Other "Thinking Drafts" and writing by Keith Drury -- http://www.indwes.edu/tuesday .

I thought I'd written enough about sexual indiscretion among ministers. But recently I've seen a few additional factors for the really big guys -- you know, the men and women who are our leaders or models. The guys who have an extra portion of gifts and skills we ordinary folk don't have. The ten talent guys. In fact, the really big guys will never even read this; they don't surf the web, "their people read it" for them.

When a really big guy falls, ordinary folk like us are astonished. "How could he do that?" "What's the matter with him!" "He was a leader -- if the leaders are like this, what does this say about the rest of ministers?" Why do the really big guys fall so heavily? That is the question I'm asking this week. I've thought of several additional "contributing factors" to the sexual indiscretions of the big guys. They can be added to my already-long list of factors for ordinary people I'll list later.

All of us in ministry are overworked; it is an occupational hazard. But the big guys are over-overworked. They "burn the candle at both ends." They pride themselves for "burning out for Jesus, instead of rusting out." They proclaim "the world is run by tired men" admitting they are one of those tired men. That are high energy, do the work of two (or five) others, stay up late, get up early, travel all over the place, and generally get more exhausted than the rest of us. They sleep less for sure. That's one trouble with overwork: lack of sleep. Sleep deprivation has two effects: (1) a similar effect as alcohol on impairing judgement. Big guys who aren't sleeping enough are more likely to do dumb things than a minister who has a regular eight hours of Zs in the bank. But that's not all. (2) Sleep deprivation erodes one's strength of will. I sometime tell my students, "Most of you don't need to go to the altar; you need to go to bed!" Three or four hours of sleep each night erodes their ability to resist temptation. They sometimes seek from God a "work of grace" to accomplish what sleep was supposed to do. What did the Vietnamese do to POWs to get them to sign a confession? They'd leave the lights on, play loud music all night, and go in each hour and shake the prisoners awake. They knew lack of sleep erodes one's resistance. The big guys often sleep less than the average guy, and their resistance is lower.

But there's even one far more important effect of overwork, beyond the lack of sleep. This one is far more insidious and seldom admitted. Here you are slaving away for God's kingdom, working day and night, traveling here and there, raising money, giving answers, answering the phone several times a night, solving everyone's problems, carrying the burden for the whole church/district/denomination/college, burning out for the kingdom. So, what does the Enemy do? He quietly suggests a notion you'd never accept in the light or out loud: "Go ahead... a little sin on the side won't hurt, after all, you owe it to yourself." The notion is sort of like rewarding all your wonderful hard work by paying yourself with a few pleasures of sin. Of course, sin is not a paycheck for hard work. It pays its own wages.

The big guys are great, and their very greatness is a snare. It works like this. The guy with ten talents, five spiritual gifts, a brilliant mind, wonderful track record, successful resume, and powerful position gets totally insulated from authority. To whom does the big guy submit? When ordinary pastor Jake in Middletown USA starts straying, there are layers of people to warn him. But when you rise in success, you become increasingly insulated from correctors and confronters. Sure, you can do this to yourself. But your very success will do it to others too. After you've fallen, people will say, "Frankly I was worried about him, but I was afraid to say anything, you know after all he's _____." Who corrects great people? From whom do they get their admonition, or warnings, or outright rebukes? It is curious isn't it? The higher you go, the more cut off you can get from rescuers.

All pastors are afraid of failure and sometimes feel trapped, but the big guys have fewer escape routes. Their very success diminishes their opportunities. Curious, huh? An ordinary pastor in a church of 75 has thousands of churches he or she can go to next if things don't work out now. But, where does the big guy go next? And, everybody's always checking on the big guys. "Hey, how's Hybels doing up there now?" "What is John Maxwell up to now?" We ordinary ministers see these big guys as having more opportunities than we do. Actually they have less. Many feel more "trapped" than you do. They have to succeed or their reputation goes down in flames in front of everybody. This sense of entrapment sometimes produces an inner time bomb leading to self-destruction. They become kamikaze pilots crashing their careers into the deck of a nearby ship. They commit professional suicide. They didn't plan it on purpose. Their darting eyes were looking for an "out" and found the wrong one.

This one should be the most bothersome to us. The bigger you are, the bigger your enemies. If you have a big ministry, big success, a big reputation with a big following, you probably also have big opposition. Sure, all ministers have opposition, but the opposition the big guys is, well, bigger. And it is sometimes more twisted. The big guys often experience a sort of twisted envy where people secretly wish you'd collapse. They wish you failure. Professional failure, or even moral failure. They'd never admit it, but they are relieved when you fall. "Sure enough, I expected as much" they say with satisfaction. Sometimes the enemies of the big guys stoop to some really dirty tricks. They raise questions about the buy guys' character. They make up stories to assassinate the big guys' influence. They head off the big guys' political ambitions. They might even insinuate sexual indiscretion by saying "I'm getting some really queasy feeling about ______." Not charges, mind you, just insinuations. They spread fast. And when the big guy finds out what is being said about him, the Enemy of his soul comes saying, "If they're going to spread this stuff about you, and people are going to believe it anyway, why not do a little of it?" Or in more recent lingo, "Let's give 'em something to talk about."

Well, these are four additional contributing factors the big guys face. Of course these "contributing factors" do not in any way excuse the sexual indiscretions of the big guys. When they fail we execute their ministry -- perhaps faster and more decisively then the average pastor-sinner. But these four additional fctors might explain why "big guys" experience more temptation, and listing them might expose the Enemy's strategy. But nobody commits this sort of sin without running a dozen red lights on their way to the pile up. Sexual sin doesn't "happen" to us. It is something we choose. And seldom (if ever) is such sin the result of a single choice... it "happens" a person -- big guy or average guy -- runs a whole series of red lights -- by choice.

SO, WHAT DOES ALL THIS HAVE TO DO WITH ME?

FIRST, Guard your workload -- you are the only person in the world responsible to draw the line on your work.

SECOND, Find several people unimpressed with your greatness and ask them to confront you periodically.

THIRD, If you feel "trapped" by your success, take a dive -- start over; climb the ladder again.

FOURTH, Has the opposition been making up things about you? Recommit to living above reproach -- "Let's give 'em nothing to talk about."

1. How to protect yourself from sexual sin...eight ways to defend yourself.

2. What do we do when a leader has an affair.

3. Thoughts to consider when your model falls off the wall.

4. On being "Power-hungry" -- admonitions to young ministers.

5. Anatomy of adultery.... first person stories of 'how it happens.'

6. Old-timers advice on sexual sin -- is it still valid? 

7. Our job -- restoration....restoring a fallen Christian.

8. Overcoming impure thoughts -- 10 steps out.

9. Stages of recovery -- for the fallen

To contribute to the thinking on this issue e-mail your response to Tuesday@indwes.edu