Pastors vs John Q. Public

Church Pastors vs. John Q. Publics

With all the sexual abuse allegations on all the “men of God” lately, it has me thinking about why it is such a shock when we hear that a church Pastor or Youth Pastor is being investigated or has been arrested for sexual misconduct (SM).  I mean, if it was our next door neighbor, we would just nod our heads and wonder if the allegations are true or not; but with a “man of God” it doesn’t seem to be like that.  SM charges can either split a church wide open or cause people to completely drop out of church altogether.  That is the difference between a Pastor and John Q. Public being accused of SM. 

In the summer of 2011, Jack Schaap, Pastor of the mega church, First Baptist Church of Hammond, Indiana was fired for his and arrested for his affair with a teen in his church.  When he went to court in March of this year, Judge Rudy Lozano told Schaap ‘the sex crimes were serious in that they were “dealing with the treasures that are most important to us … our children”’.  Due to this Judge’s strong feelings against this act, he sentenced Schaap to 12 years in prison to be followed by 5 years supervision after he gets out; this sentence was 2 years longer than what the Prosecutor in the case asked for.  I happen to agree with this Judge.  This crime is worse than any John Q. Public that gets arrested for the same thing. 

A Pastor as defined by the Authorized King James Version of the Bible:

I Timothy 3:1-7

This is a true saying, if a man desire the office of a bishop, he desireth a good work.  A bishop then must be blameless, the husband of one wife, vigilant, sober, of good behavior, given to hospitality, apt to teach; not given to wine, no striker, not greedy of filthy lucre; but patient, not a brawler, not covetous; one that ruleth well his own house, having his children in subjection with all gravity; (for if a man know not how to rule his own house, how shall he take care o fthe church of God?)  Not a novice, lest being lifted up with pride he fall into the condemnation of the devil.  Moreover he must have a good report of them which are without; lest he fall into reporoach and the snare of the devil. 

This is his punishment when he hurts the church:

Jeremiah 23:1

Woe be unto the pastors that destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture! Saith the Lord.

My point is this, this is a very important office and it shouldn’t be taken lightly; but we have men like Bill Wininger and Jack Schaap who take this position and they pervert it for their own good.  What gives them the right to steal such innocence? 

When I was in the Phoster Club, a group of ladies at Kings Way that would go out door to door on Saturday mornings to invite people to church, our leader at the time was Paige Andrews and one thing she always taught us is that even after we leave the church and after we go out to the market, we are still soul winners and we are still representing Christ in our walk.  Her point was this, we couldn’t just go to the doors for a couple hours on Saturday and think our job for Christ was over.  We still had to carry ourselves during the week in a way that a child of God would because we never knew when we would run into one of the people that we had been witnessing to and we would want our daily walk to represent our Lord and Saviour or everything we did on Saturday would be for naught.  She was so right.  Just her reminding us of that every Saturday made me so proud to walk out of that room and anxious to meet John Q. Public.  I have been giving this little message a lot of thought this week, why is it our Pastors lose this thrill they had to have in the beginning?  What makes them one day be on fire for the Lord and His Kingdom, only to laugh in His face and smear his name and destroy his church family with such ugly accusations and allegations?  I know there are some out there that would be very quick to tell me that it is the devil.  I can hear their voice in my head now, “it’s just the devil my dear, just the devil”.  No, it isn’t.  I hate to be so hateful about it, but it isn’t the devil.  It is more than the devil.  I don’t think these men woke up one morning and said, “hmmm, I kinda like that little girl in that class that I saw yesterday morning, I think I will try to get her on my good side”.  These men were bad in the beginning.  I know for a fact Bill Wininger was because he use to brag about it.  He would flaunt the fact that he was a Sailor in the Navy before he ever got Saved and lived the Sailor’s life.  Yes, he would then go on to explain his Salvation, but that right there tells us that he was bad in the beginning.  I am sure if you ask him he would probably do what most criminals do, blame it on his parents; but in a way, he is right.  I think these men are bad seeds from the beginning and that there is no way of taking that out of them.   How we treat others and especially how we treat God and the church comes down to us from our parents.  If our parents never thought it was important to go to church, then more than likely, we are not going to see it as important.  It is our parents that dwell in us respect for the space of others.  I am the mother of two boys and I have raised them to respect women, love children, and treat others as you would want them to treat you.  You won’t see my kids on Facebook flaunting a reckless lifestyle or see them mistreating women and children.  Actually, as a single parent, I have even beat the odds with my kids being raised in a single parent home.  Kids from single parent homes does not have a very good name in the national statistics because it is hard for a single parent to watch over the kids the way they should to raise them right … but mine are awesome.  Of course I did have my parent’s help, but if my kids were too unruly or overbearing, my parents wouldn’t have stuck around to help me out.  It all starts with the parents.  If you don’t care what kind of seeds you are planting in these kids, then the streets are not going to care either and their imaginations are bound to run free with them.  They will find one way or the other to entertain themselves.

Back to these “men of God”, do they not realize what they do to their families when they do this?  This is part of that upbringing.  I realize that Bill Wininger and Jack Schaap’s kids are adults, but their grandkids are not.  These men are not only hurting the people in their churches, they are destroying the upbringing of their own families.  I have a hard time believing that a wife doesn’t at least suspect when her husband is cheating; maybe she doesn’t know it is with a child, but she has to know something isn’t right.  It may just be me and my jealous nature and overprotective nature, but I would know if my man was stepping out and I would act on it when I found out.  I feel so sorry for Sue Wininger and Cindy Schaap.  These are awesome women and I wonder if they are going to be able to overcome this.  It isn’t only an embarrassment, but it is degrading and these men need to be held accountable for their actions.  They haven’t only ruined their own lives, but they have ruined the lives of the women that stood by them. 

Well, this is my rant today.  Thanks for following my blogs.