Fallen Pastors
Have you ever attended a church fell from grace? Maybe he fell because so sexual sin as so many in the past has done? If nothing else it proves they’re only men. Or as my wife puts it, they put their pants on one leg at a time like any other man does.’ Statements like that annoy some folks in churches across the land. These are the same folks who idolize their pastor instead of the Lord. Don’t get me wrong, loving your pastor is fine and dandy. Placing him on a pedestal is another matter altogether.
We attended a church where the pastor fell because of an immoral relationship. His long-time relationship with a female staff member came to light. A security contractor installed video surveillance cameras in the church offices and hallways. The discreet cameras became necessary once news came out about a custodial worker rummaging through confidential papers on the desks of the church offices. Once the system went live it was put through a testing phase to insure the system was functional. During this testing phase live video recorded the pastor and this female church employee in very compromising (and graphic) detail.
Prayer could have prevented this!
The pastor now in a dilemma had no choice but to tender his resignation. He chose the Wednesday evening service to make his public announcement. Without knowing his heart it seemed as if he wanted the court of public opinion to exonerate him. It didn’t. What his resignation did was it ripped the heart out of a growing, loving and happy church. The scene that night was straight out of a 1970’s B movie. There was wailing and pleading from the congregation for him to stay. “We forgive you!” cried a man in one section of the congregation. Others sobbed quietly to themselves. Some who like the man knew he had to resign because of his sin. Speaking of the court of public opinion, the female worker was all must lynched over her participation in the illicit affair. She was publicly shunned, privately cursed and ridiculed. Keep in mind this pastor had been at the church over twenty years, during that time he preached against the treatment people gave this woman. Looking back now this man is lucky the #MeToo movement wasn’t in place back then. If it had been his name would have been up there with Harvey Weinstein, Bill Cosby and a host of other men who used women as sexual toys.
Prayer could have prevented this!
In the aftermath of this upheaval in the church the remaining pastors tried to restore this man through godly counseling only to have him refuse it and rebuke them in the process. Seems he felt these men, and other people in the church were judging him. These men tried to bring in outside counselors to help this man and his family heal from this sin. Not only did he refuse his wife also refused help and mentioned they were reading books to make things right with God.
Prayer could have prevented this!
Normally these situations die off once the pastor leaves a church, and the area where the church is located. Not in this case, not by a long shot. Why did this happen? This man stated he built the church (contrary to what he had preached to us) and it belonged to him. Imagine the unmitigated gall of a man to proclaim a house of God as his own! To say this sordid affair split a once vibrant church would be an understatement. People turned into public enemies, they railed on those who stayed at the church and publicly chastised those who were against a great man of God.
Prayer could have prevented this!
The unrepentant pastor decided to establish his own church, outside our denomination (Southern Baptist) yet still claim to be a Baptist church. Some of the men who attended our Bible College recalled this man admonishing them to never set up a church within a hundred miles of a church they left. The hypocrisy of this became evident once people found out the new church was barely two miles from ours.
Prayer could have prevented this!
Once this new church started up ours long members to it. This wasn’t unexpected. This man pulled members and money away from our church. Making matters worse, his members kept showing up at ours to hand out brochures for his church. Others were caught openly asking members of our congregation to attend their new church. One night one of our own deacons was seen attending planning meetings at this man’s church. Needless to say he didn’t remain a deacon long after that. When these people were confronted with their actions they felt it was okay since they were evangelizing the neighborhood.
Prayer could have prevented this!
Local pastors spoke about this situation in their own churches large and small. One of them stated he would, as their pastor, expect their forgiveness but he could not remain as their pastor. No matter what others thought this former pastor of ours remained adamant about remaining a pastor. His congregation grew somewhat at the expense of our church. Many in our church couldn’t stop talking about the whole sordid mess.|
Prayer could have prevented this!
After a couple of years passed by without our church receiving a new pastor. Some of the people in the congregation were upset we didn’t have a senior pastor on staff. They were unsatisfied with those men on our staff who were good preachers in their own right. Not only that, God sent many men to our church to preach messages to us. It wasn’t good enough for them, without a senior pastor they felt incomplete.
The day came when this young man came to our church to preach and to see if he might become our next senior pastor. The congregation was, according to some, starving for good preaching and leadership. What we really needed was healing from the past church leadership.
Well it didn’t take long for people to decide this young man was the one God wanted to become our senior pastor. Never mind that he’d never been one before or that he’d even been at a church the size of ours. So he and his family moved in and he became our senior pastor. People, some anyways, felt complete now that we had a senior pastor. Keep in mind there was still a dark cloud hanging over the church from the last pastor and the failure of the deacon committee to bring closure to the affair. Once the new wore off the new pastor began weeding out people. People loyal to the old pastor. People who the more prominent members of the church didn’t want in their church. People who didn’t gravitate to the new pastor soon found themselves shunned in church.
One Sunday night the strangest thing took place, a man from one of the leading families went forward to be saved. People were stunned to say the least. Why? He had already accepted Christ when the former pastor was still at our church. The new pastor praised this man several times during the service. That was the match that started the fire in the church. People were going forward to be resaved since they felt as if accepting Christ when the other pastor was here somehow didn’t take. They felt this way despite the fact that our former pastor always told us during baptisms that the neither the water nor the pastor was the source of salvation. Even so, they continued going forward so the new pastor would say their names in services. Without wishing to be judgmental, this folks are probably still unsaved.
Peer pressure was used to remove people deemed unfaithful to this young man pretending to be a pastor. I found myself among those chosen to be disenfranchised. Early one morning at the weekly men’s prayer meeting I found myself sitting alone on a line of chairs. These meetings were always held in a small Sunday School classroom so seating was scarce. Even so, there I sat in an empty row. It doesn’t take much to tell me when I’m unwanted and we left the church soon afterwards. Others were driven out as well. As I write this the young man is still at our old church. He’s not so young anymore. The church hasn’t grown much, oh… they claim to be a mega-church yet they can only seat 900 in the gymnasium of the school. They’ve renamed the church; this is the second or third name the church has had. They scrubbed all mention of the former pastor from the church’s history. All glory and honor is given to this new man instead of God above.
Prayer could have prevented this!
This new pastor failed a key goal when he took over the leadership of a hurting church like ours was. Instead of being a peacemaker he chose to be a great divisor instead. His plans seemed to be one of staying there a few years in the hope of getting called to a larger church. In looking back it doesn’t appear if that’s been God’s plan. This man is spending all his younger years at a church while others are progressing further in their careers.
Prayer could have prevented this!
The point of this blog post? Two men, both failures in the Kingdom. They failed the flock God gave them and they failed God as well. One failed because of sexual sin while the other failed because of his pride. There’s more though, there’s a third failure here: the church itself. If only the church had prayed for the first pastor he might not have fell into sin then he would have retained his post. The pastor who took his place would not have accepted a senior pastor position until such time as he had enough experience, and love, to become a senior pastor.
We need to be praying for these men because that’s what they are: men. They aren’t holy men; they aren’t anything but men who fail. Our responsibility to them is to pray for them. Pray for their spiritual health, their physical health and their mental health. Depression is a leading cause of pastors leaving their ministries behind. Pray for their families, especially for their marriages as their careers are tough on a woman. Pray when you’re with these men, pray when you aren’t. Pray when they stand at the podium, pray when they leave it. Unless you pray for your pastor he may fail as these men failed. Your church may fail as that church failed.
1 Thessalonians 5:17 – Pray without ceasing.