EXCERPT
Last summer, Hamilton discovered that two of the pastors at his church were involved in an extramarital affair with one another. At the time, he was away speaking at conferences when he got the call from one of the church staff. He returned to Leawood almost immediately to deal with what he felt was a huge crisis.
He had high hopes for the two pastors. He had envisioned one of them taking his place at the church.
But this wasn't the first time he witnessed church leaders fall.
One of his best friends from seminary who was serving in campus ministry became addicted to porn and was eventually jailed for touching a minor.
A 2005-2006 survey among evangelical pastors revealed that 37 percent admitted to sexual impropriety in ministry, Hamilton cited.
Even more distressing, however, is a statistic he heard from his professor during his senior year in seminary. The professor shared that in the last 50 years in The United Methodist Church, of the 40 pastors who began serving churches of 1,000 or more attendees before the age of 35, 39 of them burned out, experienced a moral failure or left ministry. One of them was still serving in ministry at the time but was arrested six months later when he was linked as the lead suspect in strangling his wife. He was also having an affair with his psychiatrist.
"A week doesn't go by when a leader experiences moral failure," stated Hamilton, who is more cautious about giving hugs and holding hands during prayer. "This is a real serious issue and none of us are immune."
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