Ep. 75 Pastors and Moral Failure Pt.1

What causes trusted pastors to fall into moral failure, and how can we prevent it? In this eye-opening episode of the Words for Change podcas, we scrutinize the immense pressures facing pastors today, particularly those in the evangelical and Southern Baptist traditions, and how these factors contribute to their moral lapses. #robertmorrisscandel

We don't stop at identifying the problems; we offer actionable insights to support pastors in maintaining their moral compass. 

Listen in as we also discuss the crucial role of church boards in ensuring ethical behavior and integrity among religious leaders including inspiring message from Bishop TD Jakes #BishopJakes

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Chapters

• 0:00 Moral Failure Among Religious Leaders
• 15:54 Psychological Triggers of Moral Failure
• 29:00 Precautionary Measures for Religious Leaders

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

As of 2024, as you're listening to this podcast, less than a third of Americans view pastors as highly honest and ethical people, down from 40% to 32% over the past four years. And might I add that, based on recent information that you and I have been introduced to what we've seen in the media, these numbers are going to change drastically. Well, hello everybody, welcome to the Words for Change podcast. This is your host, lionel, and I want to say happy Tuesday, happy podcast Tuesday. As a matter of fact, this Tuesday I'm actually not recording this live, I'm recording this previously. By the time you listen to this podcast, I will be in Europe doing some business as well as hoping to vacation with the family, and so today we're talking about and addressing the critical topic of moral failure among pastors. This is something that we cannot deny, nor can we neglect, because, as you have witnessed all throughout the media, that this situation is becoming unglued primarily amongst the evangelical church, I would say even within the Southern Baptist tradition. You've seen and I've witnessed many, many pastors who have great ministries, have had great impact on our world and on Christianity in the United States, are coming under an immense amount of scrutiny, and some of them rightly so Now I must say that some of the pastors that are mentioned, I know them personally, have worked with him. I'm not for sure equally or intimately excuse me acquainted with him, but I know a lot of them, and so this comes as much a shock to me as it does for you.

Speaker 1: 2:11

Now I will say that I come to this topic not in a judgmental attitude. My attitude is not judgmental at all. My attitude is one of trying to find understanding. That's my goal. My goal is to help all of us to understand why moral failures occur in religious leaders, particularly in pastors, and how we can prevent them. As a person who served people have served in the church or in pastoral ministry this comes close to my heart and is very, very important to me. And my goal is I prayed through this and I asked the Lord to give me wisdom about how I talk about this, because my goal is not to be judgmental. God brought to me Psalms 23,. The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want, and that you and you know, and I know that Jesus is the perfect shepherd. But but you and I also know that there are many pastors and leaders who can influence how we understand or see or view said pastors and shepherds. So we're going to explore the causes and preventative measures from a biblical perspective and touch on the psychological part somewhat. But our goal is to gain insight to the basic concepts and delve at it this way.

Speaker 1: 3:40

Now we in the church need to understand what do we mean when we say moral failures. You and I have probably, over the many, many years. If you've grown up in church, you understand this lingo. If you have not grown up in church or didn't, your family didn't take you to church on a regular basis. It was not part of how you were raised or how you made moral decisions or how you develop your morality then this is going to be the concept or phrase of moral failure.

Speaker 1: 4:11

May not have much make much sense to you, but just for a good, solid definition so that we're all on the same page, moral failure is a significant breach of ethical and moral standard. Significant breach of ethical and moral standard. That standard can be held by, that is expected to be held by, a religious leader. It is an example of this individual who stands and represents God amid a community, is expected to act and behave in certain ways to not have certain sorts of misconduct, and those misconduct can include adultery, sexual impropriety, financial misconduct, abuse of power and many other circumstances or many other topics, just to name a few. But from a biblical perspective, just to name a few.

Speaker 1: 5:06

But from a biblical perspective, we've seen moral failure recorded in the Bible and the biblical perspective describes moral failure as a departure from the word or the ethical commandments of God. In the Hebrew Bible and Old Testament it's really moral failure, or sin is another way we classify this in the church is understood as something that causes us to make a direct disobedience toward biblical context of toward a commandment given by God. And in the Hebrew Bible there was a commandment that violated the 630, some odd laws that Moses gave to the children of Israel upon his descent from Mount Sinai when he received the law that was summarized into what we all know as the Ten Commandments. So biblically, moral failure is seen as a disobedience toward a commandment of God, is seen as a disobedience toward the commandment of God. Now, given texture to what that means in the lives of people. We see more failure in King David and his sin with Bathsheba in 2 Samuel 11. You also see Peter's denial of Christ in Matthew 26. You see Paul talks about this as he dealt with the church of Corinthians at Corinth. You see, paul talks about this as he dealt with the church of Corinthians at Corinth.

