I was raised in Illinois, the son of a pioneering Pentecostal Apostolic Preacher, my father, the late Rev. G. M. Crist. I evangelized part-time while still in high school, then went full time upon graduation in 1976. I have pastored a total of 23 years, and in almost 40 years of preaching, have traveled extensively while writing and being read in 5 continents. I am 50 and presently Principal of JACA in Jigger, La., where Rev. Hurby Hitt is pastor. WHAT WILL WE DO WITH OUR FAILURES
What will we do with our failures?Delete the document!Delete the delete!Erase the blackboard!Rub it out!Use ‘White-out’ on it!Disfellowship it!Excommunicate them!Blacklist him/her!Make them a non-entity!Pretend they don’t exist!
What are you talking about?I didn’t do it!I’m not guilty in this incident!They did it!They are guilty!They made their bed, let them sleep in it!What do you mean, “our failures?”They failed, not me!
It is not individual failure alone.It is institutional failure also.The “institution” must share the blame, shoulder part of the load, and except the fact that we have birthed our own failures, engineered our own defeats, and aborted the very instruments that could have lived and not died.
The lawyer loses case and tries again.His client goes to jail or to the chamber!
The carpenter just tears it down and adjusts and rebuilds.
The plumber, digs it up, blasts it out, relays the pipe, seals all the joints, gives everything the right fall, covers up and goes home.Another day, another job, another paycheck!
The mechanic tears down the engine, rebuilds it, puts it back on the road again for another 200,000 miles.
The electrician just finds the problem, rewires the house, puts the seal back on the meter, and people go on living in the home.Life goes on.
Repaired!Restored!Remodeled!Redone!Reconciled!Rejoined!Living on!And on!
The surgeon makes a mistake, and buries it.Goes back to the surgical arena and operates again.And again!Unless of course, consistent mistakes bring malpractice suits, and an end to his career!
The preacher?Well, you have to be fair here.When they were in the world, we chased them down, expended every amount of energy we had to convert them.Focused entirely on their success.Taught them everything about the postulation of positive image.Taught them everything about not putting themselves in a position where they could be taken advantage of and the ministry demeaned and brought a reproach to.Taught them how to be careful and discreet about every action that they do.Taught them all about every rule and regulation of the ministerial “country club” and how to maintain your membership.
The preacher?We taught them everything except how to deal with themselves,how to deal with pressure, how to deal with the “headiness” of success, how to deal with the aphrodisiac of authority, and how do deal with the ready access to easy money!
In short, we insured the preacher would abort his own successes.We planted the seeds of failure in his training, and allowed him to construct his own failure.
The Preacher?When he fails?
Forget him!
Disfellowship him!
He’s contagious!Don’t let any of your people around him!(Be sure now, Pastor,and tell your people this, while you are giving them a good Bible Study on cohesiveness and how we need each other!)
Destroy him, and his influence!He may be the star witness that would bring you into his failure and make you an accessory to his immorality.Maybe the filthy jokes that you shared and laughed about in private, (after all, it was just you men, wasn’t it?)Maybe it was the forays into the internet “black hole” of pornography, in private of course, just to see if you could do it, and how easy this “disgusting stuff” was to get to.
Remember?
Of course you do.
And it chills you to think of what the Preacher that has failed knows!
About you!
And what “turns your crank.”
He’s the “star witness” in your potential trial.The crucial element that could bring into play your failure.
What are you going to do?
Maintain your composure.Assume and maintain a posture of control.And pseudo/concern, of course!Be so heartbroken that your compatriot has stooped so low in degradation and moral failure!Be careful here!Balance your act! Precarious is how things are balanced here!
Oh yes, I know what must be done!I must destroy the character of the witness!I must totally invalidate the possibility that he would be heard and believed.I must impeach the witness and show him/her to be deserving of all that they have coming to them.
I must invalidate the witness and his/her potential to destroy me!
Then, extreme denial!
“They never were accountable.”“Regrettably, they never could be pastored.”“They were always somewhat of a ‘lone-wolf’.”“We knew that he had some strange ideas, but nothing that alerted us to all this.”
And with much ‘head-wagging’ and sorrowful looks, we all do the shuffle and dance of extreme denial.
Protecting our-self.
Protecting the institution.
Protecting the image of our “Preacher’s Country Club!”
He, the offender, is now persona non grata!
Anathema Maranatha!
Irrevocable and irreversible!
After all, does not the Bible say, “…Ye which are spiritual, destroy such an one in a spirit of cover-up, lest he be the star witness in your own trial for failure!”
It reminds me of a problem we have in the United States of America, as it concerns our children.We used to worry about men with guns, now we have to worry about kids with guns.No, I’m not talking about 17 and 18 year old young adults; I am talking about 12-15 years old.There seems to be an epidemic of violence being acted out in our kids.They are being tried as adults, sentenced to adult consequences, and yes, they are guilty of the crimes that they have perpetrated, and yes, there needs to be consequences!
But what we are doing is, judicially handling these cases, sentencing the offenders, putting yet another band-aid on the wound, and not examining nor treating the cause or source of the problem.
Let’s ask some questions.
Where is all this rage being acted out, coming from?
Where is this violence being taught and exemplified?
These that are of the cross-section that I have delineated, are still impressionable children.They are still in the developmental stages, physically, mentally and spiritually.
