Leading Evangelical Christian pastor Ted Haggard of New Life Church, Colorado has denied having gay sex but has admitted to buying illegal drugs. Full story here
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It seems that there is a strong link between the driven personality of the pastors who establish fast-growing churches and the sins that eventually lead to their public downfall.
I'm not wanting to kick a good man while he's down, but he's not the first and he won't be the last.
Nobody expects any pastor to be perfect- I know I certainly am far from perfect.
But it seems to me that there is some kind of cancer in American Christianity that allows this scenario to play out time and again.
It's partly sociological and partly in the way ministry works out.
America is the bastion of rugged individualism. The super-hero has its birth in American culture. In Christian culture it's the super-pastor who single handedly plants a church and build it to several thousand people in the space of a few years.
The individualistic culture is good in that it allows people of exceptional quality to rise up and achieve incredible things. But its downfall is that it resists accountability, personal transparency and development of character.
The other dark side to this is that in churches, often the pastor is a kind of benevolent dictator who is not accountable to anyone. With the decline of denominations, there is a corresponding decline in oversight of ministries.
Without genuine apostolic covering, we will see more and more super-pastors falling. Without the kind of accountability that allows people to confess their weaknesses in a non-condemning environment, this will just keep happening.
We all need spiritual fathers who will nurture and discipline us. That applies to pastors, apostles, prophets and everybody in ministry.
There is no room in the church any more for "Lone Ranger" type pastors.
Blessings
Keith
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