Held To A Higher Standard.
Recently at CedarCreek we fired a pastor for his actions. He was caught having an innappropriate relationship with a woman, was confronted, continued to be caught in bad situations with her, and he was a married man. Since the whole ordeal, witnesses have come forth and verified the story from multiple viewpoints and it is now a fact that he was having an affair. To this day he denies it and calls everyone a liar. He says he will only look to the future now and will not discuss the past. (How convenient for him!) But, as far as I have heard, he’s been spotted with this same woman as recent as last week.
Last week a woman died in a car accident. Her sister is the woman that this ex-pastor was having an affair with.
Today is the funeral.
I’ve only got one question going through my mind and I can’t shake it no matter how hard I try… “Did this woman know Christ, or did she fail to take Christianity seriously due to a first-hand view of the actions of a hypocritical pastor?” She knew about the affair… That much we know for a fact. This was a pastor that spoke to 4,000 people about NEVER losing FOCUS of the prize we seek. Never take your eyes off of God… NEVER lose focus and fail to win the race set before us… Yet here he was sleeping around on his wife and calling the church leaders “evil” and “liars.”
I bet when this ex-pastor was saying a month ago that he’d only look to the future… he never thought that in the future his sin could be partly responsible for a soul so close to him going to hell for eternity. To him his “future” was a way out… it was hope of forgetting his embarrassment of being caught. But I bet he never thought it’d end like this.
We are called to a higher standard in the ministry. Our actions can lead thousands in either the right, or the wrong direction. This man is now solely responsible for explaining to God his actions… Denial can only go so far, pretty soon we realize that you can’t run from God.
11 Comments
2 posts in one day. Your kung-fu grows strong. This is my kung-fu (xanga) and my kung-fu is very strong.
Seriously, on both posts, I agree w/ you on material possessions, and I love your obersvations on the whole higher standards thing… was a great read.
Ed McCauley keeps driving by my house late at night… is that a problem?
Luke
Judge not, lest ye be judged.
Liffey… You’re right, as Christians God tells us not to judge others outside of the church. BUT we ARE called to judge those inside the church against God’s standards for Christians. We aren’t called to do this to lift ourselves up. We aren’t called to do this to bring others down. Rather, we are called to do this to keep the integrity of the church that God has called us to have. 1 Corinthians 5:11-13 address this specific issue of marital unfaithfulness in a Christain setting…
“But now I am writing you that you must not associate with anyone who calls himself a brother but is sexually immoral or greedy, an idolater or a slanderer, a drunkard or a swindler. With such a man do not even eat. What business is it of mine to judge those outside the church? Are you not to judge those inside? God will judge those outside. “Expel the wicked man from among you.'”
But honestly… I really like the way the Message translation says this verse as opposed to the above NIV…
“But I am saying that you shouldn’t act as if everything is just fine when one of your Christian companions is promiscuous or crooked, is flip with God or rude to friends, gets drunk or becomes greedy and predatory. You can’t just go along with this, treating it as acceptable behavior. I’m not responsible for what the outsiders do, but don’t we have some responsibility for those within our community of believers? God decides on the outsiders, but we need to decide when our brothers and sisters are out of line and, if necessary, clean house.”
Note that I never once mentioned this persons name. Note that I never shunned him. All I did was point out what happened and then say what the consequences of his actions could be. A second reason for looking at this scenario is that we as Christians have consequences for our actions. If we let everyone run around sinning and never held them to consequences, life would be chaotic. YES there is forgiveness. YES there is grace. But forgiveness isn’t the same as pretending it never happened.
Relationships change when things like this happen. If you murder, you go to jail. Even if people forgive you… you must pay the price of your actions. If you cheat on someone a few times, they may forgive you… but that doesn’t mean they’ll stick with you knowing you have the tendency to cheat on them. Our actions have consequences. The actions of this ex-pastor may have changed someone’s eternity… that’s worth thinking about!
As I said in the title, teachers are held to a higher standard in God’s eyes… James 3:1 says, “Not many of you should presume to be teachers, my brothers, because you know that we who teach will be judged more strictly.”
What has happened here is a major shame. It has hurt the church in ways that we never fully see from our lives… It has impacted others in ways that we may never know. All because one late night this man decided to break his vow before God that he would love his wife and be faithful to her only. Then he decided not to repent and ask forgiveness, but to bury himself further in lies to protect himself… negating any ability to offer grace. The snowball effect has started and there is no telling where it will stop.
Good explinating Brent. I agree 100%. We must keep other christians accountable for their actions since we are representing the Living God.
Luke
Matthew 7:1 in the King James Version (I’m assuming that is what he was trying to quote)actually says “Judge not that ye be not judged…” I’m not sure how “lest” has worked it’s way into the verse. Might not hurt to crack a Bible open once in a while if you plan on quoting it…
Maybe your commentor should expand his “Biblical repertoire” to include Proverbs 26:7 or perhaps Prov. 26:9. That would seem a little appropriate at this point in time…
Actually Old Dog, I do not read the King James version of the Bible. You apparently don’t realize that the modern day English-language Bible is derived from the Latin Biblical text. The “lest” is a Latin adverb, aka- from the Latin text. Looks like someone else should do their research, not me. You should know that the Bible was written in a few languages before English. At least I hope you are aware of that, haha.
Milkboy: Thank you for your intelligent response. I can see where you are coming from. I have no problem with you expelling that guy from your church. In fact, from what you have discussed, it seems as though you have every reason to to “judge” him based on the evidence.
However, I simply believe it wrong to ruminate on whether or not someone is accepted into heaven. You have no clue the personal relationship she had with God, and to discuss her eternity in the manner that you did was, I believe, insulting to her relationship with God. All I’m saying is that you should have utilized a more appropriate example concerning the downfall of that preacher’s sins.
But I am just a random reader, so who cares what I think. Yet I simply cannot help but comment when I see someone considering whether someone got into heaven or not, even as an example. You should be celebrating her life and leaving it up to God to judge her.
This is the last message I’ll clutter your diary with. Peace.
Oh I have no idea whether or not she accepted Christ and is in heaven! I’m not judging her at all…. I’m simply saying that from the standpoint of a Christian we need to be uber-aware of what our choices and actions can do and how they can affect others…. I’ve taken a worst-case scenario and thrown it out there to think about. I’m not assuming this happened… but his actions made it a real possibility. That… if nothing else… scares the crap outta me as a person who is in the ministry.
Brents not judging…so there.
LoL..I have good come back! Truely though….He was just trying to make a point. Which you guys seem to have missed. Why not re read the post. Then your comment. Then his, and be a tad more open-minded then what you are right now. ( Ha! I’m sticking up for my big brother…this is cool )
Brent I need to thank you for the comment you left at my site. I needed to read that comment. I was to happy and felt as if I was ready to fall apart. My week wasn’t going to smooth, but your comment reminded me of what I said..and how I need to be. I have more faith now then ever….thank you!
Brent, I love you man, but “not naming him”…well, it kinds of doesn’t matter…we all know who you’re talking about. Discussing it in this forum may not be the best choice. There are tons of Creekers on Xanga, and is it fair to declare this “fact” when all these eyes are reading? I know there are witnesses and hearsay, but unless he actually admitted it outright, it’s not fair to declare it as fact.
If there’s one thing I’ve learned in the last 9 months, it’s that you can’t trust everything you hear, and that sometimes the people you think are telling the truth are actually lying, and the people you thought were lying are telling the truth. I hope and pray that I’m not – and my husband’s not – judged on hearsay.
Definitely something to consider, both the example and momma731’s comment.