If they are not responding to teaching, then why not?
If their rage is overcoming sane reaction to problems, then why?
There is a breakdown somewhere, and all of the sentencing in the world, all of the judgment in the universe is not going to serve as a deterrent to the crime!
It’s easy to say, “They did the crime, let them do the time!”“They made their own conscious choice.”“Nobody made them do what they did!”
These are easy words to say.Especially when we want to deny in an extreme sense, our own part that played in their failure.
From what we have researched, heard, and read; from Columbine on down, the offenders were children who were bullied, made fun of, and not included.This fact does not in any way justify the murder that was done, but it does raise some relevant questions.
Where did those that bullied, mocked and made fun, learn that kind of manipulation and mentality?Where did they get it?From whence cometh the prejudice involved in class distinction and societal caste?Where did the mentality get taught about who fits in whatever societal group?Where does prejudice come from anyway?Besides hell, that is!
Prejudice is taught at home.Dad’s and mom’s are responsible for these kinds of mentality, either directly or indirectly.The institutions of spiritual and secular learning then lend themselves to that mindset.
Where are you Dad?Why are you not teaching your son the principles that define manhood and responsibility?Why are you teaching your son that rages reaction solves his problem?There is more to it than putting bread on the table and paying your bills.There is honesty!Integrity!There are principles of accountability and empathy for the other man’s problems!Are you there, really there, for your son, in success and failure?
Where are you Mom?Why are you not teaching a quiet and peaceful spirit? Why are you not teaching your daughters to be good keepers of the home?To be shamefaced and sober, not forward and promiscuous!Teach her that she won’t always be a little girl.She must have self respect taught by mother and reinforced by dad; that she can learn how to be a lady and not a tramp.Mom, are you there, really there, for your daughter, in success and failure?
When they fail, for in some degree all of us do; what do you do with the failure?
Hide it?
Cover it up?
Kick them out?
Disinherit them?
Disown them?
Forget them?
Call me a sentimentalist if you will, but I still remember the old “Dear Ann Landers” piece entitled, “I’m Too Young To Die, God.I’m Only Sixteen!”the bottom line on failing is not, to give up, forget you ever tried, and go into extreme denial like it never happened.We need to take advantage of life, not death, and use the failing to induce a positive teaching experience.
It’s easy to opine, “Give them the needle.”“Take them to the gas chamber!”“Let them ride old sparky!”
Or……, “Disfellowship them!”“Have nothing to do with them!”“They never were really like us anyway!”“Jerk his license!”“Distance yourself from him!”“He is now persona non grata!”“Don’t associate with him because you might be tainted or tarred with the same brush!” “After all, public perception is everything, ya’ know!”
It’ just a little too spiritual to get in the mud with the failure and try to restore and reconcile, isn’t it?We might be reminded of our own failures, might we?Somebody might think we are a compromiser if we try to restore someone, won’t they?Why, what would the “brother’s” say?(Sounds like the mafioso familia to me!)
It’s just too spiritual to expect that kind of compassion and meekness out of the “Brethren” isn’t it? It just might take away from our image of success?
Is it too spiritual to say that it is possible that these that have failed are not failures?
Is it too spiritual to suggest that they can be restored to functionality and purpose in the Kingdom?
Is it too spiritual to believe that their life is not over because of their failing?Or do we as the self appointed jury want to just shove it under the rug by making them a failure, because of their failing!
Is it just too spiritual to expend the time, energy, and compassion that is prerequisite to reconciliation?
What will we do with the man that has “shot himself in the foot?”Or the leg?Are we going to let him lay there and die, bleeding to death with a bullet in him, because we are afraid that we will have to share in the blame for his wounding?Or are we just afraid to get a little blood stain on us?Or is it just easier to walk away, go home, pretend it didn’t happen, read in our newspaper about the man bleeding to death and say, “I knew he wouldn’t last very long!”“I didn’t want to move him because I didn’t want to be blamed for his problem!”
It’s just too spiritual to expect a man to bind up a wound, even if it is self-inflicted, put him in a place for recovery, spend the crucial night of distress with him, and on the morrow say to the innkeeper, “Whatsoever you do more for the man, I will repay when I come!”
Ladies and Gentlemen, we are not Christ-like in this respect.We are hiding our failures like they never happened!We try to get folks to believe that we never really were close to the one that has failed!“He never really was a part of us!”“We are different than that!”
Personally, I feel like that if you are going to help to kill and bury them, then you ought to have to pay for the funeral!And also, if you are willing to perpetuate the failing of a brother, then you are going to have to be personally responsible for the souls that he would have reached in his ministry.If you are going to help to kill him, then you kill his progenitor’s too.Remember, what made Cain’s sin of murder so bad, was not just the fact that he killed his brother, but he also virtually eliminated his brothers seed.When God said, “The voice of thy brother’s blood crieth outfrom the ground,”that word “blood” in the original Hebrew is defined in the plural sense, denoting not just Abel’s blood personally, but his progenitors!
Was it too spiritual for Jesus Christ to reconcile the undeserving, full of betrayal world unto Himself?
He (Jesus) gave unto us the ministry of reconciliation!He gave the church the mandate to restore.Restoration is not God’s responsibility, it is the church’s mandate!
What are we doing with our failures?
Jesus reconciled, salvaged, and restored His!
“Ye which are spiritual………!