O my life-long damage and daily shame!
O my indwelling and besetting sins!
O the tormenting slavery of a sinful heart!...

Yet thou hast not left me here without grace;
The cross still stands and meets my needs
in the deepest straits of the soul….

There is no treasure so wonderful
as that continuous experience of thy grace
toward me which alone can subdue
the risings of sin within:
Give me more of it. [1]

Recently I was talking to a ministry leader friend who had been through the ringer during the last few years. He was tired and had a sense of decision fatigue after navigating the tumultuous months and years of a pandemic, the culturally polarizing dynamics among his people during an election cycle, and a pastoral response to the concern for justice for racial and cultural minorities. He even felt beat up and betrayed by a group of people in his ministry who made accusations against him and left.

He felt drained, not necessarily by the work, but by the emotional impact that lingered. He was angry, and his pain and grief weren’t going away. He acknowledged that while some of his anger was a normal and appropriate response to the pain and injustice he had experienced, some of it had become a harbored bitterness lingering in his heart and affecting his life and ministry. He described how he was isolating himself because he felt he could not share his struggle and be honest with those he leads, fearing that they would either think less of him as their leader or join in on his bitterness, allowing it to grow. He also was growing more frustrated, knowing that his anger was consuming him and leaking out in how he responded to his staff and congregation. I could see in his expression that he was disappointed that he couldn’t “get over it,” forgive, and move forward.

The Sinful Ministry Leader
Along with the common pressures and challenges that come with ministry leadership, leaders are still fellow sinners in need of transformation. It is a shallow view of sin and a false image of ministry leaders and pastors that allow us to think that a leader must be more holy and sinless; more whole and happy than anyone else. Are there moral standards for ministry leaders? Yes, it is clear in scripture that there must be fruit of repentance and outward obedience in the leader's life. Does this make a pastor or ministry leader less of a sinner than the people they lead? Well, no. They, like many of us, have repented of the outward ways that sin manifests itself…but what is actually going on beneath the surface?

The expectation–both from self and others–that pastors and ministry leaders should be more holy and sinless than anyone else causes particular difficulty in the ministry leader’s life and ministry. Once they and/or their people start to realize that brokenness and sin are just as real in the leader's life, both the leader and those they lead can feel disillusionment and confusion. Or, worse yet, if everyone keeps up images and “puts on airs” that the leader has it all together, the leader will be forced to play the part and live out his life and ministry in that false identity, hiding his brokenness and the struggle with sin. Doubling down on this false identity breeds hypocrisy. And in the darkness of the false self, sin and brokenness flourish.

Even when we’re taking our sin seriously, we as leaders feel like we should have more control over the brokenness and sin in our hearts. In our desire for control it is easy to find our sin and brokenness simply as limitations that just need to be avoided or kept at bay in order to do more for the Lord. We want to lead by example–modeling and inspiring. Like the Apostle Paul pleaded, we want the Lord to just take away our sin and brokenness already! We think, “I’ve dedicated my life and my calling/career to you. Why do you allow me to continue to struggle in this way? Just tell me what to do to get over this and I’ll do it.”

We get a different model from the apostle Paul who said that he considered himself “the foremost” of sinners. He said that he “received mercy for this reason, that in me, as the foremost [sinner], Jesus Christ might display his perfect patience as an example to those who were to believe in him for eternal life” (1 Tim 1:16). In other words, Paul’s foremost sinfulness was actually a witness to the redemptive power of the gospel. The Lord’s loving patience toward us does not, of course, justify sin, but it complicates (in a good way!) our understanding of the means and manner in which the Lord works in our lives, especially as ministry leaders.

The Weak Ministry Leader
If you’re like me, you probably say yes and amen! to Paul’s example. You would say with Paul that God displays his patience and grace in the gospel through my life. And yet, we still want quick solutions to our struggle with our brokenness and sin. But Paul’s witness continues with a word from the Lord. When Paul pleaded with the Lord to remove his “thorn in the flesh” (2 Cor 12:7-8), he said that the Lord replied, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness” (2 Cor 12:9). The Lord’s word to Paul, and to us, brings even more complexity into the question of sin in the leader’s life: Could it be that our brokenness—and transparency about it—is a necessary component of effective ministry?

Much speculation has been made about what Paul’s tormenting thorn might have been. Was it a physical limitation and/or ailment? Was it a habitual sinful act or thought that he felt helpless to correct? Was it lingering and deeply entrenched shame from his past zealous life, or perhaps even trauma impacting his mental health? Well…why does it matter? Our desire to know and define this ambiguity may hint at our struggle for control in our approach to sin and the temptation to manage it ourselves.

Weakness and helplessness are not the top traits we long to embrace. Competency and control feel much better. We don’t frequently offer up at our prayer meetings a praise for feeling weak and needy… especially as leaders of a church or ministry. But perhaps weak and helpless is exactly the posture that the Lord wants in our lives and our leadership right now.

