099 – Pastoral Failure

Welcome to the Pure Desire Podcast, where we partner with you to bring hope and freedom on your journey to purity. The Masters, PGA Championship, Ryder cup, and Pure Desire Golf. What do all those have in common? One of them is launching their first ever tournament this year, June 17, at the prestigious Persimmon Country Club in Gresham, Oregon. Pure Desire is hosting their first annual Pure Desire Golf tournament. All proceeds go to advancing the message of hope, healing and freedom from sexual addiction and betrayal. Come support Pure Desire and play the best round of golf of your life. It's the perfect combo. To register and to sign up, visit PureDesire.org golf we'll see you guys there. Hey there. I'm your host, Trevor Windsor, and we're so thankful you're taking time out of your day to hang out with us. I'm here, as always, with my co host, Nick Stumbo.

If a tree falls in the forest and no one's there to hear it, is the husband still wrong?

Wow, that's. As the kids are saying it today, shots fired. That feels like shots fired.

Throwing salt.

That's an, you know, that's an old joke. And I think it's appropriate for today because it's kind of a. Today's episode, I feel like, is challenging some stereotypes or maybe messing with people's paradigms a little bit. And, you know, that is a paradigm in marriages that a lot of people believe that, oh, the husband's always wrong. But really we want to focus more on good communication and not just who's right and wrong. And in this episode, to really think about why do we hold to the beliefs we do will be really important.

Episode 99. We are almost to 100. We have scheduled episode 100. It is on the calendar. This is going to be good. So you've already heard a little bit from him already. Just briefly, the bearded legend Bob Vandermeer is back. Welcome back, my friend.

Yo.

That's it?

That's all you got to quote Ryan Gosling, women are better than men.

Okay, right on.

I've not heard that quote before.

Stereotypes. I mean, I don't disagree with you, so it's fine. Today, as Nick kind of alluded to, we're going to talk through a pretty, I would say a tense topic when it comes to the church. And we're going to talk through moral failure of pastors in the realm of sexual addiction. Even each of us are pastors and have experience in sexual brokenness in leadership roles in the church. And we wanted to really just talk through why so many pastors struggle, what we can do as a church to change that culture and how we really can help our leaders in this area.

Yeah. And I hope for everyone listening who's not a pastor, they'll see the relevance of this because we're all impacted by it, or we all can have a role in being a part of a healthy culture or contributing to an unhealthy one in a faith community or in our church. And so if someone's listening, that's not a pastor. Just to think through what. What role can I play in either helping us move towards health or how am I maybe inadvertently contributing to unhealthy culture? That does perpetuate a lot of the moral failures that we've seen because it seems so predominant right now. I think everyone's got some stake in this game, whether they realize it or not.

Absolutely. Well, let's just start with this, guys. The statistics based on. And we have some relationships with these organizations, but Josh McDowell Ministries and Barna did some research together in the porn phenomenon and came up with that 57% of pastors struggle in this area in the area of sexual integrity. While that can seem like a super high percentage, I think there's probably a lot of people out there who are like, oh, yeah, that sounds right. But then there are a portion of people in the church that are. That's a staggering number, and I would agree with them. What are the reasons that being a pastor can cater to a secret addiction? What are you guys thoughts on that?

I think there's a lot of stuff mixed in with that. Most of them are culturally, whether it's cultural in the church or outside of it. But like, pastors in general have come. We've come from a perspective that the pastor is supposed to be the know all of everything that happens, which also includes them. They're supposed to be like the perfect example of what it means to be a Christian. And with that there's a lot of expectations. And so. So, you know, when we as pastors are only able to. To. To talk about our vulnerability when like we talk about how we speed sometimes. Oh yeah, I'm a sinner just like everybody else, guys, I speed, you know, or things like that, then. Then we're really kind of setting ourselves up for failure. And so I think part of the. The challenges that pastors face and having that you, you know, the question is catering to a secret addiction is that there is not a cultural precedent for pastors to be able to speak honestly and be vulnerable from the pulpit or, you know, from their Job, position. And so this, this. This reality between what's expected and how they're living, there's no place for those things to really be reconciled. And so the discrepancy continues to grow and grow as whatever the secret behavior is continues on in their life. There's just. There's more at stake. And the longer the secret goes, then, you know, the more they're afraid of, if I talk about this, then I'm going to lose everything. Well, now if I talk about it, I'm really going to lo. Well, now if I talk about it, you know, several decades into this, I'm really going to lose everything. So it just kind of keeps perpetuating itself.

