I’ve never been great at beating around the bush, so please allow me to get straight to the point:
If you are a preacher, elder, or church leader currently caught up in adultery, pedophilia, homosexuality, drunkenness, or pornography, please step down until you get your own life under control.
I am so very tired of meeting young people who placed their faith in a youth minister, camp director, preacher, elder, etc. only to discover years later that the person they held up as a “model Christian” is now a scandal in his local congregation.
Yes, I agree that young people should not put men whose feet are made of clay on pedestals, but the reality is that most of them do. And many are walking away from the church because of this.
If this were just a one-time issue I would never have considered writing this.
But it seems to be occurring more often with greater frequency. You open Facebook and see a picture of a youth minister with his arm around two young girls at a Christian camp. Fast-forward three years and now his marriage is in shambles because for the past six months he has been sleeping with a sixteen year old in the youth group. Not only is he facing a broken marriage, but he may also be facing criminal charges that would tarnish the name of the church in that local area.
Or maybe it’s an elder many look up to in a congregation who gets addicted to pornography. Or maybe it’s a preacher who loves to hug little children every Sunday—only to discover years later he struggles with pedophilia.
Please, if you are struggling with these issues right now—or feel yourself on the brink of falling into one of these temptations—please have the courage to take some time off and get help. Please don’t tarnish the bride of Christ with yet another scandal.
We all shake our fingers at Catholic priests and the tremendous amount of damage they have done to young boys. But the reality is we have our own problems in the New Testament church. (I know some will chastise me for even pointing this out, because “we are not supposed to air out any dirty laundry” regarding the church. Friends, we’ve been polishing the outside of the cup too long. It’s time we take a good long look at the contents of what’s inside!)
Right now our local congregations do not handle confession well. If this is going to happen we need cooperation from elders and congregations. We must have a plan in place.
Consider the plight of a man whose income is tied to preaching in the pulpit, but he needs help with pornography. His livelihood is at stake, making it highly unlikely that he will confess and seek treatment, unless there is a plan in place that will help him during his time off. Maybe they help him find temporary work with an agreement that he can come back or maybe it’s a paid sabbatical so that he can seek counseling.
If you are caught up in these sins I beg you to take a sabbatical, step down, or take an extended leave. Consider for a moment the beautiful impact you will have on your church family when you return and can say, “I had walked back on the broad way, but I took some time to heal and am now happily back on the narrow path.” That message will influence young people in a healthy way and will help strengthen their faith, rather than them hearing through the grapevine that their preacher got arrested in a prostitution sting.
It is way past time our church leaders and preachers teach Truth in the pulpit and demonstrate it in their daily lives. It is time we clean up the bride of Christ and get her ready to meet the groom. Paul wrote: “ For I am jealous for you with godly jealousy. For I have betrothed you to one husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ” (2 Corinthians 11:2).
We must keep the church pure, and that has to start with the leaders. If we are going to call ourselves servants of Christ then we must conduct ourselves like Christ.
Please prayerfully consider what I’m saying. If you need help, counseling, or resources I am happy to provide those confidentially. (In fact, there are hundreds of Christian men ready and willing to help).
If you are caught up in one of these sins the best sermon you can preach is by stepping down, getting help, and drawing closer to Christ—showing true fruits of repentance. Please don’t wait. Young souls hang in the balance of your decision….
This article first appeared at focuspress.org
Brad
Thank you for writing this, Brother Brad. I particularly appreciated this part: "It is way past time our church leaders and preachers teach Truth in the pulpit and demonstrate it in their daily lives. It is time we clean up the bride of Christ and get her ready to meet the groom. Paul wrote: “ For I am jealous for you with godly jealousy. For I have betrothed you to one husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ” (2 Corinthians 11:2)."
As a woman in The Church, a daughter of God, and a sister to the men you speak of, I'd like to provide one female's perspective.
These big sins are not just an tremendous offense to our holy God, and a stumbling block to the younger men and to the world who watches, they are a slap in the face to wives, daughters, and sisters. These sins are deeply hurtful to the women and seeing them in church leadership can cause us to lose faith in the Church also. Too often in the church, we are viewed as the causes of men's sexual sin rather than the victims of it. Please, brothers, don't forget our bodies, hearts, and spirits when you think about the harm done by these types of sins in the Brotherhood.
I also would like to share one woman's perspective (and I think that I too have the Spirit of God) on the idea of a leader who has fallen into this sin taking a break from the work and returning to it. I am grateful that the Churches of Christ have (mostly - I know there are outlier congregations who have succumbed to the world on this) maintained God's roles for men and women in the church - but I see that this puts a great obligation on you men. We women are at your mercy - in the home and in the Church. And children are, of course, even more vulnerable than we adult women. God has provided for we women and the children through the commands He has issued about leadership - and the example He has set regarding His holiness and the preservation of that within His chosen people. If a man who is remarried after even an appropriate divorce cannot be an elder...if an inhospitable man cannot be an elder...if a widowed man cannot be an elder...if a man with a less-than-good reputation outside of the church cannot be an elder...if a godly woman cannot be an elder (ALL qualifications I wholeheartedly support) well, I cannot fathom how a man who has succumbed to adultery or pedophilia or pornography would be allowed to return to that position. (And, while we do not have "qualifications" for preachers, in the congregations I've been in it has been the preachers who had more direct impact on the congregation than the elders - it seems that the bar for a preacher's behavior should be equally high.) Because, when a man is returned to public leadership after committing so grave a sin against the most vulnerable, we also communicate something about sin to everyone watching. To seek out and be aroused by the sexual abuse of children, to sleep with a teenager, to break your vows to your wife and risk her heart and health with adultery...these things are among the most grave sins I can imagine, and the message of restoring the sinner to a leadership position in the church might not be what is intended. While some may see it as evidence of God's wonderful forgiveness, many will see it as evidence that the church cares more about sinning men than sinned-against women and children. We all know good, godly, wise men and women who are excluded from leadership positions because of their gender or because of their past. This does not make them less-than, it merely honors God's design for leadership in His Church.
I personally pray that this is a wake-up call to the church. This didn't happen overnight. And sin of this magnitude in the church didn't start with sexual immorality. The church has tolerated worldliness in the church for decades if not longer and there are many who long for and pray for her purity. I can't help but think of how God praised Phinehas for purging the congregation of the Isrealites by killing the Isrealite man and the Midianite woman who dared to sin so boldly in the congregation of the people of God. Of course, I'm not suggesting killing, but I am suggesting that purifying the church likely includes not restoring these men to positions of leadership.
Thank you again for what you wrote, Brother Brad. If I, a Christian in a very small community, personally know of two ministers who have committed these sins and an elder performing "commitment ceremonies" for "Christians" who want to live together without being legally wed, the problem must be vast.
Your article reminded me of what Paul wrote to Timothy, "Take heed to yourself and to the doctrine. Continue in them, for in doing this you will save both yourself and those who hear you. Do not rebuke an older man, but exhort him as a father, younger men as brothers, older women as mothers, younger women as sisters, with all purity" (1 Timothy 4:16-5:2).