Speaker 1: 6:31

Saul and the book of Samuel, who disobeyed the commandment of God, the commandment of God that was given by the prophet Samuel to slaughter the Amalekites right, and we're not going to get into the ethical issue of that right now. But upon him returning back from battle, samuel the prophet said to him what is this bleeding of the sheep out here? Did not God tell you to slaughter everything, to get rid of everything, to get rid of everyone? And so you have here again disobeyed a direct commandment of God. These are the biblical examples, just a few. There's many others, I'm sure. If you read the Bible then you know of many other stories. If you haven't, then these two stories I gave you in 2 Samuel, 11 and 1 Samuel, as well as in Matthew 26, verse 69 to 75, you can go back and look at those stories and they can give you more context From a biblical perspective. What about moral integrity? So the Bible sets a high standard for leaders.

Speaker 1: 7:30

Okay, first, timothy three, one through seven talks about what are some of the qualifications of a person seeking the office of a bishop or overseer or elder. These are particular words that was mentioned. This text, this pericope in 1 Timothy 3, is also in Titus 1, chapter 1, 5 through 9. It outlines the qualifications that emphasizes self-control, respectability, the ability to teach, and so if you look at those texts, these texts describes what, what is expected of those who will lead in a religious context, particularly from a christian, biblical religious context. Okay, so if you are from another religious tradition, we're not referring to those religious communities we're primarily talking about, in a Christian, in a Western Christian perspective, what is expected of leaders. And I'll just go as far as to say anyone who's standing as a moral figure of some sort has qualifications that he or she are expected to maintain.

Speaker 1: 8:47

I think what we get it wrong, often the church get it wrong is that we don't account for the humanity in these people. When 1 Timothy and Titus talks about the qualifications of an elder or overseer or a leader, he's talking about setting a standard. That doesn't mean a person is perfect, but it means that they should strive toward these standards. And that's something critical for us to consider as we look at the public shaming, if you will, of these pastors by the public media and as if you were a person in church or a person who is connected to a church. Obviously, there are some egregious failures that some of these leaders have participated in, and by no means am I condoning them, but my heart and my spirit is of that of how. Why are we having these problems? Why are people, why is it consistently a problem? Are we in a position where we can't see the forest because of the trees? In other words, we keep looking at the byproduct through these said behaviors versus looking at what's actually causing these behaviors and how can we get at it. So that's my heart and that's my motive.

Speaker 1: 10:12

Proverbs 4.23 says guard your heart, because out of it flows the issues of life. So if we look at King David again, right, despite his faith, he was a man of faith. Faith, right. So we're still talking about biblical perspectives, moral integrity. He committed adultery and he committed murder, and the consequences were severe family strife, national turmoil. David was the king of Israel, so because he had sinned against God, it caused that his sin had consequences that affected his family and his leadership position as well. Samson is another example of a person who had allowed his personal sins to make him unable to make wise decisions. His personal sins kept him from having the strength of moral will to resist temptations leading to an eventual capture and death.

Speaker 1: 11:12

So these stories remind us that God chooses leaders, and this is an important point here that will fail. As long as you have people in a human institution, you're going to have failures, you're going to have mistakes, you're going to have people who do things that they shouldn't do. Now the question you're asking yourself well, listen, there are deeper issues here. It's not just about the fact that you guys remember, years ago, mark Driscoll out of I can't remember the name of the church right now, but he was out of Seattle. I lived in Seattle for about five years, marcio Church.

Speaker 1: 11:52

His issues first began with plagiarism, and you can go on and on and look at as of late, I think it's Ravi Zacharias. Sorry, I'm not going to edit this, by the way. I'm just going to let it go because I have to record this podcast and then prepare to start packing so I can get ready to go out of town. So it's not going to be perfect, but I pray that you forgive me and charge it to my head, not my heart, okay. So Robbie Zacharias, who was who was caught up in some kind of uh egregious, uh sex trafficking, uh situation, and it's something that I brought that came to my mind as well that a lot of these there.

