Fallen Pastor

In this series, I’m trying to address all of the people who are effected by the fall of a pastor. Not only that, I’m asking, what can everyone do in the wake of his fall?

I get emails each week from many different people; pastors who just fell, wives whose husbands fell, churches whose pastors fell, etc. – and most are in a state of panic. “What happens now? What am I supposed to do right now?”

There are no easy answers. There isn’t a handbook that gives a quick answer. I’d love to say the book I wrote has easy, fast answers for everyone to patch up the damage that has just been inflicted. But in the wake of a fall, it takes time, understanding, patience and a willingness to forgive.

Today’s article is  on a very sensitive topic – the devastated spouse. I feel completely unqualified to write this because as the fallen pastor, I hurt my former wife. I’m not going to discuss my previous relationship, instead, I will rely on the interviews I did for my book, “Fallen Pastor: Finding Restoration in a Broken World,” and the interactions I’ve had since then with people.

Read more after the jump.

When I started working with my editor, Jonathan Brink at Civitas Press, on the idea of writing “Fallen Pastor: Finding Restoration in a Broken World,” I had a lot of things I thought I wanted to write about. Thankfully, I had a great editor who got me focused and on task.

Even while I was writing, I had an idea of the people I could reach, but not until it came out did I understand who it was truly for.

Who is the book, “Fallen Pastor: Finding Restoration in a Broken World” for?

1. Fallen Pastors, of course.

Statistics tell us that each month, 1,500 pastors leave the ministry due to conflict, burnout or moral failure. Where are they going to? Where do they run to? More importantly, these guys didn’t just wake up one day and say, “Hey, I think I’ll commit adultery!”

Truth be known, the life after a fall is very lonely. I’m not asking for sympathy for the fallen pastor, but it is something that needs to be understood. He is suddenly a lonely, rejected figure who now will carry around the Scarlet “A” on his chest for the rest of his life. Depression, anxiety and suicide may cross his mind. He may never find a church to even visit again.

There are a lot of fallen ministers in our midst. There are actually several ministries designed to help them, but they are overloaded and there aren’t enough of them. Worse, many fallen pastors never reach out for the help they need. Why? Well, one reason is the way in which they are cast out. Too often, once a pastor’s sin is discovered, he’s thrown out with the garbage. That leads us to #2 . . .

2. The Church Culture

After many discussions with my editor, his main concern was that pastors were falling in the first place. “Why are they falling?” he asked me. “There have to be reasons besides their own sin.”

It was a hard thing to tackle. It’s hard to write a book about circumstances around the falls of pastors without sounding like you’re trying to make excuses for your own adultery. But I did the best I could.

So I set out to interview a lot of fallen pastors, counselors, seminary people, and whoever would talk to me. I wanted to know, “Has something been going on in our churches where our knee-jerk reaction is to simply kick out the pastor when we find out he has committed adultery?” And that is the norm. Against everything we find in Galatians 6:1, we just run the minister out of town.

But again, that’s a hard thing to write to people who are angry, hurt and upset over a minister who has stood in the pulpit and preached truth to them for so long. It’s kind of a no win situation.But I tried my best.

3. For people whose pastor fell

It hurts. It really hurts when your pastor falls. There are all kinds of feelings that a church goes through. But through reading, I hope a church can do more than just identify with a fallen pastor. I hope they can take the first steps toward forgiveness. The first steps toward reconciliation.

It won’t be easy. It won’t be a short process. It will however, be worth it if it is done right.

4. For pastors who haven’t fallen

Hey, guess what? All of us frail, sinful people are moments away from sliding down that slippery slope. Pastors? None of us are exempt. I used to think I was. I used to be the guy who thought, “That could never happen to me.” Then after conflict, tragedy after tragedy, there I was, faced with it all. And I fell. And I fell hard.

