The Narrow Path Ministries

Recently a pastor was asked to resign. He had annually been given a week off to serve at a para-church camp. The practice was that he would charge expenses to a credit card furnished by the church. The camp was to reimburse him for the expenses and he was, in turn, to return the reimbursed funds to the church. The camp practice was to take the receipts from those who served there and make a check payable to the volunteers, in their name. It was discovered accidentally by the church that the pastor had not returned the funds to the church but had cashed the check and kept the money. The church contacted the camp which found that as far back as their records went (5 years) the pastor had signed and cashed the expense reimbursement checks and kept the money. The church has the checks signed by the pastor. The pastor's defense is that due to medications he takes he can not remember what he did with the checks and that some of this happened so long ago that he can't remember. But one of the incidents happened while he was not on medication.

The pastor has raised an issue regarding the manner in which he was confronted and asked to resign. His claim is that he was asked to resign without being asked to provide his explanation of the facts. He claims the elders sinned by not following the steps in Matthew 18:15-17, where step 1 is to go to your brother privately.

My own thoughts are this:

1. The procedure in Matthew 18 is about how one individual deals with another individual who has sinned and is designed to be done privately in step 1. In the subject case, the failure to return the funds was noticed by an office worker. The subsequent investigation involved the senior pastor, the elders, and staff at the camp. It could not possibly be kept a private matter.

2. The matter of forgiveness is irrelevant to whether the pastor should keep his position. I believe pastors are equivalent to deacons - they are ministers (deacons and ministers are synonymous terms). Thus the pastor must meet the qualifications for deacon which include being "beyond reproach" in reputation and not "fond of sordid gain". The pastor is not qualified for the job.

3. Some people are angry at the elders for not following Matthew 18. The pastor has put this idea out there.I believe this to be a form of the "red herring".

I think the elders have been generous. They tried as far as possible to keep the details private, but that could no longer be done. They have given the pastor three months severance and offered funds for he and his family to go to a place for six weeks that helps pastors work through these problems.

Any thoughts will be appreciated, as I am trying to help the pastor and others distressed regarding this situation.

Is the man telling the truth, or not? I can't see in what you've presented whether that was definitively addressed. If he's dishonest, then surely there are other incidents more clear-cut than this one that can be brought to light. After having been around at least 5 years, one would hope his character is well enough known by those with spiritual wisdom that there's no question whether he's dishonest, or honest and forgetful.

Just a few thoughts...

1. I would advise the church not to supply a credit card to people for activities not directly related to their church ministries. It should have been up to this man or the parachurch ministry to supply the funds for their own needs.

2. A lack of memory is not an adequate defense, in my opinion. If the man is so forgetful, he probably shouldn't be in a position where he is handling God's resources.

3. It is not clear, from your post, to what degree the man was able to 'share his side of the story.' Seemingly, at the elder level of the church, the issue should have been dealt with directly. He should not have been asked to resign without first having been asked to give an explanation.

4. That being said, if I were a board member in this situation and he had been allowed to give an explanation... and the explanation given was 'I can't remember b/c I'm on medication'... I would have proceeded to ask for his resignation.

5. It is very generous of the elders to attempt to provide for this man's immediate needs and even make money available for spiritual help.

Hi Matt and Backwoodsman,

Thanks for your replies.

2. A lack of memory is not an adequate defense, in my opinion. If the man is so forgetful, he probably shouldn't be in a position where he is handling God's resources.

Ironically, the person was a regular speaker and spoke very well, almost completely extemporaneously, and with no sign of confusion which seems difficult to reconcile with an impaired memory due to medication. And he never forgot to cash the checks at the bank but never reimbursed the church. I do know some people are very inattentive to certain things. If you loan books, I'm sure you have experienced that.

3. It is not clear, from your post, to what degree the man was able to 'share his side of the story.' Seemingly, at the elder level of the church, the issue should have been dealt with directly. He should not have been asked to resign without first having been asked to give an explanation.

And Backwoodsman wrote:

one would hope his character is well enough known by those with spiritual wisdom that there's no question whether he's dishonest, or honest and forgetful.

I do not know the circumstances regarding his opportunity to tell his side of the story. He claims he was asked to resign first, an elder said he was given an opportunity to explain. But the elders say that this was the last straw in a series of integrity issues over the years (not being truthful) that they were working with him on, none of which they wanted to terminate him for.

He is supposed to call me today and I am going to urge him to make some admission of wrongdoing. The elders are not interested in him making a detailed confession to the church, just something simple and they have indicated to me they will proceed to help him.

I don't know why this is so hard. You have an obligation to the members to keep their money safe. If he is not trustworthy, then he can't have access to the kitty.

Homer wrote:But the elders say that this was the last straw in a series of integrity issues over the years (not being truthful) that they were working with him on, none of which they wanted to terminate him for.

Well that certainly changes the picture rather dramatically. Now the biggest question is, why was one with a known, recurring issue with dishonesty allowed to stay in a position of spiritual leadership? It seems the elders aren't qualified for their positions either. If they didn't care enough about integrity or Biblical mandates to handle such a serious problem when it first became known, they should've at least had the common sense to keep him away from the money.

backwoodsman,

Perhaps it was not as bad as it sounds (the series of integrity issues). I suspect the person may have ADD. We have experienced this in our family, and people with it can do very poorly in some areas of interpersonal relations. They commit to do things and have difficulty following through. They procrastinate, are easily distracted, and have difficulty paying attention to what they should be doing. And all of this while meaning to do well, just not following through. So I can see where a person might give their word about something and not get it done. They also tend to have memory problems. Another example is a person in our family with a low genius level IQ who never did well through school and college. Just can't keep their mind on tasks that are boring to them.

I discussed this (the integrity issues, not my suspicion of ADD) with another pastor at the church and he said the problems were of the "he said, she said" variety. But if there are a number of them all involving him it does not look good. And then, when it catches up with a person, the temptation to lie becomes much greater.

Homer wrote:backwoodsman,

Perhaps it was not as bad as it sounds (the series of integrity issues). I suspect the person may have ADD. We have experienced this in our family, and people with it can do very poorly in some areas of interpersonal relations. They commit to do things and have difficulty following through. They procrastinate, are easily distracted, and have difficulty paying attention to what they should be doing. And all of this while meaning to do well, just not following through. So I can see where a person might give their word about something and not get it done. They also tend to have memory problems. Another example is a person in our family with a low genius level IQ who never did well through school and college. Just can't keep their mind on tasks that are boring to them.

I discussed this (the integrity issues, not my suspicion of ADD) with another pastor at the church and he said the problems were of the "he said, she said" variety. But if there are a number of them all involving him it does not look good. And then, when it catches up with a person, the temptation to lie becomes much greater.

Hi Homer,

Nevertheless, He should not be serving in this capacity. Clearly this should be evident.

God Bless.

I think Matt's advice is very good.

I'm not buying a word of it. He was going to get a little tip for his efforts and no one would be the wiser. He's lucky God's not in the business of killing people for stealing from the church anymore.

Doug