Pastors: Don’t be afraid to take the lid off
John Freeman’s more than 35 years of experience in helping pastors and church leaders comes through in his advice to one pastor who discovers sexual sin among his own church leadership.
Click here to read John’s accompanying article, “Pastors: Don’t Be Afraid to Take the Lid Off.”
Let me tell you about a conversation I had with a pastor who called us at Harvest USA to discuss how he should handle some disturbing news. The pastor learned that a significant number of men in the church struggled with pornography, and some of those men were the leaders of the church.
His reaction to the news was fear. He was terrified to begin to address it all. He initially felt that the fallout of admitting that his men and leaders struggled seemed unpredictable and scary, that it would be a major disruption if he tackled it. And because of that, this unknown element, he was tempted to just push it all back under the cover, so to speak. It just seemed too overwhelming to him.
I understand how he felt. It’s scary to address and confront people you love, people who work alongside you in ministry, people you have come to depend on. What would happen if they rejected you, or even left the church?
Basically, I just pushed gently into his fears, and really his unbelief, encouraging him that God wanted to do, and could do, something very powerful out of it all. I especially pointed out that God had orchestrated this coming to light in the lives of his men. Now he would be the chief catalyst in going forward with this, or going backward.
I told him that yes, maybe in the short term, moving into his men’s lives might be a bit messy. There might be a little bit of the unknown initially. But I urged him to take the long view and to try to picture the beneficial outcome of helping his men walk in the light with their sexual temptations and sins. I tried to help him see that if these men repented, he would have men appreciative of God’s mercy, more engaged with their lives and families, and more active in the church.
You see, unaddressed and unresolved sins usually prevent men from being the effective fathers, husbands, and leaders in Christ’s church they were meant to be. Here he had the opportunity, as their pastor, to move his men into a new understanding of the gospel, to help his men see deep-seated and often very shame-based idols of the heart, and to help replace them with the grace-filled presence of Jesus. It would be a good thing all around, for them personally and for the church as a whole.