Some people have read my book and didn’t like it. Some have read it and liked it a lot. Some in both groups used a similar word: “Sickening.” When they read of the sins that had been committed by fallen pastors, they were nauseated. That’s how we should feel when we sin against a holy God.

I didn’t go into graphic detail in the book about the affairs, but I let people know that there is sin against God involved.

So who is this book for? Really everyone. It’s even for people who don’t feel holy enough to get into heaven. You’re not. Just read the book and find out that all of us are a bunch of sinners in need of grace. Join the club and know how great and deep the love and grace of Christ is.

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“Fallen Pastor: Finding Restoration in a Broken World” is available at Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble online, Buy.com, Books-a-Million Online, the Civitas Press store, for the Amazon Kindle and other online retailers.

What if I told you that giant rats were moving into your area and were very likely to infest your home unless you took some precautions?

Of course, you’d do nothing. Maybe you’d make signs that said, “Welcome giant rats! We have cold pizza in the fridge and Lucky Charms in the pantry!”

No, I expect you’d do whatever it took to keep two foot rats from invading your home and making a mess of the place.

I’ve been beating the drum on this website about pastoral adultery. It’s the pastor’s fault he sins, but there is also a cultural problem within the church that may attribute to the environment in which that sin committed.

Before you think I’m blaming the church for a pastor’s sin, let me give you a non-adultery example of a dysfunctional church. There’s a church close to me that hires and fires a pastor every two and a half years. You could set your watch to it.  Why does this keep happening? There’s a vicious power struggle there and there are a couple of families who don’t want the pastor changing anything. When he tries, he gets R-U-N-N-O-F-T.

I was talking to someone about this the other day. I said, “I honestly don’t think the power group realize (for the most part) that they are causing such undue pressure on the pastor. But it escalates and eventually explodes. In the end, everyone blames everyone else without understanding the root cause. And the root cause for the behavior started decades ago.”

Pastors are dropping out of the ministry at an alarming rate due to conflict, moral failure or burnout. When it happens, it’s easy to say, “I guess that guy couldn’t handle the pressure,” or “What a sinner.” But there is so much more to a pastor’s fall. Environmental factors, interacting with the church, relationships, failures, successes, marriage troubles, and relationships between people that existed long before the pastor even arrived.

The fall of a pastor never happens in a vacuum. He has to stand before God for his sin. But there are a lot of reasons things fall apart. Things that don’t get explained when someone asks, “Why did the pastor leave?”

Over the next few posts, I want to examine the culture of a fall. We all know the pastor holds blame. But what if the fall of a pastor could be prevented? What if, like keeping giant vermin out, the church could do things to strengthen relationships, turn to prayer, help the pastor and his family, and rely on the strength of God so that sin could not make such a horrible entrance?

What if churches in a cycle of sin could break free from their bonds and become the fellowship of faith they were always meant to be? Stay tuned.

I’ve had a few people wanting my opinion on Jack Schaap who recently fell in the ministry. I don’t typically respond to this type of thing.

First of all, I think megachurch pastors get enough attention from the media and bloggers. You can find his story anywhere online. When a big pastor falls, it’s gonna be news. Big news. I don’t blog about it. In fact, I weep about it. Whether it’s a big pastor who shepherds 1,000 or a bi-vocational pastor who leads 20, it’s always tragic.

There are no winners. A family is torn asunder. A church is left with questions. And in the wake of a megachurch, thousands are left wondering, ‘Why? How could he do this to us?”

The pain will be there for years to come. I’m not here to excuse the actions or sin of Jack Schaap. I fell from ministry three years ago and interviewed a lot of pastors, looking for reasons for why we fall. I published those reasons in my book. I don’t make excuses for our sin. We sinned. End of story. We did it. We committed adultery. We crossed the line. We broke the seventh commandment.

There were reasons that led up to the breaking of that commandment. There were circumstances that were common in each broken pastor. Isolation, poor relationship with spouse, church conflict, and overly high expectations. Could the fallen pastor have sought out help before falling? Sure. His sin was his own. But the church culture has a lot to do with the 1,500 pastors who fall each month due to moral failure, conflict or burnout.

