Pulpit Prisoners: Spiritual Solitary Confinement [S2.E6]
Pastors, eh? They’ve got it tough, right? I mean, who knew being a spiritual guide could come with such a heavy backpack of expectations? In this episode, our trio of former pastors—Jean, Byron, and Tullian—dive into the swirling storm of loneliness that often shadows the lives of local church leaders. You know, it’s like they’re expected to be spiritual superheroes, but spoiler alert: they’re just as human as the rest of us! They share stories about how congregation members often want their preachers to be flawless, but the reality is, pastors are capable of the same struggles as everyone else. It’s like they’re juggling flaming swords while riding a unicycle on a tightrope—pretty impressive, but also a recipe for disaster!
The guys get real about the pressure to maintain a perfect image and how that pressure can lead to a sense of isolation. Tullian recalls some sage but misguided advice he received in seminary: don’t confess your sins, because, you know, your people need a perfect role model. Fast forward to today, and he’s like, “What was I thinking?” They discuss how this mindset can actually harm pastors and their congregations, creating a divide that prevents genuine connection. If only everyone could see that the most broken, ragamuffin types are the very ones Jesus came to rescue! So grab your favorite snack, kick back, and join us for a light-hearted yet poignant chat about grace, vulnerability, and the beautiful messiness of being human in ministry.
Takeaways:
- Being a pastor doesn't mean being perfect; we're all messy and need grace.
- Congregants often want their pastors to be flawless, but that's unrealistic and unfair.
- Pastors struggle with the same issues as their congregants, and that connection matters.
- It's crucial to remember that God's grace is for the broken, not just the clean.
- We need to be real about our struggles, rather than putting on a show of holiness.
- The church should embrace the flawed and broken, just like Jesus did with everyone.
Links referenced in this episode:
Transcript
How do you know you're not disqualified? Shouted off the set. What would you say to the folks that are listening?
Tullian Tchividjian:When I was in my first year of seminary, a guest preacher of a prominent church in the area, this is the guy we all wanted to be when we grew up.
He came to guest lecture, he said to all of us, gentlemen, don't ever stand behind the pulpit and confess your sins because your people need someone to look up to. I was like, hell, yeah, he's right.
I look back now and think that is the shittiest advice, the most destructive counsel that anyone could give any pastors in trouble.
Byron Yawn:I know that there is a pastor possibly listening to this right now who is toying with making very bad decisions. That man is out there. I'm talking specifically to you. You're caught up in this thing. You don't know how to get out of it.
You don't know how to unwind it, and you're still moving forward. And to you, I would say very compassionately, you have no ide idea what you are about to say.
Tullian Tchividjian:You're listening to the misfit preachers, Tali and Chavidjan, Jean Larue and Byron Yan from ProdigalPodcast.com we're plagiarizing Jesus one podcast at a time. Now here are the misfits.
Byron Yawn:Well, I love to him, will you. I mean, we. In. In that whole sense, that idea of being disqualified for ministry.
I think our producer director Gus said, you know, how do you know you're not disqualified? Shouted off the set. What. What would you say to the folks that are listening?
Tullian Tchividjian:I mean, I hear that a lot. Not from the people around me or the people that, you know, I minister to or lead, but from the people out there who only know the headlines.
Byron Yawn:Right?
Tullian Tchividjian:Even though it was nearly 10 years ago, they remember it like it was five minutes ago. And so from time to time, I will get the charge that I disqualified myself years ago.
And the very fact that I am preaching, teaching, writing, leading, living, they don't go that far. But some of them is, is I am disobeying God. I am going against what the Bible teaches. The Bible clearly teaches that you are disqualified.
And here you are standing in front of people preaching again and you shouldn't be. And from time to time, I will respond. I usually ignore that stuff, let them make their comments, and, you know, it.
Usually before I can even respond, there are usually people who come to my defense before I have to, which is not that important to me, coming to my own defense.
But When I do, when I can get the sense that this is not just some asshole, but someone who seems genuinely confused because they've heard that if you screw up the way I did, you don't get a second shot at this. You've disqualified yourself for life. So when I get a sense that the person I'm responding to is confused, not just being an ass. Sincere.
Yes, sincere. My response is always the same.
The passages that they point to always are the passages in Timothy and Titus, which list the qualifications for overseers, elders, church leaders, that kind of thing.
And I always respond by saying it is impossible to defend exegetically, theologically, or even historically, much less practically, it is impossible to defend the idea that a failure at any point in your life as a church leader in violation of these qualifications equals a lifetime ban. Nowhere.
There is not one verse in the Bible that states or even implies that a screw up of that magnitude or in that way as a Christian leader, bans you from leadership for life.
Now, I know people who have screwed up the way I have, who come back very quickly, and my immediate reaction is this is going to happen again in some way. Maybe not the same way, but in some way, because it's. You don't. I know what it.
