Forgiveness: Introduction To A Tough Topic

There are a lot of different streams that run into my story that I want to take time to deal with. One of these is more of a raging river than a stream. It's the topic of forgiveness.

As a former pastor, one of my last sermon topics was on forgiveness. I was dealing with letting go of the bad relationship I had with my father and also trying to help Angelica deal with her friend back home who had committed a sin. I searched Scripture to find out what was the right thing to do and the steps to take toward forgiveness.

Now, I'm living a life that needs forgiveness from others, one that has been granted forgiveness by God, and one that still holds onto the need to forgive a few people in my life.

One of my favorite phrases to use when writing this blog is, "I'll be honest." Usually, when I say that, I'm about to share something that comes from deep within me. Blogging anonymously gives me the ability to write about something I'm thinking but wouldn't tell some of my closest friends. It enables me to tell you things I would have never told people when I was a pastor. So here I go.

I'll be honest, I'm having a hard time with forgiveness right now. Especially in how others deal with it.

Now, let me be very, very clear. Ultra clear. Crystal clear. Cancun/Gulf of Mexico clear before the oil spill hit. I sinned. I hurt a lot of people. Do I stand here feeling like those people owe me something? Not really. But let me say it this way - there are a ton of relationships that I and my sin destroyed overnight and I hold out hope that they can be restored.

Do I believe they can be restored? Absolutely. The Bible tells me nothing less. Angelica has already reached out to me in forgiveness. I've had a couple of former church members reach out to me and tell me they don't hold anything against me.

Here's where I am today after talking to a bunch of fallen pastors. Please bear with me. Churches get hurt badly - very badly, by fallen pastors. I've seen it first hand and I've seen it through stories others have told me. It's awful. Their spiritual leader betrays them and they typically (or at least in my case) are disillusioned and lash out often in hurt. That hurt turns into bitterness, anger, and sometimes outright meanness.

I see that. I get it. That's how they feel. I've been hurt before. I've been angry before. I've lashed out before for a long period of time.

But you know what? I was wrong to do it.

Let me put it another way. When a church endures the fall of a pastor, they're typically hurt for a long time. Most of the fallen pastors I've talked to get pushed out the door and hide in shame for some period of time (don't hear me trying to get your pity, I'm not. You should know me by now if you read this blog at all, I'm just stating how things are). After that time of shame, a lot of them write a letter to the church of repentance (if they already haven't in their resignation).

What I find and what I've experienced is that their former church members don't want to have anything to do with them. Some have been out for 10-20 years and have heard nothing from former church members, despite attempting to reach out. One online article I read said that the pastor had been gone for 30 years and members were still holding on to their anger.

Guess what? Hurt takes time. Every fallen pastor and non-fallen pastor has told me the same thing. They tell me, "Most of them will never come around. They probably will never speak to you again. But give them time, maybe one or two of them will."

I understand all of that. I had my own father hurt me and it took me two full years to get back to where I'd talk to him. Was it right? No. I was unforgiving and sinful in my actions toward him. But even if I had been moving toward forgiveness, it would have taken me time to reconcile. So yes, I'm human, I get it.

I'm going to ask three questions right now and ponder them a little that I hope to answer in the next few blog posts. But they trouble me.

How long should people go before waiting to forgive? In that waiting, what does Scripture say about how long we should wait? And just because the typical pattern is 20-30 years (or never) to wait for forgiveness, does that make it right?

How is hurt tied to forgiveness? We don't forget like God does. Forgiving doesn't mean we're saying that what the person did was okay. But is it possible that our hurt keeps us from forgiveness? In that same vein, is forgiveness a legal transaction while hurt is an emotional response to what happened?

My final question for thought is one that makes me think. When two people have an issue between them that needs to be dealt with and forgiven, is it enough for one of them to say, "I've forgiven them in my heart. But I don't need to speak to them ever again." What good does it do to forgive someone if that isn't shared? Is it Scriptural?

I've got a lot going on in my anonymous brain and I hope to hammer some of it out with your help. God bless.

Common Traits Of The Fallen Pastor, Part 1: Poor Father Relationship

Before I get to my epilogue (of sorts), I want to do this short series on common traits of the fallen pastor.

Since I started blogging, I've talked to and emailed a decent number of pastors who, like me, fell because of moral issues. I've read other online articles about how to avoid moral sin in the pastorate and warning signs, etc. However, most of these articles were written by men who hadn't fallen or didn't know a fallen pastor. That's not to say there wasn't any truth to those articles, but I hope I can offer a little more insight.