I don’t excuse Pastor Schaap’s actions. Apparently, he, a 54 year old man, was involved with a 16 year old girl. He committed adultery.

There has been a lot of vitriol spilled his way in the past few weeks and that’s what I’m concerned about. But it’s not anything new.

Pastors are some of the most trusted people in our society. We look up to them. We honor them, we don’t expect them to sin greatly. And we shouldn’t. Scripture holds them to a high norm. They should be held to a high expectation.

The statistics on pastors are alarming and I quote them in my book, “Fallen Pastor: Finding Restoration in a Broken World”:

- 80% and 84% of pastors and their wives are discouraged and dealing with depression

- More than 40% of pastors and 47% of their wives report they are suffering from burnout, frantic schedules, and unrealistic expectations

- 77% said they did not feel they did not have a good marriage

- 71% said they were burned out and they battle depression beyond fatigue on a weekly and even a daily basis

Again, I’m not making excuses. When someone sins, it’s not because of statistics. But this is the world pastors live in today. There is a dangerous culture pastors live in.

I did take exception to an article written by Ed Stetzer for the Christian Post. I had Dr. Stetzer for class at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. He has set the bar for church planting in Southern Baptist life and has written several books which I highly recommend. He is a caring man who would do anything for his students and goes out of his way for people. He would give you the shirt off his back if you asked him to. When I had him for class, he loved me, cared for me and wanted to see me go in the right direction. I think he is a great attribute to the Kingdom of God.

He wrote an article called, “Call It What It Is: It’s Not Adultery. It’s Abuse.” Fair enough. I agree with many of his points. Schaap crossed a serious line in engaging in an affair with a girl. She was much younger than him. When an older man seeks out the attention of a younger girl, there are problems. Stetzer lines that out clearly and I think he does that well. His best point is one that hits home to me:

Don’t say, “But it is legal for a 54-year old to have sex with a 16-year old in Illinois.” Listen to those words before you say them. Consider your daughter.”

I have three daughters. And I would be horrified if I found out any of them were in an affair with a man that age. I would be absolutely sickened.

Stetzer calls upon those in Schaap’s denomination to take action; to make sure young girls are not victimized. I would add to that – “Southern Baptists (among others), make sure you are doing what it takes to care about the young in your congregations, because it is happening frequently as well. Check the police blotter.”

Back to the Stetzer article. He says:

IFB friends, your movement has had way too many scandals, and many of you have expressed concern about such– so speak up now. (There are plenty of lists of such scandals already.) Secrecy and circling the wagons breeds this kind of behavior and is destroying children and your movement. Your young pastors are leaving and your children are in danger.

Again, I agree. Something needs to be done. Maybe there are serious issues within that organization. But it has to start with the pastors. These men are under tremendous strain. With 1,500 men leaving the ministry a month, something is happening. It’s not limited to Independent Baptists. It’s across denominational lines. It happens to all of us.

We can’t just throw Jack Schaap out the door. He needs restoration. I’m not talking about putting him back in the pulpit. I’m talking about the one thing Dr. Stetzer missed in his article. And I apologize to him directly if he wasn’t meaning to write about it.

We have to go directly to the pastors who fall, as soon as they fall, and attempt to restore them to the faith. If I’ve quoted Galatians 6:1 once, I’ve quoted it a thousand times:  Brothers, if anyone is caught in any transgression, you who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness. Keep watch on yourself, lest you too be tempted. (Galatians 6:1, ESV)

Bro. Schaap doesn’t need criticizing online (and I understand that most of Dr. Stetzer’s article was aimed at the IFB). He needs a band of brothers to seek him out, to restore him, to encourage repentance in him. At the same time, this young lady needs people to surround her, to help her, counsel her, love on her.

