Good responses and excellent questions came from the ministers attending the first two presentations of our seminar, Gift Based, Passion Driven, Ethical Ministry. For the third meeting, we drove as far north as we’d ever traveled in Ghana to the edge of the desert. The participants were mostly poor pastors from small tribes scattered across the scorched landscape. It soon became clear they were a unique group with different values and needs. Their questions were often challenging, but nothing we couldn’t answer with God’s help. But one question etched in my mind and still influences my thinking today. A pastor in dusty tattered clothes stood, “Do you mean that pastors are supposed to be ethical and can’t do anything they want?” My partner and I looked at each other both wondering if the man really understood what he asked. After class we took him aside and talked. With no training and barely able to read his Bible, no one had ever taught him basic ethical standards that apply to pastors and believers.
People might dismiss this as an isolated occurrence in a distant land. Sadly, ethical issues are becoming more and more frequent among talented, dynamic, successful leaders, even those pastoring mega-churches or leading huge para-church ministries. When they fall believers become confused because the minister taught them most of what they believe. They can’t understand how this could happen. I’ve personally watched at least fifteen ministers from whom I listened and learned but they fell into sin, not including the longer list of those I didn’t know. Again, this year, we have been shocked to hear that a noted church pastor with over 10,000 attenders, an international teacher, and a writer had joined the list of those who failed. Why does this continue to happen? No one-answer will suffice this question. Multiple issues can lead to failure.
However, a contributing factor, common to most if not all downfalls, comes from hidden character flaws. We tend to confuse spiritual gifting, talents, and charisma for character. Whether we call it character or ethics, it should be the central focus of one’s spiritual development. In the Pastoral Epistles to Timothy and Titus, Paul gives over thirty characteristics leaders and elders must demonstrate. An exercise I required of my students was to list each character and divide them under the headings know or do or be. The assignment required them to consider if this trait was something they must ‘know’ through intellectual study or a skill they must be able to ‘do’. Most important, was it an ethical characteristic they must ‘be’. It always surprised the class to realize that the majority of Paul’s list focused on the character of a person. We can list only a few under the headings ‘know’ or ‘do’.
Leaders and believers can be educated with a mind full of knowledge and have the skills necessary to do almost anything but have unaddressed flaws in their character. We can hide cracks for a time, but the trappings of success cause them to grow larger and larger. Accomplishments opens the door for pride; financial gains can lead to greed; abilities can facilitate a distancing from accountability—”I know what I’m doing. You can’t tell me how to run a church”. All of this can lead to political power, influence, and an illusion of grandeur.
Note these warnings about pride. Nebuchadnezzar leader of the greatest world empire walked on the roof of his royal palace and said to himself, “Is not this the great Babylon I have built as the royal residence, by my mighty power and for the glory of my majesty?” (Dan 4:30 NIV). Immediately, the Lord removed his royal power and drove him away from people and to live with the wild animals (v32). When pride comes, then comes disgrace (Prov 11:2 NIV). GOD IS OPPOSED TO THE PROUD (Jam 4:6, 1 Pet 5:5). Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought (Rom 12:3). Leaders can rise only so far until the pressures of success crash through the cracks inundating all the praise, the accomplishments, and the grandeur exposing who they really were behind their public persona and thought no one would ever know. The Lord will tear down the house of the proud (Prov 15:15).
God gives us talents and gifts to do His work. Character is a choice we make and strive to develop and maintain. No one builds character overnight, but we grow in character by thinking about good things (Phil 4:8), by putting into practice Christian virtues (2 Pet 1:5-6) and watch what we put into our hearts. Keep vigilant watch over your heart; that’s where life starts (Pro 4:23 MSG). Most important, grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ (2 Pet 3:18). Few of us have the disadvantages of the Ghanaian pastor who lacked opportunities to learn and ability to read well. “A.W. Tozer described character as ‘the excellence of moral beings.’ As the excellence of gold is its purity and the excellence of art is its beauty, so the excellence of man is his character.”
Sustaining Word for the Week: Who are you when no one is looking? When your life ends, the things you have achieved or the knowledge you gained pale in the light of the person you have become.