Counsel for Recovery

All men may err
but error once committed,
he’s no fool nor yet unfortunate,
who gives up his stiffness
and cures the trouble he has fallen in.
Stubbornness and stupidity are twins.
Sophocles

Few pastors fall into mistakes by themselves; fewer still recover from them solo. Of the resources for recovery, people are the most precious.

Gordon Weekley spiraled into deep trouble as he removed himself from the help of friends. When drugs clenched his mind and humiliation drained his spirit, Gordon began drifting from city to city.

People in his church still loved him. Some even sought him out on skid row in other communities and the seedy parts of Charlotte. They offered love, counsel, jobs, hope. But Gordon would have none of it. His big mistake with drugs seemed to push him inevitably toward a series of mistakes of lost opportunity.

“I took myself away from the reach of rescuers,” Gordon recalls. “I wanted to hide. Though they prayed for me and even found me at times, I frustrated their efforts.”

Yet Gordon’s behavior cannot be classified as bizarre. How many of us flee from that which would help us! Some perverse human trait drives the lonely into solitude and the stumbling into self-sufficiency. In the midst of a mistake, a further mistake is not realizing we need help.

The Sooner, The Better

“One of the easiest things in the world for me is to convince myself I’m right,” observes Dick Lincoln, pastor of Shandon Baptist Church in Columbia, South Carolina. “I easily become blind to real problems because they start small. I’m good at rationalizing my mistakes. That’s why I try to see if I’m repeating a mistake. Then I target that problem and get some wise counsel.”

When we reach out early, we are more apt to stop the problem before it becomes big. Lincoln looks for the little clues, the repeated slips: Do I regularly miss appointments? Do I often misread people’s intentions? Do I repeatedly feel ready to blow up? If so, I need help now.

Alan Taylor could have benefited from counsel before he relocated to Seattle.

“I should have done some investigating outside Broadmoor’s search committee,” he says. “A probing list of questions for neighboring pastors or denominational staff could have spared me from being blind-sided at the first Session meeting. I knew the type of leadership I had to offer. Even cursory checking could have tipped me off about mismatched expectations. I just assumed the committee understood the church and what it needed. I assumed wrong. I got more surprises in my first three months at Broadmoor than in years of prior ministry.”

When Alan began wondering if he should leave Broadmoor, he needed help sorting out his thoughts. The trauma of the first mistake made him wiser. He reached out. Ma Bell smiled at the number of calls he made to friends in ministry, but he found the help he was looking for.

Alan chose those outside Seattle. “I wanted unbiased feedback,” he explains. “The people I called weren’t friends in town who naturally wanted me to stay or competitors out to get my job. They affirmed my call and gifts, and when the need arose, they weren’t afraid to call my bluff. I needed penetrating — even blunt — counsel, not just people to shake their heads and say, ‘Ain’t it awful!'”

By submitting his feelings to a corrective community, Alan received the wisdom his shell-shocked psyche could not provide.

“Where’s my blind spot?” Alan asked. “What am I failing to comprehend?”

One revered role model challenged him. Another friend helped Alan “buy time” by suggesting a short-term ministry at Broadmoor might be God’s intention. Alan believed he could tolerate a year or two. Thanks to their encouragement, he hung on.

Reaching out for help makes sense. Through outside observers, pastors may find the problem is not theirs; or they may discover in themselves a particular weakness that sets them up for repeated trouble. And advisers may point out a solution they never thought existed.

Whom to Ask for Help

Alan Taylor’s life line was trusted, yet distant, friends. Are they usually the best bet? How about local clergy or professionals? Other staff members? Or even parishioners? Pastors differ on which group provides the best help, and sometimes the answer varies with the problem.

Removed counselors. Alan appreciated the perspective that advisers away from the situation could supply. They were not themselves caught up in the problem. They had nothing to gain or lose by the advice they gave. One step removed, Alan’s advisers could see the forest, not just the trees.