It may be a time for a clarion call to the Independent Baptists. But guess what? It’s happening across denominational lines. Every day. It’s happening right now in the Southern Baptist Convention. It’s happening in Methodist Churches, in Presbyterian Churches, in Episcopalian Churches. Until we recognize that our pastors are weak and in danger, it won’t stop.

Let’s not lay the shame and blame at one denomination’s doorstep. It’s a sin problem that isn’t going away any time soon unless we deal with the church culture at large and begin to help our pastors understand what is at stake before they fall.

All pastors are moments away from a fall. All pastors are weak if they don’t know what’s at stake and see the warning signs. Bro. Schaap was just the latest man who fell, due to his sinful nature and to temptation. It can happen to us all.

One final point I agree with. Having an affair with a 16 year old makes my skin crawl almost more than anything else. We must protect our children. Regardless, in the sight of God, adultery with a 16 year old or a 40 year old is sin nonetheless. If Bro. Schaap repents and seeks out the path of holiness, we are to support him, regardless of what he has done. Why? Because he is forgiven by God. That’s a tough thing to do for many people. We don’t support his sin, we support the man forgiven and redeemed by God.

Christ loves his children. Even the fallen ones. Like he loved the woman caught in adultery in John 8. He stood beside her while people wanted to stone her. He was the only friend she had that day. But he was all she needed. Bro. Schaap needs friends in the Christian community right now. And so does this young woman. So does her family. I pray that the fellowship of Christian people near them will respond in kind, as Christ would.

I’ve been ignoring this whole Chick-Fil-A thing online. The founder of the institution was interviewed and said he opposed marriage between same sex people. That was his opinion. Those who disagreed jumped on him and decided to boycott. The Christians decided to make 8/1 a day to support his business.

You can read the story anywhere. Seriously. Anywhere. Online. Unless you’ve been asleep. It’s out there.

I kinda felt like this: “Good for you. You have the right to make a freedom of speech statement. But you also have to carry the consequences of it.” All of us do. When we speak our feelings and thoughts, they carry weight.

Then I saw this posted online while everyone was rallying around Chick-fil-A.

It kinda made me think. Even a day after the Christian support of Chick-fil-A, there were a lot of people lined up at the restaurants.

My daughter asked me what it was all about. I told her, “The founder of Chick-fil-A, who makes the most tastiest chicken sandwiches (yum!), made a remark that he didn’t support gay marriage. And that’s his opinion. Some people decided they wouldn’t eat there anymore because of his opinion. And that’s their right.”

She said, “Okay, so what does that mean?”

I said, “Think about your favorite restaurant, Senor Lopez. What if the owner said, I’m in favor of gay marriage. Would that mean we wouldn’t go eat there?”

She was thinking really hard. They have really good cheese dip.

I said, “No, I don’t think it would. We don’t go to restaurants because of the owner’s political views. We go there because they have fantastic food. Unfortunately, there are people who want to boycott some places because of their views.”

I challenged her again. I said, “What if the owners of Senor Lopez said, ‘We’re going to donate six million dollars to support gay marriage. Would that change your view?”

Good question.

Now to another. I used to watch professional wrestling when I was growing up. My favorite wrestler was Brutus the Barber Beefcake. He’d wrestle, then put his opponent in a sleeper hold and cut his hair. AWESOME.

Lately, my doctor put me on a terrible anti-depressant that didn’t allow me to sleep. I’m off it now. But on those sleepless nights, I started watching old school wrestling. And I started watching new wrestling.

Please don’t email me and tell me wrestling is fake. Those guys go out there and put their bodies on the line and through horrible pain. It’s entertainment. I know that. The winner is determined beforehand. While I was watching, I was introduced to a new wrestler who has been around in the modern era – John Cena.

Nice guy, great build, a man of the people. He fights hard and hardly says a bad word about his competition.

Now, back to the picture I posted earlier of the Christians who were surrounding the Chick-fil-A’s. They will stand in line to do a good deed for a few days.