Speaker 1: 12:36

There are two contexts that we have to think about. All of this stuff is happening. All of these stories are coming to the light during a presidential election year. That's the first thing that I talked to my friends about. I said why do you think this? I said well, I think it has something to do with. It's a political election year and people are doing a lot of research on pastors and notice where these things are happening. They're happening primarily in the South. These stories are coming out. I'm talking about I'm not saying that they're not pastors. It's stories that are happening in different parts of the United States, like on the East Coast or up North, but I'm saying these stories are being highlighted in the news, are coming primarily from churches in the South, pastors who typically vote or hold the Republican evangelical line right and those who have spoken out publicly about certain kinds of sins.

Speaker 1: 13:32

You and I must look at what context is happening here as we think about what's really happening, what's really going on Now. None of that excuses the problem. I want to make that clear. None of that excuses the problem. I want to make that clear. None of that excuses the problem. Okay, and, by the way, I just want to say before we go on, if, if, if you have a question or you got a concern, if you're looking at show notes and you want to send me a question or you, I would love to hear back from you. I really, really would. What do you thought about this episode and was it helpful to you at all? So there's a in the show notes, if you, there should be a link where you can send me a text message. I'll actually get a message or email and then, when I come back on the line, I answer that email. I won't mention names and you can say if you would like for me to mention your name or not, and I'll bring that up during our next episode. So what about the psychological factors? And here's something that we really don't talk about.

Speaker 1: 14:27

We in church leadership I can remember after serving in large past churches I'm talking about. I served with Dr Tony Evans and I have a lot of respect for him. I don't know exactly what he's going through, but, man, I'm telling you, always seen as a person of character, always seen as a person who, you know, kept his nose straight, he had people that kept him accountable, his elder board, so forth and so on. So very, very surprised about all of it. But in all of my years of over 20 years of being in pastoral leadership and what I mean by pastoral leadership that means serving in local congregations, being around pastors, being at conferences, traveling the United States, speaking, teaching Bible, college teaching the Bible, doing Wednesday night prayer services, doing three or four or five services on Sunday morning for years at a time, not include everything that went on during the weekday. I was really up close and personal to all of this and through all of my experiences I cannot remember one time, except maybe in seminary, going through my first master's degree, that we ever talked about understanding the psychological behavior behind pastorship, behind leadership. So the psychological considerations gives us insight into why these more affairs occur.

Speaker 1: 15:54

Some people call, some psychologists call it cognate dissonance theory suggests that we act against our own beliefs and the experience causes mental discomfort and which which we often try to resolve through, often through justification. So there's a sense of cognitive dissonance, right? So you may say well, how can a person who has that much influence proceed on to act in such a way? How can a famous teacher and preacher and evangelist go on to be involved with sex trafficking? Some call it psychology. Psychologists and psychiatrists call it a mental discomfort. Right, it is this that leads them to justifying their behavior. Okay, some other psychological triggers stress and burnout are significant triggers. I remember years ago asking one of my mentors, how do you deal with stress? And he said something to me that really stuck with me. His words to me were sometimes people deal with stress in different ways and there are times when people allow their worst demons to rise because they haven't figured out other productive ways to relieve their stress.

Speaker 1: 17:19

Pastors often face immense pressures to meet spiritual and emotional needs from congregants. This is some of the triggers. That comes from burnout, leading to exhaustion, isolation and other factors. The lack of a support network. Pastors can become vulnerable. Personality disorder, such as narcissism, can also come into this question of moral failure, and this is important because these psychological triggers what we call them, are important to talk about, because there are pastors in positions right now who could possibly have a diagnosable or have never been diagnosed, with multiple personality disorder, narcissistic tendencies, split personalities, but they've never been tested because they hid it all under the blood of Jesus. And this is problematic.

Speaker 1: 18:18

And if what we are experiencing through this rise and surge of the public shaming of pastors and leaders and then again, I just want to be clear I'm not talking about those who are obviously making egregious mistakes, I'm not condoning any of those. What I'm simply getting at is what's the reason? Why is this happening? Right, the goal is to figure out why, in order to be a more healthy pastorate, okay, there are pastors in positions of authority that have never been clinically diagnosed with actually mental health issues and mental health concerns, and it is stress, comes into their life, it increases and causes more problems. So so, when we talk about psychological triggers right, these are very clinical terms that I'm using it's an immense pressure that comes from spiritual and emotional needs, what people need versus what they need, what pastors need, the immense amount of exhaustion.

