, no mat­ter how small, we are to res­cue him.

Just because he gets a pay­check doesn’t mean we get to fire him because he sins. It doesn’t mean because he com­mits a sin we get to toss him by the side of the road. The body of Christ includes all of the mem­bers. If one mem­ber suf­fers, all suf­fer together; if one mem­ber is hon­ored, all rejoice together. (1 Corinthi­ans 12:26 ESV)

Above it all, try not to take it per­son­ally. Don’t run to Face­book and say, “How could he do this to me?” or to the woman he was with “You are such a *@&$#” as one per­son did to Alli­son. He didn’t do it to you. He has a higher stan­dard to answer to. Instead, go to him. Run to his side. Don’t judge him imme­di­ately, but find out what is going on in his heart. Ask him, “Let’s work through this.” He may not want to talk right away, but he will know you are there.

The body of Christ is made up of many parts. At least one of them might be able to reach out to the fallen pastor.