Yeah, and we're definitely in a culture that can make a lot of assumptions about men and women that have trained for ministry, that if someone's a pastor, we assume that their theology, their background in Bible, they're, you know, studying at a seminary or Christian college. We assume that that is also translated to health of character and health in their sexuality, when really we can see all over the place that there isn't a direct conn. That just because we know the right answers or just because we can preach well or lead worship in an amazing way, that doesn't mean that theology has actually transformed our personal space, our character in a way that there is health. And in most church environments, not a whole lot is really asked about a pastor's private life. I would say we do ask quite a few questions about their personal life, but their private life, we just assume that they're mature there. There's also a couple of, I think, really practical things that a lot of pastors face. The average church size in America is still at 100 people, which means the vast majority of pastors out there are solo pastors. Typically, they do have an office at the church, which 90, you know, 95% of the time is empty other than them. And so the opportunity there of isolation, of separation, not really engaging in community, tons of flexibility in their job and where they're at. And then the other side of it, too, that for many pastors, the idea of isolation in a healthy way of solitude is meant to be part of their job. So that there's study, there's meditating, there's prayer, there's getting away. Well, if you're not entirely healthy, a lot of solitude can quickly gravitate towards isolation and in an isolated, alone place, find yourself in a deep struggle. I can't tell you how many pastors I have talked to that would say one of their primary places of struggle is their sermon preparation. And we might say, I mean, that's crazy. How could that be? But if you're isolated, trying to work on something that, I mean, let's face it, writing a sermon is not always easy. It can feel overwhelming. It can be difficult. So now there's thoughts of procrastination kicking in. There's not wanting to deal with it, so you're maybe wasting time online. And all of a sudden, what really is meant to be a holy space has become twisted into the very place of our struggle. So some of those really practical things, I think, do cater towards pastors struggling with their sexual brokenness.

Yeah. And I feel like this maybe comes from maybe just my age bracket, maybe, you know, a couple different things. But I think that the history of the church definitely caters into this. Like, you look at, you know, MacArthur and Piper and these guys who seem to have it all figured out. And that casts this. This really big shadow that I have to be this well respected, well sought out, like, very well spoken, no issues, publicly type of pastor. And I know, for me, like, that's what, sadly makes it the most refreshing when someone is vulnerable and honest from the pulpit or from any leadership standpoint, you're like, wow, you can be honest and do this still. And even when I was a pastor and struggling with this stuff, I would really only share it with other pastors because those are the only other people that I could relate with and feel safe. And I think that that, again, as you guys are talking about, is really a lot to do with the culture that has really become a holding place in the church.

I think pastors use the term calling a lot. And I know for me, when I was functioning as a senior pastor and a sex addict, that calling and then what I was meant to do as my job description, that those two things kind of created this weird dynamic to where, you know, Nick, like, you brought up with sermon prep, it's like, okay, I'm feeling anxiety about this. Do I procrastinate? Whatever. Uh, and so we get it done. We preach a sermon, and then somebody comes up to us afterwards and says, hey, Pastor Bob, that was an amazing sermon that really spoke to me with what I needed. And so now all of a sudden, our calling is like, oh, yes, I am called to this. So whatever my secret behavior is, it can't be that bad because I still see God's blessing or God's hand on the ministry that I'm doing. And so then there's this cycle of, like, Seeking approval through us performing tasks. But all it takes is for somebody to say, oh hey, that really spoke to me or really touched me or for us to feel good about it as a pastor. Like, oh no, okay, it must not be that bad because look, God's still using me. So if my church is growing, if people are lives are being changed or affected, then it's almost justifying that, well, it's not that bad, so I must still be able to function in my quote unquote calling.

Yeah, well, even the question itself, as you asked it, Trevor, you talked about sexual addiction. And my guess would be the vast majority of pastors when they hear that question, would say, oh well, this doesn't apply to me. I don't have a sexual addiction. It's not that bad. I'm. Yeah, once in a while I stray into things that I don't intend to or I go on this kind of binge cycle. But hey, it's only happening every so often. And, but look, you know, it's like, look over here, look at everything else that's going well and look at all this evidence of fruitfulness. So it must not be something I really need to address. When you're talking about a pastor with an addiction, you're talking about someone much, much worse than me. Right. And I only say that, certainly not out of any condemnation. I say it because that's where I was for 10 years, knowing I had issues. Yes. But believing when you ask a question like about a sexual addict, well, that's a guy who's way over the edge, not me. But that was the very thing that allowed it to perpetuate for much, much longer than it needed to.

And I know we're spending a lot of time on this question, but I think again, the culture or the prototypical pastor, the way that that's been communicated forces me to think that way or pushes me to think that way where I can't be honest and I can't, like I have to be okay and seem like I'm alright and everyone accepts me and loves me. I need to make sure I'm doing everything well. And so because the effectiveness convinces me that I'm doing okay. I think historically that the problem is the culture of the church has created that, that we're almost recreating that in so many different ways.

Yeah. So Bob, in a lot of the cases that we see and we become aware of them when they become public, so this tends to be maybe the larger issues or bigger names, but typically in the ones that we see the pastor resigns and is asked to leave the church body. Is this the best approach for a church to take?

Yeah, I think first, just to acknowledge that anytime that there is a pastor that is either caught or discloses their sexual addiction or sexual behavior, there's a lot of devastation. And, you know, so even just to acknowledge that from the beginning that, that in the best approach, that there's still lives that are going to be changed, some of those lives changed forever, some people won't even in their faith be able to recover from what they experience in that. And so I just, you know, I don't want to minimize that and just to say, you know, this, this is difficult, however you approach it. So the question of, is it the best approach to have somebody resign and leave the church body? Our goal, I think, is health. And so in health, can we have somebody still stay in their, in their role as a pastor? And I know we're going to, all three of us are going to have words on this, but, you know, it depends somewhat on what's going on in their life. I mean, how, how deep the behavior has gone and what the effect of it has been. There definitely needs to be some, some change and there needs to be some outside perspective to come in and say, hey, what's really going on here? What do we need to do to protect the church? What do we need to do to protect the family of the pastor? And what do we need to do to try to bring health to the pastor? And so is it the best approach? It's kind of like, I don't know, a bad question. Because the, the best approach would be just getting somebody healthy. And the way we do that goes a lot of different directions.

