Another Pastor?
News broke yesterday that Steve Lawson has been removed from his church over an inappropriate relationship with a woman. In his 70s and well-known in Reformed Christian circles, Lawson was the pastor of Trinity Bible Church, the Dean of the D.Min program at the Master’s Seminary, a teacher at Ligonier, and a sought-after conference speaker and preacher. He and his wife Anne have been married for 40 years and have four grown children.
We cannot and should not speculate about the nature of the relationship or the situation until more information comes out. The announcement from Trinity Bible Church said Lawson made the elders aware of an inappropriate relationship and he was promptly removed from his position and no longer affiliated with or compensated by the church.
It’s been a long discouraging summer for the church in the Dallas area. Steve Lawson is the latest pastor to fall, but it comes after Robert Morris was removed at Gateway, Tony Evans at Oak Cliff, two lead pastors at Cross Timbers, Matt Chandler took a leave of absence last year from the Village, and there are many others.
I was shocked and saddened by the news about Lawson. He’s someone I’ve looked up to and learned a lot from in ministry. In some ways, maybe I was more shocked than I was by any of these others. Like John MacArthur, one of his closest friends and ministry partners, Steve Lawson was not among the young, charismatic, flashy celebrity preachers. He made a name for himself as an old-school expositor, preacher, and student of the Bible. He has nearly 50 years of faithful ministry. He’s styled himself after the Puritans and giants of the past. But, of course, none of that makes you any less likely to fall.
There are a lot of factors in this spate of high-profile pastoral failures. Celebrity-ism in the church is one and needs to be addressed. Turns out Jesus wasn’t kidding when he said it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of the needle than it is for a rich person (and a powerful person) to get to Heaven. There is the relational problem inherent in megachurches and national platforms. There is an unhealthy concentration of authority and influence among a very small group of people.
The one that’s been on my heart for the last few years and that I want to talk about this morning is building cultures of grace.
A Bigger Problem
One verse I’ve seen floating around this conversation is 1 Corinthians 10:12, “Therefore let anyone who thinks that he stands take heed lest he fall.” The battle with sin is lifelong. There is no age in which the battle is over. There is no ministry status or achievement at which you can coast. Until we die and we are glorified with Christ, we will be fighting against the temptations of the flesh, the world, and the devil, and we should all take this moment as a sobering reminder that we are hopelessly weak without the power of the Holy Spirit.
The cliche has been proven true a million times over; “There but for the grace of God go I.” I think of the great verse in “Come Thou Fount,” “Prone to wander, Lord I feel it, prone to leave the God I love. Take my heart, Lord, take and seal it. Seal it for thy courts above.”
I have not seen so many people quoting the next verse in the passage, though, “No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it.”
Combined with another story that broke yesterday about Vince Bantu, this latest round of pastoral failures has reinforced for me the rot running through Christian leadership culture. One of the books I think every Christian needs to read is Paul Tripp’s book Lead. I’ve gone through it with our elders, deacons, residents, and interns. It’s a starter for every Christian leader, church member, pastor, or church employee.
After watching the implosion of Mars Hill, both from inside the board of accountability and later from the outside, Paul Tripp put his finger on a missing piece in the conversation about celebrity pastor failings. It’s not just about them; it’s also about everyone around them. The problem is deeper than the personal sins of the pastors. We have a systemic problem in churches and organizations as the leadership community level. In short, we need to relearn how to function as communities of grace.
Cultures of Grace
When a pastor fails, there are typically two reactions. Sometimes, the community around them covers for them. This is what happened with Bill Hybels and Robert Morris. There were signs, reports, and victims, but the elders of the church ignored, suppressed, and attacked them to various degrees. They forgave, forgot, and denied accusations for years. Finally, things became so public, so undeniable, and so costly to the churches and organizations that they had to take action. In both of these cases, the pastors were defiant and unrepentant, but in others, the cover-ups were part of the process of “repentance.” In other cases, the church celebrates the level of grace they can show and touts the offense as an opportunity for forgiveness and restoration. We see this played out in 1 Corinthians 5.
The problem with this extreme is that grace is not a license to sin. There are disqualifying sins and patterns among pastors that require other church leaders to remove them from ministry if they will not step down. In the horrid case of Vince Bantu, his accountability partners and the institutions where he works do share some of the blame. Those who did not have the courage to stand up to him, fire him, and pass along the truth about him to future institutions are not showing grace; they are complicit - not in his sins - but in the ongoing impact and destruction of his sins.
On the other side, we are all familiar with graceless situations of another kind. The first sign of trouble and a leader is ousted. Standards are so high that no one can measure up. In fact, I think one of the things fueling the first category is the fear of being called legalistic or having a lack of grace - because this has often happened in the church!
Like so many other cases, both of the extremes are harmful. Paul Tripp takes us back to the middle. “Do our leadership communities function with a gospel-driven, restoration mentality? I know so many fallen leaders who were cast away and are supporting their families doing telemarketing, house construction, or computer sales. We should never minimize a leader’s sin, nor should we rush to put a leader back in the saddle who has not yet dealt with central issues in his heart, and certainly there are some cases in which a leader should never be restored to a position of leadership, but we also must not abandon our functional belief in the restorative power of God’s right-here, right-now grace” (Tripp, 30).
There is no way to eliminate sin from the world or the church until Christ comes to make all things new. There is no way to ensure sin-free pastors either. However, I do think a shift back to the central truth of the Gospel is needed in the church. We know what to do with sin, big and small; confess it, receive the grace of God through the blood of Jesus Christ, and put it to death.
I can’t speculate on the details of any of these particular cases, but in general inappropriate relationships do not happen all at once. Even it a particular instance happens quickly, there is a long process of preparation in the heart.
Tripp writes, “[A leadership community] cannot do its work if leaders are hiding sin that robs them of the singleness of heart that keeps them focused on both their ongoing need and the sacrificial work to which they’ve been called. Fear of looking weak and needy will rob us of the help we need for spiritual health” (Tripp, 58).
In order to be a community of grace, we need to make it normal to confess and receive forgiveness earlier in the process. We should be done with catching these sins in their final terminal stages. Like cancer or anything else, earlier is better. You can confess lust and be forgiven and stay in ministry. You cannot confess adultery and stay in ministry. Depending on the case, there may be all kinds of restoration that can happen.
My hunch is that many of these leaders, for a variety of different reasons, were unwilling to confess when the sin was stage 1, and now unfortunately, their ministry has been ruined because it came out at stage 4. “If we are afraid to confess sin before what should be the most spiritually mature community in the church, we are sadly living in a state of functional gospel amnesia, no matter how robust our theological grasp of the gospel is” (Tripp, 59).
The responsibility for building this kind of community lies with all of us. Is it ok to confess the seed sins? Can we confess to our elders or community group or spouse the roots of greed popping up? An errant look? A stumble on social media? Angry hateful thoughts? Thinking more of ourselves than we should? Ingratitude? Holding grudges?
If we can do this, then John says, “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9). This is where the cleansing should begin, not so far down the road.
In effect, this whole passage in John is about our topic. Let’s put the verse in context; “This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin. If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”
Fortunately for all of us, this is what we have in Christ. We can be forgiven any sin. We can be cleansed. We can be restored. We have fellowship with God through his Son. But that does not mean our sins won’t have earthly consequences, and for those in ministry and leadership, let’s build a culture of grace. Let’s make it normal to confess early and stay faithful and above reproach in the long run.
Dr. Cole Feix is the founder and president of So We Speak and the Senior Pastor of Carlton Landing Community Church in Oklahoma.
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