Monday, November 06, 2006

No One is Righteous Not Even One

Continuing with inspiration during perspiration, I want to comment on the recent news of Ted Haggard's dismissal from his church.

This isn't uncommon. I want to say I wish it was uncommon, but the problem is the heart of humanity. It is dark. We try to sell a Gospel that says you can have the darkness removed from your heart. But you can't sell what you don't have, or at least what people don't perceive you to have, so we keep quiet about the darkness in our heart.

I think we all have darkness in our heart. The problem is it is unlikely that you can grow a megachurch and give anyone the impression that you aren't fairly pure of heart. Does this mean other megachurch pastors are hiding something? No. But it does mean they won't tell if they do. And they will battle it alone in the midst of thousands of believers.

Thinking more about this, I remember in a book (maybe a tape), Rick Warren said that he and his wife had gotten some marital counseling for a specific issue. At a conference last year, I heard Hybels say that he spent $10,000 on counseling and recommended that we do the same. I don't think this is the same as darkness of heart, but maybe close. I may have overstated earlier, but the point still stands.

3 comments:

Mike Clawson said...

Yeah... it'd be nice if we all had $10,000 to spend on things like counseling. But I guess us non-megachurch pastors will just have to resolve our marriage problems the old-fashioned way.

Brian said...

Actually I had forgotten. Rick Warren said that this occurred when they were just getting started and that he had to put the whole counseling cost on credit card. He felt it was worth it.

Mike Clawson said...

Well, then I'd again say "it'd be nice to have $10,000" since I personally don't believe in charging things to a credit card that I can't pay off that same month. Too many people in my generation are already slaves to excessive consumer debt.