My heart is heavy today. I just found out a few days ago that a friend of ours in another state was caught in a moral failure. What saddens me more is that this person was a pastor. What grieves me the most, however, is that this is the fourth pastor we’ve known who has fallen with in the last 9 months. Three pastor friends/acquaintances had committed adultery and two had committed suicide (one committed both). We have been in vocational ministry for 20 years now –17 with an interdenominational missions agency and the past three in church ministry. Since we began in ministry, we have witnessed the fall of many, many pastors – mostly in the area of infidelity. I stopped counting at 10 a few years back. To be honest, I have to guard my heart against disillusionment and cynicism.
I’m not writing this to bash pastors or to stand in judgement over pastors who have found themselves in similar situations. On the contrary, I am married to a pastor and I know that neither he nor I are above falling (Therefore let him who thinks he stands take heed that he does not fall. 1 Corinthians 10:12). I am also not writing to "gossip" in the name of prayer (By the way, I am not aware that anyone reading this blog would know him). I am writing this as a plea: Please pray for your pastors. Pray for their wives and kids as well.
I was actually planning on writing a post on praying for pastors as part of a series on prayer that I was preparing to post in October (Clergy Appreciation Month). Given the circumstances, this was heavy on my heart, so I decided to write on it now. Please pray for this man. We love him dearly. Please pray for his family and his congregation. Please pray for grace and wisdom for those on his restoration team. Please pray that he would fully cooperate with the restoration process. Please pray that others would not fall away because of this – that their hope would be fixed on Jesus, not the examples of men.
After having worked closely with hundreds of pastors (including my husband), I have seen the stress and pressure that can result from pastoral ministry. So, after years of observation, these are some of the ways I have come to pray for pastors:
1. Pray for brokenness, humility, meekness & authenticity before God and others. Pray also that God would guard their hearts against arrogance & pride. I once heard homeschool dad, pastor, and nationally known speaker Todd Wilson once talk on authenticity. He was making the case for those in leadership to be real and not to continue to propagate the false notion of perfection. He mentioned that he had given this talk at a conference one time and another nationally known speaker came up to him and said some thing like "Yes, but shouldn’t we put our best foot forward?" To this he responded "I don’t want to put my best foot forward, I want to put my real foot forward." Pray that they will be honest and confess their weaknesses (not just admit that they have them). Pray that they would set the example in this area.
There is tremendous pressure on pastors to maintain the image of perfection. They must always be "on", always have the answers and appear to be the expert on everything Biblical. This is what Craig Groeschel in his book, Confessions of a Pastor, calls the "Pastoral Mystique". Its as if there is a belief out there that God made man a little lower than the angels (Hebrews 2:6-7) and pastors a little higher than man.
I remember as a new believer being really convicted that I needed to confess my sins to someone according to scripture (James 5:16). I felt too much pride, however, for fear of appearing weak or unspiritual. It wasn’t until I began to notice those who I viewed as stronger than I in the Lord begin to confess sin and admit to weaknesses in their own lives that I finally felt the freedom to do the same. Confession leads to accountability and prayer that leads to repentance which brings revival. However, for a pastor to confess sin or to admit weakness is considered a "no-no" by some.
I so appreciate the ministries of internationally renown theologians, Drs. John Piper and R.C. Sproul. One of the reasons I so highly respect these pastors is that they are not beyond confessing sin and admitting weaknesses & limitations. I was blown away one time while listening to RC Sproul. He was talking about a particular topic in the Bible, and he admitted to not really knowing the answer to a listener’s question. Not that he wasn’t familiar with the Biblical passages surrounding the topic, but, after considering the text, he felt the Bible was simply not clear enough to give a definitive answer. It was refreshing to hear that one of the nations’s foremost Reformed theologians didn't claim to know the answer to every theological question. Now he had his opinion, of course, but he stated it humbly & with uncertainty.
A few weeks ago, my husband and I were in a team meeting with our senior pastor and other lay leaders in the church. I had mentioned a verse I thought would be good to include in a gospel presentation. My senior pastor asked if I happened to know the reference to that verse. I said I didn’t. Neither my husband nor anyone else in the room knew it either. While the SP was looking it up in his concordance, one of the women present said, "How nice to know you guys don’t know everything." To which my husband jokingly replied, "How scary to think you thought we did."
Pray that pastors would be willing to go before their congregations (or at least their leadership team) and ask for prayer when necessary. That they would be as specific in their prayer requests as is publically appropriate and without violating a confidence. Pray that when someone asks how they can pray for them not simply to give an unspecific response like "Pray Ephesians 6 for me" (Not that I am against praying scripture. This is a powerful way to pray and something that I do frequently). I’m not talking about nitty-gritty dirty details or revealing something that would embarass someone else. I'm not talking about sensationalism either. But saying something like "Pray for my relationship with my kids. We’re going through a rough time right now." "Pray that I would love my wife as Christ loved the church." Or "Pray for my health, I’ve been feeling really under the weather." These types of statements would be specific enough to give a parishioner a better idea of what areas need the most prayer.
I hope this did not come across as too negative. I didn't mean for it to be so. I have been so burdened by this though. I think humility and brokenness are essential qualities in a pastor. I think they help to fight against arrogance and pride that lead to a fall. These are areas that I want to cultivate in my own life as well. I'll continue in following posts with more ways that I pray for pastors. Please let me know how you pray for your pastors as well.
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