Pastors on the tightrope

I went to college and earned a Pastoral Ministry degree. I knew enough from growing up in church and hearing snippets of gossip that a pastor can go from hero to pariah faster than you can blink. Always aware that being a pastor in a traditional church setting would be hard, I knew that it would be a tough life. I eventually decided that I would rather serve on an associate level, freed from the responsibility and the stress of being the man on top.

I want to present this article by Jim Rutz about the infamous Ted Haggard scandal. Jim's not really going to get into the specifics about what happened, but he is going to raise some hard questions about the pastoral position in American churches. This is exactly why I never wanted to be a "senior" pastor. Here are some snippets:

"Yet Ted was and is a saint, just like the rest of us who have genuinely been born again by the grace of God. Trouble is, we all have dirty habits. Ted was more like the reforming alcoholic who really wants to quit the bottle, except that he didn't have a close group of fellow alkies around to support him.

Ted probably has a personal prayer support team. But it's almost impossible for pastors to share their innermost problems, even with a select core of parishioner friends. The word about the pastor's weaknesses will eventually get out, and then he will be out of a job. It's lonely on that pedestal, and very slippery."

"We can blame Ted for not seeking help. But there is a much greater blame in this case, and it must be aimed at the pastor-centered church system that does not and cannot provide ongoing help and correction."

Ouch.
What really stinks is that the reason the help and correction is not there is because pastors often operate under a zero-tolerance policy, while those in the pews can make the same mistakes and as long as they make their weeping trek to the altar during revival week, they get off with little punishment. For pastors, correction is often a U-Haul and tarnished record. I've even heard of pastors who went out of state to get another church, and members of the church that fired him tracked him down and called his new church members and gossiped about the man, claiming they were operating "in love."

The dilemma for me is that I don't see how this can change within the traditional paradigm, because I don't think the traditional church is willing to give up the pastor pedestal as Rutz aptly calls it, so the problem spirals into a chicken or egg coming first argument. You need a new system to protect pastors and help them, but you have to eliminate the lofty perch they are forced to live on. Which one comes first?