I know the rehab that goes into, you know, fixing a broken leg, a broken back. And it takes time and it takes a lot of hard work, a lot of blood, a lot of sweat, a lot of tears, a lot of initial resistance.
It is, as we've said numerous times in this podcast, we are recovering. We have not recovered. People are in a persistent state of recovery.
And so when someone comes back too quick and announces that they went through this, you know, 30 day program or this 40 day program where they took six months off and they've done the work. And I always think, man, that leg's gonna break again in the first, at the first, you know, hit. So I know that that's true.
There is wisdom in taking your time doing the work, extended periods of time. But there is nothing, nothing in the Bible either in those passages, Timothy and Titus or any other passage in the Bible.
And I challenge anybody out there to show me a verse or a passage that essentially says you are banned from for life if you violate these qualifications at any point as a Christian leader. Now, some people will say, and I heard one pastor make this qualification. You can sin the way that we did before.
You're a pastor, and that doesn't disqualify you. But if you sin the way that we did as a pastor, you are banned for life. And I would just ask for evidence of that.
And I'm not talking about your opinion or what you heard some preacher say. I'm talking about going back to what God says about it and show me one place that says lifetime ban for a failure in these ways.
Jean F. Larroux, III:My. It's interesting you saying that, because I wasn't a pastor when all this happens, so I'm in the clear.
Tullian Tchividjian:Yeah, some of them would say that. But you know what some of them would say? Your attempt at joining a podcast with me with John.
Jean F. Larroux, III:It's not an attempt. We're not trying. We're doing.
Tullian Tchividjian:Oh, yeah, they. They don't have as much hope and confidence as we do. In fact, they're hoping we fail.
But I mean, there are those who would say, byron, the amount of people you hurt because of what you did as a representative of Christ, the best thing you can do to serve people is to not show your face ever again. Your very existence is a trigger to people. Go away. I mean, I've heard that stuff. So they're not in because.
Because the foundation under which they draw their conclusions is shaky. It's always moving. So it doesn't matter what we throw at these people.
They will come back with something, some form of reasoning why the three of us should go away forever.
Jean F. Larroux, III:Hence our tagline, which we love. I love. Can't cancel the canceled.
Byron Yawn:That's fair.
Tullian Tchividjian:And not afraid to die. I'm dead already.
Jean F. Larroux, III:That's correct. And I do believe because I know it to be true. Which brings me full circle.
The things I have learned through this process, through my failure, through my sin, through my delusion, through the people I hurt. Because causing pain causes pain.
I have a lot to share because I've done the work, too, and have looked at it, and I did not rush to go back at this point right now, don't even want to go back because of things that ministry did to me before any of this happened, before any of it happened. And I'm not here because I was pining for it. I wasn't even looking for it. Somebody asked me, and I did not hesitate at all.
Because my thinking was, if I can go through this, I'm not going to waste it. And it gives me the opportunity to say things that I would have never said as a pastor because I would have been afraid of what I described.
I'm going to go back and deliver truth to people in general that sounds like their lives, rather than theory, that it's delivered with compassion and experience. I am you because Pastors will say, well, I'm human too.
But as John said, whenever a pastor kind of confesses their sin to demonstrate their humanity to the hoi polloi, to connect it, it's. There's all just. You can't really make it out. It ends up sounding like a virtue.
And they virtuize the confession of their sin, but they're never really honest. And there's no way that I'm going to live with that veneer anymore.
And, you know, Anthony Bourdain wrote the Chef, had the show, wrote the book Kitchen Confidential. My experience in the church, my experience in large denominations and institutions, there.
There is an underbelly out there that people don't even know exists. Part of it is the pressure that it puts on pastors. And I'm here to expose and help in that regard.
Jean F. Larroux, III:Yeah, that. I mean, I can give you a great illustration of what that pressure looks like. I can remember a.
This is a conversation had with me on a Sunday, shaking hands on the way out of church. And this woman comes up to me and she says, I think I finally figured out what's wrong with you.
Tullian Tchividjian:And I said, well, I'm all ears.
Jean F. Larroux, III:I'm all ears. Lay it on me. And she said, we want you to be better. And I said, what do you mean, better? And she said, like more fixed. And I said, what do you mean?
And she said, you know, you should be like a personal trainer, like a spiritual personal trainer. Like, you can do X, Y and Z and you're gonna help us learn to do this. And I said, you know, I said, I hear what you're saying.
I just happen to think it is better to offer to you Jesus Sunday after Sunday, rather than a revised version of me, because a revised version of me doesn't get you anything. But Jesus as a replacement for me and you is the gospel.
Tullian Tchividjian:Yeah, it's.
Byron Yawn:That perils because it's the pressure of I've. I've got to have this together. And the reality is if. If the honesty ever, ever actually kicks in, the bottom falls out of everything.
Tullian Tchividjian:I was sitting in a seminary class when I was in my first year of seminary and a guest preacher of a prominent church in the area. This is the guy we all wanted to be when we grew up. He had the big church. He had, I mean, the whole deal.