Speaker 1: 19:23

I remember doing research years ago while in seminary and we talked about that pastors, the pastoral industry are some of the most underpaid and most exhausted, stressed out leaders in the American workforce. And so if you couple these triggers with any other factors, like family problems with any other factors like family problems, personal growing up with childhood abuse or any of these things. What happens is when these triggers come up and stress increases them, guess what happens? They don't know how to deal with it and so they begin dealing with it in very, very immoral ways. Okay, so external factors as well? Right. Some of the other triggers are high expectations, being morally impeccable, feeling a sense of overwhelm, being overwhelmed because of the budget. If you've ever gone through a church budget or having to raise money, it is a stressful process, which is the reason why you may see this being evident if you see pastors who are extremely overweight Because one, they're sitting down most times because they're studying the scriptures. So they could be sitting down for 20, 30, 40, 50 hours a week and not really moving their body as much because of the expectation that they must deliver, and some pastors are.

Speaker 1: 20:56

Think about it if you are a pastor who has, the average church attendance is around 60 people in America. So if you look at some of these large churches, they have thousands of congregants and millions of dollars that are coming through. Not just they're not coming through their hands personally, but typically they have a CFO or someone else who has a financial background who handles these things. So they're not. They're not dealing with the money personally. And so if you are a church, a small church pastor, meaning a church that's 40 or below, or maybe a hundred. When it starts to get around over a hundred, most statistics say this is when one pastor can only handle about a hundred people before he has to start getting other people to help him out, him or her out. So if you consider these things, if you consider these realities, if you add to all of that thousands of dollars, millions of dollars, millions of programs, millions of volunteers, family pressure, you can only imagine the amount of tenacity, stick-to-it-ness that these preachers need to have. And so, again, we're talking about the triggers and the social pressures that can impact a pastor's decision-making process. So these pressures can make him or her overwhelmed and seek to escape through inappropriate ways. And this is when scrutiny amplifies. And many people don't know that when pastors come down from sermons on Sunday morning, some pastors are only doing one service a month, sorry, a week. Some pastors are doing three, four and five services a day, a day. The moral impeccability, the pressure is absolutely overwhelming, and I could not make emphasize this enough Serving as a pastor myself of a church plant, I remember on several occasions having to worry about the rent for the facilities where we were having church, then worship practices that happened during the week, then Bible study, and then people calling me after hours because they were having family problems.

Speaker 1: 23:18

People in the hospital. Having to be, at one point, a real estate broker right, having to know things about real estate, having to know about the local laws, working with kids who were in abused environments and abused homes, and having to know about the local laws working with kids who are were in abused environments and abused homes and having to kind of know what the laws were to try to assist families with these things. Then being an accountant right Now, I hired an accountant. I didn't deal with the money, so I hired somebody to help me out with that. I didn't deal with the money, so I hired somebody to help me out with that. But these are again right. I remember from my personal experience it was just a lot going on, not to mention I had a wife, I have a wife, I have kids, I have kids. So it's just absolutely overwhelming. Okay, some church cultures are very toxic. That's what I wanted to say Right Based on the wanted to say Right Based on the people. You have Right.

Speaker 1: 24:14

Some people come to churches because they're out to shame pastors. I remember doing making a really bad decision as a pastor. I remember having a sermon series called God Question and I put word out in the community and I told everybody you bring anyone you want to bring on Sunday morning and we're going to answer all their questions about faith. Now, number one that was an arrogant thing for me to do, but you know, when you're young you make silly decisions like that. But then, two, I had no way of controlling what people were saying. So people came up and lying. I mean, we had a microphone in the middle of the sanctuary, on the floors, chairs on both sides. I'm standing up front like the arrogant know-it-all and people came down to the microphone and ask questions and I answer questions and some people they had every intent to prove why my religious perspective was wrong or why church was wrong or why Jesus was not the way.

