Protecting Purity - Part 3

There's a lot of talk among Christians concerning the affects of Pastor Sex Scandals on an unbelieving world. The unbelieving world sees professional representatives of Christianity who can't keep their pants on as one more indication that Christianity isn't as powerful as Christians claim. And you rarely talk to non-Christians who don't mention pastor immorality as one of the top couple of problems with Christianity today. If you can't trust pastors behind closed doors, why should you trust a thing any of them say from the pulpit? It's a big issue with the Church's testimony to an unbelieving world.

But I can't help but think that the epidemic of pastor immorality has an affect on our wives as well. When they see Ted Haggard's wife standing next to him in the pulpit, there has to be a little part of them that is tweaked just a bit. So a lot of the steps I take to protect my purity are also to put such a hedge of protection in place that my wife never has to wonder if she'll be next. As important as it is for the unbelieving world to see an example of purity in the pulpit, it is twice as important for our spouse's to have confidence beyond a shadow of a doubt that their husband is protecting purity.

Yesterday I talked about the Internet. Today, an area that a lot of pastor's fall: either in staff relationships with the opposite sex, or counseling relationships with the opposite sex. Here are a couple of steps I'd encourage you to take to make sure nobody (including your wife) is able to even wonder about your sexual purity.

1. I never counsel women as individuals more than once without my wife present. Maybe it's just me, but I have serious doubts that any pastor is such a great counselor that a woman just has to see him and can't visit with anyone else. If that's you, you're not doing a good enough job of empowering women on your staff and in your church who can speak truth into other women's lives.

2. I work diligently to never be alone with a woman who is not my wife in public or private. The private part is easy to understand. The public part may not be as much. But I'm at a large enough church in a visible enough position that there are people in the community who I don't know, but who know me. And the last thing I would ever want is for someone to see the pastor sitting at Starbucks with a woman who is not my wife. That could spread like wildfire in the rumor mill, and ultimately would get back to my wife. And though my wife trusts me one-hundred percent, those types of rumors can't help but plant a seed of doubt in her mind that she doesn't need.

3. When those things happen by accident, I call my wife and an elder immediately. When I first started working at McKinney, I had a meeting at Starbucks with two of our single girl leaders to plan a singles retreat. I showed up early, and so did one of the others. So, for about 10 minutes it was just the two of us. As soon as she walked in, I excused myself to the restroom and called my wife and one of the elders to let them know what was going on. Yes, I bothered them both at work. I want them to always hear it from me, and to make certain that there is never any doubt in their minds.

4. I'm never at the office alone with another woman - staff or otherwise. Some mornings I arrive to the office before anyone else arrives. Some nights I'm the last one to leave. But any time it appears I'm going to be the only person here, I leave. Yes, sometimes that means I have to leave before I finish my work. Yes, it means sometimes I'm inconvenienced. But I'd rather be inconvenienced by having to finish up some work tomorrow than to be inconvenienced by temptation or accusation today.

Again, the steps you take may seem drastic. They may seem obsessive-compulsive. They may even at times seem un-pastoral. But the reputation of Christianity among unbelievers, and your trust level with your wife is absolutely, completely, totally, one-hundred percent worth a little obsessive compulsion.