And he came to guest lecture in one of our classes, and at one point he said to all of us, there were maybe 30, 40 people in the class. And he said, gentlemen, don't ever stand behind the pulpit. And confess your sins because your people need someone to look up to.
And at the time, I'm this young idealist, you know, had been a Christian for maybe four or five years. And I was like, hell, yeah, he's right. Yes, I need to become clean.
All my words, It's Robert Murray McShane saying my people's greatest need is my personal holiness. It's that idea.
Byron Yawn:Yep.
Tullian Tchividjian:I look back now and think that is the shittiest advice, the most destructive counsel that anyone could give any pastors in training. It was, it's mind blowing to me that there was a time in my life where I heard that and thought that was wise, that was good.
That's not even biblical. Forget it being wise and good. It's not even biblical.
What's interesting, and I think the Christian community should take notes from the recovery community in this regard, you would never ever, ever find a non alcoholic leading an AA meeting, ever. What qualifies the person to lead the meeting is their struggle with alcohol.
The church is the only institution that requires its leaders to be clean in order to be qualified for the struggle to be behind them rather than in them. And I think that's the massive disconnect between the pulpit in the pew and what comes from the pulpit is some ideal of what life ought to look like.
When in reality, as you said a minute ago, we're not really seeing their life. We're seeing a version, the version they want us to see. We all did it.
We gave them a version that we wanted them to see that they wanted to see as well, that they wanted to see it all, that they wanted to see also.
But for a person with moral authority to stand behind a pulpit Sunday after Sunday believing that they are qualified to stand there because they are clean, because they are pursuing holiness, because they are practicing godliness and all of those things says something to the entire community about who God is. God is the kind of God who loves and uses clean people who are diligent in their pursuit of holiness.
God only uses pure vessels, that kind of bullshit, when in reality what we find in the Bible is that God only uses bad and weak people who fail because there aren't any other kinds of people. Now you either know that about yourself or you don't.
And I would argue that the person who has enough self awareness to know that about themselves and not believe the delusion that they are as holy and as good and as faithful and as devoted and as righteous as they want to believe they are, those are the people who I think are Disqualified.
Jean F. Larroux, III:When I. When I told my story, I also shared an experience where somebody had written a blog. Are we past not saying the name? Can I say the name of the recent.
Tullian Tchividjian:Yeah, you could do that.
Jean F. Larroux, III:Steve Lawson made it into the news.
Tullian Tchividjian:Because who's a pastor that is familiar in some circles that we love, and.
Jean F. Larroux, III:We'Ve all three reached out to and shared compassion and love with him. So people jumped on that. Right. And they wrote a blog. And one of the.
One of the blogs or posts that was written, I know this person, he could have put my name in there. And the basic gist of it was, you don't want to end up where they ended up. So do this. Now.
There's part of me that says, you absolutely want to end up where I ended up on this side of it, because I haven't seen the gospel as clearly. Haven't loved people as much, haven't been as free.
Tullian Tchividjian:True, true, true.
Jean F. Larroux, III:Pursuit of Christ has never been more fluid on the horizontal level. I totally get that. If you don't want to end up there, and maybe you will, you need to listen to me. And so let me.
I know that there is a pastor possibly listening to this right now who is toying with making a very bad decision. It's like Benny Hinn saying, I feel somebody in the audience has back pain. Right. You know that those. That man is out there.
I'm talking specifically to you. You're caught up in this thing. You don't know how to get out of it. You don't know how to unwind it, and you're still moving forward in it.
To you, I would say very compassionately, you have no idea what you are about to suffer.
And the pain that is completely unpredictable and unexpected, one of which is there is nothing so searing as the instantaneous evaporation of all your integrity and all the social capital you've built up with your children. If you could be in my shoes at the moment, my children stepped into the room as well, for the conversation as well. It is so searingly difficult.
The hardest thing that I went through, and there is no way for me personally to transfer that experience to you, except to say it nearly killed me. And of everything that I lost and everything that happened to me and the people that came after me, none of that stuff mattered.
But it's a betrayal of trust that is like your soul walking over glass. It's just a searing.
Tullian Tchividjian:Yeah, it's one of the horizontal consequences.
Jean F. Larroux, III:And to that person, I would say you have nobody that you can go to. So listen to us and listen to me. And that's reality. I lived through it. I saw it from the other side inside.
And the saying goes, you can't read the label from inside the bottle. I'm outside the bottle telling you what's on the label. You do not, under any circumstances want to make that ridiculous decision.
Tullian Tchividjian:And the person who's in the throes of it will not hear what you just said.
Jean F. Larroux, III:No, it's.
Tullian Tchividjian:I mean, I didn't. No, I didn't either. That's how I know. Because I. I knew all the stories. I'd watched them all. I knew.
I was convinced if I'm going to go down, I may go down for this or for that. But I will never, ever go down as a result of having an affair or being faithful to my wife. Never. Because I saw what happened to those people.
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