The Devastating Effects of Sexual Sin
By "Steve"
Note: "Steve" is the pseudonym for a minister who wrote this article seven years after his moral failure, with the hope that it will help others. He added, "I have a well-marked copy of Ministerial Ethics by Trull and Carter, which I began to read about the time I was going over the line. I only wish I`d been wiser." He indicated twice a need for a "handbook": recently the Baptist General Convention of Texas has produced Broken Trust, which aids ministers and churches in dealing with clergy sexual abuse.
I`d been with the same high-ranking denominational official a few years before, but under different circumstances. Then I chaired an influential committee. After a meeting, he asked me to stay a moment. "Steve," he said, "you know our state convention`s annual meeting is coming up. Rev. Jones will be nominated for president. He`s a good man, but he`s backed by a group that wants to slash and burn our work. He has a hurtful agenda."
Then, looking me straight in the eye, he continued, "Steve, you`re one of the most respected pastors in this state. You`re a good administrator and work well with others. I believe you`re a change agent, but you`re not a zealot. Won`t you consider running for convention president yourself?"
It was true I`d received recognition for effective ministry. My alma mater honored me as "Minister of the Year" a few months before, and choice pastorates had come my way. Though I chose not to pursue the presidency, I appreciated the official`s affirmation.
Now I sat before the same official a broken man. A few days before I`d confessed to church leaders my adulterous affair and submitted myself to their direction. It became apparent I`d have to leave the church quickly. I sought an audience with this man to solicit his advice. He graciously pushed back his appointments, made time for me and became my pastor.
"Will I serve as a minister again?" I remember asking.
He assured me this was possible, though he couldn`t foretell the awful months that lay ahead of me.
What happened in those intervening years between my appointments? Much of my story is crystal clear now after the passage of time, though I yet struggle with some of the "why?"
God had been good to put me in great churches. Without trying to sound too pious, I never sought out any of the churches I served (ours is a congregational system with autonomous churches), but God brought us together. I`m a good preacher. I earned a master`s degree in communication before going on to seminary. Though an introvert as I understand 80% of pastors are, I`d worked hard on people skills. And I`m gifted administratively. I saw success working with committees and task groups.
But now that my ministry lay in shambles, my counselor helped me piece together the vulnerabilities I`d had without being aware of their potential devastation.
My family moved at an inopportune time for our daughter. She was in the middle of her junior year in high school. She went to a new and larger school and became a "nobody" as she later tearfully told us. There was no good reason to move, and we should`ve been more sensitive to her social needs.
Susan made the worst grades of her life those years. Then she went to the local junior college and failed royally. It was only later that our doctor found abnormality in a blood test and recommended we see a thyroid specialist. We discovered Susan`s Graves Disease to account for a lot of her troublesome behavior since she`d never before been a troublesome child.
We also built a house and assumed more debt that I`d ever known. I remembered some of the relevant humor of the old movie, "The Money Pit." Though it was a beautiful home, I suppose I felt some uneasiness that we had such a nice place to live. I still wrestle with these feelings; akin to what I heard Larry Burkett describe when someone gave him an expensive automobile. He got their permission to "trade down" in order to prevent criticism and be an example of moderation in materialism.
We decided to move to the new church shortly after my father-in-law`s death from cancer. Diane traveled and spend several days each week with her family for seven months. The search committee`s call came one week after his funeral. We probably weren`t in the best frame of mind to make a major decision. Then my mother`s cancer was diagnosed just after the move. She died within seven weeks.
And then, as Paul said, there was the "care of the churches," or in my case, the church.
I worked very hard in the church, as I`d always done, but didn`t seem to be making much progress. I was burdened with what President G.H.W. Bush called the "vision thing." I later learned through some inventories that my style had always been that of manager rather than leader. So it was normal that I chafed when people asked me so frequently, "Pastor, what`s your vision for our church?" In my previous church in a city torn by racial strife there wasn`t a problem focusing on what the church ought to be. But I had difficulty now trying to discover God`s will and be a confident vision-caster.
