It has been a long time since I last
posted on this blog. As I get closer to my 30-year mark as pastor of Kabwata
Baptist Church there are a number of thoughts that are concurrently running
through my mind. Many of them are thoughts of gratitude while some are thoughts
of regret. One thought that is an odd mixture of both gratitude and regret has
been my recollection of ministerial colleagues that have fallen over the years.
Almost all of them have been due to sexual scandals, though one or two of them
have been related to financial misconduct. Thankfully, they have been few and
far between. But each time it has happened I have said with pain in my heart,
“There go I, but for the grace of God.”
As I have reflected on this, I have
realised afresh that the greatest difficulty each time such news has reached me has
always been related to how to handle this news and the people involved henceforth. This has been from a number of
fronts. Let me share some of these in this blog post. I will speak in the second person, though I will be speaking about my own experiences over the last 30
years. I will also give the hypothetical name “John” to the fallen ministerial
colleague.
Usually, before such bad news reaches
the rest of Christendom as an unearthed scandal or as official news of church
discipline, the bad news does its rounds within ministerial circles. In the
latter case, it is often when church leaders are consulting for the purpose of
ensuring that they do what is right and fair in the case before them. It is at
that point that the first great difficulty comes in. You stay wide-awake long into the
night because of the weight of responsibility suddenly thrust upon your
shoulders when you least expected it. Those are the hardest first days and nights.
Difficulty of confidentiality
To begin with, there is the difficulty
of confidentiality. Sexual sin is very private. Thus when it is first unearthed
it is within a very small circle. Then confidants are informed, and usually it
is at that point that information gets to you…and it leaves you devastated and
heartbroken. In that state of depression, you must still be a responsive
husband to your wife and responsible father to your children. You are expected
to carry out your ministry to them and to your church as if nothing has happened.
Every so often, someone sees through the mask and asks, “What’s wrong?” To keep
confidentiality, you mumble swords like, “Do not worry, it is something to do
with work. I will get over it.”
Worse than this is the fact that
sometimes this information leaks to those who know that you are close to your
fallen ministerial colleague and so they determine that they will get first
hand information through you. Instead of saying, “We have heard that John has
been found guilty of an adulterous affair,” they instead simply ask, “How is
John?” You can see from the stare that this is a loaded question. It is a catch
twenty-two situation. To simply say, “He is fine,” and change the subject is to
put one’s own integrity on the line. To divulge what you know is to betray
confidentiality. It is a poisoned chalice! What to do? What to do?
Handling anger
Then there is the issue of anger towards
the devil and the fallen brother because of a sense of betrayal. Ministry work
is moral work. You are battling against sin not only in your own heart but also
in the hearts of others. You are absorbed with zeal for the glory of God
through the extension of his kingdom in a world intoxicated with self-love and
sin. That is what ministry is all about. So, when a ministerial colleague is
found to have been secretly feeding the very enemy you are seeking to destroy,
anger rises within the heart. It is like being in a crucial cup final in a
football match and your competitors win the cup because your teammate scored
into your goal, and that goal clinched the other team’s victory. The guy may
apologise, but the damage done is irreparable.
Handling sympathy
Surprisingly, on the heels of the
emotion of anger comes the emotion of sympathy as you realise that your
grief-stricken repentant brother has to work through the implications of this
on his marriage, his family, and his church. Those who watch from the outside
often overlook this. Behind the curtains, there are many casualties when a
pastor falls. His wife and older children will have to handle the devastating
thoughts of public shame together with him as word begins to do its rounds
concerning what has happened. Individuals in the church who are aggrieved or
who fail to handle the public shame leave the church and go elsewhere or stop
going to church altogether. The biblical prophecy fulfilled in Christ is
fulfilled in more ways than one: “I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep of
the flock will be scattered” (Matthew 26:31). Sometimes you, as a ministerial
colleague, will have to be involved in counselling individuals in the family
and the church through this pain. The loss of employment with the church, which
often follows this, means there will be need to look for another job to bring
in the much-needed income. One ministerial friend of mine committed suicide
because he did not want to go through the shame. He left behind a devastated
widow with very young children. How can one fail to be filled with emotions of
sympathy in the light of this?