Yeah, yeah.

And this question, I think, kind of supposes that it has become public. And so when people are aware that something is happening, I think it becomes very important that a leadership team or an elder board really kind of slow down and not just respond to public perception or what people think they ought to do, and they really listen and discern what's happening. Because as you were saying, Bob, I think the, the level and the nature of someone's struggle and the way they're responding to it will say a lot about what needs to happen next. Because if a church just has this hard and fast rule of, like, if there's any sort of sexual behavior whatsoever that's exposed, we're going to get rid of the pastor, well, then in truth, they will probably need to get rid of every pastor they ever have, because everyone is a sexual being. And every one of us has sinfulness in our sexuality. And whether that means there's an occasional lustful thought or on the other end of the spectrum, all the way up to that, there's physical affairs taking place. If we just have that hard and fast rule, it's like, well, where do we draw the line? So I think there are situations where it merits, at a minimum, a person stepping out of their role and being suspended, so to speak, from any activity or interaction with the body, because they're maybe not healthy enough to even have that sort of interaction. So when there's been anything of sexual activity with other people, or if there's been illegal things, there may be actual legal steps that a church needs to take just to protect themselves from a potential lawsuit. And so that. That's, in my mind, a very different category or level than if a pastor has been exposed for viewing pornography online. But some of that won't be known unless an elder board really is willing to wade into the situation and find out what's been going on here. And then, as I said, when they find out some of the truth of the activity level, really discerning the response of the leader. Because if a leader is truly repentant, is asking for help, is open to change, willing to do whatever it takes, I think you have a lot more opportunity there to perhaps restore that person to ministry. And what a wonderful story of redemption and grace. If a congregation can see how within our body, a leader was able to find hope and healing and what that communicates to people in the church to say, wow, if I have issues, they don't just boot me out and move on. They want to work with me and help me. But on the other hand, you could have a pastor whose behavior maybe wasn't all that bad. But if in terms of that spectrum, but if their response to it is very hard, unrepentant, unremorseful, then you may have to take more extreme actions just because of the attitude of the heart. So I guess what I'm trying to say is it's a really hard thing to have any kind of hard and fast rule that there needs to be a real discernment of what's gone on, and then with the help, hopefully, of people like Pure Desire, other ministries that do a lot of this, to determine what are the best next steps to take, both for that leader and his or her family, and also for the congregation. And then I believe what the public knows, in a sense, will take care of itself. If you can handle the Congregation and the leader, well, that will eventually spill out into the community, that they'll become aware of something healthy that was done versus just hearing rumors or criticizing something from the outside.

I think something that I would consider too is what message is that telling your church? Like, don't just consider, you know, Because I think that this decision to ask a man or a woman who's in a lead role at a church because of this failure to step down is a way to protect the church. And I totally get that. I think that that's, in most cases, that's the heart. But I think that we don't evaluate how that message is actually portrayed. Like, what messages are portrayed. And what's portrayed is you can't. Like whether you're intending to or not, potentially the message becomes, if you're in leadership or you're serving or you have any influence in the church and you have a sin in this area, then you are disqualified for ministry and are not welcome here. And so that would just be my only thing to any church out there, any pastor, any. Anybody who might be listening to this is just consider what it's communicating to your church body. Not just consider the protection you're trying to bring by asking this individual to not be in leadership anymore, but really ask, how are we doing this? And knowing that how is just as important as to why you're doing it.

Yeah, I think maybe if I understood what you were saying, Nick, there are some parameters, like some general approaches, like if somebody has not been physical, so if a pastor has not been physical with somebody else, and then an affair, if they have not had an affair, then the approach might be, okay, let's like, take a little pause and make sure that you're willing and able to start to pursue health. So part of that is based on their response to be willing and able to pursue health. If they're willing to do that, then great, let's. Let's maintain this course and still stay in some sort of position, but maybe take a step back from the pulpit for a. For a period of time. If they've had an affair and they're willing to pursue health, then let's maybe keep them within that church body so that the church can also be a part of the restorative process. If they're. If they're willing and able to as well. But if a pastor has had an affair and is not willing or has been looking at pornography and is not willing to pursue health, then absolutely they need to be removed from that context because they're not they're not representing or perpetuating something that looks healthy, you know, in my own just kind of the quick experience of me when I came forward, forward with my sex addiction as a pastor, I ended up kind of disclosing to my church, you know, from the pulpit. But I was also hard hearted about what the next step should be. Dr. Roberts gave me some advice. I was not willing to take it and I literally got on my motorcycle and peeled out, like out of the church parking lot. But after I'd shared, the church stood up and gave me a standing ovation, like, thanking me for doing that. While all this was happening, my ex wife, who's my wife at the time, was in the cry room, in the dark cry room with her mother alone, observing this whole thing. So I mean, you see in this dynamic, like I'm sharing what was going on with me and the church stood up for me and applauded. But, but my wife at the time, she's alone in a dark cry room, isolated, watching this happen. And so again, the best response, how do you deal with this? Like, people are going to get hurt totally. But I think seeking some outside help and not trying to just manage and wrangle the situation on your own is really helpful. Having someone else come in and say, hey, listen, like, these are the steps we recommend that you take and you will have some oversight in this happening because there's a lot of parts here and a lot of people that really need care in this moment.