John Cena, who does not brag about his off the mat performances and is a long time giver to the Make-A-Wish Foundation. You know, the Make-A-Wish Foundation that according to Wikipedia, that grants wishes to children with life-threatening medical conditions to enrich the human experience with hope, strength, and joy.

Do you know what athlete, person, superstar tops the list for kids wishes? Not Tiger Woods, not Michael Jordan, not LeBron James. It’s a man who takes time out of his extremely busy schedule and actually goes to see these kids in the hospital. It’s John Cena. He recently made his record breaking 300th visit.

Why? For notoriety? I bet a lot of you haven’t even heard of him. No, because he cares.

I honestly Googled to find out whether he’s a Christian. The evidence is scant. It seems like he probably is. Whether he is or not, he cares about kids. He’s not standing out in front of a Chick-Fil-A, he’s in the hospitals across America making sick kid’s dreams come true.

Good for Chick-Fil-A for making a stand. But better for men like John Cena to go to hospitals and touch the lives of children. I’ve heard that the Make-A-Wish Foundation even has a special “John Cena” room for the man.

John Cena is one of my new heroes, just for that fact. He cares enough to stand by sick kids on his days off when he could be seeing his family. Instead? He’s visiting kids who want to see him and feel hope.

Want inspiration? Go touch a life. Skip the restaurant. Donate clothes. Work in a Salvation Army refuge. Find out what your neighbor needs who is struggling. Look to your church member who is hurting. Find someone you know who needs help. Skip your chicken sandwich and make a difference in the world.

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Ray Carroll is author of “Fallen Pastor: Finding Restoration in a Broken World,” and is a regular contributor to Provoketive Magazine.

My book has been out for a month. I’ve had two book signings. Several book reviews. And a lot of personal feedback.

I want to be very honest with you. I had an expectation of who would read my book – pastors. But that hasn’t been the case. The people who are buying and reading the book are mostly the people in the pews. They are people who people who can be put in several categories.

First, there are people who know me and are curious about my story. They just wanted to know about my story. They wanted to hear what I had to say. Overwhelmingly, they’ve said, “Ray, you’ve been humbled, and you’ve learned a lot. And in reading your book, I’ve learned a lot about what it means to forgive people.”

Second, there are people who were curious about pastors and the battles they face on a daily basis. They’ve said to me, “Ray, I had no idea what pastors face. I had no idea that the struggles were so intense.”

Next were pastors who said, “You nailed it. I face those pressures on a daily basis. It reminds me that I need to be careful about the dangers around me. The stories in the book remind me of the sin that is so close to me. I don’t want to go there. I don’t want to fall. I don’t want to lose everything.”

Then, there are people who have fallen in their own right. They weren’t pastors. They’re just Christians who fell in their own lives in adultery or some other way. They were afraid to say anything. They’ve said to me, “This book has given me a voice. It’s let me know that even pastors aren’t above failure. Everyone sins. And I know I can be restored again to Christ.”

Finally – and this one is difficult for me. There are people who buy the book and they never say anything to me directly. They are people who don’t like it. They think I’m a hypocrite still. They think I stood in the pulpit for eight years and was a liar for the entire time. They think my entire ministry was a failure for the sin I committed at the end of it. I never hear their voices, but I hear it from other people through second hand information.

And that’s absolutely okay with me. It gets posted on message boards. It gets passed on to me through gossip. Once upon a time, that kind of talk would bother me. But not now. I fell. And I fell terribly. I can see where someone would think my entire ministry was a sham because of the sin I committed. I can absolutely see that.

I stood in the pulpit and preached the word of God for eight years. I baptized people, visited the sick, loved a congregation and gave people my best, but in the end, I will be remembered as an adulterer to many. I deserve that if people want to think that. That is the fallout of my sin. That is the consequence of my sin. I have to live with that. All I can do is live a life that is holy and pleasing to God from this day forward.