In the two and one-half years I served in the new church we went through four staff searches, requiring endless meetings with search committees and prospects, and one staff defection. One of our ministers began meeting secretly with a few members who wanted to start a "seeker" church. Our church wasn`t inclined to sponsor such a work at that time, but this group made their plans over several months, then announced their intentions and asked our blessing.
It was just after we`d dealt with the unsanctioned mission that my relationship with Sherrie began. A woman our church was trying to help had rebuffed her. The shock of the lady`s hostility reduced her to hysterics. Another church member brought her to my office and said, "Please talk to her." I did. Thus began a counseling relationship that brought devastation.
Over the next weeks I found I enjoyed talking with Sherrie. She was bright and funny and complimentary. Our counseling relationship became an inappropriate friendship. I fell for her like a foolish junior high schooler. I knew better. This is one of the continuing mysteries I deal with. As I`ve often said to friends, I`m not a stupid person, but I was very stupid.
My counselor tried to help explain my foolishness by enumerating my vulnerabilities. And he chided me for abandoning my role as counselor. "When you began to talk with Sherrie about your family problems, she became your counselor. This is dangerous."
Yes, it was. Diane and I weren`t handling our family problems too well. We snapped at each other and didn`t have much of a relationship. I was away most days and nights doing church business. I was on a mission, I thought, and her mission was to take care of the house and children. I neglected my family for the benefit of my congregational family. How foolish I was!
Diane asked me later how I`d been able to stand in the pulpit week-by-week and proclaim God`s word while living in immorality. I do believe pastors must proclaim the full truth whether we`ve achieved it fully in our lives or not. For example, we preach about anger management and forgiveness even when we have a hard time doing this ourselves. But I remember many times falling of my face before God and asking for deliverance. Why didn`t it come? Was I trapped in sin or insincere in my pleas? I`m not sure. I saw this inconsistency and began talking with a vocational counselor. She was surprised that I wanted out of ministry when all my aptitude tests pointed to ministry. Of course I`d not told her the whole story.
Though Sherrie and I had broken off the relationship some weeks before, she began to talk of the affair to others. I don`t know why. I called church leaders together and told them the truth. It was a tearful session and each man assured me he`d treat the revelation with confidentiality and prayer.
Twenty-four hours later the situation worsened. The chairman of the board called and asked me to meet him that night. "The full board will meet tomorrow night, and we need your resignation," he said sternly. The same man told me several days later to have my belongings out of the church by the weekend or he`d come with others and put my books on the street. This was one of the men who prayed with me and hugged me a few hours before.
What happened?
It was weeks later before I knew the story. Joe phoned our state denomination`s headquarters the day after my confession. He talked with the minister whose office handled church leadership and resumes. Joe asked what the church should do. The state minister talked about love, support and restoration. "What would most churches do?" Joe asked. "Surgical separation," the minister responded, "swift and sure."
The minister himself later told me about this conversation. Whereas he insisted he was being honest, I insisted he ought to be more careful with his counsel. "Surgical separation" became Joe`s mantra, and he used this often in those terrible days dealing with me. In addition to his decision about my library and office possessions, he demanded I rewrite my letter of resignation and that he read it to the church while I sat passively by.
The full board meeting took too long. In full confession mode I spoke from my heart to the men for more than an hour. It was months later that I read Gordon MacDonald`s story of brokenness, "Restoring Your Broken World."1 In the preface he wrote a disclaimer. It`s not my purpose to give graphic details of my sin, he insisted, but only to write words of encouragement to others. Though I didn`t give the board graphic details, I did tell them more than was necessary. I`ve learned that in addition to this full confession mode, I was probably in shock and not thinking clearly.
I did another foolish thing that night. Diane and I had been seeing a counselor for some time, though I`d not been completely candid with him. I saw him the afternoon before the board meeting. "Restoration is the Christian alternative," he insisted. "If you don`t bring it up, those men probably won`t think about this option. But if you do, yours might be a congregation of grace."
I called a church in another state that had gone through restoration with their pastor, and got the name of a contact person from the church secretary. I gave this information to the board, but it was fruitless for me to talk about my own restoration. In my denomination, restoration is rare among pastors. I knew of only this one case out-of-state. My denomination practices "surgical separation."