Well, and what a valuable reminder, Bob, to be aware of helping the pastor and the spouse and the family and the church. If, if we only address the pastor and his or her issues, what that communicates to the spouse can be very, very painful. I think another trap that churches can fall into is presenting this idea that like, we found the one person in our church that struggles with sexual addiction. They got caught. They're the one person doing these things. And so we removed them. And to anyone else in the church, which the stats will say, you got a lot of people sitting there battling very, very similar things and they're taking notes. So it's like, oh, if I'm caught, that's what they'll do to me. Better keep this quiet versus an alternative approach. More like Bob has been describing, of if we're able to work with someone and work towards health and restoration, how that communicates to those having the same issue, like, oh, there is hope here. And I think that's what we want as churches. We want everyone to feel like hope and healing is possible. Whether you're the pastor or someone attending here for the first time.

So stats show us that 7% of churches have a plan for recovery for their people. If we know that statistic and see moral failings as often as we do, then why do you guys think churches don't have plans for recovery for their people?

You know, there are two things that come to mind for me. Number one is I think we just fall into the syndrome of, well, that's not us, not here. I mean, that's like places on the east coast or that's places on the West Coast. You know, wherever we live, we think somewhere else is different or maybe more sinful. Yeah, this. That would never happen here. And so part of it's just simply a human nature, the denial of, well, it can't be like that here. And anytime we've had an opportunity to survey a church that said, oh, we don't think those rates are anywhere near that in our church, we'll find that they are just that bad or very often even worse. It's just there's a higher level of denial. I think the second thing is that if there is that if there is that much sexual brokenness among pastors, whether it's a current struggle or even something in the past, they've just never talked about how willing are they going to be to start a ministry? Because it's like, well, I haven't really processed this in my own life. I don't know that I want to start it in the church. And I think, honestly, it just becomes convenient to focus on other things and maybe have an attitude like, well, we'll get to that, or if someone wants to start it, that's fine. But if I haven't processed my story, I'm not personally going to lead the church in that direction. And so that's part of why we try to call pastors and leaders to say, deal with your stuff. There's hope, there's freedom. We can help you. But we know that if you'll deal with your stuff, the hope that can bring into your church is just night and day different. And so I think that's a big reason a lot of churches aren't doing anything.

Yeah. So I'm going to speak from my perspective. When I was a pastor, so for me, like, legit. This is a part of my story. I grew up feeling like I was just the dumb jock kind of athlete. And when I became a pastor or when I was going through seminary, I found that I loved. I loved the look of having a bunch of books in my office. So when someone comes in and they look at my shelves and they're like, wow, what a well read young man. He must be so wise and so smart. And really what I was trying to portray is that I was well educated and knew a lot. And so I know as a pastor, for me, and I'm going to assume that there are a few pastors out there who maybe feel the same way. Admitting that you don't know something is extremely, extremely difficult. It is not an easy thing to do because you view yourself again, as like, you're the authority, you're the professional Christian, you get paid to do this. So I think that when it comes to this, this is an area that takes a lot of study and a lot of work and a lot of man, a lot of conversations. It's not just reading books and watching stuff. It's, you know, it's so much more than that. And I think that because of that fear of the lack of knowledge or understanding or the perception people will have because I don't know this, that I know for me, kept me from pursuing any knowledge or any of this stuff.

Yeah. I think a lot of churches also don't want to, don't want to do this because it doesn't look fun. Like it doesn't look nice. It doesn't draw people to their church.

In all reality, it's not.

And the people put on a billboard, right?

Yeah.

And the people that it will draw to their church is that really they.

Want to draw to their church.

So I think it's part of our understanding of what this is and our ability to communicate what it is. If what we think this is is just helping like some addicts get healthier than. We're missing the point. What this is, is changing the culture of our church so that we're able to pursue health together in a true process of sanctification. Well, then if that's the case, then that fits everything you're doing. But if that's not the case, then how does it line up with our Easter service? How does it line up with our summer camps? How does it line up with our vbs? You know, how does it line up with all that stuff? It doesn't, because it's just about addicts getting healthy. So I think we kind of miss the point if we don't have a healthier perspective of that.

Yeah, absolutely. Well, let's keep going. We, we hear, and I mean just even recently in our area and across the country, we hear stories about high profile, influential Pastors who have a moral failing and then they go into the intensive, like they go away for a period of time and get help, whether that's an inpatient or they go across the country to get help. In you guys opinion, does that work?

