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TRAITS OF A SEXUALLY HEALTHY PASTOR

Eight leaders define what it means for a church leader to be whole.

Jill Hudson, a Presbyterian minister and workshop leader on “Sexual Misconduct and the Ministry,” states that “People who are sexually healthy know their unresolved issues around sexuality and make an ongoing attempt to address those.”

Archibald Hart, dean of the school of psychology at Fuller Seminary, adds that “A sexually healthy pastor is, above everything else, honest with himself or herself. A second trait is that he or she is accountable. Another important trait of health is that the person does not misread the sexuality of the opposite sex.”

Larry Crabb, chairman of the graduate department of biblical counseling at Colorado Christian University, says, “A sexually healthy pastor is aware that sexual health depends on issues outside the realm of sex. Having a godly friend or spouse care about your soul is the best antidote for sexual immorality.”

Scotty Smith, senior pastor of Christ Community Church in Franklin, Tennessee, says, “It’s so important to process the history of your sexual experience. I urge people to find a faithful servant of Christ and try to understand these matters. That process brings freedom, dignity, wisdom.”

George McKinney, pastor of St. Stephen’s Church of God in Christ in San Diego, adds, “It’s a sign of health when the pastor sincerely accepts that ‘marriage is honorable to all, and the bed is undefiled,’ as the Book of Hebrews says.” Sexuality is to be appreciated, to be enjoyed in marriage for procreation, communication, and recreation.

Linda Riley–a pastor’s wife and leader of Called Together, a ministry to pastors’ wives and women in ministry, based in Torrance, California–concludes that “a sexually healthy person communicates well and is considerate of his or her spouse. A sexually healthy pastor acknowledges and deals with temptation. Being sexually healthy means you get help when you’re having a problem.”

Harry Schaumburg, a therapist in Colorado Springs and author of “False Intimacy,” adds that “a sexually healthy pastor is not using ministry as a way of satisfying his deepest relational needs.”

Knute Larson, pastor of The Chapel in Akron, Ohio, says, “If a pastor is married, he knows how to deal with barriers that disconnect him from his spouse and works hard on the marriage.”

What kind of touch with parishioners is okay?

The leaders generally agree, in Jill Hudson’s words, that “Touch should be used in limited ways, in public settings where it can be observed, for example, and only with invitation.”

What guidelines should a pastor set on counseling someone of the opposite sex?

Arch Hart emphasizes that “the pastor-as-pastor role is different from the pastor-as-counselor role” and advocates that pastors confine themselves to crisis counseling.

How should a pastor talk about sex publicly?

Respondents agreed that it’s difficult (Hart: “The greatest challenge facing the church for the next century is sexuality”) but must be done carefully.

Does ministry itself present sexual hazards?

Linda Riley: Spirituality can be sensual. And most pastors love people. That requires sensitivity and boundaries.

Larry Crabb: Ministry as it’s often practiced has a pace that makes people tired and more vulnerable.

Arch Hart: To many parishioners the pastor represents everything about their unmet need. When the pastor has what we call a counter-transference, you’ve got a dangerous mix.

What action should church leaders take in this area?

Scotty Smith: Become enthralled and excited with God’s good and passionate words about our sexuality. Study the Scriptures afresh to see how awesome this gift is that God has given us.

Jill Hudson: The church needs to work on pastoral issues: being financially strapped, the demand of being all things to all people, the lack of clarity in the role, and so on. I encourage clergy, “Take care of your spiritual life.”

Harry Schaumburg: If you recognize an unhealthy part of your life, do something about it.

Linda Riley: Pastors and pastors’ spouses should acknowledge they are sexual people like the rest of humanity. Their calling and daily concentration on God don’t exclude them from enthusiastically enjoying sex.

George McKinney: Pastors need to understand that the Devil puts his big guns on the pastor and they need to guard against that. As the old folks said, “The Devil is no friend of grace.”

Larry Crabb: There is a dimension to experiencing intimacy with Christ that none of us has begun to comprehend. Don’t settle for less.