The aim of my book is to help those who have fallen. To help those who are in the ministry and prevent a fall. To help those in church to understand the risks their pastors face. Pastors are human. They are in a dangerous culture that places dangerous expectations upon them. Many times, they chase after unrealistic expectations of ministry that stresses out their marriages and places them at horrible risk.

I wrote the book to warn people. I don’t care if I ever make a dime on this book. At this moment, I haven’t made a single red cent. My heart is to make sure that the church knows that there needs to be reform so that their pastors won’t be at risk. What we need are churches that don’t just care about Sunday to Sunday. But churches that care about authentic Christian community seek it week to week.

I crave a church, regardless of denomination to embrace their members, love them for who they are, despite their faults, including their pastor. And if and when a member of the congregation falls, seek them out to restore them. Not ignore them, but find them out as we are commanded to. The body of Christ is incomplete without any of our members.

Because the most important group I wrote this book for is those pastors out there who say, “That’s never going to happen to me.” I’ve met several of them. A few of them have bought books from me. I have talked with them. I was that guy.

In fact, if I could go back in time and taken the 2005 version of myself and brought him to my book signing, I know exactly what he would have thought:

“Look at this loser. He fell in the ministry. Selling books. What a jerk. He couldn’t hold fast to his call. I’ll buy his book. But I’ll put it on my shelf next to the other 400 books I haven’t written. I’m not going to fall. I have a seminary degree. That will never happen to me. I guess some guys are just like that.”

That’s who this book is for. Among others. It was for me. About a decade ago.

I hope you will read “Fallen Pastor: Finding Restoration in a Broken World.” Not because I want to sell copies. But because the church of Jesus Christ needs to be restored to a true fellowship.

It’s 1:30 in the morning.

A few rugged hours from now, I’ll be preaching and signing some books.

It’s really time for me to be honest with my readers. I’m about to put it on the line. I’m about to publish a blog at 2:00 am Central time, when no one is up. No one reads on Sunday morning. Or afternoon. But there’s a few things I have to say. And I’m going to say it anyway.

There’s a song by the Talking Heads that says, “How did I get here?” That’s how I feel right now. As a man who believes in the sovereignty of God, a man who knows from the foundation of the world God had a plan, that He has no plan B, I am absolutely amazed that I am where I am at this moment.

Two years ago, I was struggling. I was blogging anonymously, trying to rid my head of the pain that beset me. It was there that a man named Jonathan Brink found me. Let me be clear – Jonathan Brink is not a guy I would have ever probably talked to 10 years ago. His theology and ideas would have scared me. After I fell, there was something about him that made him different from every other Christian that turned their back on me. You know what it was? He loved me for who I was. He just loved me for the person I was.

Yeah, I’m a Southern Baptist Calvinist who loves God. But guess what? After I’ve fallen, I was surrounded by men like Jonathan who loved me. The people who believed like I did abandoned me for the most part. Jonathan believed in me, saw worth in me and gave me a shot. I’ve shared with him my fears, my weakness. He’s seen the worst of me in my writing. And he cares about me anyway. I know that in this world, there are few men like him. And I’m proud to call him my brother in Christ. My friend.

In the past two years, I found restoration with God. Because of men like Jonathan, like my pastor Jimmy Stewart, I know that I am no longer a fallen pastor. I’m Ray Carroll. A child of God. A restored creation. A man who sees a broken system in the church who can warn others of what is out there.

I get calls frequently of pastors who are out there who know there is something wrong. They aren’t quite sure what it is, but they are feeling the system is beating them down. As a man who was in that system and felt the worst of it, I can console them. I can help them through it.

The church culture today isn’t the best. It isn’t what Christ wants for us, I don’t think. He wants authentic Christian community. Most of us are blind to it. I was. I didn’t get it. I didn’t understand it until I fell.

