Making It Hard to Go to Hell from Our Pulpits

The Ted Haggard story is tragic. Even more tragic is the lack of novelty in it all. Can anyone, anywhere really say that this is their first—even only their twenty-first—exposure to a scenario like this?

I think we need a present-day Gilbert Tennent preaching on "The Danger of an Unconverted Ministry." At graduation rehearsal in May, Dr. Patterson's last words to the SWBTS class of 2005 were something along the lines of, "If you have not already resolved in your hearts your determination not to fall to sexual sin, please come here tomorrow, receive your degree, walk across the stage, then walk out of this church and go find a career in some other line of work. Please do not do any more damage to the cause of Christ." Prophetic words, and true. I think we need a lot more of that.

But more than anything else, I think we need churches that start focusing more on what a pastor ought to be than on what a pastor ought to accomplish.