PREACHING THAT OH-SO-DELICATE SUBJECT

Bill Hybels offers guidelines on how to preach about sexual topics.

My overarching concern is that people understand human sexuality as one of God’s good gifts, part of his grand design for us. I explain that sexuality is a highly-charged, God-designed drive that we need to understand and submit to the lordship of Jesus Christ because it can be used for great good or enormous destruction.

Direct and indirect preaching. I preach about sex directly and indirectly. Occasionally I’ll devote a series of sermons to the subject. (However, I limit the subjects I cover. I don’t address masturbation or sexual experimentation by married partners or sexual aberrations. I have too many young ears present.)

The indirect method is what I call maintenance statements. In the midst of a sermon on, say, the woman at the well, I’ll throw in a maintenance statement: “The woman was floundering; she had lost the meaning of faithfulness to her spouse, just as she had never known faithfulness to her Lord.”

Putting sex in perspective. Whenever I speak about sex, there is one impression I definitely do not want to leave: that misappropriated sex is the one sin the church and God cannot tolerate.

Being sensitive to pain. I cannot spout “thou shalt nots” without being sensitive to the depth of pain most people already feel concerning sex. If the women in my church are typical, as many as half of them have had a destructive or unwanted sexual experience forced on them. If I cannot include a word of grace, I may do irreparable damage.

Providing tangible help. I must give people something to grasp as they let go of sexual problems. Marriage-enrichment groups, counseling programs, accountability groups, discipleship programs with mature leaders–these offer people a way to begin to remedy their denatured sexuality.

Injecting humor. Humor is the perfect counterbalance to the weightiness of the topic. With all that pain and guilt and sin-talk floating in the air, with people feeling nervous or perhaps expecting to be offended, anything I can say that disarms them for a moment is precious. Yet humor must be appropriate. We can’t wink and make light of something painful.

Being transparent. As a pastor, I’m called not just to feed the flock, but also to model as best I can the kind of life Christ would have me lead. Personal transparency is for a purpose–identification with the congregation–not for mere verbal exhibitionism. Before I use personal references, I obtain Lynne’s permission.

SINS OF THE FAMILY

The true story of a woman who claimed a pastor sexually harassed her and how a church struggled to deal with the allegations.

A WAY OF ESCAPE

In an interview, anti-porn activist and pastor Jerry Kirk tells what he has learned about winning the personal battle against pornography.

Pornography assaults people in hotel rooms, in airports, in convenience stores. So when I travel and stay in a hotel I move immediately on the offensive–in prayer, in worship, in taking authority over the Evil One.

To overcome slavery to pornography, I urge the person to come clean before God, agreeing with God that pornography is sin. The second step is telling a confessor, someone outside your congregation with whom you can be totally honest.

I’ve never known a married man who has won the victory over his addiction to pornography without sharing it with his wife. Through telling your wife, you concretely see the pain your sin causes the Lord. (I do not think specific details should be shared with a spouse, though.)

To stay free of pornography, you need a fresh vision of what your life can be like if you are disciplined in this area–and what it will be like if you are not. In five years, for example, what will your life be like if you have been able to be self-disciplined? What will the level of joy be? The level of confidence in prayer be? The level of self-esteem be?

There are four stages to addiction: (1) the addiction itself; (2) the addiction escalates–you crave harder and harder pornography; (3) you become desensitized: what was abhorrent begins to become attractive; (4) you act out the behavior.

Every time you masturbate after watching pornography you lock in the images that triggered it–and the guilt feelings accompanying it. It is not possible to masturbate with pornography and not sin.

To maintain a positive outlook, I spend time with the Lord in worship, praise, and thanksgiving. And I have sought to be transparent. If nothing is hidden, Satan cannot destroy us. One day at a time we win the victory.

FREEING THE SEX ADDICT

Steve Arterburn, co-founder of the Minirth Meier New Life Clinics, describes how to help people addicted to sexual behaviors.

Any sexual behavior that violates Scripture, is sin; when someone repeatedly violates moral standards and is unable to stop, that is besetting sin. That is sexual addiction.