Herein is another problem erring pastors face-we have no advocate. If a church member or a staff member stumbles, the pastor becomes their advocate. He can suggest a week of prayer, or that the staffer be put on leave while the board thought through possible courses of action or some other option. In my case, an untrained layman was in charge and he wanted me out pronto.
I discovered conflicting messages from my congregation in the days following. Joe told me not to come back ever again, but my children`s Sunday School teachers called and told them they were welcomed and wanted. The board assured me of their love and prayers, but only one of the 21 board members came to see us in the months ahead.
A board member from our former church drove a long distance to take me to lunch and tell me he loved me. He was a man of hardened racial prejudice, and we often disagreed in the past. Strange that he would be such a caring counselor that day!
I suppose second to my shock at being an instant "leper" to the church I`d poured so much of my life into was the ostracism I felt from my fellow pastors. One pastor came and took me to lunch and offered consolation. A handful called. Most ignored me. One pastor friend told me candidly that my story was the "talk of the state." The vast majority of those talking about me never talked to me.
I saw a former professor from my college several months later. I`d had this man in churches several times for special Bible studies. "Steve," he said, "I meant to write you a letter." That`s all he ever said and did for me.
I did one thing right in those days following my resignation. Three laymen in the church continued to ask me what they could do to help. I asked these three to be a support group for me and I naively asked them for six weeks. We met together for two years. They`re heroes in my story, for these men loved me, advised me, encouraged me and made reference calls for me in those months. And they did this though some in the church accused them of planning a coup d`etat, intending to bring me back as pastor!
There`s another hero in my story-Diane. She was devastated by my confession. I offered to leave, but after thinking this over one night, she announced, "I`ve loved you since I was 14 years old. Somehow we`ll get through this."
I learned much too late that she was the superior woman in every way.
Diane and I did disagree on moving. We put our house on the market, and she wanted to leave town. I insisted it would be foolish and disruptive for our children to move now and potentially move soon again when I found work. I won the argument, though I had no idea we`d remain for two years. I had to learn to hold my head up as a forgiven sinner when meeting former church members in the town. This was hard. It was hard for Diane, too, though she`d not messed up like I had.
For two years I worked two menial jobs, met with the three laymen and pursued two tracks of employment: the "secular" and ministry-related. I was often disappointed in both. The business world saw me as having been a pastor for 25 years, and the ministry world saw me as damaged goods.
My support group and I often joked about there being no "handbook" for us. And there wasn`t. Advice from my denomination was conflicting. I adopted the practice early on to write a letter explaining the story when getting a resume request, just as one advisor suggested. Most often I`d hear nothing from those groups again. We decided later for me to try to share the story in person whenever possible. As another denominational leader said, "You need to look them in the eye and they need to see you don`t have horns growing out of your head."
After some months of my "exile," the state minister who`s distinguished himself by speaking "surgical separation" to Joe suggested I expand my support group by asking several pastor friends to join us. "You`ll be asking them for a major commitment," he said, "but you need a major commitment from them."
It was this expanded group that saw me through to at least partial restoration. One of the ministers was a trustee for a Christian college, and he lobbied the president to talk with me about a faculty position. Remember that M.A. in communication? It paved the way for this assignment, and the job was tailored to include one religion course each semester. I was placed on the campus worship committee, and now chair that group. It`s my job to supervise weekly chapel worship on our campus.
And God gave me another congregation to serve.
After moving to the college, an elder from a church in the city met me and invited me to preach. I was a bit taken back! He explained their pastor has left a few months previous, and they`d had good experience using teachers from our school to preach. Though not a member of their denomination, I accepted and remained for nearly four years!
I met with the elders early on and told them my story, also giving them the telephone numbers of the three laymen who`d stuck by me for so long. They declined to investigate further. One elder, the one who`d originally invited me to preach, thanked me for my honesty. Then he said, "We believe you can help us here at this time, and one day I hope we`ll be on your resume and can help you."
I was bowled over by this act of grace. God used this wonderful church to help me regain pulpit ministry. Now after more than seven years I`m a bivocational pastor at another church in my own denomination.