The reason we don’t want to hear this as leaders is that there are plenty of other external factors that make us feel weak. We can’t control the demands and expectations of our ministry. We can’t control the cultural factors that influence us and our people causing polarization, division, apathy, church-hopping, abuse, and confusion in our communities. We can’t control the human heart or fix others' pain and trauma, sin and brokenness, anger and blame. As we deal with the impact of all these external factors, we certainly don’t want to also feel weak and out of control in our private, heart-level battle with sin.

The Patient Treads of Redemption
If only God would cleanly and swiftly remove sin and brokenness. But the Great Physician, in His perfect timing, extracts our sin and brokenness in more hidden, subversive ways that work around our defenses and the devil’s schemes. Whispers and subtlety are frequently his way. Through intimacy, empathy and meekness he enters into the darkest parts of our lives to do his work. He looks at us and loves us and asks, “Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone” (Mk 10:18). He draws near and knows our motives well enough to ask, “Do you want to be made well?” (Jn 5:6). He takes notice of our faults and misplaced identity, and invites himself to our home (Lk 19:5). He meets us in the most unexpected places and invitationally says, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.” And yet this invitation comes with full knowledge and compassion expressing, “You are right in saying, ‘I have no husband’; for you have had five husbands, and the one you now have is not your husband” (John 4:10,17-18).

Holiness is what we long for and what we know we need. Sanctification, being made holy in the Christian life, is often thought of simply as a process of the “removal” of sin and brokenness, and the growth of the fruit of the Spirit as we are re-formed into Christ’s likeness. This of course is too simplistic a definition of sanctification, but in the everyday practicality of it, this is how we think of sanctification. Our sanctification, in connection with our adoption, is the process by which the Spirit works in us to apply redemption and grace. The Spirit is reforming us into the fullness of the image of God that we were created to bear—an image that Christ, being truly human and the “truest” human, lived out. In our union with Christ, we are shaped back into his likeness.

We could develop this much further, but the more we learn and participate in what it means to be made holy, we sometimes find the stubbornness of sin and brokenness in our lives to be insurmountable. It is in moments of discouragement we confess that what is impossible for man is possible for God.

But if all things are possible for God, then why hasn’t he taken our more entrenched sin away? In Hebrews, the author tells us to “throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles” (Heb 12:1). It is true that we are called to strive in this way by God’s grace! But when the cords of sin that have us entangled don’t respond well to our “throw offs,” what then? Are we not strong enough or trying hard enough? Are we doing it wrong, or do we not have enough faith? Or, even more importantly, has the Lord abandoned us, removing his presence and power in our lives? By no means!

The primary methods God uses in our sanctification are intimacy and awareness—awareness of our sin and brokenness, and of Christ's gracious, loving presence. It is in this intimacy and awareness that we see our need and helplessness. And, it is in our utter need and helplessness that we see the power and glory of the redemption Christ accomplished and applied through the cross and resurrection. If all things are possible for God, then the delay in our deliverance from sin must have this purpose. It is why Paul concluded his witness about his thorn in the flesh with confidence saying, “Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me” (2 Cor 12:9).

It is actually in bringing us to the end of our strength and wisdom in our struggle with sin that the Lord is the most present and powerfully at work. He is inviting us to be present with him in our weakness, confusion and exhaustion. He is inviting us to utterly depend on the power of Christ when we have no power in ourselves. He is inviting us to trust in him as he works in the deepest places, slowly and delicately sowing the threads of redemption into the messy cords that have us entangled—threads of poverty of spirit, meekness, and longing for righteousness. And one day these cords, although still present, will seem to lose their grip on us as they are overtaken by the threads of redemption. Somehow there is a deeper healing and beauty that the Lord is creating in redemption by allowing our sin and brokenness to remain while weaving his threads of redemption around it. The patient way the Spirit works in us is so much messier and takes so much longer than we often want or imagine. But it is the long game, wading through the messiness, that the Spirit uses most frequently in our lives to bring about lasting transformation.

The more the Spirit reveals our heart’s idolatry, interwoven into every aspect of our lives, the more we just want radical, quick change. “Lord, take this from me!” “Heal me and remove this besetting sin!” We want our one-time repentance to last, and it frequently doesn’t happen. We can start to feel a little crazy, repenting for the same patterns of sin in our lives and hearts over and over again. “How long, Oh Lord!” And yet, when we are at our wits’ end with these entangled cords, the Lord, full of grace, invites us to see that his hands are in the mess weaving new threads that say, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Look to him, not only with the pleas of “take this away” but boasting that, in this weakness, Jesus’ perfect love and power may yet rest on me.

1 “The Dark Guest.” The Valley of Vision, edited by Arthur Bennett, The Banner of Truth Trust, 1975, p. 71.

Joe Bruni joined the ServingLeaders team in 2017 with a diverse background in ministry experience, pastoral care, and organizational leadership. As Chief Operating Officer for ServingLeaders, Joe oversees all aspects of operations and strategic ministry advancement including vision implementation, staff care, finance, donor relations, marketing, communications and advancing the ministry through new partnerships and new territories.