When sexual sin has moved to the level of addiction, it must be treated in a different way than just confronting the sin and working through forgiveness. If the sinner is also a sex addict, failure to confront the issue of addiction may leave the person on a downward spiral.

Indicators of addictive sex:

Done in isolation.

Mentally and emotionally the addict is detached, or isolated, from human relationship. In effect, sex addicts develop a double life–practicing masturbation, using pornography, patronizing massage parlors or porn shops, engaging in sexual encounters.

Cyclical.

The person begins experiencing uncomfortable feelings of pain, stress, or shame. Then, a sexually stimulating activity is used to medicate or distract from the uncomfortable feelings. After the act, the sex addict feels intense guilt and self-reproach (often promising it will never happen again). Days or weeks later, the scene is repeated.

Leaves emptiness.

Addictive sex leaves the participants feeling guilty, regretting the experience.

Creates victims.

Sexual addiction victimizes the family, the person who becomes an object of sexual arousal or expression, even a church (if the sex addict is in leadership). The obsession with self-gratification blinds sex addicts to the harmful effects their behavior has on others.

The best thing a pastor should do is help a sex addict find a Christian therapist. One benefit of support outside the local church is confidentiality. Pastors can provide ongoing care by

* Reaffirming that God’s grace and power are available.

* Reaffirming their love for the sex addict.

* Confronting and intervening as necessary.

* Caring for the addict’s family, especially the spouse.

* Maintaining strict confidentiality.

* Creating and following a plan a restoration.

* Holding out hope for complete restoration.

SPECIAL SECTION: THE CALL

I. Role Call

William Willimon, dean of the chapel and professor of Christian ministry at Duke University, calls pastors back to being pastors.

A pastor is not merely a person. A pastor is a person who has had hands laid upon his or her head, made public promises before God and the church, willingly yoked his or her life to the demands of the gospel.

In our attempts to be empathetic and ordinary people above the limitations of the pastoral role, we fall into what Mercer law professor Jack L. Sammons, Jr., has called “Rebellious Ethics.” The goal of this ethic is to be the sort of pastor who doesn’t take himself or herself too seriously, to be more a person than a pastor.

But in rebelling against traditional expectations for pastors, we have not rebelled against cultural expectations. We have fallen backward into the clutches of the dominant ethic–you stay out of my life, and I’ll stay out of yours.

Our aim as pastors should be to produce people whose lives will either make Jesus appear to be incredibly crazy or amazingly able to produce the sort of people he demands. We don’t need to be better rebels from the virtues and practices of our craft; we need to be more linked to them.

God’s principal way of saving the world appears to be persons, but not just any old person will do. Saints are needed. Therefore the church calls persons to be pastors to help the rest of us be more than the persons we would be if we had been left to our own devices.

Vocation, in a Christian sense, means that no one is “just a person.” No one is “just” an anything after God’s claim upon our lives.

II. Renewing Your Sense of Purpose

Ed Dobson, pastor of Calvary Church in Grand Rapids, Michigan, offers help for when you wonder if ministry’s worth it.

Criticism is a regular part of Christian ministry. But sometimes it makes us wonder, “Is this job worth it?” Sometimes it’s hard to remember why we’re in ministry, or whether it’s worth it. So periodically, we need to think about our call afresh.

Like David of the Old Testament, I find it helpful to remember my call to ministry. Though the shape and nature of that call has changed over the years, this remains my call: to preach. And when there have been some harrowing storms to weather, the remembrance of this original call has helped me stick to it.

Another tactic when my call seems in doubt is to remember the four myth-busters of ministry:

–It is never as bad as you think it is.

–It’s never as good as you think it is.

–It’s never completely fixed.

–It’s never completely broken.

A lot of criticism people throw our way is based on ignorance or misconceptions. When it’s appropriate, I try to educate people. But when it’s not, I find it best just to forget the comment. I also ask God about the criticism I receive to see if God is trying to show me something.

