How to Respond When Christian Leaders Fall

Lately, I feel as if part of my routine is to find out which Christian leader has been removed from their ministry post this week. The news seems to be filled on a regular basis with yet another Christian pastor, ministry leader, or public figure being dismissed over issues such as abuse, infidelity, addiction, anger issues, embezzlement—the list could go on. People who were esteemed as godly leaders, with followers numbering in the millions, are discovered to be broken, flawed, and even wicked people. 

This situation is disheartening. Particularly when the leader is someone we respected, news of their “behind-the-curtain” life can derail us. Over the last few years, news about leaders like Bill Hybels, Ravi Zacharias, Art Azurdia, and most recently Brian Houston of Hillsong Church have deeply impacted me on a personal level. This leaves all of us wondering—what are we to do in situations like this? How should we respond when a Christian leader, especially a leader we respected, falls from grace? 

For some, and I am hearing this more and more frequently, the pendulum swings to the opposite side and they clamor for a world without leaders, or at a minimum any celebrity-type leaders. They argue, a “plurality of leaders” or “team leadership'' is the only type of leaders we should have. While I understand this sentiment, I think it ignores a greater reality: leadership is here to stay. Even if every large church disbanded, and every Christian met in a small house church, someone would figure out how to do it really well, would write or podcast about it, millions would listen or follow, and we would be right back where we started with “celebrity” like leaders. 

When no leader is appointed, typically the loudest or most forceful voice in the room will become the de facto leader. Throughout Scripture, God used leaders to accomplish His purposes—Moses, David, Deborah, and Paul all had significant roles and impacted millions. I think leadership is a biblical concept. The problem is that we don’t have enough biblical leaders. 

Sadly, this pandemic of leadership failure appears to be far from over. 

Here are five ways we can respond when the next name hits the front page.

1. Grieve, don't gossip or gloat.

When news surfaces of another leadership failure, the details coming out can be titillating, intriguing, and gossip-laden. We may find ourselves drawn in with curiosity about what happened in a hunger to learn all of the juicy details. If we’re not careful, we can become like readers of a Christianized version of the National Enquirer. We may even find ourselves gloating about a leader we didn’t particularly like. “I knew it all along!” is an easy justification of our personal feelings of envy, jealousy, or dislike for a leader. While this is all too easy to fall into, none of this is healthy.

Instead, we need to remember that these are stories about real people, with real families, and real communities who are being deeply impacted—even torn apart—by this news. Many of these stories involve victims whose lives will never be the same. It is okay to find a reliable news source to determine the truth of what happened, but beyond that we need to release the need to enter deeper into the gossip. Like Job and his friends of the Old Testament, we ought to be willing to sit in silence together and grieve the losses—the loss of respect for Christians and churches in the media, the loss and the pain the leader, their family, and any victims will face, and the loss of direction for a community. When we grieve well, we give the Holy Spirit room to work in our own hearts, and to lead us to the next idea.

2. PRAY.

I know the idea may seem trite, but I wonder when situations like this occur, do we actually stop to pray? Do we read the stories, shake our heads in disbelief, and then simply move on? Or, do we take time to wrestle with our own grief before the Father, and lift up the pain that the people connected to this story are experiencing? The Apostle Paul reminds us that we are together the body of Christ:

But God has put the body together, giving greater honor to the parts that lacked it, so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other. If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it.

1 Corinthians 12:24-26 (NIV)

When a leader falls, this could be a compelling reason to pause and pray—not only for the leader involved, but for every pastor or leader we know. These stories seem to be pointing to some deeper, underlying issues of unhealth in the body of Christ. Rather than shaking our heads at these stories, what might happen if we collectively took hold of the burden for a healthy worldwide Church and became people deeply committed to prayer? This, I believe, could lead to transformation in the future of the church and leadership.

3. Allow it to redirect our attention to the Giver of the gift.

One of the healthy gifts we may receive when a leader falls is the clear reminder that our faith is not meant to be in leaders themselves, but in the God that they serve. We can become so enamored by someone’s gifts that we forget Who gave them the gifts in the first place. We may be like an audience member who is so enraptured by the sound of a piano sonata that we direct all of our affection to the piano itself. But in the end, the piano is only a tool, an instrument to be used in the capable hands of a master.

Any Christian leader is the same—they are an instrument, a tool, or a vessel. Our faith should not be in the tool—the piano—but in our loving Master who brings the tool to life and expresses His music to the world through the leader. If we find that our faith in a leader has been misplaced, we should not lose faith altogether. We should, instead, redirect our faith to the One who alone is faithful.

4. Encourage the leaders around us to be humans first.

One of the questions I ask myself in any of these situations is, “I wonder what steps this leader had taken, or that others around them provided, for them to pursue their personal emotional, relational, and physical health?” Did they have a counselor? A group of peers where they could be rigorously honest? Did anyone give them space to deal with their own messiness? When someone becomes a leader, they may feel like they no longer have permission or the ability to be real. Or, the leader might feel that the people they lead expect a level of perfection. In this warped view, the leader feels an unspoken pressure to perform well and always look the part, for fear that any failure or show of weakness would disqualify them from their position.

Yet, if we’re honest, we all know that simply being given a position or a role doesn’t do anything to automatically mature a person’s character. We should absolutely vet leaders for a level of maturity to qualify them for their role, but this shouldn’t become a system where health is then assumed from that point forward. Leaders are real people. The leaders in your life—your pastor, your parents, your boss, the teacher you listen to on the radio as you drive to work—are still flawed human beings, no matter how professional their image might be. What could you and I do to give these leaders permission to be real? How could we encourage them to pursue personal health and growth at every turn? The need for personal development (not leadership skill development) is even greater after someone becomes a leader than it was before they had the job. Yet almost all personal development opportunities for leaders exist on the preparation journey for leadership. How could we flip this around and make ongoing personal health a priority for all leaders?

5. Look to our own leadership and make adjustments.

Christian leaders don’t plan to have their ministry end in some kind of moral failure, but they don’t implement enough healthy standards and guardrails to prevent it! Before we concern ourselves with what others should be doing in this area, this is a golden opportunity to turn the mirror onto our own lives. You see, the truth is, most of us are leaders. We may not like or use the term, but almost everyone I know has leadership somewhere—in a classroom, as a parent, in a church, or on the job. We have people who look up to us for guidance, wisdom, or direction. 

If this is the case, then we would do well to use all of these stories as reminders that no one is immune to sin. No one is above heading down a path that leads to destruction, given enough time and isolation from those who could help. So, in light of this pandemic of leadership failure, what do you need to adjust in your life? 

Here are four questions you could ask yourself as a type of quick self-assessment:

• With whom am I being rigorously honest on a regular basis?
• Who around me has permission to challenge me and even offer a loving rebuke?
• Who do I go to for godly advice and even professional counsel?
• Who knows about my personal commitments to physical, emotional, and relational health?

If the answer to any of these questions is, “No one,” then this is an area well worth our attention, no matter if we are leading one million people or only one other person. 

By now, I believe we are all growing tired of one leader after another having their dirty laundry splashed across the latest headlines. I know we are weary of this, and we just want it to stop happening. And by God’s grace, it will. You and I have been invited to participate with God in this needed transformation in His Kingdom! May we not allow the things we cannot do to keep us from doing the things we can do. 

As we welcome Christ to transform us—and through us, the leaders around us—the stories of the future will change. May we all be part of this new day of healthy Christian leadership.

The views, opinions, and ideas expressed in this blog are those of the author alone and do not reflect an official position of Pure Desire Ministries, except where expressly stated.