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 how we assist pastoral leaders in guarding their hearts and respecting the reputation of the Gospel of Christ. Hoping to resist condemnation and judgmental attitudes, in this first article, I offer the following suggestions for pastors and church leadership boards.
Adopt accountability strategies:
I don’t recall exactly when I started this practice, but at my annual performance review, I would include a statement like this, “There is no relationship in my life—that if made public—would pose a threat to my relationship with Carolyn or the Gospel of Christ.” When leading annual reviews of those who reported directly to me, I would share this same statement first and then ask if that was true of them. Another practice that Carolyn and I adopted when these pastoral failures were exposed was to look into each other’s eyes and state, “I’m not keeping any potentially damaging secrets from you: There’s no relationship in my life that poses a threat to our relationship.”
Both intentional statements were a proclamation that I would commit to doing what I could to live a life honoring Christ, my family, and the organization I served. I knew that—annually with organizational leaders and with Carolyn, as often as situations would occur—I would be accountable for the condition of my heart. They became timely and formidable reminders for me to act faithfully throughout the year.
Another way to increase accountability is for elder boards and pastors to sign and adopt the following two codes of ethics:
https://nae.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/Code-of-Ethics-for-Pastors1.pdf.
Pastors and church leadership boards could then:
- annually review the two codes
- discuss if they’re acting in full alignment with those commitments
- review where improvements could be made
I accept that no level of accountability will prohibit lying to God, ourselves, and others. However, establishing expectations and accountability practices for pastors and churches to serve with godly conduct is an important component in prohibiting moral failures and restoring trust among people we serve.
Implement safeguards:
I suggest that we need to ask and discuss these questions:
- Is it time that we adopt a policy that pastors can’t meet alone with members of the opposite sex unless in a very public setting? Even then, pastors should inform spouses in advance that they’re meeting?
- Is it time to encourage pastors to not be in a car alone with members of the opposite sex without informing others that this would occur?
- Is it time to prohibit pastors from counseling members of the opposite sex without another person present? A dynamic of intimacy occurs when counseling another person; this intimacy can then encourage infidelity?
- Should we choose to not share any intimate details with a person of the opposite sex that we haven’t first shared with our wives or when our wives aren’t present at the time?
I can appreciate the objections:
- That’s old school and won’t work in today’s world.
- These policies punish members of the opposite sex—women specifically.
I submit that meaningful meetings with members of the opposite sex can successfully occur while upholding these careful guidelines because I mentored several female leaders over my career. I also propose that these polices are too important to dismiss; we leaders simply must be more proactive.
Carolyn and I were right out of college, serving in our first full-time pastoral position when a pastor in our denomination left his wife because he was having an affair with the church’s secretary. I remember Carolyn’s shock and dismay that this happened in such a conservative, strict, rules-leaning group of pastors. I told her that “This could happen to anyone.” Her immediate reply was, “Don’t say it that! That means it could happen to you!” My reply was an important statement for both of us to acknowledge and accept: “Yes, that means it could happen to us. And that’s why we will always need to be pro-active and intentional about guarding our marriage.”
We must be intentional, pro-active, and to err by being overly-protective of potential appearances and intimacies when meeting with members of the opposite sex. The cost of failure is simply too great.