Speaker 1: 25:20

Okay, I obviously put myself in a situation, but there are many times when pastors who maybe have a after preaching a sermon, step down to greet people and thank them for coming, people begin critiquing them, I mean, right after the service and most pastors. If you're a good pastor as far as in teaching the scripture the way you're supposed to, you spend somewhere between 20 to 30 hours a week preparing those messages Okay, and so to have somebody rip them apart although it's it's, you know, there's nothing morally wrong with that questioning a religious leader. But what I'm getting at is that there are a lot of different strains and struggles that lead to or contribute to moral failure. Lead to or contribute to moral failure. And when pastors don't have a safe place to express their struggles or their sins, or their mistakes, or their frustrations and or fears, they what lead to destructive behavior? Okay.

Speaker 1: 26:23

In 2021, a survey by the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability found that 94% of ministry leaders and board chairs believe that leadership failures are negatively impacting donor trust, according to Gallup poll. Here's another one about public trust toward clergy in 2024, less than a third of Americans view pastors as highly honest and ethical. Okay, so, and I think a lot of this has to do with the frequencies of failure. While exact statistics are, some of these statistics are questionable in my opinion, but some of them have some merit. They may be a little off, but they are addressing some critical issues and asking great questions. One source claims that 40% of pastors polled admitted to having extramarital affairs since beginning their ministry. The same source reports that 70% of pastors consistently fight depression. 50% feel so discouraged that they would leave the ministry. If they could that they would leave the ministry as they could. I'm a country boy.

Speaker 2: 27:31

I'm from West Virginia. I don't know nothing about this big time stuff. I never even asked to be big. I wanted to be effective, not famous. Famous is the consequences of being effective. I didn't know nothing about being famous and I didn't like it. And the first time I was in the Washington Post the article was so vicious it made me nauseous. I was so shocked that you could say that stuff about somebody you didn't even know.

Speaker 2: 28:03

Based on assumptions and a little bit of this and a little bit of that, they piece it all together and you don't get the same thing back. So I decided I don't want this. I was preaching for Pastor Bishop Donnie Mears, and nobody knew it, because preachers can override their feelings and function. I preached the places on fire, but inside I want to quit. I told God I'm through with this. I'm not going through this. I don't need this. I don't see, I don't need that. I'm not going through this. I don't need this. I don't see, I don't need that. I'm a guy who likes to go get his own chicken wings. I don't have to have all of that stuff to be happy. So I said I'm not doing this, no more, I'm not doing it. I'm not doing this. I'm not doing this because I don't need this and I didn't ask for this. I'm only doing this because of what happened in my life, of the circumstances that happened in my life. He put me on stage. I didn't ask for it and when I saw how much it costs I thought you can have that right back here. You can have that right back up in here. I don't need it.

Speaker 2: 29:00

So I was mad inside and I was hurt and I stayed up in the fellowship with the pastors because I didn't want to go back to my room and sulk in my own sorrows. And they said there's a lady down in the chair waiting to see you. The service was over and the fellowship was over. The pastor was starting to leave. I was trying to outwait her.

Speaker 2: 29:17

I thought she'd give up and leave and when I finally came down the steps, she was there and she was just a willowy bit of a woman and she said Bishop Jakes. She said I've been in the hospital. She said I was pregnant in my fallopian tubes and the baby died in my tubes and I was carrying around a dead baby and the toxicity from the baby almost killed me. And she said the only thing that kept me alive was hearing you preach. She said if you hadn't have been preaching to me every day, I swear I would have died. And then she looked at me and she said it's for us. It's not for them, it's for us. It hit me so hard I didn't even get her name. I got in the car and cried all the way back to my room.

Speaker 1: 30:35

But I just want to say this as we kind of push toward so what do we do with all of this? Well, you know how do we handle this. What are some of the precautionary measures that we should take? Well, in response to these issues, I would say that there are standards that need to be put in place to combat this. And, although that statement I made is a clear statement, I'm not sure how we do that. I'm not 100% sure if there should be a general standard we put in place in order to counteract that.

Speaker 1: 31:12

And there are some organizations that have proposed emphasizing proactive care and support to help leaders maintain their integrity. It's really easy for me to say this is a complex issue, right, and if we were to be 100% fair, give pastors a fair shake and ministry leaders and again, I'm not talking about people who, well, let's say, I'm talking about all of them priests, clergymen, pastors right, some of them know some of the organizations they are part of, are aware of the issues, but they don't address it because it reflects negatively upon the organization and that's a problematic because the pastor gets caught up in that, particularly if you have people who, in higher echelons, who put pastors in places of of local ministry, control their lives and thus their livelihood Right? So, um, I think, what? What lives and thus their livelihood Right? So I think what most of this research shows us is that different generations vary in their perspective. The more modern generations of clergy believe that they're a little bit more cynical about church. You think about kids who leave church after high school or don't want to associate with church anymore at all.