To renew my call, I also:

Listen for God’s leading. Sometimes when we’re doubting the call, we’re merely doubting the call to a specific ministry. And sometimes the doubt is justified: God wants us to move on. I listen to my journal. For years I’ve taken time to write out, several times a week, what I’m learning from my study of Scripture, my circumstances, and my ministry.

In addition, I “lay out the fleece,” not to test God but to assure myself that, in fact, God is leading. I’ve also begun praying with my wife about such decisions. Finally, sometimes we just have to go out on faith, and if we’ve misread God’s will, then that too can lead us to the real calling he has for us.

Take preventive medicine. Pastors sometimes feel frustrated in their callings because they’re waiting for someone to help them. It won’t happen. We have to care for ourselves. I run between three and seven miles a day, for example, and that leaves me refreshed for preaching or teaching, particularly midweek when my energy can lapse.

I also try to operate primarily in the realm of my giftedness. Billy Graham said not long ago that he believes he did the one thing God called him to do–preach the gospel. My hope is that forty years from now I can look back and say the same thing.

PASTORING YOUR COMMUNITY

David Galloway, rector of Christ Episcopal Church in Tyler, Texas, tells how a pastor and church can make a difference in their area.

Part of my pastoral role is helping to heal the surrounding community, what I call “city therapy.” It’s a challenging vocation but ultimately rewarding. It involves five principles:

Loving the community.

When I came to Tyler in 1990, I wasn’t sure I even liked the town. But I began to pray every morning that God would give me a heart for Tyler. In time, God gave me a passionate love for Tyler. That inexplicable love helped me decide that really serving the community–to help change it, to help heal it–would be one of my high priorities.

Understanding the history.

I studied the history of our community and found that Tyler lived by an unspoken code: the African-Americans would continue to depend on the whites for jobs and opportunities and, in return, keep quiet. If every city has its peculiar sin, Tyler’s is comfort.

Refocusing the church.

To get our church to look outward, we divided the vestry [board] into groups of three to brainstorm. We eventually decided to reach out to people through thirty-second spots during the 10 o’clock news on Sunday and Wednesday nights. I would simply talk to people on the air, introducing them to Christ Church in a non-threatening way. That opportunity created openness within the church to people in the community.

Taking action.

In the fall of 1991, I helped launch Tyler Together, a group of concerned citizens with a common goal: making Tyler a better place to live. Eventually we concentrated on five issues: health care, regional identity, education, recreation, and–the hottest of the bunch–race. Tyler Together sponsored a year-long series of public forums where Tyler’s citizens could talk about their experiences of discrimination and racism.

Developing leaders.

Changing the community in a lasting way requires developing leaders. About two years ago I started Leadership Foundation to train minorities in leadership skills. The greatest value of the training is that we awaken people to their power to influence their community.

THE MAN WHO BROUGHT MARKETING TO CHURCH

In an interview, researcher George Barna explains his work and how pastors can use it.

Most ministry resources are based on intuition, feelings, and experience, which isn’t necessarily true or helpful for other churches. Barna Research takes statistical information and breaks it into bite-sized pieces. Then we give a holistic view: “This is happening over here, but you can’t understand that unless you connect it with the bigger picture.”

Marketing is not a science; it’s an art, just like preaching. Everything we do in ministry is by definition an art, because our methods must be directed and empowered by the Holy Spirit. There is no guarantee that if you do the world’s greatest mailing, expecting thousands of people to flood the doors next Sunday, that it will happen.

I am pro seeker-sensitive. But more than being pro seeker-sensitive, I’m pro people-sensitive. There are myriad ways to track whether a church is healthy and successful. Numbers is only one indicator, and not even the key one.

The fight over whether to market is false. Every church markets. The issue is: Are you marketing intelligently and intentionally? Scripture is abundantly clear theologically, but it gives enormous latitude methodologically.

Only 2 percent of pastors we surveyed could articulate the vision for their church. That’s one reason many pastors are ineffective; they don’t know where they’re going. In small churches, pastors must surround themselves with people committed to use their gifts for the church–and then to turn them loose.

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