I’ve had a lot of people read my book. Not just fallen pastors. I’ve had a lot of church people read my book. All of them have said the same thing – “I had no idea what pastors go through. It must be awful. My eyes are now opened to what you went through. Something needs to change.”

Yes, it does.

I have this idea that runs through my feeble little head many nights before I fall asleep. What if Jesus were to walk into our churches on a Sunday morning? What if He were to see what we were doing? Would He be pleased? Or would He hang His head in shame?

I have a strong belief that if Christ came into our communities, He would avoid our churches. He would go straight for those areas that our churches avoid. He would walk into the low income areas, the strip clubs, the minority neighborhoods, the welfare sections and the unchurched areas. He would go where our churches are afraid to go. And he would minister.

He would go to the places where we don’t want to go. Why? Because we don’t want those people in our churches. We want people in church to look like us. To act like us. To conform like us.

We’re really no different than the Pharisees.

About six months before I fell, I had a deacon quit the church and leave. It was before I ever got involved in adultery. When he left, he called me a “Pharisee.” I got really mad about that. Looking back, he was right. I was a Pharisee. I was a hypocrite. I only wanted my way. I only wanted to justify my actions. I wanted the black and white.

Thank you, God. Thank you for men like Jonathan. Men who have the voice to speak to the truth even though many tell them they are wrong. Thank you that there are people who speak loudly, even though they are called heretics. But I now know that there is love in those people. People whose love speaks louder than the judgment of those who are part of the established tradition. Your Word is true. It is right. But it is also proven over and over again through action.

How did I get here? Through the grace and providence of God. Working through others. I fall on my face, thanking Him that I am even worthy of His mercy.

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.fallenpastors.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.

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

There is a tragedy that has been taking place for a long time around us. According to one statistic, 1,500 pastors a month leave the ministry due to conflict, burnout, or moral failure. 1,500. If you like annual statistics, that’s 18,000 a year.

I remember on the first day of seminary orientation, the leader told us that only half of us in that room would graduate. Of that half, only half would make it two years.

The ministry is a difficult thing. It is hard on the pastor, his family and his emotions. Unless you’ve been “behind the curtain”, it’s hard to know exactly what a pastor goes through. There are high expectations (which should be there), unrealistic expectations (which should not be there), feelings of isolation, a distancing between himself and his spouse and the daily grind of ministry. Behind all of this, the pastor forges ahead, seeking to do what he feels is right, chasing after the ministry. In the end, many leave disillusioned with bitterness, sin and a wounded church left in the wake.

In my upcoming book, “Fallen Pastor: Finding Restoration in a Broken World,” I deal primarily with those pastors who leave the ministry after committing adultery. In most cases, they leave in shame, without counseling and are thrown on the trash heap of Christendom. But there are more casualties than that. There are those who leave the ministry because of too much stress, pressure and an easier life. Even they are scorned to some degree.

In the end, it is easier for those in the churches to disperse blame upon the pastor for leaving. In the case of the adulterer, it was most certainly his decision. He sinned and he is to be held accountable. Those who leave because they “just couldn’t take it anymore” are often viewed as weak and abandoning their call. To view it in this way, from one set of circumstances, will simply cause the American church to continue in a crisis that it has been engaged in for a long time and may not have realized it.

There is a culture in our churches today that together with the heart of the minister, weakens those in ministry. Statistics bear it out. Over 60% of pastors are battling depression. In one report, close to a majority of them felt the ministry was destroying their marriage. This isn’t to blame the modern church. It is however, a way to say that something is wrong. It cannot always be the fault of the ministers who seem to be abandoning ship at such a high rate.

What if we were able to step back from the problem? What if we could see that there is a severe culture issue at hand that needs to be addressed? One that needs to be addressed in the heart of the minister as well as the way we run our churches? I believe there is.