Yeah, I think there can be some good things about it. It underscores the seriousness of the work that needs to be done for recovery. Put them in an environment where they really need to go deep into some of their issues with experts that can help pave that way. But I think often or too often in the church it feels good to do that. Like let's send you away so we don't have to deal with you. Let's get you help and then when you come back we want you to be all better. But I really think there's a danger in that, in that if we don't find healing in our context, meaning in our day to day relationships, in the pressures of work, in the normal stuff of life, being sent away very often won't create that long term healing if it's not followed up in a very intentional way day in and day out. And that's why I love what we do at Pure Desire because of the nature of groups that are every week and if someone's in counseling that it's an ongoing process over a year because it's training them how to find health in their family, how to try and find health in the town they live in, where they know the grocery stores, they know where they can find certain things, they know those patterns and rather than just be removed from them, it helps them find health even among those things, which I think creates the greatest likelihood that they can sustain that health and freedom. So we don't try to discourage someone from doing an intensive, but just to keep in mind that may not actually train you for long term health. It could be a great starting point, but we love to work with churches and denominations to say how could we work alongside a pastor in their context, in their marriage, with their family, so that that health is sustainable and something they can do for the long haul.

Yeah, yeah, I agree with what you're saying, Nick. It can be a great kickstart to get things rolling really for health. Just like you'd need to go to the ICU if you get in a bad accident, like that's the beginning of it. But then you still have like maybe occupational therapy or physical therapy, I mean for a long time following that. And so I mean something that's like inpatient or going away to do something as an Intensive can be really helpful to get things going. But I think one of the things I like about our clinical counseling program at Pure Desire is that the goal really at the end of that year isn't perfection. The goal is significant sobriety. But then the goal is also that they've been able to work through some trauma that made them vulnerable to begin with. But really then we want them to be on a trajectory or to have momentum in the right direction so that they have skills and tools to continue this process for the rest of their lives. When I say the process, it's again, the process of health. They've gotten beyond maybe just the acting out, the. The actual sexual addiction behavior. And now we have. They have skills and tools to continue to be healthy for the rest of their life. That's the goal. So going away for a week intensive, again, I might get things rolling, but they're not going to have the habits and tools and skills that they need to be lifelong healthy if that's all they do.

Yeah. The interesting thing, as I just was processing through this question, is what when that happens, when you go away and you get help and you're not, as you said, you don't get that contextualized healing. What it also tells people is that healing happens in secret. That if you go away and you get healthy, you can't actually get healthy in the context or around the people or in the community that you're in.

Healing happens somewhere else.

Right. And it's not here. And that's honestly, that's like the scariest but most beneficial thing about our group structure is that you are healing not in secret. I mean, it's not something that obviously you go and shout from the rooftops like, hey, I'm in a seven pillars or unraveled group. But it is something that you are doing it at your church or in a community of people that you know, and you're getting healthy in a way that is way more visible, I guess, than going away to a retreat center for 45 days or something like that.

Yeah. So kind of on that note of how do we process this, why is it so difficult for a pastor to be honest about his or her struggles to their church?

I mean, Bob, you kind of mentioned it earlier that history in the church, if you look back and you were to look at every single moral failing that has happened, at least of high profile, which are really the ones that we see, Right. We don't really see all of the ones that are in the small churches necessarily, but history tells us in the church, you'll lose your job, you'll lose your ministry, and you lose your community. And I think the community piece is the hardest part because you have invested so much time and energy into this group of people. Whether you're a sex addict or not, you've been investing in these people and then now you're yanked out of that community. And now you're supposed to do life without people that know you and love you and can encourage you and help you. So I think it's fear. It's so much, so much fear. Because again, you know, we've, we've had a couple. I mean, just Bill Hybels is one that comes to mind. I mean, everything that's happened with him, he's a high profile guy. You look at that and it's like, well, shoot, if I'm going to be honest about my stuff, I'm going to lose my job, I'm going to lose my ministry and my legacy. Forget about it, it's gone. You know, and then, not only that, but the church you were a part of starts to get questioned. The legitimacy of anything that you've done at that church or in that community then is discounted. There's just so many downsides to it. So it's all fear.

Yeah, you know, there's some like, phrases like, you're not supposed to bleed on the sheep. Yeah, well, okay, that would be great, except for, I mean, that's kind of what Jesus did. So I don't really buy into that. Like, Jesus was vulnerable, Jesus took our shame upon him. Like Jesus was exposed. Jesus demonstrated weakness. I mean, he chose that. So, I mean, what has been modeled for us is not that we keep things in secret and that we pretend to be something that we're not and that we're not and that we're, you know, by all means, make sure you stay clean. Like we are cleansed by the blood of the lamb. So that perspective of like, okay, let's, let's not bleed on the sheep, AKA let's not share our stuff with our church is horrible. Like, that's like, that's us as parents saying, well, I'm not going to tell my kids about the things I've struggled with in life. Oh, that's awesome. Then where are they going to learn how to deal with their own struggles in life? And I'm being a little bit sarcastic in my phrasing, but, but, but I mean, that's the idea. And, and so I'm, as pastors, if, if we think that we're Doing our church a greater benefit by not being honest with them, then all we're doing is perpetuating a system that teaches people to live in secret. And I don't think that that's helpful in what we're talking about.

