A few years ago, there was a leader in my church whom I looked up to. In my head, he was like the perfect spiritual uncle: warm, funny, caring and knowledgeable. When I made him proud by being helpful or memorizing verses, I felt like I was a better person. I felt like his influence was making me a better person.
Until I found out.
Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve been thinking a lot about what happens when leaders in the faith disappoint us. There are so many reactions that a community can have. I’ve seen some leaders deal with the problem in secret and others reveal all the terrible details. I’ve seen friends leave the faith out of betrayal or pretend it never happened. I’ve seen trust shattered.
I hate seeing trust shattered.
On one hand, finding out that our leaders are human shouldn’t be a surprise. As a former missionary kid, I can say with absolute certainty (and love) that my parents are very, very human. Yet there is a balance there that is rarely talked about until it is broken – a balance between being human and being called to a higher standard.
“The nature of our shared humanity is that we all fail and make mistakes,” said Asbury’s Pastor of Discipleship, Rev. Dr. Greg Haseloff. “There’s this call that people in a place of teaching live above reproach, and then that tension that we’re all capable of falling. Whether it be a series of bad decisions or a legitimate sin, we have to live with that tension in our humanity.”
As members of a Christian community, we are not wrong for holding our leaders to a more Christ-like standard. In 1 Timothy 3:10, Paul says that deacons “must first be tested” before they can serve, proving that they live a life that is sincere and worthy of respect. That’s the purpose of church policies: to outline what is expected of leaders and what should happen if they fail. But what happens to the members of a faith community once those actions are taken? How can we reconcile the good impact that someone has had on our lives with the failings that have removed them from their place of leadership?
“The first step is to name the blessings that that person has had in our life,” said Rev. Haseloff. “We name what we’ve learned from that leader and how they’ve impacted us… and then we give leaders permission to fail.”
Recognizing that a person should step down from a leadership position does not mean we must suddenly think of them as evil. Bad decisions are not always the same thing as moral failures, and if our faith has taught us anything, it should be that not even the worst moral failure is capable of outweighing the overpowering love and forgiveness of Jesus Christ.
For a long time after I found out about the failings of my own faith mentor, I struggled to see him as anything but the person who lied. All of my memories, both good and bad, were overshadowed by my bitterness at what he had been hiding. Now, however, as I look back on the time that he was in my life, I don’t see some monster who reveled in doing what was wrong. Instead, I see a man who fell into many of the same traps that I have, who made the mistake of battling his demons alone rather than bringing them into the light and whose eternal soul is just as much a reflection of God’s image as my own.
It is okay to be hurt when someone in church leadership lets us down. It’s okay to feel betrayed, or to grieve, or even to be unsure of what it is we feel. We, like our leaders, are human, but that doesn’t have to be where our story ends. God is at work in the failings of his followers, and His grace is more than we could ever ask for or deserve. His ways are higher than ours, and his Light is greater than any human brokenness…
Even when it’s harder to see.