There are a number of lessons I`ve learned in the past several years. Perhaps these will be helpful for pastors and other ministers who read this article.
(1) Exercise care in counseling women. I was attracted to Sherrie and enjoyed talking with her. Soon she became my counselor, and the path went downhill.
Some ministers refuse to counsel women. Others insist on having a church secretary present in the office and the door open, or else limit sessions to one or two before referral. I think I could`ve selected one of these options and must in the days ahead.
(2) Don`t neglect your family. One Christian leader insists your family members are the most important members in your church! It`s so easy to ride a white horse and try to save the world and neglect our wives and children.
I realize now that so much of my time was wasted in endless meetings. I should have been wise enough to rely on the Reagan method. One of his biographers said Reagan often told his staff, "Gentlemen, we`ve done all we can do today. Let`s go home and enjoy our families."
And I should`ve recognized that the church could get by without me every now and then. I did take a week`s vacation every summer, but a weekend every now and then with my wife would`ve helped our marriage. At the least, the church would`ve enjoyed hearing another preacher. At best, they`d be happy to see me back!
(3) Find a support group. Much has been written about support groups in recent years. Some find help in gathering trusted laymen in the church, while others enjoy meeting with fellow pastors. I see how valuable this resource is, and encourage every minister to meet regularly with a group for sharing and prayer.
(4) Count the cost. I heard a teacher say once that the scripture exhorts us to stand firm against all sin except sexual sin. In that instance, the Bible exhorts us to flee, not stand firm. Sexual sin has devastating consequences for years to come. The best option is to run from it.
Ministers must realize part of the cost of sexual sin is that you`ll not be allowed to exercise your ministry gifts in most churches. These doors are closed, at least for a time. And many ministers, like me, find it frustrating to get connected in another vocation. There`s nothing wrong with honest work, but we did not spend half our lives in school to substitute teach in public school or to flip hamburgers, especially when God called us to serve him through his church.
I realize there are differences of opinion about restoration to ministry. One noted Bible teacher insists this isn`t possible since the scripture doesn`t give an example of such. I beg to differ. We do many things not described in scripture: Sunday School, hymnals, Vacation Bible School, church gymnasiums, annual budgets, etc. I believe restoration is a biblical principle (Gal. 6: 1- 2), and I don`t find in scripture any roadblock to God`s grace (with the possible exception of apostasy in Hebrews, but that`s another story!)
It`s rare that the church where the sin was committed be the restorative agent, but there are other people and other congregations who can and will do this.
Of course the finest option is to remain pure and do unhindered ministry to the glory of God.
(5) Be an instrument of compassion. Henri Nouwen popularized the concept of the "wounded healer."2 Sometimes it`s true that those who`ve suffered can be the best encouragers. But even those who`ve not stumbled in ministry can be compassionate toward those who have. And this is desperately needed.
My denomination doesn`t do a good job helping those who face involuntary termination, or who fail in the quest for holiness. That`s why I`ve determined the rest of my life to do all I can to offer help to other ministers who hurt. I`ve worked with the Ministering to Ministers Foundation in several of their Wellness Retreats, and I`ve found this fulfilling.3 I`ve received several invitations to tell my story to pastors` groups. I`ve done this once, and haven`t yet decided if I want to do this in the future-in other words, to be "known" for my story. Remember that there`s no handbook? Some have encouraged me to tell my story loud and often, and others suggest I close that chapter and move on. I`m still struggling with what I need to do in this regard.
This article is another step in getting a helpful word to others who face the same temptation.
My life has changed forever. "The story" is mine and will have to be shared with future employers. I`ll never escape it. Diane and I still work hard at having a healthy marriage. My children don`t have much interest in the church-they say they didn`t see much Christian love in our church when I stumbled, though I`m sure down deep they remain disappointed in me as well.
My parting word to you is it`s not worth it! All the heartbreak and disappointment isn`t worth the few moments of joy from a forbidden relationship. I pray that you`ll continue resolute in your commitment to be "pure and faultless in God`s sight" (2 Pet. 3: 14, GNB).