Distance can also mean finding counselors who don’t “think like a pastor.” One pastor says, “When I need input, I don’t go to other pastors. I seek out business people whose judgment I trust. They tend to be more hard-nosed than my pastor friends. If I ask them to point out my blind spot, they’ll put it on the line. They don’t worry so much about what I want to hear as what I need to hear. I appreciate their candor.”

Distant counselors also give the expectation of greater confidentiality. A pastor struggling with a frustratingly dispassionate marriage told me, “I don’t want to leave my wife. But I need help, and I’m not ready for the congregation to hear about our problem yet. I still think we can make things work, and if we do, it would be better if they never knew. So I can’t go to them. I don’t even want to seek counseling from local pastors. We’re in a small town, so the word would be bound to get out. Even seeing district denominational leaders seems a poor option, because they may view me differently the next time I need a recommendation. So where do I go for help?”

His best bet, if he is determined to keep the situation under wraps, is someone in another community. In such a counselor, he may find assistance without indirectly announcing his problem to the community.

When I began to urge my church in California to consider two worship services, I ran into mixed reactions. Those involved with providing ushers, music, refreshments, and other aspects of the service wondered aloud, “Aren’t we pushing things? We’re not completely full now. We could fit in more people most Sundays.” Another group joined me in thinking we would plateau if we kept the status quo. So I was in a quandary: Am I pushing too hard? Why do I want to keep moving ahead? If I continue to lobby for the change, will I have a mutiny on my hands?

I didn’t want to ask the other local pastors. It might seem like bragging even to be bothered with such a “problem.” So I talked with Dave Wilkinson, a pastor who had faced the same decision prior to a building program in his church in Oroville, California. He knew me and the church well, and he also knew some of the pitfalls I was facing.

With his warm assurance, I decided to press on. We did make the change, and the early service brought in people who hadn’t come at 11:00. And with his wise advice, I was able to tiptoe around some of the land mines.

Professional counselors. For all the counseling we do, we pastors are sometimes reluctant to avail ourselves of professional counselors. Burnt-out pastor Richard Kew finally decided professional help was what he needed. “I should have sought counseling and spiritual direction a long time ago,” he wrote, “but I guess I was too proud to admit my need. But now, with my life out of control, I put myself into counseling.

“That’s one of the best moves I have ever made. Hours of in-depth counseling have brought me face to face with the darker side of my soul and aspects of my personality that have been buried for years. Piece by piece, I am taking them out and examining them so I can discover who I am and what the next step in life will be. The work will probably go on for many months yet, but painful as it is, I am finding myself exhilarated by the richness in me I didn’t know existed. Several folk have told me that after a ‘death’ such as mine comes a resurrection, and maybe the key to that resurrection I desire is the counseling process through which I am passing.”

A list of Christian counselors specializing in pastors’ problems can be found in the appendix.

Peer counselors. Fellow pastors in the same community have proven to be excellent sources of counsel for many pastors — at least those who have moved beyond competition with one another. A pastor freshly called to a difficult charge quickly warmed up to the other pastors in the local ministerium. Perhaps it was the character of the ministers, but more likely it was his growing awareness of peril. In the previous six years, three other pastors had come to his church and left wounded. He realized he could easily be the fourth.

Over donuts and coffee at the next ministerial gathering, he spilled his story: “My church has always had a strong music program, but it’s really in decline now. We’re lucky to have a handful in our choir, and we used to fill the loft. When I interviewed, I told the church the choir room was inadequate. The piano was badly out of tune. The folding chairs were bent and rickety. There were no risers to allow everybody to see the director, and the acoustics made it sound like the inside of a sewer pipe. And they seemed to agree.

“So once I was called, I proposed we knock out a wall to an adult Sunday school classroom and ‘borrow’ about eight feet of space. Then we could put in permanent risers in the choir room, redo the walls and floor to muffle the echo, and get a new piano and furniture. We needed this if our choir is ever going to do well again. I figured if we used mostly church labor, we could do it for under $10,000.

“What do you think happened to my proposal? They tore it apart. You’d think I’d suggested we burn down the church.”

One local pastor had been around long enough to see this fellow’s predecessors come and go. He spoke first. “What did Barney Cook think about it? Did you ask him before you took it to the board?”

