Andrew Jones on the Hazard of Hotels

Concerning the ongoing discussion among Christian leaders about the need for us to carefully guard our moral purity, Andrew Jones (aka TallSkinnyKiwi), renowned blogger in the emergent church movement in the U.K., wrote a very interesting piece entitled, Haggard and the Hazard of Hotels. Jones spells out the precautions he takes when traveling alone, including avoiding staying certain places.

He writes (typos included),

Most of the time I travel alone but i am careful here i stay. If i have a choice, I crash on a friends couch. In summer I bring my tent. I even crash on airport floors to save a few bucks and travel time. If i don't know anyone in a city, I usually stay at a youth hostel. Its really cheap and i stay in a room with 5 or more people. I have to sleep with my wallet and passport in my pocket or under my pillow but it keeps me away from hotels where i am all alone and where weird things happen.

Here’s the deal. Hotels can be treacherous places for people of God to stay at because of the spiritual residue from weird and dark things that have happened in that room. OK - some of you will think me loony here. And some of you don't believe in demons. But let me play it out. Hotels, like a particular house in New Orleans, have been the ruin of many a poor boy. Some hotels are famous for the part they had to play in the destruction of careers and downfall of movie stars. Fatty Arbuckle at St Francis Hotel, San Francisco (pictured above) comes to mind every time i walk by that hotel. And there are others.

Hotels are often places where anonymously weird, perverted, dangerous, evil things of a dark nature happen - all attracting the attention and the attachment of evil spirits. Permission is granted to those spirits in those places and I don't think that permission is withdrawn once the people are gone. That means if you end up in a hotel room where weird things have just happened, you really need to do some kung fu in that room and cleanse it out before you put your bags down and settle in for the night. Really. And someone close to you should know where you are.

Those are very interesting words coming from someone who is part of a movement whose theology many evangelicals view with suspicion, and yet they obviously evidence a very deep desire to pursue personal purity at all costs. I wonder how many of those same critics are as serious about being careful in their own, personal lives as Andrew is?

His words remind me of something I heard Cliff Barrows say at Billy Graham’s Amsterdam ’86 Conference for Itinerant Evangelists. Cliff stated that when he enters a new hotel room, the first thing he does is drape a towel over the television set and place his open Bible upon it as if it were a pulpit. Even back in the eighties, well before the proliferation of online porn, Barrows had been deeply impacted by learning how many ministers he knew had fallen into the sin of watching dirty movies as a result of spending too much time alone in hotel rooms. He was determined to avoid that trap with God’s help, so he established these specific boundaries in his own life in order to reinforce his own best intentions.

In the same vein, someone once told me about hearing the late Dr. Lester Sumrall say that when preaching out of town, he never went directly back to his hotel room alone after speaking. Instead, he always asked the host pastor, or a male staff member that pastor recommended, to go out with him for a cup of hot chocolate and chitchat before retiring. Apparently, he believed taking the time to unwind over a cup of hot chocolate before going to his room was an important safeguard to his own moral purity. He also felt the hot chocolate included certain chemicals that helped replenish the nutrients his body had burned while preaching and praying for the sick. Dr. Sumrall had discovered that, by taking the time to unwind in safe company before going to his hotel, when he did get to his room, he was tired enough to go straight to sleep instead of being so wired on adrenaline that he would be tempted to stay up flipping channels until the wee hours of the morning. Let me mention, as an aside, that Dr. Sumrall’s out of print but still available biography, My Story to His Glory, is an amazing, “must-read” for any missionary or preacher.

For me, the bottom line in all of these discussions is that true spirituality, as I once heard Dale Yerton put it, is “naturally spiritual and spiritually natural.” There is a mysterious mix of the natural and the supernatural in the ministry God accomplishes through us that enables us to become and do so much more than we could ever hope to in and of ourselves. We must be very vigilant to never, ever forget, that no matter how much God uses us, we always steward “…this treasure in vessels of clay.” (2 Corinthians 4:7 NIV). We are still human, still vulnerable, still utterly dependent upon the God who created us and called us.

I will never forget the story an extremely gifted, anointed worship leader shared with me over dinner after service one night at a pastor’s conference where I ministered several years ago. It had been such a joy to receive from the ministry of a true psalmist during the sessions. When I went out of my way to speak words of affirmation and appreciation to him, he told me how, not long before, he had experienced something very unusual in a similar meeting. On that occasion, when he walked out on the stage with the band behind him and a very large crowd in the room in front of him, as he took his guitar pick in his fingers and was about to strike the first note, suddenly, it was as if all knowledge of how to play the guitar completely left him! He told me that, in an instant, in spite of many years of training, practice, and experience, he could not even recall how to play the initial notes! He stood there, bewildered and embarrassed for several seconds, while the crowd began to fidget restlessly, wondering what was wrong. Then, just as quickly and completely as it had left him, his musical ability came flooding back into him in an instant. As he struck the first chord, he said the voice of the Holy Spirit whispered to his heart, “That’s just so you will never forget where all this comes from!”