In my book, I interviewed several experts and fallen pastors and came to a startling conclusion. Many pastors are not chasing after the things they need to chase after – they are chasing after the ideal of ministry. In turn, many churches are placing their pastors on a pedestal that is unrealistic. Together, this causes the minister to chase after ministry instead of Christ. His attention turns to something other than what he was originally called to do. In turn, the relationship he has with his wife suffers. His feelings about ministry suffer. He begins to seek after affirmation instead of the comfort of Christ.

There is no blame to be cast here. What needs to happen is an awareness of the culture we have cultivated. Pastors are not honest about their weaknesses. Churches are puffing their leaders up very highly. Pastors become isolated and disengaged. Eventually, many find a way out. Adultery, quitting, or leaving after a conflict. Are they the right responses? Sin is never the right response.

Prevention is the best approach. Deal with the culture that is in play. How many of us know churches that run through a pastor in about three years and cast him aside? How many of us know pastors who are at their wits end and are struggling to find meaning? How many of us know churches that seek definition not in the person of Christ but in their leadership or programs?

I don’t want to see any more pastors fall. I pray that my book will help those who have fallen, those who are on the verge of a fall, the churches who desire to change their culture, and those who desire to restore the fallen.

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Fallen Pastor: Finding Restoration in a Broken World is available for preorder at Civitas Press. It will be available soon at Amazon.com and will also be available for the Kindle.

Two years ago, after I fell from ministry, I began to call other fallen ministers. I did so to try to make some sense of the situation I was in. I knew I had sinned, but I wanted to see where all of this was leading. I wanted to know if reconciliation with my former church was even a possibility. I wondered if I would ever stop feeling shame. I wondered if I could ever show my face in public again.

Then came the chance to write my upcoming book, “Fallen Pastor: Finding Reconciliation in a Broken World.” It included the chance to interview many fallen pastors and find out what exactly was going on with all these men.

I wasn’t really interested in the topic of restoration until about three months after my fall. I found a statistic online from Focus on the Family – it said that 1,500 pastors a month leave the ministry due to moral failure, burnout, or conflict. I was stunned. I figured maybe about 20 guys nationwide fell into adultery. But if that number was true, then there were a lot. Each month. And they were being ignored, pushed aside and left to hide in the back pew. And now, I was one of them.

After talking to my publisher, I realized that there was a lot of work to do. Fallen pastors are to blame for their sin. They are the ones who say as David did to God, “against you and you alone have I sinned.”

At the same time, they didn’t just wake up one day and say, “I think I’ll commit adultery today.” Something happened from day one of their ministry to the last day and I wanted to know what. After talking to my editor, I started the interviews. I didn’t just interview fallen pastors, I interviewed counselors, those who walk with fallen pastors and other experts.

By the time I got around to the first day of writing, I had logged days of interview hours. I was already exhausted, but I had a tremendous amount of resources. And all of the information was coming together.

Pastors everywhere are in a very dangerous culture. Many face overly high expectations – expectations that go beyond normal. Expectations that are unrealistic. Many pastors are isolated from others. They are alone. Many pastors have extremely poor relationships with their wives, often due to the years of ministry and chasing after it.

There are other factors that make things worse. Do these things make a pastor commit adultery? No. But they can definitely weaken a man if he is not aware of the warning signs. There is a broken culture within many churches and it can place a pastor in a very dangerous position if he allows it to. He can contribute to it by chasing after the wrong things, neglecting his marriage and ignoring the warning signs.

That’s the heart of Fallen Pastor. A desire to reach out to fallen pastors, current pastors, churches and those who desire to walk with the fallen. Why? To change the culture. To change our hearts so that we might prevent these things in the future.

God doesn’t call us to fall, to fail morally. I pray that together, with the voices of the fallen, those who help the fallen, the experts and the example of Christ, Fallen Pastor will be a challenge to change the culture and ourselves.

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Fallen Pastor: Finding Restoration in a Broken World is available for preorder at Civitas Press. It will be available soon at Amazon.com and will also be available for the Kindle.