It happened again: A long string of high-profile pastors resigning due to moral failure, usually involving inappropriate relationships with members of the opposite sex. Over the fifty years of my service in Christian fulltime vocational ministry as a pastor and president, I lost count how many times this occurred. I wonder if it is time to become more intentional in …
Guarding Our Hearts, Part Two
In this second article on pastoral moral failures, I address two systemic problems that contribute to moral failures by our pastors. Confront Systemic Organizational Sin: Recently, I received a phone call informing me that the senior pastor of a mega church I know well had resigned because he used inappropriate sexual language with women in the church. The public statement …
The Art of Building Consensus
A consistent challenge that leaders face is building consensus when there’s disagreement among board members or other significant leaders in their organizations. I experienced this challenge numerous times, but one remains vivid in my memory. I was leading the board to move the campus to a new location when a mega church in the area offered to give us land—at …
Am I Not Sending You?
(excerpt from our book, Questions from the God Who Needs No Answers) Looking at Judges 6:1-29 The Lord turned to him and said, “Go in the strength you have and save Israel out of Midian’s hand. Am I not sending you?” —Judges 6:14 Did you have a nickname when you were growing up? Whether you care to acknowledge …
The Problem of Vicarious Pain
Vicarious: “shared in by imagined participation in another’s experience” Intimacy: “the state of having a close, personal relationship with someone” Intimate relationship: “an interpersonal relationship involving physical or emotional intimacy” Pain: “what inevitably occurs when you’re in ministry” The first three definitions are paraphrases from Webster. The last? Mine. And it’s 100% accurate. Doesn’t take a genius to predict that …
And Another Leader Bites the Dust
A few months after our son Robb died, the editor I was working with enquired how I was doing. She asked with sensitive compassion, and since we’d developed enough trust—battling through edits can do that!—I decided to be honest with her. I began my response by saying, “Since it’s you, and I can be real, I can admit that I’m …