May God help us all to never forget where our gifts, our reputation, our circle of influence, our network, even our character and our integrity really come from, and may we never forget how much we need His ongoing help to both serve and honor Him…!

Jack Hayford - It Could Happen to Any One of Us

In his From the General Supervisor letter to Foursquare pastors entitled It Could Happen to Any One of Us, about the recent, highly mediatized moral failure of a prominent spiritual leader, Jack Hayford wrote the following words worth remembering,

1. If you’re looking at anything, anytime that would not pass the judgment of your spouse, it’s inappropriate.
2. If you are unavailable and no one knows where you’re at for considerable time allotments, it’s dangerous and needs to change.
3. If you’ve created a web of lies and cover-ups, then the tentacles of sin have taken deep root.
4. If repentance and accountability are not clearly present in your daily routine, then you are lion bait.
5. If you don’t practice what God says about the need for purity of heart and head (avoid all sexual immorality), then you’re headed for a great fall.

AMEN! and God help us all...!

Jack Hayford on Why Billy Graham Has Kept His Credibility and Integrity

Ministry Today magazine has an excellent article in its archives entitled, "It's Not About 'Office' - It's About Character," by Jack Hayford explaining why he believes Billy Graham has managed to maintain his integrity and his credibility for so many years. Hayford develops Graham's approach to the following key areas:

• Money
• Sexual Morality
• Sensationalism
• Hyperemotionalism
• Avoiding Digressions
• Commitment to the Whole Church

Building Moral Fences

In the wake of the recent high-profile revelation of moral failure by a key evangelical leader, many articles about the temptations leaders face have appeared in various publications and on the internet. In Leadership Journal, James MacDonald spelled out "Five Moral Fences" he has built in his own life in order to help guard against moral sin, and then urges the reader to make such parameters public in their own sphere of ministry:

1. I will not, under any circumstances, ride alone in a car with a female other than my wife or an immediate family member.
2. I do not counsel a woman in a closed room or more than once.
3. I do not stay alone in a hotel overnight.
4. I speak often and publicly of my affection for my wife, when she's present and when she's not.
5. Compliment the character or the conduct, not the coiffure or the clothing.

Regarding rule number three, he writes,

I did my doctoral thesis on increasing the incidents of self-disclosure of sin among men. I have heard more confessions of addiction to various forms of sexual sin than any one pastor should have to hear, and it has changed me. It has left me deeply persuaded that "there but for the grace of God (and some moral fences), go I." I know myself too well.

Lengthy, unaccountable hours with manifold temptations available is a recipe for failure. Romans 13:14 instructs us to "make no provision for the flesh." Do I sound weak? I am! And when I forget that weakness, I cease to know God's strength (1 Cor. 12:10).

When I travel, I travel with someone. When that is impossible, I stay with a friend. When that is impossible I do not go. Period. Early in my ministry, that meant there were things I missed out on. Recently our elders have agreed to help fund a travel partner for me. If an outside ministry opportunity is deemed worthwhile, and the ministry cannot afford a second airfare, our church pays for me to take another pastor or elder, or best of all, my wife!

I think his advice is very, very good. At Hillcrest Church, for example, our Elders have made it possible for me to follow a similar policy regarding solo travel, authorizing me to take another individual along with me at church expense whenever I feel the circumstances warrant it, though they do not require me to do so 100% of the time. If I wanted to borrow someone's lake house for a personal prayer retreat, for example, and Teresa could not go with me because of family obligations, I would not have to take someone else along, but I would normally take a travel partner with me when going on an extended missions trip. Earlier this year, for instance, when I ministered in the Middle East, about the only time I was alone was on the Tel Aviv - Dallas direct flight connection through Atlanta.

I wonder, though, how men in the marketplace could implement such a policy. Most corporate environments necessitate at least occasional travel, at times or to places inconvenient or even annoying to their spouses. I am well aware that many such men do, in fact, fall prey to moral sin, but I would have to stop short of saying that no Christian male should ever pursue a business career on these grounds alone. One thing is sure, though, all men, whether spiritual leaders or marketplace ministers, including me, need to avail themselves of God's grace in order to remain morally pure. A very important key to that process is developing healthy "boundaries" around our hearts and minds and schedules that we will not violate under any circumstances.

What guidelines have you come up with in your life? I encourage you to share them with other readers via the "comments" function of the this webpage.

