Slip-ups haunt every pastor. Some are minor; others trigger long-term problems. But not all mistakes have to be fatal. Here are some ways to prevent them from becoming terminal.
Mistake Reflexes
Mistakes can cause our hearts to churn with painful emotions and impulses. Identifying our emotions is important in not further compounding our problems and to put us on the track of recovery. Here are several emotions that often go hand-in-hand with failure:
- Regret. Second-guessing ourselves is easy. We think, I should have been more sensitive with her, or I should have guessed what was happening to him.
- Frustration. On paper, our ideas often look marvelous. In reality, though, we often find no one wants to have anything to do with our brilliance. When that happens, we do our best to talk people into our idea but wind up growing more frustrated with them.
- Self-pity. Sometimes we react by adopting a victim mentality and feeling sorry for ourselves. It’s as natural as nursing our hand after touching a hot griddle. But if we let ourselves wallow too long, the wound never heals. The pain never leaves, and eventually we are crippled.
- Paralysis. After a failure, a pastor sometimes can’t snap out of it and move on with confidence to the next challenge. When we dwell on the past—wishing over and over that we had handled a situation differently, sliding into depression, and questioning our abilities—we suffer a paralysis that only compounds our mistakes.
Whose Ears Will Hear?
When we make mistakes, it can be another mistake to tell others about it. Telling eager listeners may backfire. They may go home and relate a slightly different version to their friends. Their friends tell other friends a different version still.
Since many can’t handle such information, we should admit mistakes on a need-to-know basis. What is the group’s role? How would our admission help the hearers? Would it hurt the church if they didn’t know?
Yet, at times our mistakes need to be confessed publicly, especially when they involve sin. Spurgeon, in his Lectures to My Students, quoted another minister: “When a preacher of righteousness has stood in the way of sinners, he should never again open his lips in the great congregation until his repentance is as notorious as his sin.”
Steps to Recovery
David’s recovery from his sin with Bathsheba, referred to in Psalm 51, is a model for recovery from any serious mistake. Here are six steps:
- Admit the failure to yourself. “I know my transgression, and my sin is always before me” (v. 3).
- Admit the failure to the Lord. “Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight” (v. 4).
- Claim God’s faithfulness and forgiveness. “Have mercy on me, O God, according to your unfailing love; according to your great compassion blot out my transgressions” (v. 1).
- Come to terms with your sinful humanity. “Surely I have been a sinner from birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me” (v. 5).
- Ask God to put you together again. “Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me” (v. 10).
- Turn to the task at hand. “Then I will teach transgressors your ways” (v. 13).
Our failings don’t have to be terminal, though at the time they may feel that way. Our God specializes in redeeming our mistakes.
Stuart Briscoe; Leadership Handbooks of Practical Theology, Volume 3, Leadership and Administration; Handling Mistakes; pp 172-173. Used by permission of Baker Books, a division of Baker Book House Company, copyright © 1994.
