This is a challenging article from Christianity Today:
It’s refreshing news to hear of pastors taking a leave of absence not over sexual or financial misconduct, but over pride. Such was the case with John Piper last year, and this week with C. J. Mahaney. Mahaney has been president of the church planting network Sovereign Grace Ministries, which according to its website now includes “about 95 churches,” mostly on the East Coast. He is the founder of the megachurch Covenant Life Church, which he handed over to Joshua Harris after pastoring there for 27 years. He is also one of the leaders of the Together for the Gospel Conferences, and one of the most popular speakers in the neo-Reformed circuit.
The story behind his leave of absence is still unraveling. But he has publicly acknowledged that he has succumbed to “various expressions of pride, unentreatability, deceit, sinful judgment, and hypocrisy.”
It’s an interesting list of sins—ones that pastors all over America commit week in and week out. This is not to excuse Mahaney or to take such sins lightly. It is to suggest that the state of the modern American pastorate has been shaped so that these sins—especially pride and hypocrisy—are impossible to escape. For this reason, our pastors need not our condemnation, but our prayers. They are in a profession that is about as morally risky as they come.
Will you join me in praying for our pastors right now?
randy personius says
August 5, 2011 at 4:46 pmI really did enjoy reading this article it gives a different perspective to a major problem of “do whatever to grow the church” irregardless of whether people are getting saved or just getting emotional. It’s a shame when pastors are trapped into feeling they need to make changes to draw a crowd and then they will have to put the church in financial slavery just to build a bigger auditorium to draw even more people. And the foolish belief that the building and latte bar will keep people coming shows how far we have went away from the gospel message.and into showmanship! Paul had more true conversions to Christ in prisons and town squares with just the Word, and Peter also out in the city streets on the day of Pentecost without all the glit and glitter. I guess that we are fully immersed in the Laodecian Church Age and that we are getting close to the time of the rapture.
edward marricle says
August 6, 2011 at 8:40 amIn response to praying for our pastors I stand 110% in support of this plea. I have served in a small ministry for the last 7yrs and 5 of them has been as senior pastor. I am at a cross roads as to what my future holds for me. My wife and I are recovering from battle wounds that we have suffered and ours is are most certainly minor compared to those who preside over larger congregations than ourselves. It has been an honor and much more than we could have ever expected for God to do with us, however we haven’t had the intercessory prayer that is vital to survive the battle that a pastor and first lady of the church are subjected to. This doesn’t even include the trials and battles our children have and still are in the midst of. At this point we are hanging by the proverbial thread and we are seeking His plan for our future with this particular ministry. Will you join us in prayer, and pray for us? We do intend to continue to minister, I feel lead to go outside of the four walls that have contained us for these last few years, please pray for your pastor and your pastors family, it is vital to the survival of our church leadership. Thankyou
Abrom Meadows says
August 10, 2011 at 11:54 pmWe do cr into the Lord for the men He has chosen to stand in the gap, we hear of pastors who walks away,them that left their first love and their joy for preaching, fail to teach and war against sound doctrine, we pray as the days grow shorter and darkness cover the hearts of men we call unto the Lord, Dear Jesus hear up and cover us with thy mercy,