Gordon MacDonald "Out of Ur"

While thinking about certain recent events that have figured prominently in the media over the last several days, I came across Gordon MacDonald's reflections in one of the blogs I sometimes read called, Out of Ur. His musings are seasoned with evident grace and compassion for our brother in leadership whose sins have been so widely disseminated, along with his wife, their children, and their church family. He also explores several much larger issues that each of us as leaders need to come to terms with. Here are a couple of thought-provoking excerpts:

It seems to me that when people become leaders of outsized organizations and movements, when they become famous and their opinions are constantly sought by the media, we ought to begin to become cautious. The very drive that propels some leaders toward extraordinary levels of achievement is a drive that often keeps expanding even after reasonable goals and objectives have been achieved. Like a river that breaks its levy, that drive often strays into areas of excitement and risk that can be dangerous and destructive. Sometimes the drive appears to be unstoppable. This seems to have been the experience of the Older Testament David and his wandering eyes, Uzziah in his boredom, and Solomon with his insatiable hunger for wealth, wives and horses. They seem to have been questing—addictively?—for more thrills or trying to meet deeper personal needs, and the normal ways that satisfy most people became inadequate for them.

No amount of accountability seems to be adequate to contain a person living with such inner conflict. Neither can it contain a person who needs continuous adrenalin highs to trump the highs of yesterday. Maybe this is one of the geniuses of Jesus: he knew when to stop, how to refuse the cocktail of privilege, fame and applause that distorts one’s ability to think wisely and to master self.

I find that to be a very interesting observation! While growing up in a pastor's home and then travelling widely across the U.S.A. and abroad, I have often been struck by the fact that some of the most gifted spiritual leaders I have met have also been among the most driven personalities I have ever encountered. Some of them have an approach to ministry that seems to bear incredible fruit, but at a physical, emotional, relational, and organizational cost that bears no resemblance to the promise Jesus made to all who would undertake His work in His way, "My yoke is easy and my burden is light."

Anyone who comes to grip with the reality of Christ's sacrifice for each one of us understands what fuels the kind of godly passion the earliest Moravian missionaries articulated as a desire to "win a reward for the Lamb worthy his name...", and yet, we all do well to remember that the Apostle Paul declared part of the evidence of true spirituality to be genuine "joy" and "peace." I don't claim to always walk in that dual reality, but I am completely convinced it is the plan of God for all of our lives!

In an even more sobering vein, MacDonald goes on to write,

... all sin begins with lies told to oneself. The cardinal lies of a failed leader? I give and give and give in this position; I deserve special privileges—perhaps even the privilege of living above the rules. Or, I have enough charm and enough smooth words that I can talk anything (even my innocence) into reality. Or, so much of my life is lived above the line of holiness that I can be excused this one little faux pas. Or, I have done so much for these people; now it’s their time to do something for me—like forgiving me and giving a second chance.

Yesterday, I brought a message to our people from my ongoing series on the Gospel of Luke entitled, "How to Deal With the Devil in Your Desert", dealing with Christ's temptation in the wilderness. While studying the fourth chapter again, I was struck by the way Satan so clearly tried to provoke Jesus into presuming upon the mercies of God, urging Him to cast Himself down from the pinnacle of the temple and take it for granted that His Heavenly Father would keep Him from experiencing the consequences of His choice.

In the same way, the enemy tries to seduce each one of us into sinning again in some area of our lives where we have experienced God's gracious forgiveness in the past. Our adversary points to the fact that God mercifully chose to not expose our misdeed, reminding us that we did not reap its deserved consequences, then insinuates, "Go ahead and sin - God will respond the same way the next time that He did the last time!" To believe that lie is to fall prey to one of the devil's oldest strategies!

As we continue to intercede for our brother whose sin has been publically exposed, let each one of us also cry out to God, asking Him to do what the biblical author prayed in Psalms 19:13,

Keep back thy servant also from presumptuous sins; let them not have dominion over me: then shall I be upright, and I shall be innocent from the great transgression. (Psalms 19:13 KJV)

Assessing character

In her guest column for leadershipjournal.net dealing with how to assess character, Angie Ward states, "Here's another thing about character: It is revealed not in skills, but in community." She describes how a church leader she knew was never willing to become involved in a small group at the church where he served. After leaving that post for another, he later succumbed to multiple addictions and has since left the ministry entirely.

One of the "rules of thumb" that I have developed in my own heart and mind since coming to Hillcrest Church as Senior Pastor is to make a mental note anytime someone in our leadership seems lukewarm about a particular individual taking on some new role in the life of our church. Sometimes, the leader's reluctance is simply the consequence of a difference in personality or leadership style, or the lingering effects of a past interpersonal conflict, or "turf battle," but, more often than not, it has turned out to be a warning sign of a more significant issue. As leaders, we do well to remember that our team members often interact with people in our congregation in far different contexts than we do, and they know things about them that we do not.

As a husband, I long ago learned to take very seriously my wife's hesitation regarding certain people, particularly other women! Teresa is a very warm, loving person, so any time she is clearly unimpressed or turned off by someone's manner or skeptical about their character, I immediately take her feelings as a warning straight from the heart of God. We just celebrated twenty-one years of marriage last week, and in all that time, I don't think she has ever "missed" it once!

In the same way, I am learning to rely more heavily on the other members of my ministry team to "see" things in people that I may not. Hillary Clinton has famously said, "It takes a village to raise a child." I am coming to the conclusion that, "It takes a team to know a person!"