Lessons Learned, Lessons Still To Master

Back when I was a student at Texas Christian University--during my second semester there--I got involved in one of the campus ministries, an organization called Chi Alpha, which is sponsored by the Assemblies of God. It started as a kind of "field test." The church I was going to wanted to set up an evangelistic ministry at TCU, partnering with one of the ministries there, and Chi Alpha seemed the best bet. However, I couldn't recommend Chi Alpha as a "partner ministry" to my church unless I went to their services myself to see if it would be a good fit, so one Thursday night, I took the time to do just that.

The service was powerful, as was the pastoral and lay staff's dedication to evangelism and bringing new, unchurched people into the body of believers. Their lead pastor, James Stalnaker (not the same guy I heard about who was involved with Gateway City Center Church in Los Angeles a few years ago), was a fiery speaker, a passionate evangelist, and a superb motivator, and over the course of that semester, the group I saw grew to approximately twice its size.

Then it happened.

James was fired--both as campus pastor and apparently as college pastor for a local AG church--for what I later learned was a "moral failure," which in Pentecostal circles is code for "sexual sin." It had a devastating effect on the ministry. In the space of a year, almost everyone who had been on staff disappeared, and approximately half of the students left as well. James' second-in-command, Josh Ellis, was given the job of putting a broken ministry back together again, and he and his wife rose to the challenge. However, every project--every endeavor--that James had started (including a house off campus for men to live in and for TCU students and staff to meet together, an astoundingly good campus worship team, and an effort to evangelize at least 1% of the campus) died. In fact, a lot of the students who were once involved with Chi Alpha under James' ministry ended up "backsliding," which is AG code (again) for renouncing involvement with the body of Christ and falling into sin.

The effect was devastating to me personally as well, because I wasn't a Christian at the time. I put on a good front and knew my Bible (because my church preached it), but I was not born again, not walking in Christ Jesus. I saw this ministry as a test of what God could do, and in my eyes, God failed that test.

I write all of this because, well, for one thing, I've been meditating on it for the past few days, as I have off and on for the past 10 years, and I needed to get it off my chest. More importantly, I entertain (for reasons I can't fathom at the moment) some vain hope that this man, wherever he is, might be reading my blog right now, and if he is, I want him to come away from this post with one message:

I forgive you.

James, the Bible says that when someone among the brethren is caught in a sin, we of the body of Christ should restore him "gently." That's the key word in this scripture, and it's one that too often, we of the body of Christ conveniently forget.

To our shame.

James, you hurt a lot of people. You hurt me. And from what I heard, after you left Chi Alpha in Texas, you did the same thing somewhere else. However, I'm no less a sinner than you are, and so, if Christ can forgive me for lying to the brethren about who I was (and who I was not), and if Christ can forgive me for stubbornly refusing to submit my life to Him for 11 years in Fort Worth when I had Christians all around me, and if Christ can forgive me for over 20 years of heartfelt, passionate involvement with paganism, sexual sin, and (during the years after you left Chi Alpha) pornography, and if Christ can forgive me for bringing financial irresponsibility, sexual immorality, and personal immaturity into my marriage and for bringing a spirit of rebellion into the parenting of my son . . .

then who am I NOT to forgive you?

You're my brother, James. You will always be my brother. And whatever you're doing, whatever you've gotten yourself into, it's not over for you. Jesus loves you. I love you. Anyone who is a believer in Christ Jesus and who has had his sins forgiven SHOULD love you, because whatever you did, man, it's no worse than anything the rest of us did.

I forgive you, man. My only prayer is that you can forgive yourself.

Trust me, it isn't worth beating yourself up over.

It isn't worth destroying your life.

It just isn't worth it.

You're not God. You're a man. You sin. You need Christ. That's how it is.

So do I, so do the people who fired you, and so does every believer out there. Without Jesus, man, we're all lost in the dark. I'm no better than you are, and in fact, I think I'm actually worse than you are because I was better at hiding my sin. It's a testimony to the grace of God that even though I spent the youth of my life in sin and bondage, lying to my friends and family and pursuing the world, the flesh, and the devil with all my heart, I've been given a second chance, a "do over," to do the things I should have been doing the first time. And if I could be given a second chance after everything I've done, I'm sure you've got a second chance just waiting for you.

I don't know where you are, and I don't know what you're doing. Maybe you're all right, and nothing I've said here is necessary. Just know, man, that whatever happened back then, you've got a brother who believes in you and who's praying for you.

We expect a lot out of our Christian leaders, and when they don't meet our expectations, we can be even more vicious to them than bullies are to the weak kids in the schoolyard. It's time for believers in Christ to wake up and see that without Jesus . . . we'd ALL be lost in the dark.