Yeah, well, let's make a distinction between sharing with your church and sharing from the pulpit. There's a lot of wisdom behind not sharing a current thing in the pulpit. Like, hey, last night I did this and I'm going to share like, okay, that can be unprocessed, that can be way too raw. And that's not the right environment, quite frankly. But sharing with your church might mean to your elder board or a group of leaders that are a part of your team to say, here's what I'm going through. Can you help me know what steps I should take and how to deal with this? And then from the pulpit being able to share more openly about the steps that have been taken. I mean, in my own story, when we entered into counseling with pure desire, I went to my elder board because I'd shared with them before. And I said, hey, the reality is this isn't fully dealt with. It's not over, and our district has opened this pathway. I wanted to tell you and see what your reaction is. And they were incredibly supportive, praying and actually paying for a good chunk of it, which was great. But it was one year later, at the end of the counseling process from the pulpit, as part of a sermon, I shared about that process. So the right people knew the whole time. The congregation knew kind of at the appropriate time. And I think that's something good just to think about. And you know, the other thing that comes to mind on this question, going back to what you said earlier, Bob, about call, there was really a life changing question for me about being a pastor that was this. It was, am I the pastor because I'm the most qualified person in the room or because I'm called? And that might seem like a simple question at first, but I think if we really stop and think about it, many of us believe we're the pastor because we're the most qualified or spiritual person in the room. And if we were to reveal these struggles, it would show that we're not qualified, we're not as spiritual as they thought, and therefore we don't deserve or don't merit being the pastor. But if we see the other side of it, to say, no, I'm here because I'm called. And I mean, that still means we should work on qualifications and be trained and Take classes and all that. But if my position is really based in God's call on my life, then dealing with weakness and sin and patterns of destructive behavior doesn't nullify God's call. In fact, it could be the very thing, as I've seen in my story, the very thing that God uses within my call to have the greatest influence and help the most people. So I think for every person listening, just to think about that question of if you're called to the role that can give you freedom to deal with the things in your life you need to, versus if you realize, I really think I have to be the most spiritual person in the room, then there will never be room for you to be real about your stuff.

Yeah.

Yeah. I don't know if this flows into another question later on or not. And Nick, even before the podcast, we were talking. I remember standing in a parking lot with the pastor, who was my supervisor at the time, and him telling me that I have permanently disqualified myself from ministry. And, you know, the, the way that, that, you know, sunk into my own heart and thoughts at that time. And I, I think I understand what he was trying to say, that this has permanently affected maybe the way that I function in ministry. And some people may never want to hear what I have to say. I mean, if my ex father in law happened to be flipped scrolling through the Internet and came across his podcast, he would probably smash his computer. Understandably, like, he doesn't want to listen to this crap. Yeah, I understand that. But I also know that that doesn't disqualify us from God using us in ways where we're effective. But I think it does mean that we have to learn to function in our true self, which means in our brokenness and in our healing. And so, I mean, what the reason I'm having this conversation now is because, you know, however many years later, it didn't quote, unquote, disqualify me from ministry. But I also have to be honest with who I am and what it is that I'm doing.

Yeah, absolutely.

All right, so if you're a church where your pastor goes through a moral failure and, you know, you're a part of that church and you see this happening, what's the best way for you to respond as this stuff kind of unfolds?

Yeah, I think kind of on the big picture side, it's just to think about, how can I be a person of grace? How can I extend the love and grace and hope of Christ even in the midst of something that might be Very hard or very painful to kind of have that approach of praying for God's best, praying for restoration, praying for healing, and I think seeking to be supportive of the decisions that leadership is making. Because we may not be in on everything that's happening or know why, but we can try to be supportive. And also on a big picture kind of scale, I think it's a good opportunity to look into our own lives and say, are there behaviors, patterns, habits that I'm putting up with that could lead me to the same kind of derailment of a career or a marriage? Because when we see it happen, I think everyone feels bad. It's like, oh, why? This didn't have to happen. What if he'd have gotten help 10 years ago? You know, what if there had been honest conversations? And yet maybe right now in our life are those very same things that if they go unaddressed for 10 more years, we could be the person in that same really unfortunate place. So those are kind of some big picture things. On the real practical level, I'd say, you know, be aware of the gossip machine, that you don't need to pass on lots of little juicy details, or I heard this and she said that, and just be aware of your own motive to want to know the details. Because I think in a church, like, what happened and what did they say and who did what? And maybe I think there is a level of information we need that is just appropriate transparency from a church. But there's quite a bit of detail that really, outside of probably a small circle of people in the middle of the situation, the vast majority of the church doesn't need to know. And maybe you just need to have a little heart check where you go, you know what? I don't need to know all that. I know enough to know how to pray, how to support, how to love, and I'm gonna just look for God to do good things in the middle of this hard situation.

