Pastors

Every Sunday they come to our churches. They bring with them their eating disorders, their compulsive and addictive behaviors, and their destructive relational patterns. Sometimes we pastors have neither adequate training nor time to treat the terrible things our people are dealing with—molestation, bipolar disorders, unresolved grief, addictions. We need to find a therapy team for our broken people. It was on a Sunday morning when an invitation was given from the front of our church, but not from me, the pastor. The offer came from a Christian therapist. It was an invitation to come to counseling where, as the counselor put it, "God can help you where you are." One of the men in our church took that offer, and there with a safe, expert listener, all the shameful feelings tumbled out. It had happened twenty-three years ago. An older man gave him a job, took him to meet some important people, cared for him as his parents never had, and then sexually abused him. A hidden, ...

You have reached the end of this Article Preview

To continue reading, subscribe to Christianity Today magazine. Subscribers have full digital access to CT Pastors articles.

Log InSubscribe

Already a CT subscriber? Log in for full digital access.