Just a preamble to this series - I'm listing things that seem to be common traits. Of course, that doesn't mean they exist in all fallen pastors. But they did seem to be a common thread in discussions. This isn't a scientific study, by any stretch of the imagination.

Also, none of these traits are an excuse for sin. If I've mentioned that once on this blog, I've said it a thousand times. There is no license for sin. Are there factors that lead us there? Yes. And it can be helpful to notice certain things that could lead to a fall.

I'd like to discuss the common trait of a poor relationship with the fallen pastor's father. Fathers have a huge influence on pastors.

I remember the first day of seminary orientation, they asked us a few questions about our background. One of the questions they asked was, "How many of you have fathers who were pastors?" Most of the hands in the room went up. The questioner said, "75% of pastors have a father who was also a pastor. I didn't raise my hand that day.

I had always had a rocky relationship with my dad. I think it's because we were too much alike. He had a great relationship with my sister. They stayed up late at night going over the Bible and studying together. He and I rarely had much to say to each other.

He took us to church, was a deacon once, and kept to himself a lot. He worked hard, traveled a lot, and gave us a nice place to live. But we never really bonded during my life.

I smarted off a lot to him. I wasn't a bad kid, just had a smart mouth. When I was 15, I suppose I had smarted off to him for the last time. He looked at my mother and said, "I'm done with him, you raise him. He's yours." He was serious. He shut me out after that.

My sister achieved academically better than I did and I always felt (whether it was right or not, I'll never know, but it's how I felt) that Dad always preferred my sister over me. I suppose if I had to deal with me and my smart mouth, I would have preferred my sister too.

After I went away to college, my relationship with my father got a little better. We would talk on the phone and I'd ask for life advice. When I made the decision to go to seminary, he got critical of me again. I'll never understand that. It may not have been about seminary. Maybe he was dealing with his own life issues. He had dealt with a lifetime of anxiety himself.

I remember once, he came to visit Angelica and me at seminary. I jogged out to meet him and Mom at their car and the first thing he said to me was, "You're getting a little fat, aren't you?" This was coming from a man who was 150 pounds overweight himself. I rue that I rarely got praise from him. I never heard him tell me he was proud of me.

I had a counselor tell me once that he was subconsciously competing with me. Or whatever. I can see part of that being true. Whatever the problem was, it only got worse.

Even when I got ordained, or when he came to hear me preach, he'd unload on me. Not many kind words, but a lot of underhanded criticism.

He had a fall of his own. He and my mother divorced and I was angry. He basically kicked her out of the house. I judged him. Harshly. Something, I've learned, is wrong. I shut him out of my life completely for a period of about two years.

At the end of that two years, I started becoming convicted about it. I started talking to him a little, started trying to forge some sort of relationship. But it was too late. He died in an accident. I stood there, over his hospital bed while he was on life support realizing that I had done something horrible, but I didn't quite know what it was right then.

Later, I realized what it was. I had failed to love him for who he was instead of looking past what he had done.

Other fallen pastors seem to have a similar problem with their fathers. I don't know how much it adds to our sin later in life, but it has a significant impact upon who we are as adults.

There's a lot to be learned here, I think. First, if you're a father, make it work with your children. Lay aside any petty disagreements and humble yourself before them. Show them your vulnerability and just love them. Let them know you're proud of them regardless of what they've done. Just love them for who they are. Heck yes, parenting is hard. But it's worth it.

Secondly, if you have a parent who has caused you pain and still alive, don't let time expire before you do whatever you can to fix it. There are many of you who have parents who have done horrible things to you. I'm sorry. It may never be the same again with them. We can, however, still have a relationship with them where we draw boundaries and still have a salvageable relationship with them. We've only got this life. Tell them how you feel. Write them a letter and share your pain constructively. It's hard, I know. But don't let the later pain of regret and the "what ifs" get hold of you.

Thirdly, learn to love people as Christ did. He looked past what people did and loved them for who they were. Never shut the door completely on someone. Sometimes, you might be the only person in this world that someone will listen to. If you shut that door on them, it's dangerous.

Relationships with parents can be a great joy or a great pain. Those relationships form the people we are today whether we freely admit it or not. We cannot escape our generational past. But we can learn from it.