Yeah. Just know that pastors are people too. I mean, understand that it would be embarrassing and humiliating if your darkest secret sin was exposed to the entire church body. It would be sketchy and very difficult. And I mean, I'm talking about empathy. You know, be empathetic towards somebody. Maybe you've never experienced that. Maybe sexual sin is not your thing. But understand that we all have dark corners of our soul. And you got to look at it through the lens that I have those dark corners too. And so, I mean, that's just really just. As a pastor, I know that, and I didn't have the story you guys did where there was disclosure. I got healthy really early on in my ministry experience. And so I just know that if that were to happen, those would be the people that would be the most encouraging to me are people who came alongside and like, yep, you know what? I suck, too. And my life is not as clean as it looks also. So let's just. Let's try to get healthy and let's try to do this together.

Yeah. I'd like to think that if we were driving down the highway and we saw, like, a gnarly car accident, that after. At least right after we saw that, particularly, that we would pay more attention to the way we were driving. Like, it would be crazy if we saw that. And then we were like, do some donuts in the middle of the highway. And, you know, and so I think similarly, that when we see just the wreckage of this kind of stuff happen. Yeah. That we are empathetic, that we do then use that to motivate us to compassion. However, we can be compassionate and supportive of that pastor and that family and the other people that are being affected by it. But that we would also then, I don't know, walked circumspectly, you know, that we would kind of take note of what's going on in our lives and use that as a moment to say, okay, yeah, you know what? Let's like, do I need. What do I need to be honest about with myself? Is there anything that I need to pay attention to right now? It would be silly if we were just like, oh, that's too bad for that guy. And then we kept on doing what we were doing.

Yeah. So here's. And this is a really sketchy question. I mean, I think that a lot of us think it, but don't really want to ask it out loud. So we're going to ask it out loud here. Do you guys think that moral failures are going to always happen and this is just going to be a continued trend in the life of the church?

Yeah. I think unless things change, we're probably going to see it get worse before it gets better, simply because that church culture that doesn't give a pastor permission to be real. And there's not very many avenues of healing. So I see the biggest danger just being what I said earlier about the assumption. The assumption that if someone's trained for ministry, they must be healthy sexually. But the flaw in that assumption is nowhere along the way in a pastor's training is someone intentionally walking alongside of them for sexual discipleship. And Health. I mean, if you look at Christian colleges and seminaries, how many classes do you think a future pastor takes not just on like human sexuality, but on dealing with your own sexual brokenness and health? I'm not aware of any. I have yet to see a single curriculum that guides someone through that. So maybe in seminary, we're hoping that, well, hopefully they get involved in a small group or read a couple of books. But I would just say in my experience and observations, the vast majority of men and women that get that certificate saying you're a pastor have had zero discipleship sexually. And if that's the environment, yeah, there's going to be unhealth that comes to the surface sooner or later. And I hope you know, and my prayer is this, that as we see the MeToo movement and the church too movement, and there's all this focus on becoming safe places and creating safe environments and safe cultures. I mean, all of that is good, but if we don't at the same time put a just as much, if not more focus on developing safe people, all of the safe place stuff will be worthless. I mean, it's like outfitting your office building with, you know, fire sprinklers and fire extinguishers and fire exits. But if you have someone in the building when the fire goes off that has zero clue how to use any of it, or if they're actively sitting in their office lighting matches, you're still going to have fires break out. And that's kind of how I feel about some of this safety training and development. Yes, it's good. But if we don't go also for the heart of the leader and ask, how can we help you become a safe person, all those other measures are going to become pointless.

Yeah, yeah. This is about so much more than just an individual being healthy and avoiding moral failure or whatever, you know, however we want to phrase that like, this is about a shift in culture on how we just approach what it really means to be a human being and what it really means to try and pursue health. I mean, OSHA as an, as an organization.

Right.

I mean, they're all trying to make our workplace more health, more healthy and safe. But that doesn't. They're not under the illusion that, that their job is to make it so that the world is accident free. Like, no, they're also part of their job is to make sure that if you get something in your eyes, you got an eyewash station and you know how to use it. And you know, and I think similarly we're trying to keep people from facing these, these disasters in their life morally. But then we're also trying to help the people around them have the perspective that, oh, I can help this person if and when this happens. And maybe it's not an affair that they, that they have, but maybe they end up having an emotional, just mental breakdown because they haven't been processing the stress of being a pastor well. Or, you know, maybe they, their kind of world falls apart apart when they have the death, you know, go through the death of a loved one or something. But you know, this is about just a culture shift of saying let's be open and honest and not shaming and instead to be able to demonstrate what it means to have grace and mercy.

Yeah. I mean, I don't know, I just, I feel like as long as the culture stays the same and we don't actually, you know, Nick, as you're talking about, if nothing changes, then sadly we then are a part of sustaining this unhealthy culture that creates a breeding ground for secret sin.

Real quick.

That doesn't mean that it's the church's fault that their pastor's masturbating and looking at porn, but how the culture plays out in relationship in the church either caters to a secret sin or it caters to a healthy, open, honest, vulnerable and transparent community. So I just think that we need to take that upon ourselves. I mean, even if you think about Ephesians 4, that idea of bearing each other's burdens, it's that idea of not even just bearing your current burden, but preventatively working together to create a culture where we're already bearing each other's stuff. So yeah, that's a tough question, but I think that it's possible to change. It's just we got to do work.