Speaker 1: 32:39

Okay, so if we talk about preventative measures, right, I can be tongue-in-cheek, but I'm going to say this here are some quick solutions that I'm going to share, and when I say solutions I don't mean comprehensive. I mean perhaps you, if you have a pastor friend, maybe you can encourage them and ask them tough questions when they step down from that sermon on Sunday morning, instead of you telling them how good their sermon is. Ask them questions like how is your regular prayer life? Are you reading the Bible? Are you participating in personal devotion? Is that essential to you? Are you developing strong relationships with God and with people? Do you have a therapist to help you to resist temptation? Right, ask these important questions. Psalms 119.11 says you know, hiding God's word in your heart keeps you or helps you. It doesn't always solve the problem, but it does help point you in the right direction.

Speaker 1: 33:39

Two the accountability structures right. Most churches have elder boards, but your church pastor doesn't need to have an elder board that are full of yes, people, but it needs to be people who will ask hard questions. Iron sharpens iron Psalms 27, 17 says so. One person sharpens another. The church board is there for oversight, and oversight means if a pastor or leader doesn't maintain a particular standard that this congregation has set, it doesn't mean that he or she is perfect. It just means we want you to live up to this standard. Pastors have to be clear. Board and church elders have to insist that they be clear and honest.

Speaker 1: 34:25

I would also recommend self-care, like mental health. Get a therapist, taking breaks and vacations and seeking professional counseling. Some pastors may have mental health issues and the worst thing we can do if we're seriously about solving the root of the problem, right, if a pastor has a mental health issue, do you kick him out, her out, or do you help them work through that to manage stress and balance their lives and family lives. Okay, so, so these are some, some important things. So once again, I'm going to say some preventative measures would be accountability, accountability, understanding, spiritual disciplines, self-care, mental health. These are three things that are vitally important Spiritual disciplines, accountability, structure and self-care. If you care about your pastor and you care about their family, then I highly encourage you to encourage your pastor to seek out these three things.

Speaker 1: 35:22

Okay, some of the other important topics are some pastors may have psychological split, personalities, right I? There's a psychological theory that says that personality understanding a person's personality trait as more conscientious can predict more failure. What do I mean by that? If you know you are struggling with man, this is tough, know you are struggling with man, this is tough. But if you are a pastor and you have these different kinds of struggles like lust or taking money or being unethical or untruthful about things, knowing that and then addressing that, hey, to the board, I struggle with these things before you get hired, I think, although this is a far stretch and I just I know they're not, I mean pastors listening to this. You're going to go, you're out of your mind. I'd never get a church if I said something like this. I'd never if my elder board knew they'd sit me down immediately. Well fine. I'd never if my elder board knew they'd sit me down immediately. Well, fine, because at the end of the day, my goal here is to number one help us to refine pastoral ministry, right?

Speaker 1: 36:38

The purpose of our podcast is called Words for Change Podcast, and what I mean by words for change is something that will say, either by me, a guest that I bring on, or something that is a read or information that we bring to you. It's going to help you be a more authentic person. One of the reasons why I am not currently serving in a pastoral leadership was because I wanted to see more diversity in churches, and I felt that what was happening in church was just people speaking in an echo chamber, right, people speaking in an echo chamber instead of getting out into the world. Then that's a conversation for another day. But what I'm saying is that I wasn't living authentically to myself, so I wanted to change that, and if that meant that I needed to leave church to do that, then so be it. I want you guys to look up Carton Pearson. Carton Pearson Lord rest his soul died recently.

Speaker 1: 37:44

He was the guy who started the Azusa Street Revivals Pentecostal preacher Church of God in Christ. I think the largest Church of God in Christ is the largest black Pentecostal denomination in the world, I think. But Carlton Pearson was responsible for the introduction of Bishop TD Jakes and some other Gary Oliver, some of the famous Pentecostal preachers, speakers, pastors and worship leaders that we are familiar with today. In fact, I have a cousin who's a singer right now and I remember him singing years ago at Azusa Street and Lord bless him as he's out doing God's work right now. But Carlton Pearson had a church in Oklahoma I think it was in Tulsa, oklahoma, and God spoke to him about that.

