John H Armstrong

Pastors and Pornography

I wrote a book, The Stain That Stays, that deals with the problem of sexually fallen pastors and Christian leaders. I argue that in most every case the minister should resign and only after a long time, and in some cases never, return to pastoral care and leadership. This is not the place to further advance that argument. If you like you can read the book. It is available at our resource link at ACT 3 Online.

Perhaps the most frequently asked question I have gotten over the years is not about adultery in the ministry at all. It is about pornography and addiction to pornography. I wish to make it clear that I do not think this is a small problem. The numbers that I have seen suggest a large number of male ministers are addicted. This presents serious problems to an effective and truly powerful ministry. For one thing most men who are addicts are unable to preach with real power in the area of moral purity and they are in deep bondage to their own sense of guilt as well.

But the question remains: Does a problem with pornography mean a man should get out of the ministry? My answer may surprise you. I would say, simply put, "No." At least in many, if not most, instances. The man needs help and he needs it soon. But the problem itself does not mean he should quit. I find far too many ministers resign for the wrong reasons and far too many remain who should more than likely not be in the ministry. It is not for me to say who should stay and who should go. My role is to encourage faithfulness and purity but also to encourage ministers to truly seek God and not give up their calling too easily. This is a fine line often. I believe wisdom dictates a lot of latitude is needed in helping men deal with this issue, especially today. There is a line between easy grace and rigid moralism but sometimes it is not clear.

A good friend, Gene Redlin, writes an interesting blog. He has been a minister and now serves in a Lutheran Church as a charismatic prophet. He often comments on my blogs and writes things that are often provocative. I sometimes disagree with him and he with me but this has only made us even better friends. This guy is real, very honest and a truly delightful person with a world of good experience now that he is in his 60s and has understood life very deeply. I love him and count him a real buddy more and more. Check out his good blog on this provocative question at his Northern Gleaner site. Even if you disagree with Gene he will push you to think about encouragement in a powerful way. He did me. 

The Real Hazzards of Being a Pastor

I am convinced that most pastors have no idea how hard it is to be faithful and effective for another year, much less for an entire lifetime.  I am further convinced that virtually no one outside the pastoral ministry understands what is happening to good pastors in our own time. A recent survey by Dr. Richard A. Blackman, in a dissertation written for Fuller Theological Seminary, underscores my point very well.

1. 75% of pastors surveyed reported having at least one significant crisis due to stress.
2. 80% believed that ministry is affecting their families negatively.
3. 90% felt inadequately trained to meet the demands of their job.
4. 50% felt unable to do their jobs.
5. 37% of pastors had experienced inappropriate sexual contact outside of their marriage.
6. 40% of pastors experience a "serious relational conflict at least once a month." [My view: This is mostly with staff and/or church boards or councils.]
7. 50% of all pastors felt unable to meet the demands of their jobs.

Read those results one more time and you will likely get something of a clue about the real difficulty that a modern pastor faces in our culture in being spiritually, emotionally and sexually healthy. If this data is remotely accurate, and I have every reason to believe that it is, we are in real trouble and few are talking about it seriously. Almost all of the ministers that I know personally, and I would suppose I know several hundred as my friends, would agree with one or more of the above statements about themselves yet they would also have to add, "My congregation has little or no understanding of my difficulties and I dare not let anyone of them know."

Face it, the church is not a safe place to be a minister these days. It will not tolerate ministers who fail, generally speaking, and this is why so many pastors need real friends, people who care and friends that can really be trusted.

Someone asked me, a few years after I left pastoring a local church in 1992,  "Do you miss ministering to people one-to-one?" I answered, "I am doing more pastoral ministry than I have ever done before but these days I am doing it with pastors, some of the most broken and needy people I know." Bishops and denominational leaders once did this ministry but few really do it now in modern America.

I think I minister to a lot of pastors because I like them, understand them, and I am no threat to them or their job. I have no vested interest in their coming or going just interest in them as my friends. Sometimes I wish I had 36 hours in a day just to love more pastors.

And while you are thinking about it, if you are not a pastor, do your pastor a real favor and refuse to become his/her critic. Your pastor has plenty of those. Be a friend and seek to gain some insight into the pressures the pastor faces that you very likely do not understand. "[Love] always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres" (1 Corinthians 13:7).

Shepherd Leaders Needed: Others Need Not Apply

For some years I have taught biblical and common sense principles of leadership to churches. This all began by way of a two-day seminar I taught for another ministry back in the 1980s. This experience actually launched my present ministry but I did not understand this at the time. I found that I spent lots of time with pastors and other church leaders, in these local-church based seminars, teaching sessions to between 10 and 40 people about ten to twelve times a year. This experience forced me to listen, interact and develop people skills in the process. Being a student of anything that interests me at all (including theology, film, political theory, public policy, history, baseball and college football) I found that I wanted to study this subject of leadership much more intensely. I thus read lots of books, Christian and non-Christian. I talked to lots of leaders, some well-known and some not well-known at all. This all impacted my own sense of being a pastor and helped me to grow in that role during my sixteen years in my second church (1976-1992). (I was a church planter in my first four years of pastoral ministry, 1972-76.)

This is one of the reasons why the present controversy over my working with University Bible Fellowship (UBF), a controversy which I shall comment upon more fully in the not too distant future, strikes a unique cord in my own soul. Whenever a key element of biblically-based ministry is lost to an entire generation the dangers of a false recovery are very real. UBF is trying to do something that is both needed and very dangerous. This is one reason why they have made mistakes and also a major reason for why they get such strong reaction against them. The church in North America, generally speaking, has all but lost the older pattern of biblical shepherding. Seminaries don't teach it, and haven't taught it for decades. We generally seek catalytic change agents to lead our congregations, not shepherds who will care for sheep, or who at least make certain they are cared for by a team that knows how to do this ministry well.

We have plainly bought into the modern CEO model of leadership more than the humble disciple of Jesus model, which is relationally-based. This is so obvious that I would be surprised if anyone would challenge it. What people will challange is the idea that this change is an entirely negative one. Many would insist that we really do need the CEO approach, given the missional context of our time. Part of me resonnates with this point but part of me reacts strongly against it. In the end, we simply can't escape the strong and clear biblical teaching about shepherds and sheep. This metaphor can be abused, and is often misunderstood or misapplied for sure, but the metaphor is still rich and extremely important. I would argue that we must not loose it. (We must take some risks to recover it too.) But that is what I see happening in the American church, where there is an almost complete loss of the idea and what it means. And this has all happened in my lifetime, from the 1960s on.

The Denver Seminary Magazine (Winter, 2006) gave a very good definition of a shepherd leader in four points. See if you don't find these four extremely useful criteria good for beginning a serious discussion about this topic.

1. Good shepherd-leaders build relationships with people and people follow them because they know and trust them. They are not distant and isolaated, not strangers.

2. A good shepherd-leader exercises influence with people by walking in front of them and setting an example for people to follow.

3. Good shepherd-leaders are not selfishly focused on building themselves up.  Instead they focus on building other people up, helping them to grow and live a full life.

4. A good shepherd-leader serves people sacrificially. He or she protects people when they are threatened and continues to take care of them even when it requires personal sacrifice. Good shepherd-leaders don't run away when the going gets tough.

A biblical leader knows this reality of serving and being misunderstood and even rejected. A biblical leader knows he or she will be lied about, maligned and sometimes even attacked by people from within their own ministry or leadership team. This is a sad fact of spiritual warfare. But a real servant-leader must understand that the real battle is not with "flesh and blood." Such a Christian must be willing "to lay down their life" for the sheep if they are real shepherds.