Handling personal fear
Then there is the emotion of fear. You
know that you too are a fallen creature, with fallen appetites like that of
your fallen brother. What will stop you going the same way? Sometimes it is a
minister that you have looked up to and whose shoelaces you are unworthy to
untie. “Lord, are we safe?” becomes the question. You feel as if you are
besieged in battle and have called for reinforcement but the help is taking too
long to come. How much longer can you hold out? A boxing or football match is
timed and the referee’s whistle is soon blown, but ministry is for life. You
begin to ask yourself, “Am I sure I will still be standing when the Lord’s call
for me to enter eternity finally comes?” Thankfully, as someone once said, “The
will of God will not take you where the grace of God cannot keep you.” That is
the only source of confidence when gripped by this fear.
Very closely related to the emotion of
fear is the trembling and humbling realisation that your own past weaknesses,
failures, and sins could have been the cause of your ministerial fall too, save
for the fact that the Lord was pleased to stop you in your tracks. This is the
most difficult to handle in the conscience. All sin is sin. Jesus said,
“Everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed
adultery with her in his heart” (Matthew 5:28). You know that in your unguarded
moments you have failed God in this area a number of times. The famous “seven
deadly sins” are deadly—lust, greed, gluttony, slothfulness, anger, envy and
pride. So, what makes John’s sin more heinous than yours? A tender conscience
causes you not to be too hard on your fallen brother.
Handling guilt by association
When a ministerial colleague messes up,
we all suffer guilt by association in the eyes of those who get to know about
this. Even when you do not know what has happened, it is assumed you know and
are in a conspiracy of silence due to the fact that you do the same things.
That is tough. Even if you knew, were you expected to write on your T-shirt,
“Yes, it is true, John has committed this atrocity; I have already heard about
it but, believe me, I am totally innocent”? Of course not! Yet, the guilt by
association is a scarlet letter on your back that you have to walk with in
public for some time, whether you like it or not. You feel unfairly judged but
there is nothing you can do about it.
Another form of guilt by association is
in the eyes of God. When news gets to you that a ministerial colleague has
messed up, one question soon comes to mind: “When did I last pray for him that
God may watch over his soul and give him the grace to walk in genuine
holiness?” Whereas on some occasions you may find that you have consistently
prayed for the brother that has fallen, there are other occasions when you
realise that you are guilty of the sin that the prophet Samuel said he was not
guilty of before God. Looking the people of Israel in the face in his farewell
address, Samuel said, “As for me, far be it from me that I should sin against
the LORD by ceasing to pray for you” (1 Samuel 12:23). Oh, to be able to look
fallen ministerial colleagues in the face and say that you never ceased to pray
for them!
Handling future relationships
This is perhaps the most difficult. A
fallen ministerial colleague remains alive many years after the sordid details
have been published abroad. He does not disappear to another planet. You still
have to relate with him. You were friends, very dear friends, as you held hands
in the trenches and covered each other’s backs in the battle for the crown
rights of Christ. Your families integrated as well. John’s kids and your kids
literally became one family. Your wives became buddies as they empathized with
each other in their supportive roles to their husbands. All this cannot go away
overnight because of an act of indiscretion by your colleague. Sadly, you soon
discover that relationships can never be the same again. You can never talk
with gusto about the fight of faith as you once did. What a loss! What a loss!
This is the most difficult of all this.
Conclusion
Well, such has been my lot on a couple
of occasions in the 30 years of ministry. As I reflect on this sad reality, all
I can say again is, “There go I but for the grace of God.” Do pray for me that
I may run my race well to the very end, despite my own weaknesses.