Speaker 1: 38:31

There is no hell. Now I'm not saying that. I believe that. I'm just saying this is. I'm telling you his story. But he believed that the Lord had showed him that there was no such thing as hell and what he went to his church against some of his friends in the ministry who told him don't do it Some of his Bishop friends. He went before his church and said I don't believe in that, that doctrine anymore. And he lost his church, he lost his Sousa street, he lost and eventually ended up losing his family and eventually lost his life. He died because of I think he had prostate cancer, had come back. But when you talk with him he's got a book that's called the Gospel of Inclusion. His name is Carlton Pearson, p-e-a-r-s-o-n. Go. Look him up, bishop Carlton Pearson. He wrote a book called the Gospel of Inclusion.

Speaker 1: 39:24

As a matter of fact, some of you who listened to this episode you may be familiar with Carlton. But he said that he just didn't believe those things anymore and at heart of heart, he tried. He had grown up a third or fourth generation of Pentecostal. Nobody knew church like Carlton Peterson knew church. He deviated so far away from what his background and religious spirit, tradition and doctrine taught him, but he believed that it was God leading him and he went that way.

Speaker 1: 39:59

Now I'm not encouraging that for the listeners. What I'm saying is that he wanted to be authentically himself listeners. What I'm saying is that he wanted to be authentically himself. If that means that you can't serve a church, doesn't mean that you can't serve God outside of a church, all right. So listen, I have talked a lot and I just want to encourage you that being a conscientious pastor, knowing your failures, knowing your shortcomings and putting them forefront, can maybe help chisel out a more healthy leadership posture. Right Ongoing education is essential.

Speaker 1: 40:38

There's, you know, the days are long gone to you know, calling the seminary the cemetery. Right People. Young people today want sensible religion, they want sensible Christianity, they want sensible spirituality, something that they can live authentically into for themselves, but it still allows them to be an effective citizen and to maintain their personal integrity right and then foster an environment of transparency I just shared that a moment ago and then foster an environment of transparency. I just shared that a moment ago. So today we've explored the causes of you know, we talked about more failure pastors from a biblical perspective and I've talked about it from a psychological perspective, and we discussed the importance of spiritual disciplines, accountability and self-care, and I want to encourage you to implement these.

Speaker 1: 41:22

If you're a pastor listening to me, please reach out to me. I would love to have a conversation. If you need a friend, or if you know you have a pastor who needs a friend, please reach out to me. I would love to help, to assist, if not anything else, just to be a listening ear and a chaplain core. It's one of the things that we do all the time. We talk about the importance of self-care and being able to tell each other really what's going on in our lives and our family lives, and that's a very healthy culture, because no one's expected to be perfect. We're expected to be authentic.

Speaker 1: 41:54

Okay, so I want to encourage you to implement these strategies and let us work together to support leaders and hold them up to integrity, but not just for the sake of criticism, but to provide opportunities to strengthen their character. Just as pastors and leaders who stood in the gap for you, prayed for you, who helped your family get through financial difficulty, who sat at your bedside and prayed for your husband while he was sick with cancer, or who came to visit you late at night when you were in jail and nobody else was there to help you. Well, that one pastor, that one leader who went into his or her own pocket to help bring you out of the miry clay, to bring you out of a place where you had no answers and nobody was there listening to you, these are the people that I'm talking about. There's a lot of good, just as though there are preachers out there who do horrible things, there's a lot of good ones out there too. So let's close in prayer.

Speaker 1: 43:05

Father, I thank you for listening. I thank you, god, that you've given me the insight to at least have this conversation. It's a tough one. I pray in your name that you help those who are struggling, not only their pastors, but the victims who've been abused or taken advantage of. But my efforts here here may not be in vain, because, at the end of the day, what we're simply doing or trying to do in your name is to help make us all better, so that your church can be more healthy, so that, in turn, communities, states and our nation and our world can be a better place. I thank you for everyone who's listened to this. I pray your blessings over them, that you would speak to them, give them wisdom, insight and courage to not just criticize but to speak truth with the spirit of love In Jesus' name, amen. Well, thank you, guys, for listening. Remember, let's strengthen each other, strengthen our resolve and support each other, and I salute you. Until next time I'll see you back on the other side. I wish you all the best.