“No, buildings and grounds is not his committee.”

“I think you should have asked Barney.” Barney was the church kingpin. He donated (some say he still owned) the land the church was built on. His extended family made up 20 percent of the congregation. And his opinion was necessary for anything to fly. His vehement veto meant not only the end of a project but possibly the end of any new pastor’s effectiveness. It had happened before — repeatedly.

The other pastors joined in to assist their new member. Since they knew something of the community ways, the history of the church, and the personalities involved, they helped their friend resurrect his idea. First he talked over his idea with Barney. Barney had some concerns to air, but with discussion, they coalesced into “improvements” to the pastor’s plan. Then with Barney behind the idea, it sailed through the next board meeting. And Barney eventually donated the new piano!

Barney never became a particularly easy layman to get along with, but the pastor’s new understanding of Barney’s role in the congregation allowed him to negotiate a peaceful settlement to most subsequent church disputes. In this case, colleagues in town gave the best aid to a scrambling pastor.

In-house counselors. In a culture of privatized religion, sometimes the church is the last to hear about a problem or mistake. “Pastor, I just got fired — but don’t tell the church!” a church member pleads. “Our son is on drugs — but don’t let on to our Sunday school class!“

Yet James says, “Tell the church!” (5:13-16). It is only when one tells the church that the body can do what Paul commands: “Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ” (Gal. 6:2).

What is good for Christians in general usually applies to pastors in particular. In many cases the instinctual I can’t tell the board! needs to be replaced with But I’ve got to. Of course, when the major aspect of the pastor’s mistake involves people on the board, a more disinterested party may give the best help. But pastors are wise not to overlook the aid available in their own church.

Dick Lincoln has set up a pastor’s advisory group at Shandon Baptist, a “kitchen cabinet” to head off problems.

“These friends and church leaders are not elected by the church,” he says. “They don’t have an official capacity in the church government. They carry no weight and cast no votes. I’ve gathered them with the sole responsibility to advise me. They’re wonderful people. I can take any matter to them and get their opinions, and, purposefully, none of them are yes men. Through them I’ve come to the realization I’m not a bumbler looking for a place to self-destruct. They’ve helped me discover my strengths and find my own worth — while cautioning me about my weaknesses. They help me see things clearly, usually before I stumble into a mistake.”

Glen Knecht, Dick’s neighbor at First Presbyterian Church, believes a multitude of counselors helps the most, and he’s not hesitant to look for them within his Session. He advises: “Listen to your elders. They know more than we often think they do.” If elders and board members are chosen for the oversight and leadership of the church, it makes sense to reach out to them for help. God populates his church with gifted people — who can rescue an errant pastor.

The problems with going to the leaders of the church are obvious: confidentiality, biases, a fear of vulnerability. In fact, the board may well be the problem. Here are a few reasons not to reach out for help from individuals or groups within the church:

— They are substantial participants in or causes of my mistake.

— They have become my adversaries.

— They love me so much they can’t be critical.

— Confiding in them would harm the long-term pastorparish relationship.

— I cannot trust them to hold confidences.

— They are so involved with the matter that unbiased advice is unlikely.

While any of these might be reasons to seek help outside the local church, many times none of these hindrances apply. Sometimes, in fact, we raise objections without substance.

Robert Millen found he had a greater reservoir of understanding and love in his leaders than he’d ever dreamed. Certainly revealing his bisexual lifestyle shocked them, but they stretched a resilient love to include him, despite condemning his sin.

“One of my elders was a right-wing conservative,” Robert recalled. “And here I was, some kind of pervert in his book. That man had reason to condemn me. I would have expected him to write me off. Yet this guy still phones me about once a month and asks how I’m doing. He tells me, ‘I know how you helped me as my pastor, and you will be my friend until the day I die.'”

Robert’s voice cracked, and he was silent for a moment.

“He still cares — who could expect it?”

Robert was surrounded with far more help than he ever imagined possible. He had spent years fighting a terrible enemy alone. He had kept the battle within, and he had lost.

It didn’t have to be that way.