Yeah. So that leads us to kind of a big question here. And really the most hope filled question is this. What can churches do? What could we do to help prevent pastoral moral failures? How can we be proactive rather than just waiting for the next failure to occur?

Yeah. I don't know if any of you have heard of the orders, this organization called Pure Desire. Yeah. Huh, huh.

Plug.

Yeah. But there's a lot of things that we can do preventatively. We can begin to have a conversation in our, in our churches about sexuality and about healthy sexuality, about what's going on currently in culture and Internet pornography. And I think by beginning these conversations then we start to demonstrate that this is a safe place to be open and honest and what comes out of that then is people sharing the maybe brokenness that they have as an addict or the spouse of an addiction. And that is an easy segue into then creating groups, you know, groups for addicts and spouses and groups for teenagers where they can now pursue health with whatever that means in their current context. So I think the proactive thing is just to start the conversation, to not brush this off on. Well, that's what the youth pastor should talk about. That's what their parents should talk about. But just to begin to have this conversation, because in that dialogue, we really start to hear about what's really going on in our lives. And as we become safer people, then the people around us begin to trust us more also.

Yeah, well, and that's exactly why we created the Pure Desire Leaders program. It's meant to be a partnership between Pure Desire and a church or a district or an entire denomination, where in that partnership, leaders can stand up and say, we want to be a part of your healing, not just wait to be a part of the gotcha if something comes out. We recognize this is a reality in our world, and we're creating a safe environment for a pastor to find hope and healing and freedom. And then Pure Desire can have a role in that, whether it's through counseling or groups or the materials. And we'd love to see more groups enter into that because we want to see this culture change. Another thing I think that comes to mind is just looking into your systems and saying, where can we communicate this message appropriately to say to our pastors and leaders, if you're struggling, we want to help you. We want to be a part of your restoration. And I think in our licensing and ordination processes is often a place that can happen where as we ask good questions about someone's integrity and their sexual history with an attitude not just to catch them and say gotcha, but with an attitude of restoration and help to figure out, where are you at? Because if this isn't resolved, if you're not able to say, I am fully and finally free, then let's engage you in a program so that you do feel that way. And I think young men and women, early in their career, as they're being licensed, as they're getting an ordination, they're eager for growth, they're eager for help. And if we could posture as leaders or as the district that we're in to be there to help them, I think we'll find a lot of men and women really are open to participating in a plan or a pathway to freedom. And again, that's what Pure Desire leaders is all about. And we'd love to talk more with anyone that wants to know what that would look like for their church or their district of churches or a whole denomination, really.

I mean, it all comes down really to culture. I think that, you know, let's say you've got 10,000 people who come to your church. Just because you have a lot of people at your church doesn't mean you have a healthy church culture. And so understanding that if we're wanting to be real people that have a real relationship with someone that we really need that being Jesus, then that's got to be intentional work. And a couple episodes ago, just something that has really struck me from a conversation is that idea of being really intentional about the language that we use and not just kind of mulling over or glossing over how we talk about this issue or what we talk about from up front, but I just think, like, culture, culture, culture. Is it okay to not be okay at your church? That's where it's at. And that, I mean, I'm not going to, but if I ever planted a church and decided that this is, you know, a call for me, that would be the first thing I'd focus on is, am I. Am I creating that culture from the front and am I leading in that first being that person that it's okay to not be okay?

Yeah. So I'd say, I mean, if you're a pastor and you are struggling and you haven't talked to anybody about this, talk to somebody. Give us, give us a call. Call if your desire, you can have a conversation. That's just a phone consultation. We say, hey, this is what's going on. You think this is a problem, and there's some steps that you can take from there. If you're a pastor and this isn't an issue for you, then great. But please don't move forward under the assumption that you've got it all together. Also, you know, begin the process of like, okay, let me speak vulnerably for my life, because that is going to demonstrate to other people that maybe are stuck in something secretive that they can also speak honestly about what's going on in their life. And then if you're a church and you want to begin to be proactive in this, then also give us a call or talk to your pastors and say, hey, I'd like to start a group for something that's in this area.

Guys, this has been great. I feel like this is such a difficult topic to talk about. And I know there are probably things that we said in here that made some people upset, made them maybe a bit uncomfortable. But again, this is something that we've all lived through and we all know that pastors have struggles and they're real people too. And, and so listener, we just hope that if you are a pastor that, and you're currently struggling, that you reach out, that you would, as Bob said, find somebody. And we're happy to be that person. We're happy to be that organization that walks alongside you. Don't let it hide in the dark anymore. That definitely is not helpful. And then if you're just your run of the mill churchgoer and want to help your pastors and leaders who might struggle, give the gift really of sharing your story. I think, I think that we guys, us, we've seen that really play out well and pave the way for healing. And you know, again, we'll talk about Nick's book, Creating a Culture of Grace and a Climate of Shame. It's a great book to grab when you're thinking about this stuff. So if you are interested, as Nick mentioned, the Pure Desire Leaders program, you can Visit our website, PureDesire.org PDL for more info, just call us 503-489-0230. Nick, Bob, thanks guys.

Yep, glad to be here.

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