How We React To A Pastor’s Failure

HOW WE REACT TO A PASTOR’S FAILURE

By Bob Branch

Years ago, a wise father-figure asked me a riddle:

“What do you get when you squeeze an orange?”

“Orange juice.”

“What do you get when you squeeze an apple?”

“Apple juice.”

“What do you get when you squeeze a Christian?”

My snarky reply was, “Blood? No, I suppose—Christ?”

That may be the preferred answer, but it is often not the honest one. What is true, however, is that when life puts the squeeze on us, what is inside us tends to come out. Pressure has a unique way of exposing what is actually going on within us.

In church discipline meetings over the years, I have often reminded people that the way we react to someone else’s failure reveals something about what is happening inside us, not simply what is happening inside the person who sinned. That can be disturbing—but it can also be revealing.

Your pastor has failed. What is happening in you? What is this exposing in you?

Pay attention.

From the 24,000-foot view, I have seen four common reactions to a pastor’s moral failure:

1. Leave the faith.
2. Leave the church.
3. Stay in the church but remain “burned” by what happened.
4. Stay and move toward God through grief, forgiveness, renewed trust, hope and recovery.

These are not neat categories, and people may move back and forth between them. But they give us a helpful way to think about where we are and where we may be headed.

1. SOME LEAVE THE FAITH

Why? The answer is neither simple nor always clear.

Did we put too much weight on the pastor’s influence? Did we trust him too much? Did following him and following Jesus somehow become intertwined? Were we too dependent on his voice to hear from God? Did our faith become too connected to his personality, gifting or confidence? Were we, in some sense, living off his faith rather than developing our own?

Somehow, the messenger and the Messiah became connected enough that when one collapsed, it shook our confidence in the other.

A sacred trust was given—and violated.

How can I believe any of it was true?

This is one of the dangers of the personality-driven culture that can develop in churches. The man, the message and the Messiah become too closely wrapped together.

If your pastor led you to faith, baptized you, married you, walked with you through tragedy, celebrated important moments with your family, and taught you the Scriptures week after week, his failure may rock your faith deeply. Some careful disentangling becomes critical so that you do not make “shipwreck” of your faith (1 Timothy 1:19).

If you are teetering in your faith right now, I want to encourage you to hit the pause button.

God and your pastor are not the same—not at all.

Your pastor may have taught you things that were true while simultaneously hiding things in his own life that were terribly wrong. His failure does not make everything he taught false. It means that he, like every other human being, was capable of profound inconsistency and sin.

God is near you—even now. And God can work in the middle of this mess.

2. SOME LEAVE THE CHURCH

A change of scenery will surely change the mood, right?

Because your pastor and your experience of church were so intricately tied together, everything there can seem to amplify the loss. The building, the songs, the people, the stories—even particular seats or rooms—can trigger memories.

So our tendency may be to run. Not literally, perhaps, but to walk away.

Sometimes this sounds like, “I still believe in Jesus. I just don’t believe in organized religion anymore.”

The feelings connected to church may simply seem like too much. Every time you are there, memories surface. You may feel like crying—or screaming. You may feel bewildered, angry and disoriented.

Surely a change of setting will fix it.

But a change of setting alone cannot resolve what is happening inside us.

Wherever we go, we bring ourselves with us. Unprocessed sorrow, betrayal and confusion have a way of resurfacing. We carry our grief with us, and simply relocating does not necessarily help us metabolize it.

There may be legitimate reasons to leave a particular church, especially when the environment remains unhealthy or unsafe. But leaving and processing are two different decisions. Wherever you worship next, the grief will still deserve your attention.

3. SOME STAY BUT REMAIN “BURNED”

Others stay, but remain stuck in their hurt.

You are disillusioned and wounded but are not taking meaningful steps toward processing what happened in a healthy way. You may talk frequently about how you feel, but the conversation can slowly drift from processing toward gossip. You may vacillate between feeling fairly normal and suddenly feeling sad, angry or betrayed all over again.

Staying can be a very good decision. Healthy community can help us process hurt, betrayal and confusion. The relationships we have built can become part of our support. Staying can also provide accountability as we seek God in the mess. People who understand what happened can sometimes help challenge distorted thinking and remind us of what is still true.

But staying physically does not necessarily mean we are moving forward internally.

We can stay and dig in.

We can turtle up and hide.

We can spread our bitterness.

Or we can simply stew in our own juices.

“Make sure no one lives with a root of bitterness sprouting within them which will only cause trouble and poison the hearts of many” (Hebrews 12:15 TPT).

When bitterness goes to seed, it rarely affects only us.

4. SOME STAY AND BEGIN MOVING FORWARD

Lastly, some stay and begin the long process of moving toward God through grief, pain, forgiveness, rebuilding trust, hope and recovery.

It will never be exactly the way it was before.

But that does not mean something good cannot emerge from what has been lost. Something new, deeper and even beautiful can grow from the ashes (see Isaiah 61:3).

The whole process involves moving toward God—but not in a shallow, platitudinal or merely religious way.

We move toward God and grief.

Toward God and pain.

Toward God and a slow, deep forgiveness.

Toward God while learning how to trust wisely again.

Toward God and a renewed hope for life and what is still to come.

None of these movements is automatic. Each requires intentional steps forward.

Over time, what happened can become an invitation into a deeper connection with God, a more honest connection with ourselves, and healthier connections with others in God’s family.

These are hard-fought gains after a devastating loss.

The goal is not to get back to where you were.

The goal is to allow God to form something deeper in you as you find the way forward.

REFLECTION

1. Which of these four reactions best describes where you are right now?
Write honestly about where you are and why.

2. Which reaction best describes where you want to be?
What would moving in that direction look like for you?

3. What might be keeping you from moving forward?
Name the hurt, fear, anger, disappointment or confusion as honestly as you can.

4. Write a prayer to God describing where you actually are—not where you think you should be—and where you want to go from here.

By Bob Branch, Executive Director & Co-Founder of After The Fall, a ministry that comes alongside churches in crisis after their pastor's moral failure.